The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

206 People and Education for Human Rights
answer in practice can only be that democratic governments
(who are in the last resort electorally accountable)
are permitted a margin of appreciation in laying down
and implementing policy. If they fail to adopt policies on
moral education and the state and its agents do not
educate in that sphere, then other institutions will. As
lawyers so often point out, omissions are commissions
by default.
A major sticking point for modern educationalists has
been the problem adverted to in my first Lecture, belief
in cultural relativism. This has caused them to doubt
whether what they are communicating by way of values
is true. They forget about practical reasoning and the
reality of people continuously acting as moral agents.
Another reason for unwillingness to communicate values
is the modern tendency to denigrate the traditional
virtues, which, along with religious belief, have in an
increasingly secular society, been regarded as matters of
personal preference. Only recently are communitarian
thinkers beginning to reassess the need for civic virtue
and manners, including courtesy and friendship, dignity,
industry and humility. When others not of their cabal
did so, this was described as reasserting "Victorian
values." For 30 years it has been very "old hat" to talk
of wisdom, courage, temperance and justice, of faith,
hope, love, prudence and fortitude, except in a religious
school. If duty, honour, self-respect, benevolence, charity,
gratitude, dependability, consistency, conscientiousness,
independence, pride in achievement and awareness
of shame, were added to the list of virtues, many
educationalists would until recently (and some perhaps
still now) have thought that to communicate such
concepts diminished the personality of the less able
while encouraging selfish individualism. But those
dispositions are indubitably virtuous: they lead to
observance of moral standards as a matter of self-