Education in Critical Thinking or in Virtues?: responding to Harvey Siegel

Abstract

What to choose in education: critical thinking or intellectual virtues? This paper reflects on the central concern of education, given the decline of reasoning and the growing interest in the epistemology of virtue. To this end, the approaches of two iconic references for educational scholarship are analysed: Israel Scheffler and Harvey Siegel. Siegel's approach to the proposed problem is justified and the following reply is put forward: even if virtues cannot take the place of critical thinking in education and even if it is possible to think critically without virtues, would virtues not have something to contribute if we want to continue to advocate critical thinking as an educational desideratum?