Membership and Moral Formation

This book is an attempt to relate moral formation to democratic life and to theemotional emotion of shame. The argument is that shame is essential to moralformation that it tells us when we are violating our own moral norms. Contraryto common belief I argue that shame is neither imposed on us by others (thoughit is certainly a product of our communal memberships) nor necessarilyharmful. In fact I argue that shame not only can be beneficial for us but thatmoral formation and growth are both inextricably linked to a proper sense ofshame a properly formed conscience.The process of moral formation is an important one for any society but perhaps most of all for a democraticsociety. The foundational premise of democratic life is that we have the capacity to be self-governing the desireto do the right thing and the wisdom to discern what the right thing is. This is unlikely to happen unless there isa conscious effort to form the conscience of the young so that they can become democratic citizens.Which brings up then the question of moral education. Whatever it is that a particular society or communityconsiders to be moral the question of moral education is how do membersof the community come to be moral? Given that moral formation of theyoung is necessary this discussion ends with a look at the practice of twoexemplary democratic moral practitioners Vivian Paley and Deborah Meierwhose pedagogy shows how formation of young consciences can be done bythoughtful adults with integrity.