The principle of personal worth and its implications for education

In this essay, I articulate and defend what I call 'The Principle of Personal Worth" (PPW), according to which persons have a unique but equal moral value which places them above nonpersons, regardless of how the latter may be characterized or categorized. I explain the relevance of PPW to education, providing a novel defense of a familiar construct: the classroom community of inquiry (Cl). In brief, a Cl is an environment in which individuals become persons, that is, entities of the highest moral significance regardless of the kind of object that they are. The essay draws on the work of several notable 20th-century analytic philosophers, including P. F. Strawson, David Wiggins and Donald Davidson. Copyright © 2013 by Monica B. Glina and contributors.