Chua Soo Meng, Jude

This paper attempts a theological justification for the right to private property or ownership. This I have subtitled, A Thomistic Onto-Theology of Self-Communicative Ownership, for our discourse grounds human ownership as a participation of the self-giving creativity of the Divine owner. Such a justification of ownership is also a metaphysical articulation of the true spirit of the creative economy, which should be the theological norm for democratic capitalism, insofar as capitalism aspires to be such a creative economy. This is no blind praise of any capitalist system, but proposes itself as a normative thesis as well as a justificatory thesis of capitalism. Hence its title, First Philosophy of Democratic Capitalism As Creative Economy, for it intends to be a demonstration of its first principlesfirst of a creative economy, and by extension also of democratic capitalism insofar as the latter should instantiate such an economy.

According to the Chinese commentator Wang Bi (220-246), the Dao de Jing’s speculations of the Nameless and Formless Dao are in fact metaphors for political strategies for cultivating and nurturing an authentically moral political community. These political strategies prescribe what not to do and what to do when trying to nurture authentic moral growth in others, and are built on many insights concerning the unintended side effects of the political ruler’s public verbal and performative disclosures of his moral judgments. I argue that many of these insights and strategies can be imported into and developed for the classroom context and are useful pedagogies for the educator interested in effectively nurturing moral development in his or her pupils.

In this chapter, I make the case for an inclusive design research agenda that draws on recent moral philosophy in a manner that is consistent with the research strategies in both Herbert Simon and Nigel Cross. I argue that insights in other fields or disciplines, such as John Finnis’ retrieval of Aquinas’ moral philosophy, enable theorists to overcome intellectual roadblocks in Simon’s practical epistemology and support the emergence of a notion of design that is a criticality in the sense that Clive Dilnot means it: able to critically identify and address the deficient. In this way, “design” becomes synonymous with an ethically robust manner of thinking attentive to choice-worthy goals, contrasted with a mere instrumentalist concern for arriving at means (even if, clever means) in the slavish service of what is liked or preferred (by consumers). I end the chapter with a brief indication of how ideas in the later Martin Heidegger can further support the grasp of ethical insights for design thinking.

Design activity that is fluid and emergent can help us discover new preferences. I argue that it can also help us grasp important ethical ideas. This suggests that design and design education can help form the liberally educated person, and can be a kind of liberal education that studies the human and his broadening preferences and ethical insights. Black and white film photography can be an example of a type of design practice that does this; its affordances for locating the designer in regions of wondrous nature help comport the designer to grasp ethical ideas. Thus photography alongside other design practices can help to reveal to us humans what we truly are and should deserve consideration for being an important aspect of a liberal education programme.

In this paper I give various reasons why the EdD programme helpfully heightens our normative senses. The writing of a thesis in time and hence the realisation that the same time – that window of opportunity – to do other things and enjoy other experiences is traded off, comports the students in a manner which heightens his or her sense of one's temporality and invites reflexive consideration of what is it that truly matters. Thus embarking on an graduate programme and writing an EdD is an invitation to theorize no doubt – we are invited to read, think, to reason, discuss and to write down our thoughts. But at the end of the day, it is the EdD that writes us. In the midst of our scholarly striving, it shapes us and graces us with the keen sense of what it is that ultimately matters. Such grasp of what truly matters ought then to inform our own reform of our scholarly and professional discourses in our field.

This essay relates the philosophical and conceptual study of educational institutions with educational policy. I argue that both the descriptive and prescriptive answer to "what a school is" should focus on the school that is important, which is the central case. This central case of a school should embody an ethos of openness towards the basic goods. This translates into rights discourse as a school which respects human rights. From this description I propose policy for evaluating, ranking and developing educational institutions and focused on the merit of philosophy and theology departments in educational institutions.