American educators have consistently splintered our humanity into pieces throughout higher educations history. Although key leaders of Americas colonial colleges shared a common functional understanding of humans as made in Gods image with a robust but vulnerable moralconscience, latter moral philosophers did not build upon that foundation. Instead, they turned to shards of our identity to help students find their moral bearings. They sought to create ladies and gentlemen, honorable students, and finally, good professionals. As a result, fragmentation ensued as university leaders pitted these identity fragments against each other inciting a war of attrition.

As the war of identities raged, its effects spilled out beyond the bounds of the curriculum into the co-curricular dimension that struggled with moving beyond beingen loco parentis. The major identity they cultivated was that of being a political citizen. Thus, the major identity and story of students lives became the American political story of democracywhat I call Meta-Democracy. In higher education guided by Meta-Democracy, students lose their autonomy to administrators who reduce the student identities they try to develop along with the range of virtues that comprise the good life.The Dismantling of Moral Education: How Higher Education Reduced the Human Identity explains why and how we arrived at diminishing ourselves.

Perry L. Glanzer is professor of Educational Foundations at Baylor University and a resident scholar with Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. He has authored and edited thirteen books, includingThe Quest for Purpose: The Collegiate Search for a Meaningful Life.

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I. Discarding Christian Metaphysics and Its Consequences

Chapter 1. Christian vs. Aristotelian Ethics (1569 to 1765)

Chapter 2. The Rise and Fall of Americas Collegiate Conscience: Learning to Ignore the Identity War inside Us (1596-Present)

Chapter 3. How Virtue Lost Its Humanity: The Fragmentation of the Human Function (1768-1980)

Part II. The Moral Retreat to Identity Fragments

Chapter 4. The Death of Ladies and Gentlemen (1673-Present)

Chapter 5. The End of Honor: The Thin Attempts to Support Academic Honesty (1842-Present)

Chapter 6. The Professionalization of Ethics: The Faculty Retreat from Extra-Professional Moral Education (1892-Present)

Part III. The Co-Curricular Takeover and the Rise of Meta-Democracy

Chapter 7. Administrators Take Back Moral Control of the Co-Curricular: ReassertingIn Loco Parentis (1890-1961)

Chapter 8. Developing Autonomous Choosers for Democracy: The Political and Psychological Turn in Co-Curricular Moral Education (1949-Present)

Chapter 9. Real Life underTotalitarians: The Meta-Democratic Effort to Control Students Civil Society (1980-Present)

Chapter 10. How to Undermine Social Justice: Reductionistic Moral Education (1970s to Present)

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

About the Author