The Ethics of Radical and Transformative Education

This article presents a framework for ethics for radical and transformative education. Taking as a starting point ethical perspectives by which educators of adults are justified in imposing upon, coercing, and manipulating adult learners in the name of social justice, this article highlights the necessary connection between pedagogies and learning outcomes. It positions democracy, with its concomitant respect for human dignity, as the raison d'être of the field of adult education. Therefore, adult education practice should support democratic capabilities, respect learner autonomy, and allow for plurality. From both consequentialist and deontological ethical perspectives, it is argued that methods of instruction that undermine democracy cannot also be claimed to support democracy.