Moral Education and Visual Literacy

This chapter will stress the contribution of visual literacy to moral education. I shall argue that at least one important aim of moral education should be to develop children’s sensitivity to the various forms that human suffering can take. I shall also suggest how to employ different facets of visual literacy in the promotion of that end. First, I shall explain the link between perception of human suffering and moral reasoning. In the second section, I shall expand upon the perception of human suffering. I will also emphasize its visual basis and some of its limits. In the last section, I shall briefly sketch out the educational framework which can help children develop the ability to see, and therefore be sensitive to, the suffering of others; and in particular, when that suffering is shaped by cultural institutions or expressed through cultural artefacts different from their own.