Educating Gratitude: Some Conceptual and Moral Misgivings

In a rapidly expanding academic literature on gratitude, psychologists, philosophers and educational theorists have argued that gratitude is not just of great psycho-social importance but also of moral significance. It would therefore seem to follow that the promotion of gratitude is also of moral educational significance. In this regard, recent attempts by psychologists to develop practical interventions designed to make people more grateful should be of some interest. However, while appreciating some benefits of such work, the present paper argues that much of it falls short of the educational task of developing an adequate pedagogy of gratitude focused on assisting learners’ acquaintance with the complex normative grammar (moral and conceptual) of gratitude discourse. With reference to ongoing work by the authors, the paper proceeds to explore further this important dimension of educating gratitude.