From moral adaptation to ethical criticism: Analyzing developments in Singapore’s character education programme

In an age of hyper-globalization, ethical criticism has become vital in tackling the bombardment of information across networked societies. This paper begins by exploring the historical emergence of ethical criticism, its dominant approaches (relational, analytical and historical), and potential for character education. Next, we focus on character education in Singapore. Utilizing a comparative case study analysis, we compared older and recent character education syllabi and applied ethical criticism as an analytical lens. Findings show a discernible shift from moral adaptation to some evidence of ethical criticism where more emphasis is placed on the relational and less on analytical and historical aspects. We then examine the opportunities and tensions for ethical criticism in Singapore’s character education programme. These tensions arise from the simultaneous objectives of empowering citizens to handle the challenges of multicultural engagements alongside the limits placed on critical-ethical thinking when applied to analyzing politics and systemic structures of power.