Chapter 4: Philosophical Reflections on Moral Transformative Leadership

Leadership for social justice embodies fairness, freedom, respect for persons, truth, and felicity, which are basic principles in all theories of ethics (Barrow, 2006). Grounded in the metaphysical, a philosophical term that concerns itself with the study of or opinion about reality (Craig, 2002, p. 87), these five values are “unverifiable by the techniques of science and cannot be justified by merely logical argument” (Hodgkinson, 1991, p. 99). Moreover, they, like other finer traits of character, are not formed through compulsion but rather are lived through the mind and the heart (Kirkpatrick, 1952).

Discourse, insights, and theories about morality, ethics, and the philosophy of being, how we want to live, have merited discussion for over 2,000 years in part because such values were not so easily defined. As an example, professional codes of ethics for educators, those standards of conduct for how educators should conduct themselves in the workplace, usually combine elements of deontology, utilitarianism, and virtue ethics. Those are conflicting moral philosophies and at first glance they seem to repel one another, especially when jammed into close proximity within a code of ethics document. Nor has defining leadership for social justice been straightforward as there are many concepts and disagreements as to what social justice is (Theoharis, 2009). But most, we think, would agree that leadership for social justice is value driven and has elements of deontology and virtue theory centered on core values of fairness, respect for persons, and truth. It is our contention as well as Dantley and Tillman’s (2006) that leadership for social justice is the expression of a deeply felt belief expressed in thought and action to meet a pressing need. We know that as moral transformative leadership.