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put in their hands need to be more significant, such as which electives they want to choose in
school, and the manner in which their solve problems. It is of great importance for children to be
exposed to open debate in their classrooms from an early age, and the custom to listen and
analyze the opinions of others should be integral part of education from early years to university,
allowing students to create personal ideas based on arguments and not on superficial judgments.
As listening skills strengthen through habit, security, criteria and responsibility of one’s
own life and decisions develop as well.
In this manner, and through exercises and thinking routines, in Edu1st we foster in the
student the willingness to think independently and autonomously in order for him or her to lead a
life of logic that is not influenced by other people, but by their ideas.
Moral Autonomy:
While intellectual autonomy focuses on telling true from false, moral autonomy focuses
on telling right from wrong. According to Piaget, there are also two types of morality:
autonomous and heteronomous morality. In this theory, the difference between the two types of
morality is that heteronomous morality is founded on fear towards a superior and the
consequences he could bring along; while autonomous morality is based on a personal
understanding that the individual has about what is right and what is wrong, based not on
punishment or rewards, but on the empathy and understanding that others are affected by one’s
decisions. In other words, a person with heteronomous morality bases his conduct on the rules
established by others, while a person with an autonomous morality uses his empathetic
understanding of the world and others, and his intellectual autonomy to distinguish moral from
immoral actions without the need for approval or punishment from a superior.
Every newborn is morally heteronomous. Children tell right from wrong based on the
rewards or punishments that adults ascribe to each behavior. It is only through development that
a child becomes more autonomous in his moral perspective. Piaget gives an example of this