Narrative, Language and Moral Experience

This essay considers the ways in which language mediates and shapes moral experience. It suggests that language and forms of discourse are essential to psychological functioning, because words (and other signs and symbols) provide the ‘tools’ necessary for thinking, feeling and acting. As a result, understanding how language mediates the functioning of the psyche is prerequisite to understanding the ways in which narrative expresses and represents moral experience and moral functioning. This essay also explores the implications of this view for the study of moral development and the practice of moral education.