The Question Concerning the Aims of Moral Education: Meillassoux’s Ethic of Immortality

In this article, the thesis that moral education is best served through education for irreligious thinking will be put forward. At stake here is the acknowledgment of a disquieting kernel at the deepest level of thinking that is usually glossed over or sedated. I will attempt to confront and articulate this kernel and discuss its repercussions for moral education in reference to the contemporary French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux’s groundbreaking philosophical project articulated in his debut book After Finitude. Stated briefly, the kernel I am referring to concerns the groundlessness of being and the radical ethical attitude it embodies. Two contrasting orientations when confronted with the notion of such an understanding of being can be identified. I will refer to these, simply, as religious and irreligious thinking. My wager is that religious thinking evades the kernel and needs to be overcome by irreligious thinking, which should constitute the aim of moral education.