A Study and Analysis of Objection: Can the Community of Ethical Inquiry be non-Indoctrinative?

The main purpose of this paper is an analysis and response to one of the major objections raised to the community of ethical inquiry. To achieve this goal, the content analysis method and the method of analysis and logical inference were used. Regarding that the community of inquiry is opposed to indoctrination, and in the philosophical hermeneutics the prejudices are necessary components of all human understanding, a question has been raised that how we can cultivate morality and character in our students without indoctrinating. In expressing this objection, various forms of it were explained inside and outside Iran. Then, with the help of Gadamer's views as the father of philosophical hermeneutics and Habermas's criticisms, a response to this objection was proposed. The result was that the acceptance of this objection involves making the concept of “autonomy” and “indoctrination” fruitless and vain. And hence, it was shown how Habermas to solve this problem leads us to the exact meanings of “communicative autonomy” and “indoctrination”, which opens a way to consider moral education without indoctrination. Also, by using falsification approach, it was shown that the community of ethical inquiry for the development of critical thinking in children is not to reject the dominant values of society.