Narrative as Practical Pedagogy: Cultivating Moral Personhood through Chinese Classic Novels
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.61841/nbc23c26Keywords:
Moral personhood, narrative pedagogy, Chinese classic novels, phronesis, moral educationAbstract
Prevailing moral education theory, shaped by universalist and cognitive paradigms, often fails
to connect abstract principles with lived experience, fragmenting the moral self. This paper
argues that China’s Four Great Classic Novels form a rich repository of culturally
grounded phronesis (practical wisdom). We propose an analytical framework structured
around the Chinese sequence of “lixin, lishen, liye, liming” and elaborated through four
dimensions: authentic disposition, relational sentiment, strategic wisdom, and holistic
harmony. Engaging Western theories, we show how each novel distinctly dramatizes one
facet: Dream of the Red Chamber (authenticity), Water Margin (relational ethics), Romance of
the Three Kingdoms (dialectical wisdom), and Journey to the West (integrative harmony).
Together, they model a holistic, processual pedagogy for moral development. The study
concludes by advocating a shift toward narrative-based reflective praxis to cultivate
integrated and discerning moral agents.
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