A01=Natalie M. Fletcher
action theory
Aesthetics
agency
Author_Natalie M. Fletcher
Autonomy in childhood
capabilities
Category=JBSP1
Category=JNA
Category=QDTS
Child agency development
child studies
classical pragmatism
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
forthcoming
Imagination in childhood
Moral education
phenomenology
Philosophy for children
Philosophy of childhood
Philosophy of education
Philosophy with children
phronesis
virtue ethics
virtue theory
Product details
- ISBN 9781666918823
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 06 Aug 2026
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Imagining with Purpose in Childhood explores the question: How might moral imagining be conceived to support the cultivation of responsible autonomy in childhood? It argues that when conceived as a conscious, flexible process, moral imagining may contribute to children’s emerging agency by expanding and enriching their envisioned options for what they believe is worth valuing within their current and future circumstances, thereby helping to make their autonomy more responsible. Natalie M. Fletcher proposes the conception of deliberate moral imagining, understood as the purposeful envisioning of a given context from multiple frames of reference in response to a real-world encounter, with the goal of bringing to light possibilities for what seems reasonable to value in order to broaden the moral lens through which lived experiences are approached and assessed. This book explores how deliberate moral imagining may assist children in confronting some important challenges to responsible autonomy that risk constricting their envisioning of the overarching contexts most influential in childhood: their relation to others (how they view and treat them), their relation to self (how they perceive and value themselves) and their relation to knowledge (how they learn and what they claim to know about the world). In response to the respective challenges of narrow empathetic scope, conversion inhibition and inaccurate pseudoenvironments, deliberate moral imagining may help enrich children’s “mental landscape” by cultivating relational openness through three crucial autonomy supports: empathic engagement, self-efficacy and reasonableness. The book draws on three theoretical frameworks—neo-Aristotelian virtue theory, the Capabilities Approach and classical pragmatism—and includes a case study of the Philosophy for Children program as an illustrative example of deliberate moral imagining in action.
Natalie M. Fletcher is a philosopher in the wild, specializing in immersive philosophical experiences in nature for curious spirits of all ages. She is the founding director of Brila, a Canadian educational charity that plays with concepts through its Philocreation® approach – bringing thinking to life.
