Football and moral formation

Katie van Schaijik | May 18, 2015

Sartre once said very truly, "In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team."

It's how I've come to feel about parenthood and moral formation. All my ideas about teaching right and wrong are complicated by the presence of other persons with free will.

It's not just that I can't force others to do what I think they should, but that if I tried they wouldn't be making properly moral choices at all, since moral choices spring from a fully free relation to the good.

Even more, if I tried to force them I'd be acting morally badly in the moment of urging moral goodness on them, which is messed up.

I wish I had understood this sooner in life.