Studies in Philosophy
and Educntion 260 cept of mental health has been accorded special attention, as being particuI, arly well suited for service .as an ultimate aim of education. On the one hand, it has the support .of a science or near science; .on the ,other, it ,can be viewed as authorizing a sort of general ethical imperative. 8. Peters is not opposed to the use of the .concept .of mental health as a regulative, precautionary goal .of education. But, analysis of one writer's explication of mental health --Marie Jahoda's -discloses serious flaws in the concept insofar as it is promoted as an ultimate educational ideal.
Firstly, Peters shows, by what seems to me a valuable piece of philosophic analysis, that five out of the six elements in Jahoda's concept of mental health (self-acceptance, integration, autonomy, perception of reality, environmental mastery) ,can be subsumed ur~der the classical ,concept of rationality: namely, the realistic appraisal of himself and his situation by a man who is able to regulate his wants according to some plan.
Next, Peters argues that the sixth clement in Jahoda's list (growth and self-actualization) is not properly an element of mental health, and .not properly a part of the concept of rationality. The reason for this is that growth necessarily contains an ethical, normative, dimension. The other aspects of mental health could all be viewed as necessary conditions for human living, a minimal set of requirements providing the basis, but not the goals, of civilized life. Growth, :on the ,other hand, is more than a mere necessary condition, Peters argues. Growth may indeed appear to be a necessary .condition of mental health in certain segments of a highly complex society such as ours, but we should not, for this reason alone, make growth a part of the meaning of mental health generally.
- Growth cannot reasonably be included in the .concept of mental health, but it is precisely the sort of aim that education, considered as the transmission of civilization, upholds and serves. Self-actualization as a goal goes beyond the merely descriptive science of psychology, but this is just what we would expect if, as Peters claims, self-actualization is a normative ideal. Since it is .an ideal, it can serve as the general goal of education, cure the anomie from which teachers and the society generally suffer, and incidentally, forestall the ,charge that educators have fabricated an "ought" ~rom an "is". Briefly, according to Peters, grow~ as an educational ideal involves two undertakings: the teaching of art, history ,and science as intrinsically valuable pursuits; and the transmission of civilization to the young.