“I Want Them to Have the Right”: John Holt’s Seven Arguments for Curricular Libertarianism

Abstract

In this paper, I list and examine seven arguments John Holt gave for curricular libertarianism (CL), the idea that learners should be free to choose what they learn. I group these arguments into three groups by type of reason they employ; Holt offers three epistemic, two moral, and two practical arguments for CL. After listing and examining each argument, I suggest that while each may be vulnerable on its own to obvious counterarguments, these seven reasons mutually reinforce each other to make a more compelling overall case for CL.

Keywords

• john holt
• philosophy
• unschooling
• self-directed learning