Educating ethical value and virtuous emotion through pop song lyrics

Thompson, Aidan Philip ORCID: 0000-0003-1619-2070 (2025). Educating ethical value and virtuous emotion through pop song lyrics. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis presents a case for acknowledging the ethical value that pop lyrics hold with philosophical seriousness and educational benefit. I acknowledge this ethical value by considering the aesthetic features of pop lyrics that carry emotion and ethical meaning. In doing so, I argue that pop lyrics engage us emotionally and are suitable tools for exploring themes of emotion and ethics. The thesis forms a conclusion that is educationally focussed with regard to the potential that pop lyrics hold for emotion education and moral education, giving example lesson plans for formal classroom settings, but also encouraging further exploration in non-formal and alternative settings.
I have situated this thesis at the intersection of the fields of philosophical aesthetics, pop studies and virtue and emotion education. This positioning had two intentions – to draw on the scholarly expertise across each discipline and to refocus that expertise onto pop lyrics; arguing for more philosophical consideration of pop as a legitimate form of mass art and literary insight, pursuing insights into pop culture and pop music studies that embrace moral and emotional perspectives and that the ethical value of pop lyrics provide valid tools for structured and meaningful emotional and moral education.
The work of Adam Bradley informed the origins of this thesis; his work on the linkages between rap music and spoken word (2009) and how we can see pop lyrics as poetry worthy of poetic analysis (2017). This work, rooted in the English literature and language discipline, but does not embrace any moral or ethical notions. Where scholars of pop music have considered the emotion contained within songs and its affect on listeners, this is often without wider application of any moral educational dimension and certainly without consideration of how pop lyrics can assist with the development of virtue literacy. Work by leading scholars of pop studies, philosophy and other narrative literature, such as Simon Frith (1988; 1998), Noël Carroll (1998; 2000) and David Carr (2005; 2023) have embraced the emotional affect that pop can have, which has laid fertile ground on which this thesis builds. This thesis builds on existing work, brings these separate disciplines together and situates itself at the intersection of aesthetics and ethics of pop music. It shows how aesthetics and emotions can and do interact in pop and showcases how and where emotional value and ethical value that lyrics can and do hold come together.
I conclude with an educational application; taking example lyrics and putting them into a lesson plan template and demonstrating how they can be used in a classroom setting as part of a formal character education provision.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):