Nigel Blake works at the Open University and is Chair of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.,
Paul Smeyers is Professor of Education at the Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium where he teaches philosophy of education.,
Richard Smith is Reader in Education at the University of Durham and Editor of the Journal of Philosophy of Education.,
Paul Standish is Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Dundee and is Assistant Editor of the Journal of Philosophy of Education.

Part 1 Working Without Values; Chapter 1 Education Without Risk; Chapter 2 Life Skills, Teaching Skills; Chapter 3 Choice, Narrative and Work; Chapter 4 Education and the Last Man; Part 2 Overcoming Nihilism; Chapter 5 Nihilism, Nietzsche and Education; Chapter 6 Our Most Holy Duty; Chapter 7 Apollo and Dionysos; Chapter 8 Beyond Pain and Pleasure; Part 3 Raising Standards; Chapter 9 Solitude, Silence, Listening; Chapter 10 The Courage for Immorality; Chapter 11 On Having Educative Relationships With One's Pupils; Chapter 12 Taking Ignorance Seriously;

This book addresses concerns about educational and moral standards in a world increasingly characterised by nihilism. On the one hand there is widespread anxiety that standards are falling; on the other, new machinery of accountability and inspection to show that they are not. The authors in this book state that we cannot avoid nihilism if we are simply laissez-faire about values, neither can we reduce them to standards of performance, nor must we return to traditional values. They state that we need to create a new set of values based on a critical assessment of contemporary practice in the light of a number of philosophical texts that address the question of nihilism, including the work of Nietzsche.