Can a Philosophical Letter Be Used in Values Education? Letters from Seneca to Lucilius

The aim of this research is to reveal the usability of moral letters, which are intellectual and literary products, as a resource in values education. The research was aimed considering the fact that different materials add excitement to the teaching environment, increase students’ interest and motivation in the course, and increase academic success. The research was carried out in a qualitative design and the document analysis method was used. The data source of the research consist of the letters with philosophical content written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca to Lucilius, the Governor of Sicily at the time. Value Review Form, henceforth “VRF” prepared by the researcher was used to collect data from the aforementioned data source. The collected data were analyzed by using the Maxqda 18 qualitative data analysis program, and the content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the analysis process, meaningful word groups and sentence/ sentences were coded around the themes. As a result of the research, it was concluded that, moral letters can be used in the teaching of more than sixty different values that make life meaningful, keep societies and human generation alive, and organize and facilitate human relations. These values which are mentioned as the root values in the Turkish national education program and which all nations aim to see in their individuals include; “Justice”, “friendship”, “honesty”, “self-control”, “patience”, “love”, “respect”, “responsibility”, “patriotism”, “helpfulness”, are frequently used. Therefore these values are a wealthy resource that can be used in values education. In the suggestions section, suggestions were also made regarding the use of moral letters for values education inside and outside the school and including the value-content parts of these letters in the textbooks in the form of partial quotations following the purposes of the curriculum.


Introduction
"Unless man rises above his humanity, What a worthless thing." Lucius Annaeus Seneca (Seneca, 2018) Since the concept of values is a notion that is discussed with different disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and economics, it is an accepted fact that values direct human behavior and have a role in determining people's ideas and attitudes, although a precise and clear definition cannot be made. Because values have different meanings for different disciplines (Ersoy, 2018). With a similar opinion, Schwartz (1994:21) defined values as "principles that serve as guides to individuals throughout their lives." Shaver and Strong (1976:15) define values as "people, objects, ideas, actions and situations as good, valuable, desirable or bad, worthless and inferior" while these values guide people. Thus, there are certain abstract rules in the relationships of people with each other or with other institutions in the society. These rules are often used in actions taken to meet the physical and biological needs of individuals, to ensure social interaction and the continuity of social order (Kaymak & Öğretir Özçelik, 2020). This feature makes it a means of control and pressure to prevent of unapproved, bad and wrong behaviors (Fichter, 1990). In short, values have influenced every field from politics to industry, from commerce to education, and have permeated social relations (Ersoy, 2018;Halstead, 1996). For this reason, societies transfer the values that they have and care about to the new generations in order to maintain social life in a healthy way. The association of human beings with values begins in the family from the moment they are born. Then, a moral and ethical basis develops in the person with the media, peer environment, socialization process and education (Halstead, 1996;Kaymak & Öğretir Özçelik, 2020;Yaylacı, 2016).
Values are among the socialization tools of individuals. In this socialization process, individuals become aware of their individual and social responsibilities. Individuals learn their social roles, complete their self-formations in a healthy manner, the success of their relationships and communication with the society in which s/he lives and with other societies depend on their level of value acquisition in the process of socialization (Öz, 2019). Individuals who have values, live in harmony with the society and have a respectable personality in the society, a successful business and family life, and an effective social status in the eyes of other individuals (Dilmaç & Şimşir, 2016). In this respect, values are the organizations of judgment that determine our motivation, facilitate the adaptation of the individual to life and help him/her make sense of the world (Ersoy, 2018).
It can be said that the idea of supporting the holistic development of the individual predominates in the values being a part of the educational environment (Pérez-Jorge et al., 2017). Human being is not just consists of a pile of flesh and bones, using his intelligence and abilities. He is a being who loves and is loved, has honor, acts with conscience, wants equality, attaches importance to loyalty and honesty. This part constitutes the affective aspect of the human being and it is very difficult to achieve a balanced personality development in individuals whose affective aspect is not educated (Meydan, 2014). Those societies who do not give importance to affective development, individuals frequently engage in some negative behaviors such as harming themselves and each other, opening the door to various problems in social life, and disrupting social harmony. According to Ekşi (2003), values education aims to prevent these negative behaviors and to serve the purpose of raising people who have adopted the "national, spiritual and moral values of society, who have a balanced and healthy developed personality in terms of body, mind, morality, spirit and emotion", as stated in the Turkish Basic Law of National Education.
Values are our heritage that are based on the national and spiritual resources of society, have their roots in our traditions and yesterday, have reached the present with the efforts of the past generation, which we will pass on to the younger generation over time, who are our future. For this reason, values are the principles that form the perspective of our curriculum. It is the source of power and strength that motivates us to continue our daily life's routine flow as desired and to fight the problems we face. The knowledge, competence and skills that we have and that the education programs aim to gain meaning with values because human beings use their knowledge, skills and competence to the extent of their values. In other words, the values we have are embodied in our behavior. For this reason, the values that were previously included in the curriculum of many countries became a part of Turkish National Education with the updated curriculum in 2005. Values in the programs were not given as a separate unit, subject or learning area, but found an independent place in all units of the curricula in a way that would be the ultimate goal of the educational process and permeate the spirit (Değirmenci & Köşklük Kaya, 2020;MoNE, 2019;Uygun, 2013). For this purpose, various values such as "aesthetics", "equality", "freedom", "giving importance to family unity", "hard work", "helpfulness", "independence", "justice", "love", "patriotism", "peace", "respect", "responsibility", "saving", "science", "sensitivity" and "solidarity" are included in the curriculum of different disciplines. In addition, a number of common values in the curriculum of many disciplines were determined and they were called root values. These values are "friendship", "helpfulness", "honesty", "justice", "love", "patience", "patriotism", "respect", "responsibility" and "self-control". Thus, curriculum contribute to the mental, psychomotor and emotional maturation of students in order to make sense of their self, the geography they live in, the place and social environment, to develop an attitude and series of values against them, and to behave in line with these attitudes and values (Aktan & Kılıç, 2015;MoNE, 2018). An individual who has completed his/ her emotional development learns to be respectful to himself/herself and his/her environment, to live and behave as an honest, reliable, polite, disciplined, compassionate, determined, helpful, brave, loyal and responsible individual (Öz, 2019). In addition, globalization, developing technology and changing standards leave people alone with some problems, and value-supported education programs offer experiences and values that can adapt to these changing conditions, solve the problems they encounter, and prevent the alienation of the individual from the society they live in (Deveci, 2009;Erkuş, 2012).
The fact that values are closely related to education and life, helping people to live humanely has made it both the aim and the subject of education in every period (Uygun, 2013). For this reason, various studies were carried out in the literature on the resources that can be used for values education. Some researchers, Solík et al. (2013Solík et al. ( ) media, Öztaş (2017 and Scolari (2009) Çatak (2021) jokes mentioned in their research that these are effective tools for values education. However, no study was found on the use of letters in values education. What makes this research unique is the letters that are often used as a means of communication, allowing us to convey an emotion, idea and wish to the person we cannot be with, often allowing us to convey to them without hesitation what we cannot say to the face of the individuals, positively affecting the mental, emotional and psychological development of individuals, a literary genre in which the conversation is often deep, warm and sincere (Çerçi, 2019) and to demonstrate how it can be used in value training. In the research, Seneca, one of the most well-known representatives of Roman Stoicism, an important thinker, writer, statesman, orator and rhetoric teacher, brought up in Rome, brought human values to the fore, provided the "honorable values of life" to sprout in every reader, and instilled hope in people, although he wrote to his close friend, Sicilian Governor Lucilius, (Seneca, 2018b) the work called "Moral Letters", which has been reflected in many generations for two thousand years, in which the importance of having values such as friendship, self-control, responsibility, honesty, and hard work, which are the necessity of an honorable life, is handled in the form of aphorisms, in the context of values education intended to be examined.

Purpose of Research
This research intends to determine to what extent Moral Letters written by Seneca can be used in values education. In line with this main purpose, answers to the following questions will be sought: • How many of the moral letters can be used for value education purposes? • What values are discussed in moral letters?
• What are the root values that can be gained with moral letters?

Method
The research was carried out using a qualitative research design. In qualitative research, data can be collected by examining documents, observing behaviors or interviewing participants in person (Creswell, 2016). Document analysis, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. Document analysis is the systematic examination written, printed and electronic resources to make sense of it, understand an event/situation, and move empirical knowledge to a higher level. These sources can be diaries, journals, meeting minutes, public records, newspapers and letters (Bowen, 2009).

Data Source
The research data source consists of 112 of the 124 philosophical letters written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, one of the three important representatives of the Late Period Stoic Philosophy, to Lucilius, the Governor of Sicily (who lived in the 1st century). All one hundred and twelve letters were translated from Latin by Türkân Uzel in 2018 and collected in work titled "Moral Letters" published by Jaguar Kitap (Seneca, 2018b). Twelve letters could not be included in the study because their translation could not be found. The original work was written by Seneca in 65 AD under the name Ad Luciluim Epistulae Morales.

Data Collection Tool
In order to examine the letters that are the data source in the research, the Value Review Form, henceforth "VRF" prepared by the researcher was used. Before the form was prepared, the literature was scanned in detail. The form, which was prepared in accordance with the literature, research questions and the content of the works, allowed the researcher to make a classification as to whether the letters would be used in values education, what the values in the letters were, and whether these values were among the root values that the education programs aimed to gain. For the convenience of the coders, all the values in the literature are given with their short definitions on the back of the forms. After the form was prepared, the opinions of two field experts were taken, a pilot study was carried out on the first ten letters in line with their opinions, and the form was finalized.

Data Collection and Analysis
For the purpose of collecting the data, firstly, the work containing the aforementioned letters was obtained and read by the researcher and a field expert. The letters containing values were marked one by one in the Value Review Form, and by determining the values they contain, meaningful word groups, sentences were gathered under the headings of values and root values.
Content analysis method was used in the analysis of the data collected through the form. Content analysis provides researchers with a systematic methodology for examining and making sense of raw information obtained from various documents, archives, printed-visual materials or various mass media. The basis of content analysis is categorizing what is said, coding it by assigning it to code units, and determining how often they occur (Demirci & Köseli, 2014). Codes are tags used to assign meaning units to the interpretive and descriptive information collected within the scope of the research (Miles & Huberman, 2019). According to Merriam (2009), the data units used in the content analysis can sometimes be a paragraph, sometimes a meaningful word group to describe a feeling or an emotion. In the study, "meaningful word group", "sentence" and "sentences" were determined as coding units in the analysis of the data. Coding and analysis were performed with Maxqda 18 qualitative data analysis software.

Validity and Reliability
The reliability of qualitative studies depends on the coding of the collected data being similar to the coding of different encoders using the same measurement tool. That is, people using the same measurement tool reach the same/similar results (Büyüköztürk et al., 2011). For this reason, the agreement between the coder views was calculated using the Kappa Statistics proposed by Cohen (1960). It was observed that the agreement rate between the coding's made by the encoders independently of each other in separate environments was 0.84. This result shows that the agreement between the encoders is at a "very high" level and the data collection tool is reliable.
For the validity of the research, expert opinions were sought in all stages of designing the research, collecting and coding the data, the findings were supported by direct quotations without making any changes, and the consistency of the data collection tool and the findings with the literature was taken into consideration. In addition, all stages of the research are described in detail in this paper in order to ensure external validity. All these aspects are considered sufficient by the researchers to ensure the validity of the research (Baltacı, 2019;Başkale, 2016).

Findings
In this section, the findings of which of the letters examined within the scope of the research can be used in values education, which values the letters contain and to what extent, which are aimed to be learnt by the students in the curriculums of the Republic of Turkey (Visual arts, Turkish, Social Studies, etc.) and which have universal validity are explained with the tables.

Findings Regarding the First Research Question
As a result of examining moral letters written by Seneca and the coding of value-related expressions, it was determined that eighty letters can be used for values education. The letters that can be used in values education are given in Table 1.  ,3.,7.,10.,12.,17.,18.,19.,27.,28.,29.,30.,33.,35.,60.,61.,68.,70.,79.,87.,89.,97.,103.,105. and 118. Letters 1 4.,5.,8.,11.,13.,15.,16.,22.,23.,32.,49.,51.,55.,58.,61.,67.,71.,84.,93.,96.,101.,11.,121 As seen in Table 1, one or two values were discussed in most of the letters. These letters are usually written on a particular value theme. For this reason, either a single value was discussed, or two related and supporting values were given together. For example, Senaca, who mentioned the value of "Savings" in his first letter, stated that it is necessary to be thrifty in every subject (saving time, saving from expenses). In his 9th letter, he discussed the value of friendship and love and emphasized that there is an inseparable bilateral bond between love and friendship. In the 30th letter, he dealt with the values of justice and equality and revealed that there is a natural equality between people due to their creation, and that "the first condition of justice is equality". In some letters, it is seen that many values are discussed and examined together. In these letters, the virtues that a person must possess in order to rise above his physical existence, discover the meaning of life and lead a dignified life are handled with a holistic approach, with examples from daily life and quotations from various works, over the famous names of that period. For example, in his 95th letter, Seneca, who deals with the subject of happy life, states that happy life comes from right behaviors, and that the key to right behaviors is virtues such as solidarity, love, friendship and courage. Therefore, some letters contain more than one sample.

Findings Regarding the Second Research Question
From the analysis findings show that Moral Letters contain sixty-four different values. The values coded under the theme of values are given in Table 2. When Table 2 is examined, it is seen that values such as bravery, equality, friendship, frugality, hard work, love, self-control and wisdom are mostly included in the letters. Explaining the reason why these values are given so much weight, Seneca, implicitly explains in his 5th and 8th Letters, that these values encourage people to behave humanely, open the door to common sense, social cohesion. Thus there is a middle ground between the personal values in our lives and the values of the people. He conveys to his readers that, just as drug capsules cure many diseases, these value-based principles (moral letters) can play an active role in solving many problems that future generations may experience, and that all of the moral principles he mentions in his letters are the result of his own experiences.
In addition, data analysis from Table two also suggest that many values such as being compatible, being consistent, being honorable, being scientific, chastity, contemplation, fairness, fidelity, forgiveness, generosity, giving importance to family unity, goodness, gratitude, kindness, loyalty, morality, moderation, optimism, saving, traditional, unity, truthfulness, togetherness and work which are employed in different areas of daily life, are also written in at least one letter.
Savings value is one of the values that Seneca cares about, like all stoic philosophers. To give an example of the value expressions in the moral letters, a section from the 1st Letter regarding the "Savings" value can be given. "You better save your property for the bad day, and start it on time. Because, as our ancestors used to say, 'Have you seen the bottom of the cube, what use is your attitude?' What remains at the bottom is both very few and the worst" (Seneca, 2018b: 34).
Conscientiousness is a very important value for Seneca and his stoic philosophy. To give an example of the value of conscientiousness, a passage from Letter 9 reads: He stated that the value of conscientiousness is a key to human happiness, with the phrase "If you make a person who does not consider what he has enough for himself the master of the whole world, he will still be unhappy" (Seneca, 2018b: 55).
Addressing the value of honesty and equality in his 31st Letter, Seneca said, "We must seek something that does not get worse day by day, something that is not hindered by anything. What is this? Honest, good, big soul! What can this be called but a God in a human body? This spirit can descend into the body of a freedman or a slave, as well as into the body of a Roman horseman" (Seneca, 2018b: 126) while stating that humanity should seek honesty, he associated honesty with a divine feature, and emphasized that this spirit could belong to a slave or a noble in order to indicate that human beings are equal.
Seneca, who states that a good person should look after the benefit of others as well as his own benefit, emphasized the value of altruism in his 47th letter. "Live with your inferior as you would like your superior to live with you. When you think about what you can do to your slave, think of what your master can do to you" (Seneca, 2018b: 159).
In his 95th Letter, Seneca instills the need for the human species to come together and be in solidarity in order to exist: "Let's hug each other; We were born into a community. Our society is like a dome formed by stones, if they cannot hold each other together, it will collapse; but thanks to this solidarity it does not collapse" (Seneca, 2018b: 400).
Seneca opposed dogmatic knowledge and stated in his 110th letter that scientific methods should always be used. "Man's learning of human and divine problems in the light of science, getting into this information instead of just diving into it, always reworking this information even though he knows it, applying it on himself; He must seek what is good and what is evil, and find out what is honorable and shameful, what is God" (Seneca, 2018b: 437).

Findings Regarding the Third Research Question
Root values are the values that the Turkish National Education Program plans to bring to students in different curriculum (such as Social Studies, Visual Arts, Turkish) and they have universal validity and that many societies around the world wish to see in their individuals. The third finding obtained from the examination of moral letters and the coding of valuerelated expressions is that Moral Letters contain all ten root values. These values are given in Table 3. When Table 3 is examined, it is determined that the values that Seneca tried to instil in all individuals living in the world in the moral letters written about 2000 years ago coincide with the values that are tried to be acquired by the education programs today. It is seen that many of the most emphasized values in moral letters are the values that curriculums aim to see in the individuals of the future. The most emphasized root value in ethics letters is "self-control" (12). This value is followed by "friendship" (11), "love" (10), "patience", "respect", "responsibility", "patriotism" (7), "helpfulness" (6), "honesty" (5) and "justice" (2) according to the frequency of occurrence in the letters. As an example of the expressions regarding root values in the letters, the following expressions in the 9th, 47th, 65th and 76th letters can be given.
Seneca, who considers the love of the country as one of the highest virtues, said that there is nothing better than to give his life for the sake of the country, if necessary, without blinking, he stated in his 76th letter with his expressions as: "If the situation requires you to die for your country, if you are going to buy the safety of your citizens at the cost of your own life, will you lay your head at the executioner? But would you even willingly prolong your fate, not just willingly? If you do that, there is no other good" (Seneca, 2018b: 273).
In his 65th letter, he emphasized the importance of honesty and said, "My body is the part of me that withstands injustice. An independent spirit lives in this dependent abode. This skin will never lead me to fear, to hypocrisy unbecoming of a good person. I will never resort to lies for the sake of this small body" (Seneca, 2018b: 219) and stated that it is necessary to prefer honesty to a life full of lies.
Drawing attention to the importance of helplessness inherent in human beings, Seneca wrote in his 47th letter, "They called you to help the unhappy people, you promised help to the shipwrecked, captives, sick, poor people… you promised help, why are you lingering? (Seneca, 2018b: 163) explains that helping everyone is a necessity of being human.
Referring to the value of friendship in his 9th letter, Seneca likened friendship to the love of lovers, after defining love as an insane friendship, he summarized the nature of the value of friendship with the following statement: "The person who prepares friendship for good days destroys the holy and lofty side of friendship. So with what intention am I making friends? To have a person whom I can die for, whom I can follow in exile, whose death I can withstand and prevent!" (Seneca, 2018b: 52-53).
One of the values that Seneca emphasized the most is self-control. In his 68th letter, he suggests that the individual should constantly monitor and criticize himself in order to recognize himself, his strengths, deficiencies and flaws: "Do what everyone else happily does on someone else's back: criticize yourself mercilessly. You have to get used to speaking and hearing the truth. Take the part of yourself that you find the weakest and work on it." (Seneca, 2018b: 278). Özensel (2003) stated that the concept of value owes its meaning to philosophy, Çelikkol (2019), on the other hand, revealed the fact that the philosophical view that deals with morality in philosophy and puts values at the center of philosophy is the stoic view, of which Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius are the most important representatives.

Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations
Seneca was born in Corduba, Spain in 4 BC, took lessons on philosophy and rhetoric from the most famous teachers of the period (Seneca, 2019), was brought to Rome at an early age by his father, and had a significant impact on the education and philosophical thoughts of the Roman Emperor Nero in his later years. Between the years 61-65 AD, Seneca, who moved away from state affairs and the palace, devoted himself to his favorite work, philosophy, and wrote a series of works containing Stoic teachings, benefiting from the subtleties of the art of oratory. Ultimately, Seneca's active and virtuous life came to an end in 65 AD (Seneca, 2020). Various researchers emphasized the concept of being virtuous while defining the Stoicism adopted by Seneca. With the definitions as "a practice-based moral philosophy that teaches the principles of the virtuous life" (Çelikkol, 2019), "the struggle for life that associates virtue with ethics and emphasizes the uniqueness of virtue" (Molacı, 2021), they agreed on the idea that Stoicism is a philosophical view that adopts the understanding that the way to a moral life is to transform some virtuous behaviors into life practices. Seneca (Schubert;, the most distinguished Roman Stoic, worked throughout his life on various virtues (independence, equality, solidarity, industriousness, self-control, sensitivity, etc.) just like other stoics (Kılıç, 2008). One of his written works, and perhaps the most important, is his moral letters. According to Dikmonienė (2016), this work is a wonderful work prepared for future generations. In Seneca's (2018b) work, he openly stated that he wrote the letters so that future generations could read them and benefit from them. The situation was developed exactly as Seneca intended: For centuries, people have applied to moral letters as a wise man on issues such as good, bad, friendship, honesty, justice, equality, freedom, and they have taken the principles in this work as a basis in their relations with other individuals, in practical principles that make their lives easier, and in solving the problems encountered. In fact, Montaigne, Shakespeare, Bacon, and Marx are among the names influenced by these principles. Montaigne was so influenced by Seneca that he began to be called the French Seneca, and when Spinoza who, was excommunicated from Judaism for his ideas, he took moral letters with him even though he left his entire library behind. As a result of this research, it was determined that sixty-four different values were covered in a total of eighty letters in Moral Letters written by Seneca, in line with all these theoretical information, and it is an effective resource that can be used in values education because it contains rich value examples from daily life.
In particular, it is seen that the stoic philosophy adopted by Seneca in general, has some valuable views and principles on various issues such as seeing people as citizens of the world and stating that the laws of the universe are the same for everyone. Human generation should love each other, respect each other's rights, observe justice in their deeds and actions, be moderate and contented in their wishes and actions, not be greedy, be tolerant of other people and their mistakes, work relentlessly in the face of difficulties. He has valuable views on the fact that mankind can only maintain its existence in this universe in solidarity, the necessity of helping people in distress, the importance of one's freedom in decisions and actions taken, the necessity of taking care of one's body and health (Aurelius, 2019;Çelikkol, 2019;Korkmaz, 2002;Seneca, 2016;Seneca, 2018b). For this reason, it is thought that it would be a good choice to use moral letters as a material for individuals to internalize values.
Another result obtained from the research is that the moral letters which are known as the root values in the Turkish National Education program are aimed to be given to the students, however, regardless of the geography in the world, it is a universally accepted values that all nations aim to acquire to their individuals. These values; patriotism, justice, charity, friendship, self-control, honesty, love, patience, respect, responsibility are the values that addressed quite frequently. When Seneca and his philosophical views are purified from ancient cultural elements, it is seen that they contain thoughts that are appropriate and parallel to contemporary life (Epiktetos, 2019). The biggest reason for this similarity is that both the curricula and Senaca and his philosophical views are based on people. They focus on the art of making life meaningful improving people emotionally and raising virtuous individuals (Epiktetos, 2019b;MoNE, 2018). Today, curriculums are to transfer value in order to preserve social order, prevent cultural deterioration, conduct healthy relations between people and societies, prevent social disintegration, solving some problems that technological change and development bring people face to face and realize social change in a positive way, the fact that Seneca and the philosophical belief he adopted acted with the idea that the expanding borders and the enriched people lived together in a virtuous way in Rome, the protection of social honor, and the idea that some problems in daily life could be overcome by determining some general criteria serve the same purpose (Ersoy, 2018;Seneca, 2018;Seneca, 2018b). In this case, it is not surprising that the aims of Seneca and his philosophical belief overlap with the aims of the educational programs of yesterday, today and tomorrow. For this reason, Moral Letters can be used in the Turkish National Education program to gain students some values known as root values but are universally accepted.
In line with these results, the following suggestions can be made: Since value is a concept of philosophical origin and philosophical letters containing effective and rich value examples, moral letters should definitely be used in values education. For this reason, it is recommended that moral letters are used in an integrated manner to realise aims of the curriculums both inside and outside the classroom, and that quotations from moral letters should be included in the textbooks in the context of values education while preparing education programs.
Although values are abstract concepts, the child is exposed to them numerous times from birth through family, friends, and the media, and the child lives in a world intertwined with values notions, in the education of all children who have learnt to read and write, it is appropriate to benefit from moral letters for values education with various quotations. In order for children to have a virtuous personality and to complete their moral development in a healthy way, it is recommended to benefit from such philosophical works, especially from secondary school.