Moral education is envisioned change. As such it contains normative claims of the educating person or institution towards the person ‘to be educated’. The paper addresses the question of the legitimacy of moral education by examining the claims articulated in the pedagogical situation. In relation to autonomy as a goal of moral education, dialectic asymmetry and risky direction are suggested as adequate claims. They reflect the inter-subjective relationship between the educating person and the one ‘to be educated’ and they take into account a notion of negativity characterizing learning situations. The argument is developed by using the case of absenteeism SMS. As a pedagogic tool, absenteeism SMS should, according to my argumentation, be regarded as problematic, because of the tight control it creates.