Academics debate whether universities should teach virtue
Church of England Newspaper.
Can and should moral teaching be part of a university course? The need for good leaders and wise thinkers was highlighted at the ninth annual conference of the Macdonald Centre for Christian Ethics held at Christ Church Oxford on May 25 and 26 entitled “Cultivating Virtue in the University”.
Does teaching virtue feature in the curriculum of a research university? The Dean of Christ Church Martyn Percy likened the virtues required in academic study in the pursuit of truth such as attentiveness and other soft skills, to the latent results of bees cross pollinating flowers whose honey is a by-product.
But Chad Wellman of Wake Forest University, North Carolina, argued that such universities overwhelmed students with knowledge without giving them an overall account of the value and meaning of life so giving them no idea of the end to which they laboured. Meanwhile moralising was alive and well on campus with everyone condemning and no platforming everyone else.
Professor Nigel Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology and opponent of the “Rhodes Must Fall” Campaign, cited the “power-trip” of Damien McBride, Gordon Brown’s ‘spin-doctor’, and the unbridled greed of university educated city bankers which led to the 2008 crash, as examples of the social cost of universities who are eloquent about skills and speechless about virtues. He noted that in the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign, when the dons of Oriel met the protesters who wanted the statue of Cecil Rhodes removed, the protestors refused to look the dons in the face as though to do so would condone their wickedness and to signal there was nothing to discuss. He held that the dons should have rebuked the students that this was not how to manage disagreement.
Baroness Onora O’Neill, former principal of Newnham College, Cambridge traced such moral vacuum to the revulsion following WW1 to calls for patriotism and duty as reflected in the War Poets, and to philosophical arguments that moral judgements were unverifiable. Following WW2 a repair job was done to make human rights the core of ethics in the public domain. These focused on what people ought to receive from others but identified something as wrong only if it violates the rights of others. They also gave a very incomplete account of who ought to do what for whom.
For her universities are burdened with procedural regulations that distract from attention to virtue. Virtue is seen as subjective and is reduced to “values” defined as individual preferences or shared general attitudes. This degrades language, she claimed, and preferences cannot justify rights. Appeals to “Our Values” should be specified as commitments to order, the rule of law and religious freedom.
Professor Biggar argued that universities cannot claim ‘neutrality’ since they form their students morally but do not say so: the moral virtues of commitment to truth, humility, readiness to be taught, patience, carefulness and charity inform intellectual study and have wider social application. Decisions made in banks, businesses, hospitals or government that are careless with the truth, arrogant, unteachable, impatient and uncharitable will be bad decisions and cause real damage. Urging that moral views are too diverse does not stand since human history is replete with common lessons about the social costs of arrogance, greed, lust for power, impatience and cowardice.
Theology can help here he argued since it views humans as existing within a given moral order which graces their choices with meaning and able to flourish when they invest themselves in what is really valuable. “Life is a moral adventure where much can be lost because there is much to be gained.”
He concluded “When moral silence prevails In universities, not only is the promotion of virtue patchy and the unchallenged promotion of vice possible, but adolescent students receive the general impression that real adults don’t care about values and virtues…and when they leave their alma mater..they embark not on a moral adventure but on a power trip.”
The Oxford Character Project, an initiative of the Oxford Evangelical Pastorate with the Macdonald Centre and supported by the Templeton Foundation presented its work in Oxford and in Hong Kong of teaching good leadership and wise thinking. Participants become part of a ‘learning community’ with tailored programme of readings, discussions, guest dinners and personal mentoring from senior leaders in their field focusing not just on intellectual virtues but on vocation, commitment to service, gratitude and humility.
Details can be accessed here: www.oxfordcharacter.org
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