The questions of how and where to do moral education have been with us since antiquity. But, over the past couple of hundred years we have sent moral education to the margins within higher education. Using the historical analysis of Julie Reuben, the moral psychological work of Augusto Blasi, and the educational philosophical work of John Dewey, I argue in this article that we need a reintegration of fact and value in higher education, training our future leaders to have exemplary professional skill and moral integrity. Without proactive work in both realms, we fail to train the leaders our world needs.
Introduction
Moral education centers upon this conception of the school as a mode of social life, that the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a unity of work and thought. The present educational systems, so far as they destroy or neglect this unity, render it difficult or impossible to get any genuine, regular moral training. (Dewey, 2000, p. 95)
What is genuine, regular moral training? Who should go about doing such training? And, how does one actually accomplish such a feat? For thousands of years moral education has been an integral aspect of the social agenda. Plato (fourth century BC), seeking to create a more balanced and just society, proposed a new, moral republic centered upon philosophical training. Rousseau (eighteenth century), seeking to address the shallowness and destructiveness of humans, proposed returning to nature—working to keep human need in check by directing it through that which is truly needed. Seeking to overcome the injustices of racism, W.E.B. Du Bois (early 1900s) proposed educative as well as relational and political solutions. bell hooks (early 2000s), arguing for gender and economic justice, advocates creating communities of conversation which transgress the unjust boundaries which divide humans.
Of course the nature of philosophic inquiry, and in particular as it applies to our efforts in educating the young, is found in asking often unanswerable questions. This does not mean that we cannot answer such questions in some fashion (certainly the thinkers above have done so), but that we can never empirically find the answer that settles the question once and for all. Moral education remains as contentious as always and, many would argue, as necessary as it has ever been. But, while such notions as “character education” have been written into national policies such as the No Child Left Behind agenda currently driving P-12 education, we often balk at such an education, especially within pluralistic public spaces. Not unlike Socrates (who was killed because he challenged the youth of his day to think deeply and morally), not all agree on what “character” means, let alone how we might foster it in societies which are steeped in democratic freedom with pluralistic outlooks. In fact many, unlike Dewey, shudder at the thought of “moral” education within public spaces (such as schools), fearing the “religious right” or, as deeply, the “liberal left.” Yet, as was true for Plato and Rousseau, within the moral crisis of our day (from pedophilic priests to greedy Wall Street bankers), we find again a great need for men and women of integrity, compassion, and character. Throughout the centuries proactive and concerted efforts have been made toward what we might call “moral education.” Yet, while the need for such mentoring is as strong today as ever, the avenues of such education have become increasingly limited. In this article I briefly outline the realities of moral education; its limits, its methodologies, and its current status. At base, I argue that we are currently experiencing a significant gap in the moral training of our next generation of business, political, educational, and social leaders. Julie Reuben has investigated the historical process by which academic training has become separated from moral training within higher education. I begin with her work which chronicles such endeavors within public spaces.
Character and Higher Education
In her book The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality (1996), Julie A. Reuben traces the disappearance of moral education from the modern university. In some part responding to Laurence Veysey’s book The Emergence of the American University (1965), Reuben challenges “Veysey’s assumption that university reformers sought to secularize higher education” (1996, p. 12). Reuben’s work focuses on the development of the “moral conversation” at eight universities—Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, Stanford, Michigan, and California at Berkeley. Instead of a clear rejection of moral truth or moral education, Reuben’s research finds that it was the complicated nature of moral education which finally relegated it to the margins within higher education; relegation based not out of intent to dismiss its importance, but out of an uncertainty of its place within the modern university.
Reuben begins by outlining the early belief in a “unity of truth.” Josiah Cooke, Reuben relates, pronounced that “all truth is one and inseparable” (1996, p. 17). This unity of truth, Reuben explains, “entailed two important propositions. First, it supposed that all truths agreed and ultimately could be related to one another in a single system. Second, it assumed that knowledge has a moral dimension. To know the ‘true,’ according to this ideal, was to know the ‘good’ ” (1996, p. 17). This Platonic notion, that the good and the true were synonymous, gave all knowledge a moral dimension; all truth held moral value. But, according to Reuben,
by 1930 … intellectuals had abandoned this broad conception of truth. They embraced, instead, a view of knowledge that drew a sharp distinction between “facts” and “values.” They associated cognitive truth with empirically verified knowledge and maintained that by this standard moral values could not be validated as “true.” In the nomenclature of the twentieth century, only “science” constituted true knowledge. Moral and spiritual values could be “true” in an emotional or nonliteral sense, but not in terms of cognitively verifiable knowledge. The term truth no longer comfortably encompassed factual knowledge and moral values. (1996, p. 2)
In the early days of higher education in America moral education was often equated, or seen to be situated within, religious education. In a sense religion served as the basis and impetus for moral truth and value. Religious education, though, increasingly came into contention with the scientific aims of the academy. For example, as the scientific revolution fueled modernity, two groups of thinkers arose by the late nineteenth century. “One group … emphasized the primacy of Christian beliefs. Noah Porter, professor of moral philosophy and president of Yale College, told students that ‘neither faith nor theology are the historical or natural foes of science and culture’ ” (Ruben, 1996, p. 33). On this view, the primacy of theology is confirmed by both science and culture. Yet, in opposition to this camp, was a group who wanted “religion to concede the supremacy of the scientific world view” (p. 33). Reuben quotes one author from Popular Science Monthly during this time period,
I cordially invite the clergy to become scientists. If existing religious organizations are to be preserved, the scientific method must be unqualifiedly adopted and prosecuted in the study and teaching of religion. (1996, pp. 33-34).
Following this line of thinking (i.e., that by making moral education “scientific”, thus verifiable and “measureable,” we might be able to agree upon moral education even within a pluralistic society), higher education turned toward the “scientification” of moral education. Here, the kind of knowledge that is “scientific” became an important concept. For example, in Is Logic a Dualistic Science? (1890) Dewey wrote:
Knowledge from the first, whether in the form of ordinary observation or scientific thinking is logical; in ordinary observation, however, the logical process is unconscious, dormant, and hence goes easily and inevitably astray. [On the other hand,] in scientific thinking, the mind knows what it is about. (in Reuben, 1996, p. 47)
Scientific inquiry became focused not upon a body of knowledge, but upon certain methods of uncovering knowledge. “Scientists,” writes Reuben, “attributed the success of science to its method. What was important about science was not any particular doctrine, which might be discredited and replaced, but rather its approach to solving problems” (1996, p. 48). This method, in essence, required hypothesis, experiment, observation, and verification (repeatability). For example, how might we come to understand gravity? One would set up an experiment (e.g., dropping an object from varying heights), hypothesize the results, perform the experiment a number of times (to establish repeatability), then come to certain conclusions regarding gravity.
It was proposed, then, that this same method (i.e., scientific inquiry) could be used to determine religious, theological, and moral truth. Reuben argues that, “university reformers believed that religious courses could be taught according to the same scientific methods used in other classes” (1996, p. 99). Hence, the scientificality of religion (encompassing moral attitudes and behaviors) moved toward biblical criticism (studying the Bible as literature), the psychology and sociology of religion, and so on—in essence the study of religion became a humanistic, rather than a spiritual or devotional method of inquiry.
Yet, as higher education became more and more consumer driven, such “scientific” religion in pluralistic institutions became less and less interesting to students. The pluralistic nature of higher education made it increasingly difficult to attract students toward humanistic “religious education”—even if was couched in scientific language. Religious education, though now scientific, began to move toward the margins of student interest and, thus, of formal academic training. Such education, then, on one hand became an extracurricular activity (centered in the home, residence hall programs, and religious clubs). On the other hand, ethics—at least to some degree—began to become more intentionally integrated within the sciences. Reuben, alluding to work by David Starr Jordon, clarifies this point:
By equating religion and morality, Jordon saw no need for an explicitly religious curriculum; as long as students learned the highest ethical values, the aims of religion would be fulfilled. He believed that science, particularly evolution, would provide standards for correct behavior. Then moral training could be based on science rather than on religious education. (1996, pp. 168-169)
Hence, morals would be passed along and instilled within secular or humanistic subjects; the express study of religion was no longer necessary for moral education. “From the beginnings of the university reform movement,” argues Reuben underlining this point,
educators acknowledged the moral value of science. They maintained that scientific inquiry developed good habits among its practitioners and that scientific knowledge contributed to individual and social betterment. They conceived of science not as a threat to religion, but rather as its support. They expected that scientific knowledge would dovetail with and provide additional evidence for religious morality. But as intellectuals expounded on the virtue of scientific morality, religion was relegated to the background, and science alone took on the mantle of moral education. For a time, at least, it seemed possible that science could save the universities’ commitment to the unity of truth. (1996, p. 175)
And yet, by the early 1900s what one might call “value-free” science was at the forefront. Here, academia rejected the “unity of truth” notion (i.e., that scientific and moral truths were, in fact, of the same substance and could operate hand in hand). Science began to move toward the late twentieth century debunked ideal of neutrality. In other words, the scientific method began to encompass the view that an objective scientist, interjecting no influences of morality or subjectivity, could operate within a field of pure science. Experiments, it was argued, wrought objective truth of the natural world, allowing little or no space for the subjective components of morality (e.g., the scientist began to fundamentally ask, “can we clone a sheep?,” relegating the question of “should we clone a sheep?” to the unscientific margins). Out of this notion, the modern research institution was born. Here, not only religious, but now moral education in general became marginalized. Such education was to be enacted through special programs (e.g., student advising, residence hall programs, freshmen orientation, etc.). Moral education, it was now believed, happened outside of the classroom. “University leaders’ commitment,” writes Reuben, “to student services reflected their growing belief that the moral value of a university education resided in the community life of students, not in their formal education” (1996, p. 255). Moral education, enacted outside the classroom, would employ a social norming methodology. Here, formal moral knowledge, or moral academic training, was abandoned. Moral training was something one “picked up” through example or socialization. Morality, in higher education, became separated from knowledge. Morality also became situated in individual choice and would no longer be defined or imposed by the institution itself. An extended summary from Reuben brings this brief history to a close:
Student-service professionals would never have the power to define moral norms that the president and faculty of the classical college had exercised. They devoted themselves to facilitating social bonds among students. They discovered that imposing their own standards of behavior risked alienating students from campus-sponsored social life. Regulating extracurricular activities meant reaching a compromise between the demands of morale and those of morality. The subsequent history of fraternities and athletics indicates that morale often won. By the 1920s university leaders thought that the moral education of students would be achieved largely outside the classroom. They maintained that morality was learned by example and not precept. They tried to provide students with proper moral influence: first, by providing designated adult role models for students, and second, by trying to shape the norms of student peer culture. Both these efforts rested on the assumption that the moral value of higher education depended on the personal relations found in the community life of the campus. Educators’ reliance on the indirect moral value of social relations reflected the separation of morality and knowledge. University leaders tacitly recognized that they could not find a way to institutionalize the ideal of the unity of truth and maintain a commitment to the ideal of free inquiry. Without institutional support, the ideal of unity no longer seemed plausible. Over the twentieth century leaders of research universities strengthened their institutions’ commitment to the advancement of knowledge, but they were never able to recapture university reformers’ faith in the power of knowledge to elevate individuals and the world. (1996, pp. 264-265).
Here, moral education becomes separated from higher education based upon a number of fundamental premises. These include, first, the belief that it is impossible to maintain the notion of a “unity of truth” alongside the ideal of “free inquiry.” Hence, since higher education is largely based upon the notion of “free inquiry,” moral education became marginalized. Second, it came to be argued that moral concerns fell outside the realm of scientific scholarship. Thus, since there is no unity of truth, and since higher education is again fundamentally based upon the notion of scientific scholarship, moral education was relegated to the periphery. Finally, Reuben articulates that by the 1920s it was held that morality was learned by example, not by precept. Therefore, as higher education continued to be largely focused on content or precept delivery (in most college classes this happens through some combination of lecture or content discussions—that is, we don’t exemplify electrical engineering, we teach it!), moral education has been pushed out of the classroom.
Thus, according to Reuben’s historical analysis, moral education moved from the forefront position it held in Plato’s Republic to the margins of higher education. It is not that higher education concluded that moral education was not important, but that the mission of the university became more squarely focused upon knowledge (with the assumption that such knowledge existed in separation from moral or ethical life). Hence, in the business world we have gifted and knowledgeable accountants that use their expertise to “cook the books” undermining the investment and lives of millions. We have teachers that can grant their students tremendous subject matter knowledge via “best practice” methodologies, but cross romantic and sexual lines that detrimentally mark their students for life. Though higher education has relegated moral education to the periphery (leaving it in the hands of nonintentional programs or nonuniversity hands), the need for moral education, nonetheless, continues to press itself upon a world disillusioned by the unethical leaders into whose hands we have put our trust. “For a variety of institutional and professional reasons,” contends Reuben,
the desire of faculty and university leaders to avoid conflict eventually prevailed over the desire to maintain a close tie between knowledge and morality. Eventually scholars decided that moral concerns fell outside the realm of scientific scholarship. Scholars hoped that the distinction between fact and value would lead to more reliable knowledge as measured by greater agreement. The subsequent history of academic disciplines in the twentieth century indicates that this hope was illusory…. Since it has proved impossible to completely separate fact and value, we should begin to explore ways to reintegrate them. (1996, p. 269)
Here, then, I pose an additional question: If moral education, as evidenced above, is so fraught with difficulty in the pluralistic institutions of higher education, how might we conceive of a viable way to reintroduce such education within our higher educational systems? What might it mean to begin to explore ways to reintegrate the notions of fact and value within higher education, especially within a system that is by definition pluralistic in nature? I now turn briefly to the work of Augusto Blasi and more significantly to the educational writings of John Dewey.
Moral Identity
Augusto Blasi in his essay Moral Character: A Psychological Approach argues that “to be able to consistently guide one’s life according to moral aims, one needs the set of capacities that constitute willpower; most important,” Blasi continues, “one needs to put these capacities at the service of stable moral concerns” (2005, p. 78). Arguing that willpower is simply a set of “moral tools” that can be aimed at multiple targets, Blasi contends that “one needs a different kind of will to set willpower in operation and provide it with a specific meaning; what one needs, with regard to moral character, is a will that desires and tends toward the moral good” (p. 78). For example, in the case of school bullying, the bully may or may not have willpower that might allow him to overcome adversity, to resist that which he considers to be “wrong,” and so on. But, unless there is the will (a desire) to put that willpower to use in resisting a propensity to bully a classmate, the bullying will likely continue. And further, if the bully is coerced through surveillance, reward, and punishment he, likely, will simply become a more covert (or we might say “better trained”) bully: one with bullying expertise that allows his bullying to continue as before, but now undetected. Hence, the direction that willpower is aimed (via desire) becomes crucial to moral character.
In addition, we come to understand that the direction of this will (which situates moral judgment) is, in and of itself, tied to self-identity, not simply to an arbitrary or coerced list of right and wrong moral behavior. “Moral judgments,” contend Higgins-D’Alessandro and Powers,
thus appear to go further than rational assessments of the right and wrong of particular actions. Moral judgments seem to extend not simply to actions but to the agent. Individuals desire to be persons who act morally. In this sense, moral judgments involve the self. Failing to act morally may diminish one’s sense of self and of self-worth, while acting morally may increase or at least maintain one’s sense of self and of self-worth…. The starting point for our approach of character is the self as a responsible moral agent. Responsibility, as we noted above, ties moral judgment to moral action through the moral self.. One of us (Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2002) has been exploring responsibility through open-ended interviews about everyday moral living. One of the simplest yet most startling outcomes of this study to date is that the problems that most individuals describe as moral are not whether a particular action is right or wrong but how to act responsibly in a situation with significant consequences for the self and often for others (2005, pp. 112-113).
Blasi, also arguing that self-concept is foundational to moral action, contends that,
There is one kind of identity …that is intrinsically related to the highest integrity. This occurs when a person so identifies with his or her commitments, cherished values and ideals, that he or she constructs around them the sense of a central essential self. This sort of appropriation determines what “really matters” to the person; it establishes such a hierarchy among the person’s goals and concerns as to create a sense of subjective unity and lifelong direction, and provides one with a sense of depth and necessity in his being. (2005, p. 92)
Blasi is not arguing, here, toward a notion of an essential self that we are to search for and uncover, but instead for a sense of self that is constructed by individuals regarding who they want to be and what really matters to them. In essence, here, identity becomes based on the ideal self that one desires for oneself, thus affecting the direction one gives to one’s will power. “Compromising one’s identity,” writes Blasi, “is felt to be unthinkable: it would be experienced as the most serious self-betrayal and as the total loss of one’s self or soul” (2005, p. 92). Here, then, self-identity, or certain self-character(istics) become foundational to the desires that direct moral life. Character becomes tied with identity. Higgins-D’Alessandro and Powers write,
When we speak of a person as having character, we typically mean that one can count on that person, even in very difficult circumstances. In the context of sports, individuals and teams typically display character by not folding under the most intense pressure. The etymological definition of character as a permanent mark or stamp seems to express this sense of steadfastness and dependability. Yet Walker (1998) points out that reliability should not be equated with immovability or rigidity. The reliable person is a responsive person. The reliable person adapts to new challenges and addresses past wrongs and wounds (2005, p. 113).
Here, directional self-identity becomes foundational to moral life. But if moral character is linked to moral identity, then how is such identity formulated? To address this difficult question I turn to the work of John Dewey and his influential work Democracy and Education (1944).
Dewey and (Moral) Education
“Our next conclusion,” Dewey writes, “is that life is development, and that developing, growing, is life. Translated into its educational equivalents, that means (i) that the educational process has no end beyond itself; it is its own end; and that (ii) the educational process is one of continual reorganizing, reconstructing, transforming” (1944, pp. 49, 50). One of the hallmarks of Dewey’s philosophy of education involves the notion of nondichotomous life. In other words, Dewey believed that the lines between what we normally separate in education (mind and body, thinking and doing, knowledge and skill, the ends of education and the means of education, moral and academic education) are much more fuzzy than we often articulate. For example, Dewey believed that learning should involve hands-on activities linked with mental problem solving; both are essential to our educative efforts. On this view, Dewey argues that education is not only preparing for the future, it is also, in and of itself, living life in the present (per the opening quote in this paragraph). Here, Dewey argues that we have a false understanding of the growth involved in education. “Growth is regarded as having an end, instead of being an end” (Dewey, 1944, 50). “The mistake,” Dewey continues, “is not in attaching importance to preparation for future need, but in making it the mainspring of present effort” (p. 56). Hence, in our educational efforts, including moral education, we are not simply preparing our students for the future; we are also just as interested in the present experience of growth. In other words, education is focused in the process of growth, not simply toward an end product.
What is Dewey getting at here? He is arguing that the actual experience of the classroom is at the heart of education, as much as the information, or precepts, that we purportedly transfer to our students. Dewey succinctly wraps this up in his definition of education: “We thus reach a technical definition of education: It is that reconstruction or reorganization of experience which adds to the meaning of experience, and which increases ability to direct the course of subsequent experience” (1944, p. 76). What? We are moving back to the words of the opening quote of the previous paragraph, “the educational process is one of reorganizing, reconstructing, transforming.” But, reorganizing what exactly? Experience! Dewey is arguing that all education, and all of life, is experiential. It is our experience with Algebra I in middle school that gives us the experience with which to approach Algebra II in early high school. Growth always involves continuity, both with our past experiences of a particular subject, but also within the social environments (e.g., the classroom) within which we are currently learning (or reconstructing our experience of a certain subject matter or precept or skill). “The progress,” Dewey continues, “is not in the succession of studies, but in the development of new attitudes towards, and new interests in, experience. Education must be conceived as a continuing reconstruction of experience; that the process and the goal of education are one and the same thing” (in Reed & Johnson 2000, 97). Here, in a circular fashion, we return to nondichotomous education: one in which experience is reconstructed, bringing present meaning and growth in light of present and future need. Alan Ryan, commenting on Dewey’s articulation of his educational philosophy, sums up: “The vice of philosophers traditionally had been to think of all knowledge as spectatorial; Deweyan education started from the view that knowing was a form of engaging with the world” (1998, p. 399). Hence, education, including moral education, is not only something that happens through the teaching of precepts (with students as spectators), but also the very social climate/engagement of the classroom teaches as much as what is spoken in the lecture. And, recalling our opening quote at the head of this paper, if this social climate is neglected, if it is passed over, then Dewey would argue that our students will either be uneducated, or worse yet, mis-educated in a moral sense. But, to understand what Dewey is getting at, we must go a bit deeper.
According to Dewey, how do humans grow morally? How is disposition developed? How are attitudes formed? How is moral character (tied to self-identity) shaped (or reconstructed)? “The development,” argues Dewey,
within the young of the attitudes and dispositions necessary to the continuous and progressive life of a society cannot take place by direct conveyance of beliefs, emotions, and knowledge. It takes place through the intermediary of the environment. (1944, p. 22)
Dewey, here, raises several important considerations which bear directly upon our understanding of character education. Dewey argues that the development of certain attitudes and dispositions are paramount to the fostering of a democratic society. Further, Dewey contends that the inculcation of “beliefs, emotions, and knowledge” (linked to attitudes and dispositions) does not take place via direct conveyance, but is a product of one’s environment. According to Dewey, when one is “trained” by the use of outside pressure (reward, punishment, surveillance), coercing conformity, often our “instincts remain attached to their original objects of pain or pleasure” (1944, p. 13). The goal of such training is to establish new habits of behavior. But, Dewey argues, such compliance stems not from an inward desire toward “moral” behavior, but, instead, from a desire to avoid pain or to gain pleasure. Dewey contrasts such training with the conception of inward dispositional transformation as a result of common participation. “When one,” Dewey contends,
really shares or participates in the common activity … his original impulse is modified. He not merely acts in a way agreeing with the actions of others, but, in so acting, the same ideas and emotions are aroused in him that animate the others.. [The social environment] forms the mental and emotional disposition of behavior in individuals by engaging them in activities that arouse and strengthen certain impulses, that have certain purposes and entail certain consequences. (1944, pp. 13, 14, 16)
This becomes reminiscent of Blasi’s notion of identity which gives direction to one’s will power. In other words, like Blasi, Dewey would argue that when “moral” education is primarily based upon the communication of rules, then surveillance meant to enforce such rules, it becomes ineffective precisely because it often fails to affect the heart. Disposition is not so much a matter of conformity to someone else’s rules, but staying true to our own rules; those rules that have become a part of our identity (and, thus, affecting the direction one gives to one’s willpower). On this plane, Blasi and Dewey’s philosophy of moral education find resonance with each other. Further, according to Dewey, identity is most deeply constructed socially. And, it is this social participation, the back and forth movement reminiscent of democracy, that Dewey believes is, in and of itself, moral. “Moral education,” he argues,
centers upon this conception of the school as a mode of social life, that the best and deepest moral training is precisely that which one gets through having to enter into proper relations with others in a unity of work and thought. The present educational systems, so far as they destroy or neglect this unity, render it difficult or impossible to get any genuine, regular moral training. (2000, p. 95)
Dewey claims that through common participation individuals can be brought into “like-mindedness” (i.e., of a similar fabric or identity) within a community and that, in this participation, attitudes and dispositions are formed and re-formed. Of course the fact that individuals are “environed” by the cultures within which they live is a fairly commonsensical notion. Dewey, though, would contend that this social environing must be due to more than simple habit (mindless mimicry), but is fostered through communication which informs and connects individual thinking (including attitudes and dispositions) and action with others in the community. Hence, rather than educating directly, Dewey asserts that the role of a teacher is to create environments which connect with individual student capacities. Capacity, for Dewey, does not denote a void to be filled, but a potential that may be tapped. Each student comes with certain histories, certain interests that educative efforts must engage toward the ends of further growth. Outlining this “differentiated interest” Dewey argues that “one who recognizes the importance of interest will not assume that all minds work in the same way because they happen to have the same teacher and textbook. Attitudes and methods of approach and response vary with the specific appeal the same material makes, this appeal itself varying with difference of natural aptitude, of past experience, of plan of life, and so on” (1944, p. 130, emphasis added).
Where do We go from Here?
We are now ready to return to a discussion of the reasons that Rueben articulates for why higher education has separated itself, in a more formal sense at least, from moral education. And, in this, my aim is to consider ways, following Dewey, that we might meet Reuben’s closing challenge: that since it has proved impossible to completely separate fact and value, we should begin to explore ways to reintegrate them. As articulated earlier Rueben argues, first, that higher education has sent the moral education of its students to the margins based upon the belief that it is impossible to maintain the notion of a “unity of truth” alongside the ideal of “free inquiry.” Of course, if moral education simply means teaching a basic set of moral truths (i.e., thou shalt …, thou shalt not …), then we certainly create a struggle between a unity of truth (i.e., that moral and academic truth go hand in hand) and free inquiry. But, on Dewey’s notion of moral education, the goal is not to find and teach the one truth (via direct conveyance), but to foster democratic conversations (proper social relationships) surrounding difference (tying into students’ own capacities). The relationships themselves, especially as they are tested by raising questions of moral social life, are both the means and the ends of moral education. The goal is not agreement, it is proper relationship in the midst of disagreement. And, ultimately is this not reasonable training for future citizens? Yet, when we cast such conversations out of formal education settings within higher education, we, according to Dewey, neglect, or worse, mis-educate our next generation of leaders.
Reuben also argues that moral education has been marginalized in higher education because it came to be believed that moral concerns fall outside the realm of scientific scholarship. Dewey, here, would argue that this is based upon a narrow view of education; first, because it is based upon a dichotomous view of education, and second, because it is based upon the view of education that is precept driven rather than experiential. When we educate, are we educating the mind or the heart? For Dewey, we are always doing both. In other words, as a student sits in an Organic Chemistry course, the social and academic experience of that classroom (including knowledge of chemistry, skills involved in studying compounds and the dispositions of teachers and fellow students expressed in how they interact (or don’t) surrounding the moral implications within the subject matter of chemistry) shape the present and future experiences and dispositions of each student. In other words, “likemindedness” happens as students engage with scholarly subjects alongside each other, and, thus, through this social engagement experience is reorganized and transformed. And, for Dewey, when the moral implications of the classroom are ignored (failing to create environments where proper relationships are fostered, especially surrounding the controversial conversations surrounding issues of cloning or global warming or justice), student moral development, again is either neglected, or is harmed, educating them currently and in the future toward amoral (or immoral) leadership within their fields of endeavor. Beyond this, one does not have to work very hard to see the moral implications of even the hardest of the hard sciences (just because we can clone, does not mean we should; just because we can sell it, does not mean we ought to; just because we don’t have to listen, does not mean we shouldn’t).
Finally, Reuben found that moral education became marginalized within the academy because it was held that morality was learned by example, not by precept. Actually, to some degree, Dewey would concur (although, in a nondichotomous view, he would argue that morality is learned in both ways!). Yet, if morality is learned by example, then that is always true (in and out of the classroom). Here, Dewey would argue that the example of ignoring moral conversations within the academy (at least more formally) certainly provides the example for students that such conversations should be ignored in the public world (i.e., morality may be something to consider privately—in dorm life, or in individual conversations, but it is not something one would consider or talk about professionally—civic engineers build bridges, they don’t worry about the implications of whether the bridge should be built). Further, the very nature of the relationships and conversations within those classes certainly do serve as an example for future professional experiences; and when those moral relationships are summarily ignored (we teach precepts in the academy; we certainly can’t worry about the ways students talk about things in class!), we educate students to ignore such conversations. Here, we simply teach students that, as far as their professional lives go, moral conversations are out of bounds. Thus, accountants do skillful and knowledgeable accounting as they “cook the books”; teachers teach well as they cross the moral lines between students and teachers; politicians, use rhetoric in an artful manner as they lie and lead groups toward unjust endeavors; etc.
Yet, these musings do not necessarily provide a clear-cut path for the reintegration of “fact and value” within higher education. I want to close by offering one example of how such a gap may be bridged within our current context. Of course, ideally one would want formally to reintegrate scholarly and moral conversations under the umbrella of the university; creating a dual, integrated agenda of moral and academic training within every aspect of the academy. But, that road (as Rueben articulates) continues to be fraught with difficulty. Another suggestion would be for outside organizations to come alongside the university, ones with aims to foster moral education among students in an integrated way with their academic endeavors.
Ivy Roads NW Student Mentoring (IR) is a not-for-profit startup that aims to do just that. As a nonsectarian nonprofit organization, IR seeks to, in a very Deweyan fashion, create social experiential opportunities for college students, aimed at engagement in proper relationships and conversations around the moral decisions of both students’ current and future endeavors. IR seeks to do this in four distinct ways.
First, IR seeks to partner directly with higher education through teaching. This includes providing outside personnel, as well as using university faculty to teach in classes, lecture series, seminars, residence hall programs, etc. specifically engaging student audiences in conversations surrounding moral life, seeking to integrate fact and value learning. Second, IR seeks to pair students with community, business, school, and other marketplace practitioners (typical aligning with their field of study), specifically focused in conversations surrounding issues of integrity and character within the marketplace, seeking to connect present and future, as well as fact (academic discipline) with value (the ethics of professions) within the student’s experience. Third, IR seeks to recruit students to be involved in reflective service opportunities with local service agencies, creating conversations and likemindedness regarding community involvement around issues of care and justice; seeking to marry precept and example in moral concern. Finally, IR works to create peer groups on campus, fostering student-led peer discussions around topics of ethical leadership, character, and service; in this way IR, again, works to create democratic conversations, allowing for difference, surrounding the integration of scholarship and moral life.
In its approach, IR seeks to move from providing a list of character traits or actions (seeking to inspire students to lean on their willpower in order to live “morally”) toward an “enculturation” approach aimed at identity transformation. Through teaching, stories of moral life are told, stories that might reconstruct a view and thus our experience of the world; or as Dewey would put it, stories that might reconstruct experience itself. By pairing students with leaders in the community, the intent is not just for mentors to pass on information about character, but for students to begin to experience the world of leaders as they navigate issues of character. Here, through dialogue surrounding real-life experiences, students are afforded the opportunity of likemindedness with leaders who nurture self-control and integrity at the heart of their practice. In a similar way, as IR pairs students with service agencies, but does so with a reflective element, it fosters not only the skills of service, but the heart as well. And, finally, through collaborative and supportive small groups on campus, students find a supportive network which fosters stories of character within the leaders of tomorrow.
Of course, IR is not unique in this focus of self-identity and moral education. Earlier, we briefly outlined Blasi’s notion that self-concept is foundational to moral action. Navaez and Lapsley in their article “Teaching Moral Character: Two Alternatives for Teacher Education” also operationalize these ideas. Calling for a “maximalist” approach to teaching preservice teachers how to effect moral education in their students, Navaez and Lapsley outline five steps, calling for a “context saturated with high expectations for behavior and achievement” (2008, p. 163). Their five steps include:
Step 1: Foster a supportive climate for moral behavior and high achievement
Step 2: Cultivate ethical skills
Step 3: Use an apprenticeship approach to instruction (novice-to-expert guided practice)
Step 4: Nurture self-regulation skills
Step 5: Build support structures with the community (2008, p. 163).
While there are subtle differences between Navaez and Lapsley’s approach to training preservice teachers and IR’s approach to the wider university student population, the notion of contextual nurturance versus a simply “instructional” approach with lists of right and wrong behaviors is common in both conceptualizations. Both conceptualizations call, though, for a proactive approach to fostering character in future leaders. “The challenge facing teachers and teacher educators,” Navaez and Lapsley contend,
is whether to allow moral formation to occur opportunistically— letting students learn what they will, for good or bad, come what may—or to foster an intentional, transparent, and deliberative approach that seriously considers the moral dimensions of teaching and schooling. (2008, p. 168)
IR, likewise, seeks to deliberately engage the moral fabric of our future leaders by immersing them in cultures where moral discussion and activity is intentionally focused at creating new stories that might shape the identity of our future leaders. While certainly IR is not the only way in which this can be done, it does offer one approach toward reintegrating fact and value more fully into the student experience within higher education. On Dewey’s view, this develops the potential of graduates (i.e., future leaders) moving into the marketplace with both the professional knowledge and skills necessary to perform well in the marketplace, along with the necessary moral aptitudes and dispositions to lead with integrity and compassion.
Conclusion
At the close of this article, surely there will be those who ask, “Why Dewey?” Many others have certainly forwarded alternative paths to moral education. Further, why Ivy Roads? Could not there be other paths, perhaps more endemic to the higher institutions themselves, which could also move in this direction? My intent in this paper is certainly not to limit comments to one voice, nor one methodology, in order to accomplish the reintegration of fact and value within higher education. And, likewise, I have left the more extracurricular activities which Rueben mentions (residence hall life, student clubs, etc.) completely out of the conversation, but not because they are without merit. Instead, because one cannot address everything in one paper, I have sought to limit my conversation, forwarding the need to reintegrate fact and value within higher education, the need for moral education within the next generation of leaders, and one possible path toward those goals. In this, I have left much unsaid, but at the same time, have opened up (or forwarded) a deeper conversation, one that may foster the proper relations of democratic debate and engagement which might lead us toward a more rich and holistic educational experience for our students. I hope through this conversation to move toward a reorganization of our experience with and in higher education, one aimed at current growth and future progress. This article is not a summary statement, but an open invitation toward a dialogue engaged in the reintegration of fact and value within the formal training of our next generation of leaders.
What if the chief financial officer or head accountant of that well-known energy corporation had decided to not “cook the books”? What if during their college years they had been part of a program that explored character and self-identity, including issues of integrity and honesty? Jobs might have been saved, tax-payer money would not have been wasted on lengthy prosecutions, and the investments of thousands of citizens may not have been devastated. What if a young thirty-something teacher had decided that crossing a moral line with her sixth-grade student was not the direction she felt was consistent with her self-identity? What if she had learned the relational skills and had developed the essential character qualities that might have helped her to see her student’s crush on her as a typical young developmental infatuation instead of an invitation for personal gratification? Families would be spared (including her own young children) and children would be protected and allowed to flourish (including her young sixth-grader whose life was forever marked by his teacher’s indiscretion).
Simply put, our world desperately needs leaders and citizens of character; individuals we can trust. This is true in the marketplace, in educational settings, as well as in individual homes and communities. Millions of future leaders are trained each year in our P-12 schools, but even more pointedly within higher education. While American schools arguably train some of the world’s best practitioners, I have argued in this paper that over the years that training has become disconnected from issues of morality or character. This has come to be for a variety of reasons, several of which I have touched upon above. My argument in this paper is that we must find a way to reconnect these two streams of training.
This can happen in any number of ways, but I suggest, relying upon Dewey, that we must work toward creating mentoring communities within higher education where issues of morality are discussed, argued, and explicated. I do not envision that such communities would find consensus, nor simply be “taught,” but that in the give and take of the reciprocity of critical, open, democratic discussion1 (as well as reflective service involvement), we may be able to affect the dispositional direction of a new generation of leaders. We must, in this, seek to reconnect higher education (where our leaders are trained) with moral education (intentionally helping our future leaders wrestle with issues of character) in ways that allow moral identity to be shaped, providing direction (or dispositions) essential to democratic and societal life. From the days of Plato societies have recognized the importance of moral education. But, since the time of Plato we have also recognized how difficult such an agenda can be, especially within pluralistic and diverse societies. Yet, despite its difficulty, the stakes are too high to ignore what Dewey calls “regular moral education.” Just because the conversation is hard, inconvenient or uncomfortable should not prevent us from a great calling within higher education: mentoring citizens who will lead our republic with skills and expertise, as well as compassion, character, and integrity. It is incumbent upon us to begin purposefully to invest in tomorrow’s leaders, seeking to raise up a generation with not only exemplary job skills, but with aptitudes and dispositions aimed at leading with integrity in a complicated world.
Note
For a discussion of such a critical and thinking community, see Matthew Lipman’s Thinking in Education (2003).
