self examination

Mayfield Publishing Company, California 1999. Alexander E. Hooke (Virtous Persons, Vicious Deeds)

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his fiction might shape the way we get along with the children weye tutoring- affect our attitudes toward them, the things we say and do with them.

Yet I wonder whether classroom discussion, per se, can't also be of help, the skepticism of my student notwithstanding. She had ~ u s h e d me hard, and I started ' referring again and again in my classes on moral introspection ta what she had observed and learned, and my studenrs more than got the message. Her moral

' righteousness, her shrewd eye and ear for hypocrisy hovered over us, made us un- easy, goaded us.

She challenged us to prove that what we think intellectually can be connected to o u r daily deeds. For some of us, the connection was established rhrough corn- munity service. But that is not the only possible way, 1 asked students to write papers chat told of particular efforts to honor through action the high thoughts we were discussing. Thus goaded ta a certain self-consciousness, I suppose, students made various efforts. I felt that the best of them were small victories, brief epiphan- ies that might otherwise have been overlooked, bu t had great significance for the students in question.

"I thanked someone serving me food in the college cafeteria, and then we got to talking, the first time," one student wrote. For her, this was a decisive break with her former indifference to others she abstractly regarded as "the people who work on the serving line." She felt that she had learned something about another's life and had tried to show respect for rhat life.

The student who challenged me with her angry, melancholy story had pushed me to teach different!^. Now, I make an explicit issue of the more than occasional disparity between thinking and doing, and I ask my students to consider how we ali might bridge that disparity. To be sure, the task of connecting intellect to char- acter is daunting, as Emerson and others well knew, And any of us can lapse into cynicism, turn the moral challenge of a seminar into yet another moment of op- portunism: I'll get an A this time, by writing a paper cannily extolling myself as a doer of this or that "good deed"!

Still, I know that collcge administrators and faculry members everywhere are struggling with the same issues that I was faced with, and I can testify that many studcnts will respond seriously, in at least small ways, if we make clear that we really believe that the [ink between moral reasoning and action is important to us. My experience has given me at least a measure of hope that moral reasaning and reflection can somehow be integrated into students'-and teachers'- lives as they actually live them.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSCON

1. Is there any significant relation between intelligence and moral character? The case study presented by Coles gives several famous examples. Can you think of your own examples to support your answer?

2. The student is upset with the lcvel of phoniness and hypocrisy she finds at the prestigious university. Do you think hypocrisy is always a sign of immorality? Is a person without hypocrisy therefore moral?

3. Does the case study support the view that morality is instinctive or learned? if instinctive (or innate), how can you account for the variety of moral beliefs people hold? If learned, who d o you think are or should be our moral teachers?

W l L L l A M GRAHAM SUMNER

Folkways

A professor of sorial science at Yale, wrjliam Sumner [ i 840-4 9 403 was at theJorPJront

oJ the celtural ~Sativism movemmt, wbich holds that moral good and bad are based

soldy aM an ivtdrvidaal society's sense of what would promote its own gromth. Ethical rtlafivism bas always been a thorn in tbe side oJmoral philosopbm who seek rome uni-

versal truth to subport an ethicat valve or principle. Sumner's distinct contribution is the empirical widmcr awd clear-cut reasoning he user to articulate the case fur rrfativism,

I CRtTICAL READING QUEST10NS C

1. What is a folkway? Find examples of folkways in Sumner's accounts. 2, Why dues Sumner say that folkways are true in an essay that suppons

moral relativism?

3. Do folkways bring well-being to goad people and harm to bad people in a particular society?

4. Are folkways logical? Are they rational?

5. In Sumner's view, why are people moral?

6. How do people learn folkways?

1. Definition and Mode of Origin of the Folkways

If we put together all that we have learned from anthropology and ethnography about primitive men and pimitive society, we perceive that the first task of life is to live. Men begin with acts, not with thoughts. Every moment brings necessities

Sekaions from Folkways (Bosron: Ginn 81 Cn., 1907).

2 CHAPTER ONE Why Be a Moral Pcrron?

The readings in Chapter I address these questions from two different perspec- tives: explaining moral conduct or justifying the reasons for pursuing a moral life. Although they all agree that morality is a fundamental concern for humans, they disagree on related issues such as human nature, the purpose of being moral, and the universality of moral truths or values. More directly, they address whether we are moral because of cultural conditioning, genetic predisposition, religious up- bringing, or simply out of the desire to be happy.

Harvard professor of psychiatry Robert Coles introduces a compelling dilemma raised by one of his undergraduate students. How is it, she asks him, that an "A" student in an ethics course can, as she ruefully discovers, be morally inept outside the course? Furthermore, can this student's behavior bc justified, or is it only ex- plainable by looking to external events?

William Surnner, a social scientist from Yale in the early 190Qs, contends rhat morality is largely a matter af cultural traditions and institutions. His Iucid de- scriptions of various rituals and customs are a classic statement of ethical relativ- ism-the idea that moral beliefs are dot universal but are valid only within the culture that espouses them,

Philosopher Richard Garrett illuminates the debate sparked by ethical relativ- ism in a lively dialogue involving the characters Max, Homer, Dilemma, and Sid- dhartha. He concludes with a challengeto the ethical relativist.

A different take on the "why be moral" issue comes from the field of sociobiol- ogy. One of its leading proponents, zoology professor E. 0. Wilson, believes that most behavior can be explained in terms of genetic makeup rather than ethical justifications. Being altruistic, in his view, is not a matter of high-mindedness but a selfish strategy for improving the species.

J. L. Mackie, a British philosopher, studies the case for sociobiology and finds n problem that can be addressed only by going beyond genetic accounts of moral behavior.

For many people thoughout the ages, religion has been the anchor to any sub- stantive morality. Selections from the Old and New Testaments reflect an attitude that a moral person is guided by following the authority of God and sacred writ- ings. A different perspective from Taoist thinker Chuang Tzu evokes a sense of freedom and humor to articulate the human concern for the good.

According to journalist and recent third-party presidential candidate Harry Browne, much of what passes for morality actually does more harm than good. He echoes a popular betief that any worthwhile morality has as its primary focus the happiness of the individual, Constraints such as guilt, sin, the golden rule, or social responsibility rhreaten a person" chances to enjoy life.

Nel Noddings, a philosopher of education, proposes a contrasting foundation for ethics. She suggests chat it is not the individual self but the self-in-relation rhat initiates our ordinary experiences and our moral reflections.

ROBERT COLkS

Case Sttidy: The Disparity between Intellect and Character

-P +,4'!!'~

Robrrt Colts (b , i 929) is a proJessor oJ Psychiutry and medical humanities at Harvard

U~iversity and is wefl h o w n f o r his study oJ children. Here Coles relates an episode in

which one of bis u~derjrdduate students posa a dilemma involving many ashects oJ

mordf educdtion. T h e student wants to HOW how it is possible that somwnc canget an

exctllmtgmde in an ethics course yet, outsidc the cioss, engage in moraIfy suspicious

condact. For Coles thEs raises a question all moral thinken need 10 address. That is, wbat i s the relation bdtuem intdligmce and moral characten

CRlTlCAL READING QUESTIONS

1. What evidence does the student offer to support the view that intelli- gent people are not always moral?

2. How can moral education lead to sterile discussion or cynicism? 3. Does Coles conclude that an ethics professor ought tr, grade a student

in part based an the student's moral conduct or character?

Over 150 years ago, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave a lecture at Harvard University, which he ended with the terse assertion: '"Character is higher than intellect." Even then, this prominent man of letters was worried (as many other writers and think- css of succeeding generations would be) about the limits of knowledge and the narure of n college% mission. The intellect can grow and grow, he knew, in a person who is smug, ungenerous, even cruel. Institutions originally founded ta teach their students how to become good and decent, as well as broadly and deeply literate, may abandon the first mission to concentrate on a driven, narraw book learning- a course of study in no way intent on making a connection between ideas and theories on one hand and, on the other, our lives as we actually live them.

Students have their own way of realzing and trying to come to terms with the split that Emerson addressed. A few years ago, a sophomore student of mine came

to see me in great anguish. She had arrived at Harvard from a Midwestern, working-class background. She was rrying hard to work her way through college, and, in doing so, cleaned the rooms of some of her fellow students. Again and again, she encountered classmates who apparently had forgotten the meaning

I of please, of thank you-no matter how high their Scholastic Assessment Test scores-students who did not hesitate to be rude, even crude toward her.

4, One day she was not so subtly propositioned by a young man she knew to be a very bright, successful pre-med student and already an accomplished journalist. This was not the first time he had made such an overture, but now she had reached a breaking point. She had quit her job and was preparing to quit college in what she called "fancy, phony Cambridge."

The student had been part of a seminar I teach, which links Raymond Carver's fiction and poetry with Edward Hopper's paintings and drawings-the thematic convergence of literary and arristic sensibility in exploring American loneliness, both its social and its personal aspects. As she expressed her anxiety and anger tn me, she soon was sobbing hard. After her sobs quieted, we began to remember the old days of that class. But she had some weightier matters on her mind and began to give me st derailed, sardonic account of college life, as viewed by someone vul- nerable and hardpressed by it. At one point, she observed af the student who had propositioned her: "That guy gets all A's. He sells people he's in Group I [the top academic category]. I've taken two moral-reasoning courses with him, and I'm sure he's gotten A's in both of them-and look at haw he behaves with me, and I" sure with others."

She stopped for a moment to let me take that in. I happened to know the young man and could only acknowledge the irony of his behavior, even as I wasn't totally surprised by what she'd experienced. But I was at a loss to know what to say to her. A philosophy major, with a strong interest in literature, she had taken a course on the Holocaust and described for me the ironies she also saw in that tragedy- mass murder of unparalleled historical proportion in a nation hitherto known as

'

one of the most civilized in the world, with a citizenry as well educated as that of any country at the time.

Drawing on her education, the student put before me names such as Martin Heidegger, Carl Jung, Paul De Man, Ezra Pound-brilliant and accomplished men (a philosopher, a psychoana!yst, a literary critic, a poet) who nonetheless had linked themselves with the hate that was Nazism and Fascism during the 1930s. She reminded me of the willingness of the leaders of German and Italian universi- ties to embrace Nazi and Fascist ideas, of the countless doctors and lawyers and judges and journatists and schoolteachers, and, yes, even members of the clergy- who were able to accommodate themseIves to murderous thugs because the thugs had political power. She pointedly mentioned, taa, the Soviet GuIag, thar expanse of prisons to which millions of honorable people were sent by Stalin and his brutish accomplices-prisons commonly staffed by psychiatrists quite eager to label those victims of a vicious totalitarian state with an assortment of psychiatric names, then shoot them up with drugs meant to reduce them to zombies.

I tried hard, toward the end of a conversation that lasred almost two hours, to salvage something for her, for myself, and, not least, for a university that I much

respect, even as I know its failings. I suggested that if she had learned what she had just shared with me at Harvard-why, that was itself a valuable education ac- quired. She smiled, gave me credit for a "nice try,'"ut remained unconvinced. Thcn she put this tough, pointed, unnerving question to me: 'Tve been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk abour what's true, what's important, what's good. Well, how do you teach people to be good? " And she added: "What's the point of knowing good, if you don't keep trying to become a good person? "

I suddenly found myself on the defensive, although all along I had been sym- pathetic to her, to the indignation she had been directing taward some of her fellow students, and to her critical examination of the limits of abstract knowledge. Schools are schools, colleges are colleges, I averred, a complaisant and smug ac- commodation in my voice. Thereby 1 meant to say that our schools and colleges these days don't take major responsibility for the moral values of their students, but, rather, assume that their students acquire those values at hame. I topped off my surrender to the status qsto with a shrug of my shoulders, to which she re- sponded with an unspoken but barely concealed anger. This she expressed rhrough a knowing look that announced that she'd raken the full moral measure of me.

Suddenly, she was on her feet preparing to leave. I realized that I'd stumbled badly. I wanted to pursue the discussion, applaud her for taking on a large subject in a forthright, incisive manner, and tell her she was right in understanding that moral reasoning is not to be equated with moral conduct. 1 wanted, really, to ex- plain my shrug-point out that there is only so much that any of us can do to a&ct others' behavior, rhat institutional life has its own momentum. But she had no interest in that: kind of self-justification-as she let me know in an unforgettable aside as she was departing my office: "I wonder whether Emerson was just being "smart' in that lecture he gave here. I wonder if he ever had any ideas about what to do abour what was worrying him-ar did he think he'd done enough because he'd spelled the problem out to those Harvard professors?"

She was demonstrating that she understood two levels of irony: One was that the studr of philosophy-even moral philosophy or moral reasoning-doesn't necessarily prompt in either the teacher or the student a determination to act in accordance with moral principles. And, further, a discussion of that very irony can prove equally sterile-again carrying no apparent consequences as far as one's everyday actions go.

When that student left my affice (she would soon leave Harvard for good), 1 was exhausted and saddened-and brought up short. Ail too oftcn those of us who read books or teach don't think to pose for ourselves the kind of ironic dilemma she had posed to me. How might we teachers encourage our students (encourage ourselves) to take that big step from thought to action, from moral analysis to fulfilled moral commitments? Rather obviously, community service offers us all a chance to put our money where our mouths are; and, of course, such service can enrich our understanding of the disciplines we study. A reading of Invisible Man (literature), Tally's Comers (sociology and anthropology), or Childhood and So- ciety (psychology and psychoanalysis) takes on new meaning after some time spent in a ghetto school or a clinic. By the same taken, such books can prompt us to think pragmatically about, say, how the wisdom rhat Ralph Ellison worked into