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by Gary Pavela
Do college disciplinary systems have an educational aim? Most judicial administrators say yes, with the caveat that a just penalty is part of the educational process. What may be overlooked is the learning that occurs when members of the student judiciary hear disciplinary cases. These students (often among the best on our campuses) are probably being tutored in good listening skills, principles of due process, and respect for ethnic diversity, among other desirable qualities. Their participation in the disciplinary process, however, is also a good way to engage them in one of the core questions in the humanities: What is the origin of applied ethics? Is what we define as good or virtuous behavior (specified, in part, in our campus disciplinary codes) a product of natural selection, cultural evolution, reason, or divine law?
It's tempting to dismiss these questions as being too esoteric or philosophical, and so they would be in a criminal courtroom. But campus judicial systems operate in the context of higher learning. The instruction that occurs outside our classrooms (and conveys status to student development administrators as educators), is more than a matter of technique. We should also encourage members of the student judiciary to think deeply and carefully about the substantive--and sometimes emotionally powerful--experiences they encounter during hearings and deliberations.
The origin of applied ethics: A religious perspective
Human beings engage in the seemingly inexplicable practice of cross-species altruism--rescuing stranded birds, enforcing animal cruelty laws, and the like. Aside from a few stories about dolphins saving struggling swimmers, nothing like human altruism appears in the rest of the animal world. (As best we can tell, there appears to be no organized movement among the whales to save the humans). If empathy is a core component of cooperation, and cooperation is the foundation of applied ethics, we should care a great deal about the origins of the altruistic personality in human beings.
From a religious perspective, the altruistic personality is grounded in a fully developed conscience. But what are the origins of conscience? Philosopher William Barrett gave an answer in his book The Death of the Soul:
The human animal as the moral animal is the bearer of [an] 'ought'--the one creature who submits to its call. How can we explain the power and weight this call of duty...has over us? Kant's answer...[includes the]... religious and the spiritual: We experience this call because, however vast and indifferent the universe that surrounds us, we are creatures that are haunted by the feeling that we have some spiritual destiny beyond the material order. To put it tersely, duty--the call of conscience--is the voice of God within us (p. 92-93).
It's not our role (at secular institutions) to propound this view. But no intelligent discussion of the topic can be complete without it. When we invite members of the student judiciary to discuss the philosophical implications of what they do (the obvious aim of this essay), religious perspectives can't be excluded.
The origin of applied ethics: Darwin's theory
Charles Darwin had the courage to describe both the majestic beauty of the evolutionary process (seen from afar) and misery caused by the relentless and indifferent force of natural selection. More than many realize, Darwin was also an ethical theorist--and his theory has profound implications for educators. In The Descent of Man (pp. 200-201) he wrote that:
The development of moral qualities [in man] is a[n] . . . interesting problem. The foundation lies in the social instincts, including under this term family ties. These instincts are highly complex, and in the case of the lower animals give special tendencies towards certain definite actions; but the most important elements are love, and the distinct emotion of sympathy . . . A moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his past actions and their motives--of approving some and disapproving of others; and the fact that man is the one being who certainly deserves this designation, is the greatest of all distinctions between him and the lower animals. . . Owing to this condition of mind, man cannot avoid looking both backwards and forwards, and comparing past impressions. Hence, after some temporary desire or passion has mastered his social instincts, he reflects and compares the now weakened expression of such past impulses with the ever-present social instincts; and he then feels that sense of dissatisfaction which all unsatisfied instincts leave behind them, he therefore resolves to act differently for the future--and this is conscience. . . The appreciation and the bestowal of praise and blame both rest on sympathy; and this emotion, as we have seen, is one of the most important elements of the social instincts. Sympathy, though gained as an instinct, is also much strengthened by exercise or habit . . . The moral nature of man has reached its present standard, partly through the advancement of his reasoning powers and consequently of a just public opinion, but especially from his sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through the effects of habit, example,instruction, and reflection.
In contemporary academic parlance, Darwin's views represent a blend of Kohlberg, Gilligan, and Aristotle. For Darwin, our maturing cognitive capacity (what Lawrence Kohlberg would emphasize as the means to define universal justice) is stimulated by "love . . .and the distinct emotion of sympathy" (similar to Carol Gilligan's "ethic of care" or better described as empathy). Darwin's concluding emphasis on habit echoes the classic formulation in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Martin Ostwald, trans. (Macmillan, New York, 1962), 34-35:
For the things which we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing: men become builders by building houses, and harpists by playing the harp. Similarly, we become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage . . . [W]e must see to it that our activities are of a certain kind . . . Hence it is no small matter whether one habit or another is inculcated in us from early childhood; on the contrary, it makes a considerable difference, or rather, all the difference."
Contemporary debates about teaching ethics in the United States tend to focus on self-contained theoretical frameworks grounded in ethnic or gender identity theories. As the rigidity of those frameworks wane, Darwin's synthesis of sympathy (or, better stated, empathy), reason and habituation is likely to receive greater attention, especially if supported by empirical observation.
Applied ethics and the sciences
Much of the direction of pertinent anthropological research (joined by interdisciplinary contributions in economics and psychology) was summarized by a March 12, 2005 article in The New Scientist (Buchanan, "Charity begins at Homo sapiens") (online edition). The article began with a question similar to what we posed at the beginning of this essay:
Homo sapiens is [not] the only species in which individuals bestow kindness on others. Many mammals, birds, insects and even bacteria do likewise. But their largesse tends to be reserved for their genetic relatives . . . Humans are different, for we cooperate with complete genetic strangers - workmates, neighbours, anonymous people in far-off countries. Why on earth do we do that?
According to The New Scientist, the answer is a variation on Darwin's theme:
Over the past decade, experiments devised by Ernst Fehr of the University of Zurich in Switzerland, among others, have shown that many people will cooperate with others even when it is absolutely clear they have nothing to gain. A capacity for true altruism seems to be a part of human nature . . .Across disciplines, researchers now agree that people often act against their own self-interest. "This is the most important empirical work on the human sense of justice in many years," says evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers of Rutgers University in New Jersey. Unless such altruism or "strong reciprocity" represents an evolutionary "maladaptation," it constitutes a significant step forward in cultural evolution.
The New Scientist concluded with the observation that:
[Recent research] findings suggest that true altruism, far from being a maladaptation, may be the key to our species' success by providing the social glue that allowed our ancestors to form strong, resilient groups. It is still crucial for social cohesion in today's very different world. "Something like it had to evolve," [said economist Herbert] Gintis [of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst].
Applied ethics, in short, entails the expansion of empathy and reciprocity (necessary for small group bonding) from families to clans, cities, nations, humanity, and life itself. Achieving this goal requires both emotion and reason. Emotion provides passion and commitment, while reason develops strategies to expand the human capacity for affiliation into new and increasingly complex settings. The process has the look of inevitability until one examines history (especially the wars of the last century) close up. Our students need to consider the likelihood that ethical progress is tentative and fragile; it's as easy to lose ground as gain it.
Applied ethics and the humanities
Faculty colleagues in the humanities have pursued multiple blind alleys on the subject of applied ethics, disguising rehashed theories of skepticism and nihilism in the impenetrable language of contemporary literary criticism. A sense that the tide may be turning is evidenced in a renewed interest in Classical (Greek and Roman) studies, and in the appeal of history as a window on patterns of human fallibility. Criticism of the war in Iraq, for example, is often buttressed by historical examples of national hubris--going as far back as the Athenian invasion of Sicily.
Renewed interest in the didactic study of history was the subject of Donald Kagan's 2005 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities:
The ancient Greek historians, the earliest and still among the greatest, set the agenda, taking as their subjects large events affecting great numbers of people in dramatic and powerful ways . . . Thucydides understood that his careful attention to factual accuracy came at a literary price. "Perhaps," he says, "the absence of the fabulous from my account will seem less pleasing to the ear." But he judges the sacrifice necessary to achieve a higher goal, a philosophic one with great practical application: "If those who wish to have a clear understanding both of the events of the past and of the ones that some day, as is the way in human things, will happen again in the future in the same or a similar way, will judge my work useful, that will be enough for me. It has been composed not as a prize-essay in a competition, to be heard for a moment, but as a possession forever . . ." The fact is that we all need to take our moral bearings all the time, as individuals and as citizens. Religion and the traditions based on it were once the chief sources for moral confidence and strength. Their influence has faded in the modern world, but the need for a sound base for moral judgments has not. If we can not look simply to moral guidance firmly founded on religious precepts it is natural and reasonable to turn to history, the record of human experience, as a necessary supplement if not a substitute. History, it seems to me, is the most useful key we have to open the mysteries of the human predicament.
An opportunity for learning
Recent studies show high levels of religious or spiritual interest among college freshmen. That doesn't mean, however, that students are unreceptive to serious discussion about the origins of applied ethics--whether from religious, scientific, or historical perspectives. A June 13, 2005 Michigan Daily overview of a UCLA Higher Education Research Institute freshman survey (Neuman, "Poll: college students highly spiritual, religious") reported that "83 percent of students [surveyed last year] believe those who are non-religious can be just as moral as those who are." The relative tolerance and openness shown by college students on this subject represents an extraordinary opportunity for educators in and outside the classroom. There's a good prospect for learning if we seize the occasion. Hosting a formal lecture with a dry academic title probably won't work. But an evening discussion, perhaps facilitated by a faculty colleague in philosophy, classics, psychology, or history is likely to be animated and productive if we start with the deceptively simple question: Can we be good without God?"
REFERENCES
Aristotle (1962). Nicomachean Ethics (Martin Ostwald, trans). New York, Macmillan.
Barrett, W. (1986). The Death of the Soul. New York, Doubleday.
Buchanan, M (2005) "Charity begins at Homo sapiens." March 12, 2005 online edition. New Scientist. Last viewed on July 8, 1007 at http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18524901.600
Darwin, C. (1979). The Descent of Man. New York, Norton.
Kagan, D. "In Defense of History." 2005 Jefferson Lecture. Last viewed on July 8, 2007 at: http://www.neh.gov/whoweare/kagan/lecture.html
Neuman, R. "Poll: college students highly spiritual, religious." June 13, 2005. Michigan Daily.
RESOURCES
[] Recent research on "morality grounded in biology" (and the possibility of heightened capacity for cooperation imparted by culture) can be found in the work of Emory University psychology professor Frans De Waal (research scientist at the Yerkes Regional Primate Center). See, for example:
[] See Frans de Wall's book Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals (Harvard, 1996).
[] Recent findings on college student religiosity ("God and Freshman,"Inside Higher Education, April 14, 2005)
can be found at:
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