Religion and philosophy in schools
(from Hand and Winstanley, Philosophy in Schools, Continuum 2008))
Stephen Law
Is philosophy in schools a good
idea? The extent to which early exposure to a little philosophical thinking is
of educational benefit is, of course, largely an empirical question. As a
philosopher, that sort of empirical study is not my area of expertise.
But of course
there is also a philosophical dimension to this question. As a philosopher,
conceptual clarification and the analysis of the logic of the arguments on
either side certainly is my field. That is where I hope to make a small
contribution here.
This chapter is
in two parts. In the first, I look at two popular religious objections to the
suggestion that all children ought to be encouraged to think independently and
critically about moral and religious issues. In the second part, I explain a
well-known philosophical distinction – that between reasons and causes – and
give a couple of examples of how this conceptual distinction might help
illuminate this debate.
PART ONE: Two popular religious objections
Philosophy in the classroom
involves children thinking critically and independently about the big
questions. These questions include questions about morality and the origin and
purpose of human existence. Examples are: “Why is there anything at all?”,
“What makes things right or wrong?” And “What happens to us when we die?” These
questions are also addressed by religion. The subject matter of philosophy and
religion significantly overlap. And where there is overlap, there is the
possibility of disputed territory.
Proponents of philosophy in the classroom may find themselves coming into
conflict with at least some of the faithful. While many religious people are
enthusiastic about philosophy in the classroom, there are also many who are
either totally opposed to it, or else want severely to restrict its scope. Some
Christians, Muslims and Jews consider the introduction of philosophy an
unwelcome intrusion into those parts of the curriculum that have traditionally
been deemed theirs. They have developed a whole range of objections.
I want to look at two very popular
objections to the suggestion that all children should be encouraged to think
critically and independently about moral and religious questions. The first is:
To encourage a thinking, questioning
attitude on these topics is to promote
relativism.
The second is:
Parents have a right to send their child to a school where their religious beliefs
will not be subjected to critical scrutiny.
Here is an illustration of both worries
being expressed simultaneously. In 2004, the U.K.’s Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) proposed that all
children should be exposed to a range of religious faiths and atheism, and also
that they be taught to think critically about religious belief. The IPPR
recommended that the focus be on
learning how to make informed, rational judgements on
the truth or falsity of religious propositions… Pupils would be actively
encouraged to question the religious beliefs they bring with them into the
classroom, not so that they are better able to defend or rationalise them, but
so that they are genuinely free to adopt whatever position on religious matters
they judge to be best supported by the evidence. (Hand, 2004)
What the IPPR proposed is, in
effect, a form of philosophy in the classroom: the philosophical examination of
religious belief.
Many
religious people were entirely comfortable with this proposal. But not all. The
Daily Telegraph ran a leader a leader
condemning the IPPR’s recommendations. Here is Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips quoting from it approvingly:
As [this] Telegraph leader comments, this is nothing
other than yet another attempt at ideological indoctrination: 'It reflects the
belief that parents who pass on the Christian faith are guilty of
indoctrinating their children, and that it is the role of the state to stop
them. The IPPR and its allies in the Government are not so much interested in
promoting diversity as in replacing one set of orthodoxies by another: the
joyless ideology of cultural relativism.'’ (Phillips, 2004)
Here we find both of the
concerns mentioned above expressed simultaneously. Surely parents have a right
to send their children to a school where their religious beliefs will be
promoted without being subjected to this sort of independent critical scrutiny.
The state has no right to interfere. And in any case, isn’t encouraging such
critical thought itself a form of
indoctrination – in this case, indoctrination with the poisonous dogma of
relativism?
The charge of relativism
I’ll consider that
charge of promoting relativism first.
Relativism, as Melanie Philips and the Daily Telegraph use the term, is the
view that the truth in some particular sphere is relative.
Some truths
are indeed relative. Consider wichitti grubs – those huge larvae eaten live by
some aboriginal Australians. Most Westerners find them revolting (certainly,
the model Jordan did when she was recently required to eat one on I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here).
But at least some native Australians consider them delicious.
So what is the truth about wichitti grubs? Are they
delicious, or aren’t they? The truth, it seems, is that, unlike the truth about
whether wichitti grubs are carbon-based life forms or whether they are found in
Australia, there is no objective,
mind-independent truth. The truth about the deliciousness of wichitti grubs
is relative. For Jordan, that wichitti grubs are delicious is false. For
others, it’s true. When it comes to deliciousness, what’s true and false
ultimately boils down to subjective opinion or taste.
The relativist about morality insists that the truth of
moral claims is similarly relative. There’s no objective truth about whether
female circumcision, stealing from supermarkets, or even killing an innocent
human being, is morally wrong. Rightness and wrongness ultimately also boil
down to subjective preference or taste. What’s true for one person or culture
may be false for another.
The relativist about religious truth similarly insists that the
truth about whether or not Jesus is God is relative. That Jesus
is God is true-for-Christians but false-for Muslims. The “truth” about religion
is simply whatever the faithful take it to be.
Often associated with relativism is a form of non-judgementalism – if, say, all moral
and religious points of view are equally “valid”, then we are wrong to judge those who hold different
moral and religious views.
This brand of non-judgementalist relativism about truth
is widely considered to be eating away at the fabric of Western civilization
like a cancer. It is supposed to be deeply
destructive – resulting in a culture of selfish, shallow individualism in which
personal preference trumps everything and, ultimately, anything goes.
Relativism is
certainly commonly supposed to have infected the young. Schools are often
blamed. Marianne Talbot of Brasenose College Oxford, says about her students
that they
have been taught to think their opinion is no better than anyone else’s,
that there is no truth, only truth-for-me. I come across this relativist view
constantly – in exams, in discussion and in tutorials – and I find it
frightening: to question it amounts, in the eyes of the young, to the belief
that it is permissible to impose your views on others. (quoted in
Phillips, 1997, p. 221)
The U.S. academic Allan Bloom writes:
[t]here is one
thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering
university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative. (Bloom, 1987,
p. 25)
The new Pontiff is also deeply concerned. He says,
We are moving towards a dictatorship of relativism which
does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal
one's own ego and one's own desires. (Ratzinger 2005)
Relativism even gets the blame for the rise of dangerously
rigid political and religious dogmas. Just last week, it was reported that the Ministry
of Defence believes that
the trend towards moral relativism
and increasingly pragmatic values [is causing] more rigid belief systems,
including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as
popularism and Marxism. (quoted in Baginni, 2007)
Interestingly, when Nick Tate, head of the UK’s QCAA
(the U.K. body responsible for devising and assessing the national curriculum)
introduced compulsory classes in citizenship for all pupils attending
state-funded schools, he was explicit that one of his chief concerns was to
“slay the dragon of relativism”. (Tate, 1996)
So,
relativism is supposed to be rampant. But where did it come from?
The roots of relativism
In the minds of many, the blame
lies with the Enlightenment and the 1960’s[u2] .Take the U.K.’s Chief Rabbi, Jonathan
Sacks, for example. He finds particular fault with the Enlightenment
philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant provides the classic definition of
Enlightenment. He says individuals should think independently and make their
own judgement, rather than defer more or less uncritically to some external
authority:
[Enlightenment
is the] emergence of man from his self-imposed infancy. Infancy is the
inability to use one’s reason without the guidance of another. It is
self-imposed, when it depends on a deficiency, not of reason, but of the
resolve and courage to use it without external guidance. Thus the watchword of
enlightenment is: Sapere aude! Have
the courage to use your own reason! (quoted in Honderich, 1995, entry on
Enlightenment))
It is no coincidence that “Sapere”
and “Aude” have been adopted as the names of two philosophy-for-children
organizations.
The Chief Rabbi
considers Kant’s thinking dangerous. He says that
according to Kant…[t]o do something because others do, or because of
habit or custom or even Divine Command, is to accept an external authority over
the one sovereign territory that is truly our own: our own choices. The moral
being for Kant is by definition an autonomous being, a person who accepts no
other authority than the self. By the 1960s this was beginning to gain hold as
an educational orthodoxy. The task of education is not to hand on a tradition
but to enhance the consciousness of choice. (Sacks 1997, p. 176)
It’s this Kantian rejection of any
external moral authority that might decide right and wrong for us - Kant’s insistence on the moral autonomy of
the individual - that is the root cause of our problems. It’s here that we find
the origin of today’s relativism. For to teach in accordance with Kant’s
thinking, says Sacks, requires,
…non-judgementalism
and relativism on the part of the teacher” (Ibid.)
[u3] Melanie Phillips concurs. “It seems reasonable,” she says “to regard
the Enlightenment as the defining moment for the collapse of external
authority” (Phillips, 1996, p. 189) The problem with Enlightenment thinking,
argues Phillips, is that
instead
of authority being located “out there” in a body of knowledge handed down
through the centuries, we have repositioned it “in here” within each child.
(Phillips, 1996, p. 28)
Because each individual “has become their
own individual arbiter of conduct” so relativism and the view that “no-one else
[is] permitted to pass judgement” have become the norm.
For
Sacks, Phillips, and many other religious conservatives, Kant’s “Sapere Aude!” – the battle cry of the
Enlightenment – lies at the very heart of the West’s “moral malaise”. It is not
surprising, then, that Phillips would oppose the IPPR’s recommendations that
children be encouraged to think critically about their own religious beliefs
and traditions.
According to Sacks, Phillips, and very
many others, encouraging children to
think independently, particularly about moral and religious matters, is
precisely what got us into the awful mess in which we now find ourselves.
They believe the time has come to move back in the direction of the
traditional, authority-based moral and religious education that tended to
predominate before the 60’s.
Philosophy
in the classroom promotes relativism?
I have sketched out just one of the many
reasons social and religious conservatives will give when explaining their
hostility to the suggestion that all children ought to be encouraged and
trained to think critically even about moral and religious beliefs. Such encouragement,
they claim, promotes relativism. But
need it?
No. In my book The War For Children’s Minds, I deal with this sort of objection –
as well as many others – in much greater detail. Here I will merely sketch out
three very obvious reasons why to encourage and teach children to think
critically even about morality and religion need not entail the promotion of
relativism and non-judgementalism.
1.
Relativism entails no point to thinking
critically. If
relativism were true, there would be no
point in engaging in the kind of critical thinking that proponents of
philosophy in schools recommend. For if relativism is true, the belief that you
arrive at after much very carefully critical thought will be no more true than
the one you started with. Those who recommend we think critically about the Big
Questions – including moral and religious questions – even from a young age
are, in effect, opposed to relativism
insofar as they think that this sort of activity is able to get us closer to
the truth.
2.
Philosophy can combat relativism. Secondly, a children’s philosophy
programme is free to include critical discussion of relativism. A little close
critical scrutiny is able pretty quickly to reveal precisely why the usual
politically-motivated arguments for relativism (such as that only relativists
can promote tolerance) are, frankly, awful. I believe children should have the
failings of moral relativism explained to them. That should form part of their
education.
3.
Relativism and respect for religious
authority. Thirdly,
there’s at least anecdotal evidence that, rather than relativism being a
product of a thinking, questioning culture, embracing relativism may be a
strategy teachers embrace in order to avoid
thinking critically about – and, in particular, questioning the authority of – any given religious tradition. If a
teacher is required to teach a range of faiths, children are likely to spot
that they contradict each other, and will inevitably ask, “Which is actually true? Is Jesus God, as Christians claim,
or merely a prophet, as Muslims claim?” Suggest that one religion must be
mistaken and phone calls may ensue (“My daughter has been told the Pope might
be mistaken”). Embracing relativism provides teachers with an easy escape from
this dilemma. They can say “That Jesus is God is true-for-Christians, but
false-for-Muslims”. Religious relativism conveniently makes all religious beliefs come out as true.
As Marilyn Mason (former chief education officer for the British Humanist Association) here explains, rather than promoting
relativism, clear philosophical thinking is actually well placed to combat this sort of shoddy, relativistic
thinking.
I used to wonder where my students’ shoulder shrugging
relativism and subjectivism about knowledge came from, though I think I now
know: talk of “different truths” or “subjective truth” seems to have become the
accepted RE way of demonstrating tolerance and mutual respect when confronted
with differing and sometimes conflicting beliefs and views on morality or the
supernatural… Here is an area where the clear thinking characteristic of
philosophy at its best would surely help. (Mason, 2005, p. 37)
Regarding the last two points, I should
add, incidentally, that I do not mean that children should simply be told that
they must more-or-less uncritically accept that relativism is twaddle. The idea
is not to encourage independent critical thought about everything… except, er,
relativism. But I see no reason why children cannot be given the very good
arguments against relativism (which, presented correctly, are both engaging and
fairly easy to grasp) to reflect on at an appropriate stage in their
development.
I
should perhaps also add that the kind of philosophy programme I would recommend
is not, then, an exclusively hands-off affair in which topics are always chosen
by children, in which children are never taught basic skills, positions and
styles of argument, and in which the supposedly “philosophical” discussion is
allowed to take the form of little more than a free association of ideas, with
little, if any, logical structure or rigour.
While I am enthusiastic about class
discussions on the P4C model (which are often excellent), I think they probably
need to be paired at some stage with some teaching of the basic skills,
arguments and positions – including relativism. (This is not to say I favour a
dry semi-academic approach either – I think we need to develop new, engaging
ways of teaching skills, arguments and positions.)
I don’t deny, of course, that this sort
of teaching would need to be carried out by people who are at least reasonably
competent in the area, by teachers who, for example, are well-versed in the
arguments for and against relativism. Nor do I deny that an intellectually
flabby “philosophy for children” programme might inadvertently end up promoting
relativism. But there is certainly no necessity that philosophy in the
classroom should promote relativism. As I say, done correctly, philosophy in
the classroom is actually well-placed to combat
the kind of relativism that is allegedly carrying Western civilization to hell
in a hand basket.
A
parental right to a philosophy-free religious and moral education?
Now let’s turn to the second objection I
mentioned at the beginning of this section – that parents have a right to send their child to a school
where their religious beliefs will not be subjected to critical scrutiny.
Of course, many who favour philosophy in
schools will agree with this. They may say, “I believe philosophy in schools is
a very good idea, but I don’t think it should be forced on religious parents if they don’t want it.”
My view is that the IPPR recommendations
are sound: all children should, without exception, be encouraged to
think critically – and thus philosophically – even about the moral and
religious beliefs they bring with them into the classroom. Religious parents
should not be able to opt out.
I am not going to attempt to make much of
a positive case for that perhaps rather illiberal-sounding assertion here. I will
simply offer a challenge to those who, like Phillips and
the Daily Telegraph, believe that
schools that promote a religious faith in a wholly uncritical way are
acceptable.
Suppose political schools started
springing up – a neoconservative school in Billericay followed by a communist
school in Middlesbrough. Suppose these schools select pupils on the basis of
parents’ political beliefs. Suppose they start each morning with the collective
singing of political anthems. Suppose portraits of their political leaders beam
down from every classroom wall. Suppose they insist that pupils accept, more or
less uncritically, the beliefs embodied in their revered political texts. If
such schools did spring up, there would be outrage. These establishments would
be accused of educationally stunting children, forcing their minds into
politically pre-approved moulds. They’re the kind of Orwellian schools you find
under totalitarian regimes in places like Stalinist Russia.
My question is, if such political schools are utterly unacceptable, if they are guilty
of educationally stunting children, why on Earth are so many of us still
prepared to tolerate their religious equivalents? Why, if we cross out
"political" and write "religious", do these schools
suddenly strike many of us as entirely acceptable?
Assuming that Phillips and the Daily Telegraph would consider such
political schools unacceptable (irrespective of the desire of parents to send
their children to them), the onus is surely on them to explain why we should
consider their religious equivalents rather more acceptable – indeed, even desirable.
One move they might make would be to say
that our political beliefs are clearly far too practically important – they are
far too likely to have a concrete impact in terms of the kind of society we
live in – to be left in the hands of the indoctrinators. Religious beliefs, on
the other hand, are more other-worldly, and so less of a concern.
But this would be to overlook that
religious beliefs are often intensely political. Clearly, religious
points of view on homosexuality, charity, a woman’s place in the home, abortion,
the State of Israel, jihad, and even poverty and injustice, are all political.
There are few aspects of religious belief that don’t have an important
political dimension.
In
which case, my challenge becomes sharper still: if such authoritarian political
schools are unacceptable, then why are their religious equivalents acceptable, particularly
as these religious schools are, in effect, highly political?
Conclusion
I see no reason why [u4] an enlightened, liberal
approach to moral and religious education of the sort recommended by the IPPR
cannot be conducted in religiously-affiliated schools. It is not incompatible
with a religious upbringing. Teachers at a Christian school, for example, might
say “This is what we believe, and these are the reasons why we believe it.
Obviously we would like you to believe it to, but not just because we tell you to. We want you to think and question
and make up your own minds.” A school can have a strong Christian ethos
even while encouraging independent critical thought- indeed, even while
promoting philosophy in the classroom.
I don’t yet see that the appeal to relativism and
parental rights justifies either the conclusion that philosophy in the
religious classroom is largely undesirable or the conclusion that it be made,
at most, an optional extra.
PART TWO: Reasons and causes
In this
second part of this chapter, I want to make a well-known philosophical
distinction – that between reasons and causes – and then draw out a couple of
conclusions concerning philosophy in the classroom.
Reasons and causes
People’s
beliefs can be shaped in two very different ways, as illustrated by the two
different ways we might answer the question “Why does Jane believe what she
does?”
First, we might offer Jane’s
reasons and justifications – the grounds of her belief. Why does Jane believe
our CO2 gas emissions are causing global warming? Well, she has seen
the figures on how much CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere, and
she has seen the graphs based on Antarctic ice cores showing how global
temperatures have closely tracked CO2 levels over the last 600,000
years. So, concludes Jane on the basis of this evidence, the rising
temperatures are very probably a result of our CO2 emissions.
Another example: why does Jane
believe there is a pencil on the table in front of her? Because there appears
to be a pencil there. She remembers just putting a pencil there. And she has no
reason to suppose that there’s anything funny going on (that she’s
hallucinating, the victim of an optical illusion, or whatever).
Of course, explaining why someone
believes something by giving their grounds or reasons is not yet to say that
they are good reasons. Mary may believe she will meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger
because that’s what a psychic hotline told her.
So we can explain beliefs by giving
people’s reasons. But this is not the only way in which beliefs can be
explained. Suppose John believes he is a teapot. Why? Because John attended a
hypnotist’s stage-show last night. John was pulled out of the audience and
hypnotized into believing he is a teapot. The hypnotist forgot to un-hypnotize
him, and so John is still stuck with that belief.
Of course, John needn’t be aware of
the true explanation of why he believes he is a teapot. He may not remember
being hypnotized. If we ask him to justify his belief, he may find himself
oddly unable. He may simply find himself stuck with it. He may well say, with
utter conviction, that he just knows
he is a teapot. In fact, because such non-inferentially-held beliefs are
usually perceptual beliefs, it may seem to John that he can see he’s a teapot. “Look!” he may say,
sticking out his arms “Here’s my handle and here’s my spout!”
So we can explain beliefs by giving
a person’s reasons, grounds and
justifications, and we can explain beliefs by giving purely causal explanations (I say purely causal, as reasons can be causes
too [see for example Davidson, 1963)).
Purely causal explanations range
from, say, being hypnotized or brainwashed to caving in to peer pressure or
wishful thinking. These mechanisms may even include, say, being genetically predisposed to having
certain sorts of belief (it has been suggested by Daniel Dennett (2006) and
others that we are, for example, genetically predisposed to religious belief).
Of course, both kinds of
explanation may be relevant when it comes to explaining why Sophie believes
that P. Sophie may believe that P in part
because there is some evidence for P,
though not enough to warrant belief in P, and in part because she is, say, biologically predisposed to believe P.
It may be that neither factor, by itself, is sufficient to explain Sophie’s
belief.
We may well flatter
ourselves about just how rational we are. Sometimes, when we believe something,
we think we’re simply responding rationally to the evidence, but the truth is
we have been manipulated in a purely causal way. I might think I have decided
that sexism is wrong because I’ve recognized the inherent rationality of the
case against it, when the truth is that I have simply caved in to peer pressure
and my unconscious desire to conform.[i]
Brainwashing
So there are two ways
in which we might explain belief. There are, correspondingly, at least two ways
in which we might seek to induce belief in someone. We might attempt to make a
rational case, try to persuade them by means of evidence and cogent argument.
Or we might take the purely causal route and try to hypnotize, apply peer
pressure, etc. instead.
One
of the most obvious ways of engaging in purely causal manipulation of what
people believe is, of course, brainwashing. Kathleen Taylor, a research
scientist in physiology at the University of Oxford who has published a study
of brainwashing, writes that five core techniques consistently show up:
One
striking fact about brainwashing is its consistency. Whether the context is a
prisoner of war camp, a cult’s headquarters or a radical mosque, five core
techniques keep cropping up: isolation, control, uncertainty, repetition and
emotional manipulation. (Taylor, 2005)
The isolation may involve
physical isolation or separation. Control
covers restricting the information and range of views people have access to,
and includes censorship. Cults tend endlessly to repeat their beliefs to potential converts. This repetition may
include, for example, very regular communal chanting or singing. Under uncertainty, Taylor discusses the
discomfort we feel when presented with uncertainty: by providing a simple set
of geometric certainties that cover and explain everything, and also constantly
reminding people of the vagaries and chaos of what lies outside this belief
system, cultists can make their system seem increasingly attractive. Emotional manipulation can take many forms
– most obviously the associating of positive feelings and images (e.g.
uplifting or serenely smiling icons) with the belief system, and fear and
uncertainty with the alternatives.
Of course, the
extent to which these techniques are applied varies from cult to cult. Clearly,
they are also applied by non-religious cults and regimes. A school in Mao’s
China or under the present regime in North Korea would almost certainly check
all five boxes.
I note (though Taylor doesn’t), simply as a
point of fact, that religious schools of
the sort that tended to predominate in this country up until the 1960’s also
very clearly check all five boxes.[ii]
That these and other purely causal
mechanisms are effective at influencing belief even outside a cult’s headquarters
or a prisoner of war camp is surely undeniable. We are all very heavily
influenced by them. The success of the advertizing industry is testimony to
their effectiveness. Indeed, many advertising campaigns check many, if not all,
of Taylor’s five boxes for brainwashing.
When challenged on this, the industry
typically insists that it is primarily
concerned with “informing” the public[u5] - providing good reasons and evidence on which consumers can base a
rational and informed choice. Nevertheless the main tools of the advertizing
trade are for the most part purely causal. An advertisement for soap powder,
lipstick, a car or a loan typically contains very little factual information or
argument. The power of these adverts to shape our thinking and behaviour is
mostly purely causal – they play on our uncertainties and rely very heavily on
repetition and emotional manipulation.
The question of balance
That such purely causal mechanisms are going to shape what people
believe is something that is, to some extent, unavoidable. Even in a very
liberal educational setting in which philosophy is involved, there will
inevitably be many purely causal factors also influencing belief. Certainly, we
should admit that a classroom is not wholly given over to the space of reasons.
All sorts of causal and psychological pressures are applied, knowingly and
unknowingly, within a school. This may even, to a very significant extent, be
desirable.
The question is how these purely causal influences
should be balanced against giving
reasons and justifications, encouraging rational reflection, and so on.
Now I would suggest
that the extent to which religious people tend to favour or oppose the
introduction of philosophy in the classroom (and the extent to which they would
recommend a return to more traditional religious educational methods) tends to a very large extent to correspond
with the degree to which they prefer reliance on techniques that are, in
effect, purely causal.
Philosophy in the classroom is of course
about thinking critically and independently about many of the same issues in
which religion has a stake. Free and open discussion, in which all views are
open to close critical scrutiny (religious views included) means operating
within what Wilfred Sellars called “the logical space of reasons”[u6] (Sellars, 1956, p. 169)
On the other hand, while traditional
religious education might also involve a degree of free discussion (typically
within certain parameters: children may be subtly or not so subtly steered away
from asking certain sorts of question or making certain sorts of point), it was
generally orientated far more towards purely causal techniques of influencing
belief. Daily repetitive acts of worship, repetitive prayer, isolation from other
belief systems (including physical isolation from those who hold them), control
over the range of materials children have access to (such as writings critical
of that faith), the punishment of those who dare to question (a colleague of
mine educated in a Catholic School in the 1960’s was punished simply for asking
why the Catholic Church opposed
contraception) and emotional manipulation (associating “all things bright and
beautiful” with the faith, images of moral chaos and hell with the
alternatives) – these techniques were the mainstay of religious education.
So while every style of moral and religious
education inevitably involves a blend of both engaging children’s rational,
critical faculties and (whether or
not intentionally) applying purely causal mechanisms, one of the fundamental
issues dividing proponents of philosophy in the classroom from religious
traditionalists is how these two
ingredients should be balanced.
Truth-sensitivity
I
want now to look at some of the ways in which reason-involving educational methods
differ from purely causal mechanisms for shaping belief. Let’s begin with truth-sensitivity.
One
interesting fact about these two ways of getting someone to believe something
is that, generally speaking[iii],
only one is truth-sensitive.
The
purely causal mechanisms of isolation, control, repetition, uncertainty and
emotional manipulation, for example, can be used to induce the belief that
Paris is the capital of France. But they can just as easily be applied to
induce the beliefs that Paris is the capital of Germany and that Big Brother
loves you.
The
attractive thing about appealing to someone’s power of reason, by contrast, is
that it strongly favours beliefs that are true.
Cogent argument doesn’t easily lend itself to inducing false beliefs. You are going
to have a hard time trying to construct a strong, well-reasoned case capable of
withstanding critical scrutiny for believing that Swindon is inhabited by giant
wasp-men or that the Earth’s core is made of cheese.
Sound
reasoning and critical thought tend to act as a filter on false beliefs. Of
course, the filter is not foolproof – false beliefs will inevitably get
through. But it does tend to allow into a person’s mind only those beliefs that
have at least a fairly good chance of
being correct.
Indeed,
unlike the purely causal techniques of inducing belief discussed above, the use
of reason is a double-edged sword. It cuts both ways. It doesn’t automatically
favour the teacher’s beliefs over the pupil’s. It favours the truth, and so
places the teacher and the pupil on a level playing field. If, as a teacher,
you try to use reason to persuade, you may discover your pupil can show that it
is you, and not them, that is
mistaken. That’s a risk some “educators” are not prepared to take.
Causal vs normative determination
Some
post-modern thinkers insist, of course, that “reason” is a term used to dignify
what is, in reality, merely another purely causal mechanism for influencing
belief, alongside brainwashing and indoctrination. Reason is no more sensitive
to the “truth” than these other mechanisms (for of course there is really no
truth for it to be sensitive to). Reason is, in reality, just another form of power – of thought-control. It is essentially as manipulative as any other
mechanism.
But
this is to overlook the fact that while a rational argument can in a sense
“force” a conclusion on you, the “force” involved is normative, not causal.
Causal
determination determines what will
happen. For example, given the causal power of these rails to direct this
train, the train will go Oxford.
Indeed, it is causally forced or compelled to. Normative determination, on the
other hand, determines not what will
happen, but what ought to. It is an
entirely distinct kind of determination involving an entirely different sort of
“compulsion” or “force”.
A
rational argument shows you what you ought
to believe if you want to avoid contradiction and give your beliefs the best
chance of being true. Take this valid deductive argument:
All
men smell
John
is a man
Therefore,
John smells.
To recognise that this
argument is valid, is just to recognize that if you believe that all men smell,
and that John is a man, then you ought to
believe that John smells. But of course this argument doesn’t causally compel you to accept that
conclusion even if you do accept the premises. You’re
free to be irrational.
This isn't to
deny that rational arguments have causal power. Of course they do. A good
argument can have the power to change history (consider the wonderful arguments
of Galileo, or the campaigner against slavery William Wilberforce). But when
rational arguments have the causal power to shape people’s thinking, they
typically have it as a result of their having normative power. People change
their opinions precisely because they recognize the normative force of the argument.
[Notice, by the
way, that we can easily demonstrate that a rational argument doesn’t have
normative power simply in virtue of its having the causal power to shape
people’s thinking (though critics who fail to understand the difference between
normative and causal determination or "force" typically miss this
point). The obvious counter-example is fallacious
argument. A fallacious argument lacks any normative power. But notice that,
if the fallacy is seductive, it will still have considerable causal power to shape belief.]
So rational arguments have causal powers. But that is not to say that rational argument is in reality just another purely causal mechanism alongside e.g.
brainwashing and peer pressure.
So
far, I have stressed how rational argument differs from purely causal
mechanisms for influencing belief. In particular, rational argument is
truth-sensitive, while purely causal mechanisms are typically not. Also, rational
arguments, while possessing causal power to shape belief, typically have this
power in virtue of their normative power. The kind of “determination” a
rational argument “imposes” on us is, in the first instance, normative, not
causal[u7] . Rational argument is certainly not a form of coercion or
manipulation in the way that purely causal mechanisms are.
Let’s
now develop that last point a little further. As I explain below, it seems to
me that rational arguments allow for a form of freedom in a way that purely causal mechanisms do not.
Reason and freedom
Enlightenment liberals
like myself tend to feel uncomfortable about heavy reliance on purely causal
mechanisms. Here’s one reason why.
When
you use reason to persuade, you respect the other’s freedom to make (or fail to
make) a rational decision.[iv]
When you apply purely causal mechanisms, you take that freedom from them. Your subject may think they’ve made an entirely free and rational decision, of
course, but the truth is that they’re your puppet – you’re pulling their
strings. In effect, by ditching reason and relying on purely causal mechanisms
– peer pressure, emotional manipulation, repetition, and so on – you are now
treating them as just one more bit of the causally-manipulatable natural order
– as mere things.
On
one of the formulations of his categorical imperative, Kant says that we ought always to treat both others and
ourselves always as ends in themselves, and never purely as means to an end. We
should not treat others or ourselves in an entirely instrumental way, as we
might treat a screwdriver or car, to get the result we want. We should have
“respect for persons” – for their the inherent freedom and rationality, which,
according to Kant, is what distinguishes them from mere things.
Here’s
an illustration (not Kant’s) of the kind of respect Kant has in mind. Suppose I
need food to feed my starving children. I might get food from the local shop by
lying – by saying that I will pay for it next week knowing full well that I
won’t. Or I might try to get food by honestly explaining my situation to the
shopkeeper and hoping she will be charitable. In both cases, I “use” the
shopkeeper to get what I want. But, unlike the first option, the second does
not involve using the shopkeeper purely
as a means to an end. I respect her rationality and freedom to make her own
decision about whether to provide food without payment. Kant says that only the
second option shows the shopkeeper the proper respect she is due as a person.
The first treats her purely instrumentally, as if she were merely a thing.
Avoiding
the purely causal route so far as influencing the beliefs of others is
concerned is, presumably, one of the things that Kant would insist on. Indeed,
if Kant is right, it seems that reliance
on purely causal mechanisms to shape belief also involves a fundamental lack of
respect for persons.
How to influence belief?
It is undeniable that,
as educators, we do want to influence
children’s beliefs. Influencing beliefs is not all there is to education,
not by a very long way. But that this is one
of the things we are interested in doing in the classroom is surely undeniable.
We don’t want to send children out into the world believing that a woman’s
place is behind the sink, that it’s morally acceptable to torture animals, that
Jewish people are untrustworthy, or that the entire universe is just six
thousand years old. Well I don’t, anyway.
So let’s admit that we want to
influence what children believe[v].
The question is: how?
My central aim in the second part of
this paper has been to show how the philosophical distinction between
reasons and causes can help illuminate this question. We have seen that rational argument differs
from taking the purely causal route in at least three important ways:
(i)
it is truth-sensitive (whereas purely causal mechanisms typically are
not)
(ii)
while rational arguments can be
causally powerful, their causal power typically derives from their normative power – which is a categorically
distinct non-causal form of “power”.
(iii)
Rational argument allows for an
important form of freedom - a freedom
that the purely causal mechanisms actually strips from us.
We have also seen that religious traditionalists lean rather more
towards purely causal mechanisms for influencing belief then do proponents of
philosophy in the classroom. Indeed, this is one of the fundamental issues,
perhaps the fundamental issue,
dividing them.
How the distinction can illuminate the debate
To finish, I want to provide a
couple of examples of how thinking about the debate between proponents of
philosophy in the classroom and religious traditionalists in these terms might
shed some light on some of the arguments offered on either side.
1. A temptation
First, the distinction
makes a little clearer, perhaps, why taking the purely causal route can be tempting. When you open up debate and
critical discussion, you run the risk that people won’t believe what you want
them to believe. If we suppose that certain beliefs are very important indeed,
perhaps even vital for the survival of Western civilization, well then the
temptation to take the purely causal route can become very strong indeed.
For
example, some argue that, whether or not religious belief is true, it is
socially necessary. Remove it, and society will eventually fall apart. So we
must rely on traditional religious education to instill it. Bring reason into
religious education, and, given its truth-detecting power, the dubiousness of
religious belief might be exposed. The results may be disastrous. So philosophy
in the classroom – and certainly in the classoom where religion is discussed – is
a bad, if not downright dangerous, idea. Many American neo-conservatives take
this view.
At
least some of these kinds of concern deserve to be taken seriously.
2. Muddling reasons and causes
Secondly, a failure
properly to understand this distinction may
lead defenders of traditional religious educational techniques to think that
their methods are, in essence, really not so very different to what proponents
of philosophy in the classroom have in mind. At bottom, aren’t both really
just forms of causing-people-to-believe-what-you-want-them-to-believe? As we
saw above, Melanie Phillips considers what the IPPR proposes (critical scrutiny of religious beliefs in the
classroom) to be, just “another attempt at
ideological indoctrination”. In Phillips’ mind, philosophy in the
classroom is not an alternative to indoctrination. It’s just a different kind of indoctrination.
It
is certainly in the interests of religious opponents of philosophy in the
classroom to obscure the distinction between educating within the logical space
of reasons, and educating via the purely causal route. In particular, it is in
their interests to obscure the fact that the distinction raises some very
fundamental questions about freedom,
and also about what Kant calls “respect for persons”.
That many proponents of traditional
religious educational methods (who would oppose philosophy in the classroom)
fail fully to realize the extent to which they are applying purely causal
mechanisms to induce belief is also indicated by the fact that when the beliefs
in question are political, not religious and when the techniques are applied in
political schools rather than religious schools, they consider these same
techniques “brain-washing”.
That
many of the faithful simply don’t recognize that their preferred educational
methods come at least very close to brainwashing is, I suspect, largely due to
fact that - within the religious setting of convent schools, madrassas, etc.
and, of course, within their own upbringing (“After all, it never did me any
harm”) - these techniques have acquired the rosy glow of comfortable familiarity.
REFERENCES
Asch, S. (1951) “Effects of group pressure
upon the modification and distortion of judgments”, in Guetzkow, H. (1951), pp.
177-190.
Baginni, J. (2007) “What The Clash
of Civilizations is Really About”, The
Guardian 14th April.
Bloom, A. (1987) The Closing of The American Mind, New York:
Touchstone.
Davidson, D. (1963) “Actions,
Reasons and Causes”, The
Journal of Philosophy, vol. 60, No. 23, pp. 685-700
Dennett, D. Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking
(Penguin).
Feigl, H, and Scriven, M. (1956) The Foundations of Science and the Concepts
of Psychoanalysis, Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. I,
Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Guetzkow, H. (Ed.) (1951) Groups, Leadership and Men: Research in
Human Relations, Pittsburgh: Carnegie Press.
Hand, M. (2004) ‘What is RE for?’, in the
IPPR Event Report What is Religious
Education for? Getting the National Framework Right, (http://www.ippr.org/uploadedFiles/projects/RE%20Event%20Report%20-%20FINAL%20for%20pdf.PDF).
Honderich, T. (1995) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Mason, M. (2205) “Philosophy –
can’t live with it, can’t live without it”, THINK,
issue10, p. 37
Phillips, M. (1996) All Must Have Prizes, London:
Warner Books.
Phillips,
M. (2004) http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/000330.html.
Ratzinger
J. (Cardinal) (2005)Homily at the mass for the election of the Roman Pontiff.
18th April.
Sacks J. (1997) The Politics of Hope, London: Jonathan
Cape.
Sellars, W. (1956) "Empiricism
and the Philosophy of Mind", in Feigl and Scriven (1956) pp 127-196.
Tate, N. (1996) Speech to the
SCAA, 15th January
Taylor, K. (2005) “Thought Crime” The Guardian, 8th October.
[i]
That what we believe, or at least what we will say we believe, is shaped far
more by peer pressure than we might imagine was suggested by the experiments of
Solomon Asch (1951) back in the early
50’s (Asch found that, in order to avoid being out of step with what their
peers believe, the majority of his subjects denied what was clearly before
their eyes). See Asch,
[ii] Incidentally, the fact that many of those who have been through
this kind of traditional religious schooling, despite not being able to
rationally justify or defend their belief, will often insist (like John who was
hypnotized into believing he is a teapot) that they “just know” that what they
believe is true – that, indeed, this truth seems to be revealed to them via a
sort of quasi-perceptual (i.e. religious) experience
– would largely be explained by the fact that these kinds of purely causal,
manipulative techniques were applied to them throughout childhood (though of
course this is not yet to say that this is explanation is correct).
[iii]
Some purely causal mechanisms are
truth sensitive. For example, a thermometer is a fairly reliable mechanism for
indicating temperature. Similarly, our perceptual mechanisms are fairly
reliable mechanisms for producing true beliefs. They “track the truth”, as it
were. Notice, however, that the purely causal techniques typically applied by
cults, and indeed, in religious schools, are not truth-sensitive. They can just
as easily be applied to induce false beliefs as true ones.
[iv]
Someone might raise the worry: If we are physically determined, then we don't have
free will, and if we don’t have free will, then we cannot make free, rational
judgements and decisions after all.
Well, yes, perhaps there is, for the above reason, a
sense in which none of our judgements are “free”. But there remains a sense, I think, in which
rational persuasion allows for a kind
of freedom that the purely causal mechanisms strip from us. And this kind of
freedom might be compatible with e.g. physical determinism.
[v]
Those who say they don’t want to influence belief may well do so because they
have themselves lost sight of the distinction between operating within the
logical space of reasons and taking the purely causal route. To try rationally
to persuade a child is, in their minds, just another form of oppressive thought
control. But of course, as we have just seen, it is not.
Comments
But I would go beyond high school philosophy. I think that philosophy and critical thinking should be compulsory in HE science courses and in special in the life sciences.
It seems that philosophy A-level is in danger of being dumbed down.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/29/philosophy-a-level-syllabus-religious-education
I think the "fact" that the belief that "political" schools are beyond the pale of both liberal and conservative thinkers in the west is a DANGEROUS position.
Such a "belief" leads to a fractric society (as we see in the UK), i.e. there is no cohesion within the community, this leads to a basic political system (akin to anarchy) based on "individualism", i.e. your own moral command:
"Thou shalt think critically"
That promotes an attitude of one being at odds or at war with the state, in other words one is a pirate.
And not of one of individuation.
For my own view...I would recommend my children to be exposed to political schooling...It would be a good thing.
Philosophy at school is dodgey...can be good if the teacher is good but most likely is very poor...
For example on the P4C webpage...much is made of an incident where the children after discussing what is light...come up with the idea...
"Is light the absence of darkenss or is darkness is the absence of light?"
The P4C team seem to think that this is a rich and thoughtful piece of philosophical insight...when in fact it is pure waffle and confusion...
I heard Richard Dawkins describe when questioned: "What would you tell a child if he asked if Father Christmas existed?"
He replied..."Well, I wouldn't tell the child that Father Christmase didn't exist...what I would do is tell him...well, let's think about this "critically"...one Father Christmas...and how many chimmenys?"
This is supposed to give the child the "right" answer, i.e. what Dawkins thinks on the subject.
His response is similar to the "absence of light idea" of the P4C webpage and reveals so many philosophical and scientific confusions...it is quite depressing...
P4C is similar to the Liberal-Democrat Party here in the UK...a small clique of lost in the woods thinking...
In fact, I would go so far as to say that P4C IS A FORM OF POLITICAL SCHOOLING...but dressed up with the title of "Philosophy"...and is not different at all from a "religious" schooling...
Reminds me of Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit picture...the reality of the duck-rabbit picture does not change...BUT, the interpretation of the picture, i.e. now I see a rabbit, now I see a duck does change...