People generally have reasons for believing the things they believe. Sometimes those are good reasons and sometimes not. When we believe something, we typically take our reasons to be good ones. It would be hard to sustain belief for reasons we know to be bad. Perhaps people sometimes do this, but the problems with this sort of willful thinking are apparent and won’t get much comment here. The more common problem occurs when people mistake bad reasons for good reasons yet remain reluctant to testing those reasons. This is a failure of intellectual courage.
Intellectual courage consists in being willing to examine the quality of our evidence and arguments. Intellectual courage is typically exercised in a social context. It involves submitting our views and reasoning to the scrutiny of others, embracing peer review in spite of the possibility of humbling results. Left to our own devices, we aren’t so likely to spot and correct the mistakes in our thinking. We wouldn’t think the way we do to begin with if we thought it was flawed. And confirmation bias is liable to highlight evidence and reasoning that confirms our prior ways of thinking. So, without peer review from others, we are likely to become entrenched in our opinions and the reasons that support these, whether or not these reasons are well founded.
But subjecting our opinions to peer review from people who see things differently can be a frightening proposition. We risk a good deal when we do so. Not only do we risk finding that we might be wrong about something, we also risk public discovery of this embarrassing state of affairs.
Courage generally is a willingness to take risks when the potential benefits warrant doing so. Acting courageously does not mean acting without fear. It means acting in full awareness of what is at stake, including the possibility of failure. Perhaps a person who is has developed courage through a long-standing practice of reasonable risk taking won’t be phased by fear. But people will generally have to face down lots of fear in getting to that point.
People who are very concerned about what others think may inflate the risk of others discovering they are wrong. Sometimes people have powerful reasons to be concerned about what others think. We live in an age where not having the right opinions can get you kicked out of your group. Conservative former congressman Adam Kinzinger describes this as the current situation for republican politicians when he remarked on a recent Atlantic podcast (Autocracy in America) that “many people would rather die than not belong.” And so, we have the spectacle of republican politicians who can’t admit that the last presidential election was fair, even when they know better. Intellectual courage appears to be off the table for people who care more about belonging than truth and find themselves in social situations where holding the right opinion is required for belonging. Intellectual courage can remain a big ask when holding the wrong opinion merely lowers your status slightly in the eyes of some others. This, I’d submit, is the basic dynamic of groupthink. When the group in question insists on orthodoxy, this dynamic will be intellectually oppressive. The rare person who insists on thinking independently and speaking her mind in spite of intellectually oppressive group dynamics does so at a very high price, as Adam Kinzinger might attest.
A healthier environment for exercising intellectual courage would be one where people can respect each other across differences of opinion. This isn’t quite what happens when people “agree to disagree” or when they dissolve disagreement by taking people to “have their own truth.” Demanding that others agree without is obviously disrespectful. But fencing off that part of another that doesn’t agree with you isn’t so much better. It’s a defensive maneuver which involves declining to understand the other. Respecting others does involve being open to reasonable disagreement. But disagreement is only reasonable when it is the result of reasoning together. Discovering disagreement should be a starting point for critical thinking aimed at greater understanding, not the occasion for a kind of truce or avoidance.
When I meet a philosopher I disagree with, I’m eager to understand why. This is how inquiry and research proceeds in philosophy. In trying to understand a view that differs from my current opinion I stand to learn about some new evidence or argument. The payoff for exercising intellectual courage is deepening my understanding of others and learning new things, sometimes learning from my own prior mistakes. Of course, philosophy is a pretty safe space for this kind of risk taking. Out in the real world we often encounter people who aren’t interested in understanding or being reasonable. So, it is up to us to cultivate community among critical thinkers.
We are fallible beings, and nobody likes to find they are in error. So, we will always have need of intellectual courage. But we can significantly lower the stakes and make it easier for people to exercise intellectual courage by seeking to understand differing points of view and making a shared project of reasonably evaluating our respective evidence and arguments. This is one of the key goals in teaching critical thinking.
I am constantly trying to get my students to slow their thinking down and give some thoughtful attention to how conclusions are reached, not just how they feel about the conclusions. Open-mindedness, as I understand it, is not being open to accepting or tolerating all manner of diverse ideas. There are some ideas we should not be open to because we already have compelling arguments against them. Instead, we should understand open mindedness as being open to fairly evaluating new arguments and evidence for ideas. So, let’s do that.
We’ve had some vigorous discussion on email in response to Dr. May’s recent message explaining “why the college’s leadership team and I have decided to exercise considerable restraint in making college wide public statements about external events that do not directly impact our educational mission.”
Dr May details the reasons for adopting this stance. These are worth paying attention to regardless of our feelings about the conclusions. But first, I think we’ve seen considerable distortion of the position adopted. Dr. May is not announcing a policy of institutional neutrality. He’s announcing one of “considerable restraint.” Were Bellevue to experience an event like the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville a few years ago, it would be no violation of the stated policy to issue a statement denouncing this bigotry and the adverse impact of such an event on our diverse student body. Personally, I would expect the college to take a stand, and nothing Dr. May expressed the other day would be an obstacle to this. Reaction to Dr. May’s statement hasn’t favored clarity about the position he was announcing.
Reasons were offered in support of this policy. Whatever our feeling about the policy, these deserve to be evaluated on their own merits. Otherwise, we are reacting to something we don’t fully understand. We are not in a position to fairly evaluate an idea or an argument without doing our level best to understand the position first. This is the backbone of critical thinking. The whole point of open-mindedness, thoroughness and intellectual courage is to base our evaluation of ideas and arguments on sound understanding rather than emotion, favored ideology, or personal bias. This is not easy. People of all kinds and persuasions are prone to rush to judgement. But then we wind up with discord instead of discourse. We can do better. So, what are the reasons?
First Dr. May takes a central part of the mission of the college to be to foster and sustain an environment where everyone can “think critically, share ideas, and develop their own perspectives.” Putting the institution’s weight behind specific views is liable to stifle this. Even when the call is easy and righteous, say publicly condemning kitten torture, the weight of an institutional position communicates to students and other members of our community that some things are a matter of authority and power, not inquiry.
This rationale does not imply that the institution will now condone, say, expressions of white supremacy as we saw in Charlottesville. These expressions can by highly disruptive to the mission expressed above. People do not feel safe thinking critically and sharing their own ideas when these are likely to get shouted down by bigots. Perhaps this is why this rationale does not support “official neutrality,” but rather counsels “considerable restraint.”
Next, it is our responsibility “to teach students how to think about complex issues” that affect us all in different ways. This is certainly in the vein of the first reason, though with a more specific acknowledgement that we experience things in different and personal ways. This means it’s going to be hard for the college’s official statements to speak to people in univocal ways. The official line won’t be heard in the same way by all of us, and there is no anticipating just when or where the official line will land sideways (as it appears to have just the other day).
The institution is not a person. There is no room for dialogue with an institution. People who don’t take the official line in the spirit intended will have little opportunity to seek clarification or dialogue. So, here is one personal example that might clarify this aspect of the issue. Suppose the college adopted the official position that all events are to be opened with a land acknowledgement. This might meet with wide approval. Personally, I would not favor this. I often find these statements mildly offensive and patronizing. It does depend on just what is said and how. And it’s not that I hear anything false or derogatory in land acknowledgments. It’s simply that an acknowledgement that we are occupying the land of Native Americans isn’t a rent check. Will I feel safe if I’m speaking against official college policy? Should I feel safe now, regardless? We shall see.
Finally, Dr. May acknowledges the weight of the responsibility of “speaking on behalf of such a large and diverse community.” He goes on to express his concern that “Institutional statements on some matters can unintentionally exclude or alienate some members of our community.”
Most of us are aware of the recent events that have led many institutions to exercise greater caution on taking positions as an institution. Many colleges and universities took official positions against the killing of George Floyd and in support of BLM. More recently, different constituencies have demanded institutional support for opposing sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict. On the one hand we have the long and ongoing history of antisemitism to contend with and on the other, the mass killing of civilians in Gaza by the State of Israel. What to do? I don’t think it is mere cowardice for the institution to decline to take a position in cases like this. Rather, declining to do so is a matter of supporting the role of this institution as an environment where diverse minded people can explore the complexities and think for themselves, hopefully trying to understand some diverse views along the way. The weight of the institution taking a side would tend to squash this. It is not for the institution to decide how we should view this conflict, it’s for us to figure out.
I encountered Dr. May in the free speech zone on campus this past spring as he watched a vigorous discussion between a few Christian supporters of Israel and a small group of students who were clearly sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. The exchange was a bit heated, but peaceful enough for all parties to be heard. Were hearts and minds changed? Probably not. But people were demonstrating basic human respect in the context of deeply felt disagreement. Being able to do this at all, speak respectfully person to person with someone you might otherwise deem the enemy, affords us a path, perhaps narrow and slippery, to retaining our humanity and refraining from violence or disrespect. That in itself is a worthy outcome we should celebrate. It is something that can and should happen here.
The stated policy is not a permission slip for bigots to express bigotry around our campus. Bigotry will still face the criticism of many powerful voices on campus including faculty, staff and students. I do not think that we are so feeble as to require the bolstering of institutional authority in most cases. Dr. May has not closed the door to providing institutional support where the threat to our community is disruptive to its educational mission. But he is clearly prepared to weigh this against the potential for compromising our educational mission in support diverse voices being able to share our thoughts, think critically, and learn from each other, as opposed to merely yielding to the pronouncements of institutional authority.
My aim here is not to endorse May’s statement. I haven’t thought the matter through conclusively. But the conversation about Dr. May’s message so far has gone quite poorly. Participants have pretty much ignored the reasons offered in support of a policy of “considerable restraint.” Most have uncharitably in inaccurately interpreted this as a statement of “institutional neutrality.” And many have personalized this against Dr. May, while he is representing a collaborative effort with college leadership to support our educational mission. Perhaps we should take a breath.
Update (10/ 21/2024): Evaluation
A standard critical thinking model for dealing with arguments is the SEE model (State the argument, Explain the argument, Evaluate the argument). The post I sent out last week was mainly about stating and explaining the argument offered by administration for adopting a policy of “considerable restraint” in official communications. Perhaps my explanation of the argument sounded to some like an endorsement. Not so, as I indicated at the end.
We want to evaluate the best version of an argument. Otherwise, we are prone to commit the straw man fallacy, attacking a vulnerable weak statement of a position while ignoring its clearest, strongest expression. So, I aimed to illustrate the rationales for the considerable restraint policy with some cases where these rationales apply pretty well. Now, having exercised some charitable interpretation and, giving myself some time to sit with the argument and to contemplate some of the pushback, also with charity, I’m ready to engage in some admittedly fallible evaluation of the argument and policy.
The reasons for considerable restraint offered by Dr. May were given in terms of pretty abstract principles about the college’s educational mission. In these we see a vision of the college as fostering an environment where diverse voices can be heard, where critical thinking about issues is supported, and where students are at liberty to think for themselves and ultimately come to their own conclusions. These, roughly, are the premises that Dr. May and college leadership are arguing from.
In inquiry, evaluation of an argument is concerned with just two things: are its premises true and do they support the conclusion. But we should note at the outset that this is not inquiry. We are evaluating a bit of practical reasoning, reasoning about what to do (or, in this case, what policy to adopt). The goal here is not to establish something as true, but to provide reasons for acting in certain ways. So, our premises are not so much claims we can evaluate for truth as they are expressions of value. This doesn’t mean they are subjective. It simple means that in evaluating Dr. May’s argument we are going to be reflecting on what matters to BCs educational mission and how to support that. In evaluating a piece of practical reasoning, we still face two analogous steps, but these are about what’s important rather than what’s true. So here, we want to consider whether the values of free and open inquiry, Dr. May cited are the values that should guide our institutional policy. Perhaps there are others values that deserve similar priority. And then we want to consider whether the policy of considerable restraint best supports those values. So, we’ll take these steps in order.
Dr. May appealed to the traditional core values of a liberal arts education. That phrase has been understood in assorted ways at different times and places. I take a liberal arts education to be one aimed at liberating the mind. One that fosters the skills and inclinations to do the sort of thing I’m attempting to do here: weigh evidence and reasons slowly and carefully in ways that let us appreciate their merits, rather than simply reacting in ways that merely reflect and entrench our prior patterns of thought.
The fetters of the mind are more often internal than external. The mind is not as directly vulnerable to coercion and domination as the body is through physical force. This is not the deny the effects of propaganda and indoctrination. Nor the more typical skewing of thought as a result of social pressure or ego. Our thinking is subject to external pressures. But even these are soon internalized and become habits of thought we can’t easily correct without careful deliberate attention. Critical thinking is aimed at building skills and inclinations that can help to free us from the domination of our own mental habits of thought, whether our biases and mental foibles have roots in social factors or are a pretty much our own.
I won’t elaborate further, but I do see great educational values in the elements of a liberal arts education May grounded his argument in. It remains an open question whether, as an educational institution, there are further values we should uphold as on par with these core values of a liberal arts education, whether these might stand in conflict with the values May appealed to, or how they can be reconciled with the core values of a liberal arts education. I won’t try to adjudicate these issues here, but I’d love to see some thoughtful dialogue on these issues happen in our community.
Next step, do the core values of a liberal arts education, fully support the policy of considerable restraint. I’m beginning to have some doubts, thanks in good measure to some of the more thoughtful contributions to the conversation on the Diversity Caucus list. In my attempt to explain Dr. May’s argument, I did consider some concrete examples, but mainly to illuminate the abstract principles offered in support of considerable restraint, not so much to challenge them. Now, let’s consider whether we can accept Dr. May’s premises without accepting his conclusion. That is, can we endorse the core values of a liberal arts education he cites without endorsing the conclusion he draws, the policy of considerable restraint.
The principles offered might support restraint on taking sides on issues, particularly ones where some may disagree. Putting authority behind endorsement of what is true or false, good or bad, is what’s at issue here. That’s what risks quashing free and open inquiry. But what is at issue with something like recognizing Juneteenth isn’t the same. We have a holiday commemorating the freeing of slaves. The point of recognizing Juneteenth is not to take a stand on point of controversy. The facts are established. The point is to celebrate a good thing that really happened, the end of some people owning other people here in America. Celebrating that moment of justice isn’t going to undermine free an open inquiry on this campus. It is hard to see how the rationales offered for considerable restraint apply against a campus wide recognition of Juneteenth from the institutional level on down. If there is a conflict here, I’m not seeing it yet.
The source of much of the anger the administration has faced on this matter may be simply that the likely impact of the policy will be to voice less support for marginalized groups at the institutional level. Dr. May explicitly appealed to values of diversity and inclusion in the rationales for the considerable restraint policy. But I’m not yet seeing the conflict between these rationales and the equity piece, where we see leadership leading a deliberate effort to acknowledge and celebrate significant steps towards greater equality.
Update: 10/26
I sent a link to this post to Dr. May after the last update. He replied with some helpful comments and a few references which I’ll relate here. Some people have complained of a lack of transparency and communication with our current administration. I hope they will read this blog post (I’m trying to boost my hits and attract some sponsors. So, please Like and Subscribe).
Dr May says the policy he has adopted is “not a full retreat into the Kalven Report position.” The position of the Kalven Report is a classic statement of institutional neutrality on political and social issues and it has been the policy of The University of Chicago since the late ’60s. Dr May’s statement announces a policy of considerable restraint. So, for instance, May endorses my point above: “Were Bellevue to experience an event like the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville a few years ago, it would be no violation of the stated policy to issue a statement denouncing this bigotry and the adverse impact of such an event on our diverse student body.”
Dr May aims to adopt a position closer to President Peñalver of Seattle University, in his statement on statements. President Peñalver summarizes his position in a recent issue of the Chronical of Higher Education which you will find quoted at the end of this post.
Peñalver’s contribution to the Chronicle describes a predicament faced by college presidents that Dr. May did not relate in his “considerable restraint” message. College presidents are frequently asked to make statements by various campus constituencies. The causes are generally worthy. But each request granted sets up an expectation that other worthy requests will also be granted. Refusal to grant some requests then leads petitioners to feel perhaps discriminated against, or perhaps that the college president just doesn’t care. The president that grants requests to make statements as a matter of routine risks turning their office into megaphone for campus groups with causes to advance. A college president may well feel personally inclined to support some or all of the causes that come to their door. But college president is a fiduciary role. The president’s role is to support the mission of the college. This calls for a measure of discretion that is often incompatible with a more activist role. In light of this fiduciary role, it could be an abuse of the power and authority of the president’s office to adopt positions on social or political matters.
There is power and authority in the voice of a college president. We should frankly acknowledge that parties who request statements from college presidents are seeking to harness that power and authority. Perhaps there are good reasons to do so in some cases. Many on this campus would argue that dismantling entrenched systemic injustices requires deploying countervailing power. I suspect that Dr May’s statement announcing a policy of considerable restraint in making public statements has led to some deeply felt disappointment that our college president might not feel that dismantling entrenched and systemic injustice is an appropriate use of his power and authority. I’m not sure this is the case. The policy of considerably restraint in making statements seems a rather thin data point for making that inference. Dr. May might feel that countervailing power is appropriate for dismantling systemic injustices, but that considerable restraint is called for in his role as college president reconciling the broader imperatives of justice with his role serving the educational mission of the college. This, I think, is what a closer reading of his statement of considerable restraint suggests. That statement is buried in our inboxes somewhere. Here it is again in full, followed by the previously mentioned quote from the Chronicle by the President of Seattle U:
Dear BC Community,
One of the beautiful parts of what makes Bellevue College the institution that it is are the people who study and work here. With about 100 languages spoken, multiple religions practiced, and countless cultures celebrated, our community is rich and vibrant. Open-access education brings people from all walks of life together under the shared purpose of learning. We are all here to teach and to learn together.
Because of this, we also recognize that Bellevue College is not a single voice. That is why the college’s leadership team and I have decided to exercise considerable restraint in making college-wide public statements about external events that do not directly impact our educational mission. This approach is based on several important considerations.
First, our mission is to foster an environment where every member of our community can think critically, share ideas, and develop their own perspectives. By refraining from taking a stance on national or world events, we allow space for the diverse voices of nearly 20,000 students, staff, and faculty to have their own views, unencumbered by a single, overarching institutional position.
Second, the events that shape our world – whether they be political, social, or environmental – are deeply personal, and they affect us all in different ways. As an academic institution, our responsibility is to teach students how to think about these complex issues. We are committed to providing learning opportunities for everyone to explore these issues and events, to share their perspectives, and come to their own conclusions.
Finally, speaking on behalf of such a large and diverse community is a great responsibility. While we may each feel great moral clarity about certain events, I believe that institutional statements on some matters can unintentionally exclude or alienate some members of our community. Instead, our focus will be on ensuring that Bellevue College remains a space where all voices can be heard, and where open dialogue and academic freedom are protected.
However, there will be times when I will speak on behalf of the college regarding issues that impact our educational mission or require us to reinforce our core values. As president, it is crucial for me to address these matters and reiterate our commitment to student success, equity, and fostering a safe, inclusive learning environment for all.
Bellevue College’s core values—student success, pluralism, collaboration, shared decision-making, creativity, and innovation—reflect our commitment to nurturing a diversity of thought. Pluralism embraces the idea that strength lies in our differences, including our cultural, religious, and intellectual perspectives. Making single statements on regional, national, or world events, political decisions, or news headlines in the name of such a diverse community could conflict with that value and stifle the free and critical exchange of ideas that is central to our educational mission.
While there are many challenges and much to celebrate in the times we live in, one thing is clear: Bellevue College’s mission is to be a student-centered, comprehensive and innovative college, committed to teaching excellence, that advances the life-long educational development of its students while strengthening the economic, social and cultural life of its diverse community. We do this best when we invite every voice to be a part of the conversation about important and challenging issues and provide the space for that to happen.
I thank you for being here and look forward to the academic year ahead and the conversations we will share.
David May, PhD
President Eduardo Peñalver of Seattle University
Over the past decade, presidents have faced increased demands to issue statements on topics of all kinds, many having little to do with the university itself: natural disasters, presidential-election outcomes, Supreme Court decisions, or — most recently — the conflict in Israel and Gaza. While it can be tempting to give people what they want, especially when the issue is not controversial (or at least, not controversial on your campus), every statement comes at a cost.
Statements center the president’s voice at the expense of others. Each one contributes to a self-reinforcing expectation that the university (and the president) should weigh in on issues large and small. This expectation is both inappropriate and impossible to satisfy, and the president’s inevitable silence on some issue or other is guaranteed to cause anger or hurt among those for whom that issue is particularly important. Issuing statements implicitly establishes a college orthodoxy, narrowing the range of permissible viewpoints and undermining the kind of robust debate we need to sustain our research and teaching missions. In that sense, some requests for statements are not that different from efforts to deplatform speakers or to punish students or faculty who give voice to controversial views. In the short term, statements enhance the power and visibility of the president, but at the cost of a more-inclusive campus conversation. It is both telling and troubling that, this past spring, one of the most ubiquitous demands of pro-Palestine activists on campus was for presidents to issue statements endorsing their perspective on the conflict.
Two years ago, I sent a message to our community that I refer to as my “Statement on Statements.” I said that I would limit university statements to issues and events that have some direct bearing on Seattle University. The result would be a diminished voice for the president but greater space for others. Although this precommitment did not prevent activist demands for a statement this past spring, it did forestall the argument that — in declining to speak — I was doing so because of their specific viewpoint.
This is not to say that presidents should never weigh in. But we should do so judiciously, and only when there are clear institutional imperatives. Over time, the choices we make can help us to avoid creating expectations that no leader can possibly satisfy.