Julie A. Reuben
Harvard University
From "Colloquium 2000: What’s the University For? – The University and Its Discontents"
April 13, 2000

Julie Reuben: I’m not here to talk about the wonderful accomplishments of the university, but rather to discuss one of its discontents – uncertainty and apprehension regarding moral questions. The builders of the modern university expected that the research conducted within it would solve world problems. It would provide authoritative instruction on how to live and how to shape a more perfect society, but within a generation it became clear that this expectation would not be easily fulfilled. Indeed, many of the faculty housed in these new universities were ready to wash their hands of moral concerns.

The university faced a crisis: Did it serve to advance morality, and if so, how? The success of the university in producing knowledge and in training skilled professionals has compensated for and masked the moral crisis, but nonetheless the problem of morality continues to plague American higher education. Universities have been unable to either fully incorporate morality nor comfortably abandon a moral mission. It is the unresolved legacy of the creation of the modern research university. In order to better understand this legacy, I will look at two periods in the history of the university. First I want to examine the early 20^th century when morality first became marginalized. Second I want to look at campus activism in the 1960’s. Student activism of the 1960’s is not typically associated with morality, unless of course we consider the widespread perception that it involved complete moral collapse, you know the association of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And to a certain degree this association has some basis in reality. Students, such as those at Berkeley who launched the filthy speech movement, certainly mocked conventional morality. But nonetheless, I will argue that campus activism, at least in its early years, was an attempt to revive the moral purpose of the university. Finally I will discuss the implications of this history for the contemporary university, what we as scholars will have to do if we want to restore moral concerns to the university.

The men who created the modern research university in the late 19^th century believed in science. They believed that science would unlock secrets of nature and provide the foundation for unprecedented and material progress, and they believed the knowledge learned through scientific inquiry would lead to the improvement of self and society. Their optimism rested on the view that science was a particularly successful form of inquiry because it was open (scientists were free to question and receive knowledge) and it was evolutionary, scientific knowledge improved as scientists tested currently accepted beliefs and refined or rejected them when necessary. They associated the superiority of science with objectivity, but they did not define objective as value free. Rather they used objective to mean tested through empirical application. They believed that scientific theories were tested and that some would be discarded and replaced with better ideas. In their view, the ability of science to come up with better and better theories set it apart from other forms of knowledge. They often compared science to philosophy and theology, which seemed for centuries to be repeating the same endless disputes over basic issues. Scientific theories, on the other hand they thought, would be tested and either improved or rejected. Proponents of this view of science, however, could not explain how scientific methods ensured that the new theories improved upon the old. In the absence of other measures of progress they assumed that scientific progress could be identified by agreement. They believed that scientists studying the same problem would eventually come to the same solution. William James explained that the only safeguard for the fallibility of science is the final consensus of our farther knowledge about the thing in question, later views correcting earlier ones until at last the harmony of a consistent system is reached. Science was distinguished from less reliable forms of knowledge because it moved consistently forward, beyond controversy to agreement. Designating consensus, that’s the mark of success I will argue, was a fateful move, a move that would push moral concerns out of legitimate scientific discourse.

In the late 19^th century, American intellectuals commonly believed that science could be used to modernize religion. They hoped that a new scientific form of religion would serve as the basis for moral education in the modern university. For a variety of reasons, which I don’t have the time to enumerate today, efforts to enshrine the scientific form of religion at the center of the university failed. Leaders of universities did not, however, conclude that without religion, the university needed to abandon its moral mission. On the contrary, they viewed science itself as a potent source of moral guidance. They believed that scientific inquiry encouraged good personal habits consistent with those promoted by Christianity. They conceived of the progress of scientific knowledge in utopian terms. Scientists confidently expected to produce grand unifying theories that would explain everything from the simplest physical process to the complexities of advanced human civilizations. They assumed that scientific knowledge would easily translate into guides for action, and spoke of the scientific method as a key that would open the door of unlimited personal and social progress.

Intellectuals assume that the biological and the social sciences, in particular, would provide answers to moral problems. These disciplines address the nature of life and human society and therefore touched on the central moral question – What is the best way to live? Biologists and social scientists believed their research would help answer this question. Ethically-minded scientists thought biology contained lessons for personal behavior. "It’s a very significant fact that the rules of conduct for the best development of men, discovered first by the experience of the human race, afterwards formulated as religious precepts, have now been established as laws of biology," wrote University of Chicago botanist John Colter. Educators embraced the notion that biology encouraged clean living and good habits and looked to biology as a form of moral training. They pointed out that moral issues traditionally addressed by religion, such as sexual relations, could be studied by biology. They argued that many of the worse sins responsible for the undoing of many individuals are physical in nature, such as intemperance and sexual perversion. "Any effort to reform men who are habituated to such indulgences will be greatly helped by the methods based on physiology and hygiene," wrote another professor. Biology, rather than the Bible, would provide authority for the Ten Commandments.

Scientists also maintained that biological research assisted social ethics as well as personal morality. It would help address contemporary social problems, such as inadequate housing and work conditions. "Many of the great moral and religious problems today are biological. Community work is largely founded on biological laws," claimed another professor. By sponsoring biological research instruction, universities served the larger community. "Social morality has no better servant and helper today than biology. And the study of this subject in our colleges has had a splendid moral influence." (Can you imagine biology professors today saying this?) These convictions drew many academic scientists to reform movements in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Academic scientists presented temperance, sexual hygiene, public health reforms, and eugenics as sources of potential moral benefit that would derive from biological research.

Social scientists made even stronger claims for the moral relevance of their disciplines. The social scientists have strong institutional
ties to political and social reform movements of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The social sciences grew rapidly in the new university, in part because they promised to provide moral guidance and social service. Most social scientists were involved in contemporary social or political movements, either as activists, advisors, or publicists. For example, Herbert Baxter Adams of Johns Hopkins helped the Working Mens Institute and the Baltimore Settlement House, the Lawrence House. He also became involved in Baltimore politics, supporting municipal reform. E. R. A. Seligman of Columbia was active in the Society for Ethical Culture and The University Settlement in Greenwich House, and served as an advisor to a number of city, state and federal commissions. Charles Merriam, of the University of Chicago, served as a Chicago City Alderman. He and many of his colleagues in the social sciences were active in Chicago political and social movements. Like biologists active in eugenics and hygiene movements, social scientists involved in campaigns to address problems in municipal government, labor problems, urban housing, immigration policies, race relations, and a myriad of other issues, saw their activities as a natural component of their duties as scientists.

The assumption that science had moral value dominated discourse about scientific inquiry in the late 19^th century. As a result of these
views, university officials in the early 20^th century looked to the biological and social sciences to provide modern moral education. In the 1910’s and the 1920’s, university educators tried to increase the influence of science by developing general science courses. Universities increasingly required or strongly encouraged students to take these new introductory courses in the biological and social sciences. Several universities introduced requirements in evolutionary biology, and many more created freshman surveys in the social sciences. These courses reflected the belief that the university could best fulfill its duty to society and students through research and instruction in the social sciences. Clayton Hall argued that "those universities will best serve the public interests in the immediate future which are first and best in historical investigation and the study of the science of law and of government and its application to the vital questions affecting the well-being of human society. From those halls," he declared, "will come forth men qualified to help in the formulation of an enlightened public opinion and take a guiding part in public affairs. Men, who speaking above the strife of tongues, can say with authority which commands attention, ‘This is the way. Walk ye in it.’"

The promotion of the study of the social sciences became, according to this view, a moral mission. But the plans of university
educators to use the biological and social sciences as a source of modern moral education and the intellectual developments in the biological and social science disciplines, moved at cross proposes. In the early 20^th century, younger scientists became uncomfortable with the utopian visions of scientists, and began to make more limited claims for their subjects. Both biologists and social scientists were concerned that their disciplines had not made progress. They found that their fields were marked by seemingly endless disagreements over basic theories. The consensus that was supposed to indicate intellectual progress was not emerging. Younger scientists blamed the disagreements on their elders’ predilections for grand theories. They therefore embraced specialization and eschewed efforts to unify all knowledge. They maintained that their disciplines would yield useful, practical information, but the meaning of the phrases ‘practical’ and ‘applied’ were flatted out to include material and vocational utility but not moral value. These changes were first evident in the biological sciences where younger biologists pursued experimental research agendas and began to purge larger philosophical issues from their professional work. Younger biologists became impatient with their predecessors theorizing about different modes of evolution and the distinction between living in inanimate matter and the way to create a perfect utopian way to live. They believed that these larger problems could not be addressed without more specific knowledge of biological processes, so they designed a more carefully controlled method of experimentation and developed more specialized research agendas. By 1910 the younger generation of biologists were firmly committed to experimentation.

Similar changes followed in the social sciences. Beginning in the teens, a group of young scholars advanced a more narrow notion of
science with particular vigor. Social scientists would advocate methodological changes that would eliminate morality from their disciplines used disciplinary disputes as proof of the inadequacies of current practices. For example, Frank Fetter maintained that disagreements among economists indicated that economics was not yet a science. "The diversity of opinions in the fundamentals among leading exponents of the subject argues strongly that economics is still a philosophy, a general attitude of mind in a system of opinion, rather than a positive science."

These social scientists used consensus as evidence of the scientific status of research. Nine years later Wesley Claire Mitchell
presented the slackening of doctrinal controversy among economists as proof that the discipline was finally becoming scientific. "I think we debate for odd issues less because increasing concern with factual observation is breeding in us a more scientific and less dialectical temper." Younger social scientists argued that by adopting more rigorous scientific methods, they would end disciplinary discord and that consensus could serve as proof of the superiority of their methods. This circular reasoning encouraged scholars to look for ways to eliminate disagreement. Like biologists, these social scientists emphasized the importance of carefully controlled research and the collection of empirical data. They advocated the use of statistics and other research techniques, such as key studies and surveys, to standardize and increase the reliability of their work. And they thought that eliminating broad philosophical questions from their professional discourse would help end long-standing disputes within their disciplines. In particular, many younger scholars thought that eradicating ethical concerns was the key to achieving intellectual consensus.

Now this was a logical conclusion. In the early 20^th century, moral questions were sharply contested. The growth of cities and the rise of large corporations created new problems for which old maxims of right and wrong did not easily fit. The increasing diversity of the population undermined cultural assumptions about proper behavior. Changing family structures opened new questions about gender roles and sexuality. Given this context, it’s not surprising that social scientists blame morality for the lack of progress of their disciplines (or rather for the lack of consensus within their disciplines which they equated with a lack of progress), and that they insisted that ethical neutrality was an essential condition of scientific research.

In justifying the sanction against morality, social scientists argued that moral judgements were subjective while knowledge was objective. This turned morality into a matter of personal preference. The subjective nature of morality, they argued, would color the scientist’s interpretation of facts. "Nothing," maintained A. Gordon Dewey, "is more liable to lead astray than the injection of moral considerations into an essentially non-moral, factual investigation." This implied that objective knowledge could not really inform moral positions. If what ought to be, should not be confused with what is, then perhaps what is might have no bearing on what ought to be.

Biological and social scientists hoped that stricter standards of research would produce more credible knowledge than their predecessors had achieved with broad conceptions of scientific inquiry. In making this move, scientists implicitly accepted that knowledge could not guide action. Well, perhaps this is too strong. I doubt that scientists of the teens and twenties would assent to a sharp division between knowledge and action. But they were abdicating their responsibility for trying to understand how to connect empirical research with moral judgements. When it became clear that this relationship would not be transparent and indisputable, they simply said that it was beyond their purview as researchers.

The failure of science to fulfill the moral mission intended for it should have created a major debate within the university. Academics needed to confront the question of whether university education should have a moral dimension, and if so, how could it be fulfilled? They needed to examine the epistemological claims that science, in order to be objective, had to be value-free. They needed to explore how, if at all, empirical research could be connected to moral judgements. But university leaders instead allowed the institution to drift on the questions of morality. They refused to declare that morality was beyond the confines of the university, but they also failed to seek ways to keep the true and good united.

In order to fulfill the mission of moral guidance, university educators settled on two sources neither completely adequate: the humanities and student life. Some scholars in the humanities and arts were eager to fill the void left by the failure of both scientific and religious based moral education. They defined the humanities as the conveyer of traditional values and art as the expression of spiritual truths. They maintained that the humanities and arts, rather than the sciences, could provide unity and moral guidance that had been lost in the university reforms of the late 19^th century.

Foremost among these scholars was a group called the New Humanists, led by Irving Babbitt of Harvard. Babbitt presented the first major statement of the New Humanist position in his book, Literature and the American College. In this book, Babbitt decried the excesses of university reforms instituted by Charles Elliott and other leaders of major universities. He was dismayed by the overspecialization of the curriculum, the random quality of student course selection, by the lack of seriousness and intellectual interest of students, and by the remoteness of the research oriented faculty. Babbitt questioned the contemporary faith in the moral value of the social sciences. Scientific progress, Babbitt argued, was one of the sources, not one of the solutions, to intellectual and moral disunity that marked the modern university.

As scientists began to abandon their moral role, the humanists were there to push them out and claim the role for themselves. Before the humanities could adequately fulfill this role, the New Humanists thought that the study of literature, art, and philosophy would have to be radically reformed. They thought that these disciplines had been infected with this false spirit of science. In the name of research, they argued that literary scholars produce careful philological studies that lost sight of the meaning of literature. Falsely valuing progress, they overlooked the superiority of classical literature and classical aesthetic and moral norms. The New Humanists wanted to reconstruct literary education so students would be linked to a tradition of great western literature. They saw literature and the arts as a way to cultivate standards of aesthetic and moral judgements.

Scholars in the humanities and arts recognized that there were professional advantages to taking up the mantel of moral education. Many faculty in the humanities felt like the model of specialized research was not well-suited to their disciplines. Also they had difficulty gaining support for their research because they could not, as scientists could, claim their research would eventually translate into practical knowledge that would aid society. They had to base their claims to service on their direct moral influence among students. As the guardians of values, humanists adopted a central, but increasingly problematic, function in higher education. The good then became associated with the beautiful, rather than the true.

Although university administrators welcomed efforts to define humanities as a source of moral education, they began to de-emphasize curricular forms of moral guidance and look instead to administrative changes and extracurricular activities to solve the problem of moral education. Administrators continued to support an extracurricular role for religion, largely through the direct or indirect support of groups that serve students of different faiths. No doubt, many students viewed morality in terms of religious traditions in which they identify. In addition, universities made renewed efforts to enforce, with various degrees of seriousness and success, conventional expectations for personal morality. Sexual experimentation, drinking, smoking, and gambling were denounced and in order to enforce these norms, universities hired special administrators to handle student life. They tried to assert greater oversight over fraternities and sororities and other student activities.

Institutional patterns that emerged over the first three decades of the 20^th century were never completely satisfactory. Student life, although covered in a cloak of rhetoric about careful development, could not carry the weight of moral education. The realities of intercollegiate athletics and fraternities, which dominated extracurricular life at many campuses, mocked the overblown claims of university administrators. Humanities faculties never fully united around the New Humanist agenda. Some remained wedded to specialized and technical models of research. Others chose to divorce aesthetic values for moral ones. Finally, not all scientists accepted the separation of fact and value. In the social sciences in particular, a persistent minority questioned the ideal of value neutrality and insisted that their research had implications for the good life. As a consequence, tensions percolated beneath the surface of the university. Although higher education remained officially committed to the development of student’s character, some within it ceased to take the mission seriously and thought of universities as dedicated solely to intellectual and/or professional development. Others yearned for a more satisfactory expression of its moral commitments.

Students forced the tensions surrounding morality out into the open in the 1960’s. As the 1950’s closed, there was a discernible unease among young adults, a yearning for more profound and meaningful engagements with life. This manifested itself in a variety of ways, including intensified religious activities on campuses and challenges to conventional morality in the name of more authentic personal values. But the most prominent manifestation was greater political activism among both conservative and liberal students. Student activists did not view politics in the narrow sense of parties, elections, or even power. They understood politics in the classical sense. It was a quest for a good society, the good life. In trying to encourage political engagement among their piers, student activists were attempting to create a moral revival.

For reasons that have not been studied, activism on the left came to dominate the university in the 1960’s. One reason may be that students on the left related their political interests to a critique of the university. So leftist students identified the university as part of the problem that needed to be overcome. They suggested that students needed an education that was more relevant to their personal and social concerns. Some faculty joined students and began to challenge the assumptions about research that had dominated since the association of objectivity with value neutrality in the teens and twenties.

Student and faculty activists raised two different objections to scholarly practices based on the ideal of value neutrality. First, the scholarship produced and taught in the university was stultifying and undermined moral engagement, and second that it wasn’t really neutral but rather served certain unstated aims. In addition, they challenged the moral position of the university as an institution.

In the aftermaths of campus unrest, university leaders were only too happy to see the return of the apathetic student. Now, after several decades of relative calm, universities are once again beginning to discuss the issues raised by student activists of the early ‘60s. Why are students so apathetic? Why are they only concerned with career and wealth? What can universities do to encourage engagement with broader issues? In other words, the problem of the university’s moral mission is once again bubbling into public discourse. Universities have responded by supporting a number of new programs, many of which involve students in social service of some kind. In some cases, in the form of service learning, these programs are integrated within the curriculum. But on the whole service learning remains on the margin of the curriculum and has not yet forced faculty to rethink the connection between knowledge and action. Generally these programs follow the division set in the early 20^th century. Morality is associated with extracurricular activities. The institutional structure reinforces the divide between the good and true.

I think that we have to accept that we are not going to agree about many moral concerns. So the problem remains – is there value in applying the source of inquiry that the research university has so successfully fostered to questions that are not likely to yield clear answers? Can intellectual inquiry move moral considerations beyond the subjective, or will this simply corrupt research and engage the university in fruitless political battles? These are open questions, but ones I believe are essential to explore if we don’t want to accept that the good and true are inevitably sundered.