METAPHILOSOPHY Vol, 17, Nos 2 & 3, April/July 1986 0026-1068 $2.00

UNDERSTANDING STUDENTS’ RELATIVISM

PIETER MOSTERT

Introduction When “doing philosophy” is emphasized as the main goal of philosophy courses, we face several problems in our attempts to achieve it (Iseminger, 1972). One of them is t o determine whether students are already capable of doing philosophy in some aspects. I t is clear from experience and from the nature of philosophy that even without any previous education in philosophy students are already acquainted with it. But what are they already capable of, philosophically speaking? And if we have answered this question, which con- sequences arise for the content and structure of philosophy courses?

In our educational system we generally focus on what students d o not know. Little attention is paid t o the positive side. Teachers seem t o be “filling gaps” permanently, but in fact the student’s mind is already full of knowledge, beliefs, arguments and skills. The process of learning can be des- cribed more correctly as a “reorganisation” of thoughts and ways of think- ing. I will concentrate on one example: the reorganisation of the relativism that the students bring with them at the beginning of an ethics course. What I will offer is a different description, not a solution to the problem of stu- dents’ relativism. I will draw upon experiences in teaching philosophy in the Netherlands; but 1 expect that my description and analysis will be applicable to the situation in other countries.

Teaching ethics in the Netherlands Especially in the field of ethics, it is true that without any previous educa- tion in philosophy, students already hold many beliefs and arguments and handle (moral) problems they are confronted with. They have faced moral problems before, they have discovered moral “theories” in the context of everyday life; they have their own sense of “duty”, “right” or “moral obli- gation”. Most likely, they have even made up their minds on several moral issues. So, when we want t o make them think ethically, what is the “trans- formation” that we want t o bring forth in their minds? A quick look at the history of teaching ethics in the Netherlands over the past twenty years reveals three different stages.

In the early sixties, ethics courses had one major critical aim: t o show that the common and generally accepted values are not absolute nor self-evident. They are chosen from numerous possible alternatives and the reasons be- hind these choices are open to argument. The main line in these ethics courses is the presentation and defense of a mild form of relativism.

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Looking back, it is easy t o see that this approach soon became superfluous. General changes in our society brought so many different values under the eyes of the common people, that one did not need a course in ethics t o discover the presence of moral pluralism. This social development caused a drastic change in the aim of ethics courses. The main concern became, once moral pluralism was accepted, whether anything was allowed. A course in ethics was devoted t o a search for the foundations and borders of a gener- ally permissive society. Therefore, one concentrated on the discussion of the fundamental principles that underlie all moral values. Among others, Aristotle, Kant and Bentham were read for their presentations of histori- cally developed arguments.

Although it is always hard t o compare the current situation with histori- cal developments, we face an altogether different situation now and the teachers of ethics find it hard t o adjust their programs and themselves to it (Andre, 1983). Frustration about m y own ethics courses made me explore the students’ positions at the beginning of the course. They mainly hold two fundamental beliefs:

1. The idea of a universal tolerance. Everything is allowed and everybody is free t o consider anything to be

right. There is only one restriction: the values somebody else is free to believe in should not limit my freedom to believe in my own values. Given this restriction, nobody has the right t o tell somebody else which value one should prefer. One can only say: “I for myself think that . . . , and I am willing to tell you what I think, but it does not imply that you s h o u l d . . .”. Values are a strictly personal affair.

2. The idea of a private dogmatism. In a relativistic society it is hard t o find values you can sincerely believe in

yourself. Once you have found them, you are eager t o keep them. Therefore, why should you discuss your own values? Everybody has his own ones; you want t o stay with the values you have, and you are not willing to have them openly criticized by other people.

Both sides join in the denial of a rational and philosophical discussion about moral values. There can only be an explanation of why certain people hold certain beliefs. This position is strengthened by introductory courses in psychology and sociology. Generally, students feel akin to a psychological or sociological approach of how personal choices of certain values can be ex- plained. They are eager to hear and are easily convinced that cultural and social circumstances determine which values one prefers. Sociology and psychology offer them a plausible “non-ethical” declaration. Moral pheno- mena are explained in a non-ethical theory. Above that, such a non-ethical theory gives support t o the conviction that everybody has his own preferred values, arid that it does not make sense t o criticize each others’ values, be-

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cause everybody’s situation (both in the past and in the present) is different. Teaching ethics is without a purpose: either teachers intrude the field of per- sonal values, or they criticize and justify certain values in a more general, supra-personal sense, and that is an impossible task which will bring no results’.

Probably, some readers will object that this picture is too gloomy. Isn’t there a lively interest in ethics courses among students? Of course, what I have said about “students” is not necessarily true for every student, although in my experience, it concerns many of them. Above that, it is not clear what it is in an ethics course that students are interested in. It may simply be the topic (or moral issue), and not the objective of the philosopher-teacher to establish rational principles for chosing and evaluating moral values. In many courses clarity about the question of whether students are actually interested in the philosophical aspects of ethical thinking is clouded in several ways: 1) major elements from the psychological and sociological approach are brought into the ethics course, 2 ) students are allowed to talk abundantly about their own moral values and beliefs, or 3) ethical theories and arguments are taught as a relevant “body of knowledge”, but they remain separate from the stu- dent’s own beliefs. These three ways are introduced to make the course go better, but do they also make it a better ethics course? That depends on the answer to the question of what we want to change in the students’ relativism. What is it exactly that IS wrong with relativism?

Students’ relativism and philosophical relativism The question whether relativism is a defensible philosophical position is sub- ject to current debate (Arrington, 1983; the Monist, 1984)’. How should we judge the students’ relativism? Is it a philosophical theory which lacks ade- quate precision or is it simply an untenable position? Here we can misunder- stand and misjudge easily. First of all, philosophers are inclined to expect that the beliefs someone holds build a consistent, hierarchical unity, based on a sound and clear principle. But in non-philosophical discourse many people defend different arguments, theories and beliefs at the same time. There is hardly any integration into one overall philosophical framework. Secondly, philosophers are inclined to “overinterpret” laymen’s remarks. What was only meant as a casual remark or a mere fragment of a thought, is trans- formed by the philosopher-teacher into a highly interesting philosophical

Teaching ethics implies teaching subjects in which the students are personally in- volved, so that their personal positions may be affected. But this personal involvement may also keep them from actually learning; at school they may prefer a subject matter that is not so woven into their personal lives.

I leave alone the question of whether relativism actually is a defensible, philoso- phical position. Even if it is not, it is highly unlikely that the teacher will manage to abolish the relativistic thinking in the students’ minds by proving that it is not founded on solid ground. Traditional (moral) beliefs and ways of thinking do not simply dis- appear when philosophers show that they are affected by major mistakes.

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position (Ihara, 1984). So it may be true that the students’ relativism is not very close to philosophical relativism. They have not developed it as a philosophical theory, but have adopted it from the general practice in our society to talk about moral behavior and preferences in a relativistic way. At the same time, their actual moral evaluation in specific affairs may be far from relativistic. The philosophers’ inclination towards “unification” and “overinterpretation” disguises this diversity and neglects the possibility of a wide discrepancy between the students’ original relativism and philosophical relativism.

In an ethics course, it seems obvious that students are encouraged to clarify their original positions and transform them into philosophically well developed, clear and sound arguments. But for several reasons it is hard for them to achieve this transformation.

Teachers usually presuppose that their students are aware of their rela- tivistic positions and are willing to defend them. But in daily life, there is hardly any discussion about the relativistic position itself; it is “in the air”. The relativistic approach is not the object, but rather the unreflected setting in which moral problems and choices are discussed. The meta-ethical debate on the relativistic position is a philosophical novelty to the students. It takes much effort to convince them of the possibility and the results of such a debate. To them there seems to be such a large distance between the (obvious ) moral issues and the (artificial) philosophical analysis of the foundations of moral theories. A fair amount of knowledge about the main ethical theories, concepts, arguments and problems is required for any philosophical reflection on moral problems. But this knowledge only “works”, when the students learn how to transform their original ideas on moral issues into philosophical positions through the application of this knowledge.

Relativism should not be the main subject of the course, but the students’ “field” in which the ethics course leaves its tracks and marks; it “remaps” and corrects the original area of the student’s position. This is what I call “tran~formation”~ .

Transformation and relativism The idea of transformation is that an original, pre-philosophical question (or idea, experience, pattern of problemsolving) can be reformulated in terms of some ethical theory. On the one hand, these terms turn the original question into a more specific one, that can be distinguished from several other, interrelated questions. On the other hand, the question becomes more general. It is reformulated as an example of a general type of questions, all of which have the same structure. The structure of such a type of questions may be: there are two contradicting views on one problem, and both views

J . Andre speaks of “translation”, but the gap between the original and the philo- sophical statement is too wide to be an example of translation. Therefore I use the word “transformation”.

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are relevant and plausible. The original question may have been: “Should people have the right to kill themselves?”.

A student, whose question has been transformed in both ways, may object that it is not the original question anymore. A “new” question has been raised and the student may feel “betrayed”. However, once this new question has been accepted, a rational inquiry is possible by using philoso- phical knowledge and methods4. Insofar as the students have t o part from their relativistic positions, they are not obliged t o believe in certain moral values; nor are some of their values proved or disproved; but they have to accept the philosophical procedure of handling ethical questions. This pro- cedure has its typical ethical aspects, and also more specific traits, depen- dent on the ethical theory, in terms of which the original question has been transformed. Gradually the students will be transforming their own relativism into a variety of more specific and coherent philosophical positions. One of them may be philosophical relativism, although this is not necessarily so. A refutation of their relativism is not useful, nor appropriate. What they should learn is to think ethically about moral problems. The main steps in this pro- cess consist of the transformation of the original values and ways of thinking into philosophical ones. Whether the original position was relativistic or not, is of little importance.

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References

Andre, J . , “Dealing with naive relativism in the philosophy classroom”, Meta-

Arrington, R. L., “ ln defense of ethical relativism”, Metaphilosophy, 14,

Ihara, C. , “Moral skepticism and tolerance”, Teaching Philosophy, 7 (1 984),

Iseminger, G., “On reading philosophers and doing philosophy”, Metuphilo-

Monist, the, 6 7 (1984), no. 3 : “Is relativism defensible?”.

philosophy, 14, 1983, pp. 179-182.

1983, pp. 225-239.

no. 3, pp. 193-198.

sophy, 3, 1972, pp. 261-264.

The notion “method” may be misleading in a double sense. It is not a procedure that, once applied correctly, guarantees a satisfactory result. On the contrary, ques- tions will be developed further but they may remain without a final solution. Inter- mediate results are questioned in the light oT alternative views or presuppositions. More- over, the “method” is not a simple technique but a complexity of skills and knowledge of theories, concepts and arguments. Above that, we may not convince all students to accept the transformation of the original question. A student may persist, stay with the original question and reject its ethical transformation. Then the discussion will shift to a meta-ethical inquiry of the consistency and consequences of such a point of view, if the student is already acquainted with the procedures of such an inquiry.