The Telos of Universities and the Problem They Now Face

Also: Why Jonathan Haidt’s False Dilemma Should Be Rejected

My last post prompted several discussions that left me thinking more about the telos of college and what I think may be the biggest problem with the current generation of students. That turned into this post. I hope you enjoy it. I’d also be happy to hear any objections you might have.

First, the telos. In my last post, I said “the purpose of universities is to help young adults become well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons.” Because such agents are truth seekers and will want a society in which they can thrive, good universities will promote truth and good citizenship, each of which some claim (mistakenly, on my view) is the actual telos of universities.

Well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons are truth seekers because acting rationally and being well-rounded both require recognizing facts, not just beliefs or feelings. Because they will want a society in which they can thrive, they will be prepared to participate in governance—they will be good citizens.

Given how I believe graduates of good colleges (those that express the telos I have specified) would be, I certainly do not deny that truth or good citizenship are important. Indeed, their value gives weight to recognizing the real telos: helping young adults become well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons. That won’t satisfy everyone so its worth explaining why those that defend truth or citizenship as the real telos are mistaken (even as conjuncts with the educational function I defend).

If truth or truth-seeking is the telos (or part of it), most undergraduates are treated as tools. They can’t be dominant partners in the discovery or creation of truth as they have neither the experience, the training, nor the patience or wisdom needed (at least in our society). If truth is the telos, it’s the professoriate that seek or create it, perhaps with the help of students (whether by stimulating thought in the classroom or as research assistants). Most will readily agree, though, that universities are for students not merely sites for professors to use students in the search for truth. Simply put, thinking of truth as the telos denies the basic view shared my (almost?) everyone that colleges exist to educate students. Education, I would argue, for the sake of helping them become well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons.

If the telos were about creating good citizens, we should engage in inquiry about what good citizens are. Without going into detail here, I will simply suggest that good citizens are well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons. Hence, this would be the same view I defend. If someone suggests a different understanding of good citizenship; we’d have to know what that amounts to before addressing the view in full (I would worry, though, that it would treat students as tools, just as thinking universities are about truth does).

Notice I have not mentioned “social justice” as a possible telos. That is because despite Jonathan Haidt’s famous piece claiming colleges have a choice between accepting that their telos is truth or that it is social justice, I know of no one who actually would say the latter is the telos. What Haidt offered, I think, is an odd false dichotomy—a choice between one thing that no one really thinks and another thing that many people do think, but mistakenly so. Notice also that if it were the telos it would also be treating students as tools—tools to make the world better, but tools nonetheless. This is, again, to deny that at root colleges are for students.

Next, I discuss the problem with colleges and our students today. The topics are related, as we will see.

I think it stands that the telos of the college or university (I’ve been using these interchangeably) is helping young adults to become well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous persons. I readily admit that this is not how most people now think of universities. Indeed, I think the biggest problem with current (and recent) students is how most people now think about college—which is not in accord with its telos. (I suspect many problems of colleges stem from this source.) Before explaining what I mean here, it’s worth flagging that what I am talking about when I talk about the telos of colleges, in my last post and in other writings, is “classic college”—say what we had roughly in the 19th and first half or so of the 20th century. College has changed significantly since then; the change of concern was clearly taking hold already in the 1980s.

To understand the change, consider this, from “Hilarius Bookbinder”:

The average student has seen college as basically transactional for as long as I’ve been doing this. They go through the motions and maybe learn something along the way, but it is all in service to the only conception of the good life they can imagine: a job with middle-class wages. I’ve mostly made my peace with that, do my best to give them a taste of the life of the mind, and celebrate the successes.

I don’t know Bookbinder, but concur with his or her claims. I’d put the point simply: today’s college students (on average; thankfully, there are exceptions!) lack any internal motivation to do their part in abiding by the proper telos of college. They are transactional, only externally motivated to do the work we assign. They see college—and, frankly, too many colleges (especially college administrators) encourage them to see college—as a means to a financially lucrative career which will allow them to do as they wish, even if they can’t think through whether they should do as they wish.

External motivation is obviously useful. It is, though, limited. If the point of taking a philosophy, literature, history, economics, chemistry, or physics class is only to satisfy a requirement so that one can graduate so that one can get a job in some field that has (or is perceived as having) nothing to do with the class, one will not become thoroughly involved in the material of the class. Internal motivation is what will get the student really thinking about that material. External motivation leaves them thinking about the material instrumentally at best; internal motivation has them interested in (or at least open to being interested in) the topic itself.

When students (or anyone) are internally motivated, they are more likely to think past the instrumental, more likely to really consider intellectual puzzles. When one does that, deeper thought occurs—and the ability to engage in intellectual thought is exercised. Exercising that ability leaves students (and others) better placed to think through all the problems they might encounter in life, both in the work place and in their personal relations.

That they help enable the ability to engage in serious intellectual thought is precisely why graduates of good colleges (again, those that express the telos I have specified) make good citizens. It is also precisely why they make better employees and entrepreneurs. They are positioned to find solutions to whatever problems they face, giving the problem deep and sustained consideration. (See this short piece for reason to believe the current emphasis on external motivation has failed; though I am not sure the author fully understands the problem, they clearly understand it has to do with motivation.)

If what I have said is right, we should stop saying “having a degree is a path to financial success.” It may have been, in the past, but that would be precisely because graduates in the past were able to exercise their intellectual abilities; they were well-developed, well-rounded, rationally autonomous agents. As we’ve been selling college as a way to make money, by contrast, we’ve reduced the correlation between college and better pay (see this for a discussion about the falling college premium). Making better pay the direct goal is self-defeating.

As I’ve indicated, academia is partly at fault here. We have—as an institution—encouraged a mistaken view of college. And it’s not just us—though if we fought against it, I think it would have a positive affect. Notice how the lack of internal motivation of students is matched by the lack of internal motivation of many adult workers. Financial remuneration does seem to be the primary motivator for work in our society. So our students see their parents and other adults pursuing wealth and are encouraged by their parents and others to pursue wealth.

We seem, as a society, to have forgotten what really matters, including the ability to see study as valuable for its own sake. Reminding students now can help them later: they can realize that they should not work for money itself, but either for what money lets them do—like having time with loved ones, engaging in artistic endeavors and hobbies, and continuing to study—and/or because they find the work itself appealing. That is also what will make them more valuable in the work place and as citizens and pursuers of genuine justice and truth. All of those, though, are byproducts of the actual telos of the university, not what should be aimed at.