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Educating in Respect: Against Neutral Discourse as a Norm for Respectful Classroom Discussion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2018

Christina Easton
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Abstract

Since 2014, British schools have been required to ‘actively promote’ the value of ‘mutual respect’ to the children in their care. This is relatively unproblematic: liberals are agreed that good citizenship education will involve teaching mutual respect. However, there is disagreement over how ‘respect’ should be understood and what it should imply for norms of respectful classroom discussion. Some political liberals have indicated that when engaging in discussion in the classroom, students should provide only neutral reasons to defend their views. This paper provides a number of arguments against this claim. For example, I argue that this norm relies on a distorted understanding of what it is to respect others and that it stifles the development of civic and epistemic virtue in the next generation of citizens. Even from within the perspective of political liberalism, there are good reasons to favour critical discussion of non-neutral reasons. Education policy should therefore accord greater priority to discussion of students’ actual motivating reasons than to discussion constrained by a norm of neutral discourse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 187 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2018 

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References

1 Comprehensive liberals allow that political principles be justified with reference to liberal values such as autonomy or individuality, whereas political liberals seek to justify political principles with references to values that all reasonable people can accept. For the view that liberals unite over the importance of mutual respect, see Gutmann, Amy, ‘Civic Education and Social Diversity’, Ethics 105 (1995), 557–579CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Neufeld, Blain, ‘Political Liberalism and Citizenship Education’, Philosophy Compass 8/9 (2013), 781–797CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 787.

2 Department of Education, ‘Promoting fundamental British values as part of SMSC in schools’. Online (November 2014). Retrieved 9 August 2017 from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/380595/SMSC_Guidance_Maintained_Schools.pdf. Since not all British people agree on these values, nor are these values exclusively British, it may be more appropriate to see this document as listing liberal values.

3 Department of Education, ‘Guidance on promoting British values in schools published’. Online Press Release (27 November 2014). Retrieved 9 August 2017 from https://www.gov.uk/government/news/guidance-on-promoting-british-values-in-schools-published.

4 For some brief arguments in favour of critical discussion of ‘British values’, see Christina Easton, ‘How to teach children about tolerance – and its limits’, Times Literary Supplement. Online (18 July 2017). Retrieved 9 August 2017 from https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/tolerance-ethics-students-education/.

5 See, for example, the work of Generation Global (https://generation.global/how-it-works, retrieved 22 September 2017). On the importance of discussion, see Kenneth Primrose, ‘Religious Education – reclaiming what is being lost’, Theos. Online (18 September 2017). Retrieved 22 September 2017 from http://www.theosthinktank.co.uk/comment/2017/09/18/religious-education-reclaiming-what-is-being-lost. Cf. Angie Hobbs, ‘How teaching philosophy could help combat extremism’, The Conversation. Online (16 March 2017). Retrieved 9 August 2017 from https://theconversation.com/how-teaching-philosophy-could-help-combat-extremism-74386. For arguments and evidence of the benefits of students engaging in critical discussion of controversial issues in Social Studies classes in the US, see Hess, D. E. and McAvoy, P., The Political Classroom: Evidence and Ethics in Democratic Education (New York: Routledge, 2015)Google Scholar.

6 Larmore, Charles, Patterns of Moral Complexity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Larmore, Charles, ‘Political Liberalism’, Political Theory 18: 3 (1990), 339–360CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 347. Henceforth, ‘PL’.

8 See Ackerman, Bruce ‘Why Dialogue?’, Journal of Philosophy 86: 1 (1989), 5–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Larmore, Patterns (op. cit. n.6); Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (Expanded Edition) (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005)Google Scholar. Rawls officially restricts his argument to ‘constitutional essentials and matters of basic justice’, but he does also say that ‘it is usually highly desirable to settle political questions by invoking the values of public reason’ (215). Larmore specifies that he does not see the liberal ideal of political neutrality as applicable to public discussion generally, and allows that sometimes we engage in discussion with the aim of convincing others of the worth of our views about the good life (PL, 348 and Patterns, 47). However, as we shall see, it has been common for political liberals drawing on these works to take neutrality as applying to public discourse more generally.

9 ‘Conception of the good’ and ‘comprehensive doctrine’ have varied definitions in the literature. I take ‘comprehensive doctrine’ to have broader scope, and use it to refer to a view (or set of beliefs) held by an individual or group that have implications for how we should live. These include beliefs about the nature and constitutive elements of a valuable life, but may also include metaphysical beliefs that impact upon questions of how we should live, such as beliefs about the status of a foetus. Importantly, these beliefs are controversial; not every reasonable person accepts them.

10 The notion of ‘reasonable’ does important work for political liberals, yet its definition is controversial. Rawls suggests ‘reasonable’ has two aspects (op. cit. n.8, 54). Firstly, a willingness to propose, and abide by, fair terms of co-operation. Secondly, a recognition that since reasonable and rational people can arrive at different, sometimes conflicting comprehensive views, it would be wrong for exercises of political power to be based in non-public reasons (138).

11 See also Nagel, Thomas, Equality and Partiality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 159Google Scholar and Klosko, George, ‘Reasonable Rejection and Neutrality of Justification’, in Perfectionism and Neutrality (ed.) Wall, S. & Klosko, G. (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 167–89Google Scholar.

12 Kant, Immanuel, ‘An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?’, in Practical Philosophy (ed.) Gregor, M. J. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

13 Larmore, PL (op. cit. n.7), 349.

14 Darwall, S. L., ‘Two Kinds of Respect’, Ethics 88:1 (1977), 36–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Larmore, PL (op. cit. n.7), 348.

16 Larmore, PL (op. cit. n.7), 349.

17 This is Rawls’ ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’; op. cit. n.8, 137.

18 Rawls (op. cit. n.8), 14. It is not clear whether Rawls views schools as part of the basic structure. For the view that they are, see Nussbaum, Martha, ‘Perfectionist Liberalism and Political Liberalism’, Philosophy & Public Affairs 39:1 (2011), 3–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 38–9 and Neufeld (op. cit. n.1), 793, n.4.

19 Nussbaum (op. cit. n.18), 39, n. 65.

20 I do not address the issue of the extent to which teachers should be neutral (although see §E for some relevant discussion). For a detailed treatment of this issue, alongside the results of a large, mixed-methods study, see Hess and McAvoy (op. cit. n.5).

21 Clayton, Matthew, Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 148CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Neufeld, Blain and Davis, Gordon, ‘Civic Respect, Civic Education, and the Family’, Educational Philosophy and Theory 42:1 (2010), 94–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 N&D (op. cit. n.22), 98.

24 N&D (op. cit. n.22), 99.

25 Kent Greenawalt acknowledges this difficulty when he says that as things stand, citizens cannot be expected to draw this distinction. He suggests that perhaps citizens of a ‘highly educated, participating citizenry’ could. This leaves open that we should be training the next generation of citizens so that they are equipped to understand and utilise this distinction. See Greenawalt, Kent, ‘Religion, Law and Politics: Arenas of Neutrality’, in Perfectionism and Neutrality (ed.) Wall, S. & Klosko, G. (Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 257–80Google Scholar, 272.

26 Rawls (op. cit. n.8), 78.

27 Neufeld (op. cit. n.1), 784, 789.

28 In Section 6, I suggest that Rawlsian political liberals like N&D should not be concerned if moral autonomy is a by-product of some policy, provided the policy itself is neutrally justifiable.

29 N&D (op. cit. n.22), 98.

30 Neufeld (op. cit. n.1), 790.

31 Whether (ii) is compulsory has implications for the common school ideal. I support the idea that schools should be places of diversity, and this is implied by my view on the importance of encountering other comprehensive doctrines. However, this consideration does not necessarily weigh more heavily than considerations that support faith schools (such as freedom of religion), and so I do not commit to a view on this debate.

32 Rawls (op. cit. n.8), 13.

33 Neufeld (op. cit. n.1), 788.

34 Ibid.

35 Rawls (op. cit. n.8), xlvi.

36 Rawls (op. cit. n.8), 138.

37 Rawls (op. cit. n.8), 139.

38 Cf. Clayton, M. and Stephens, D., ‘When God Commands Disobedience: Political Liberalism and Unreasonable Religions’, Res Publica 20 (2014), 65–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 79.

39 See §G below for further discussion of this point.

40 Appiah, K. A., Cosmopolitanism (London: Penguin, 2007), 30Google Scholar.

41 We might also talk about ‘finding the truth’ or ‘getting right answers’, but I avoid this in order to circumvent meta-ethical controversies over whether there are objective moral and political truths.

42 Interestingly, this neutral reason is often included in public statements by evangelical Christian organisations; see Kettell, Steven, ‘Always Read the Label: The Identity and Strategy of Britain's “Christian Right”’, Politics, Religion & Ideology 17:1 (2016), 1–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Mercier, H. and Sperber, D., The Enigma of Reason (London: Allen Lane, 2017)Google Scholar.

44 Larmore, PL (op. cit. n.7), 347–8.

45 Larmore, PL (op. cit. n.7), 347.

46 Galston, W. A., Liberal Purposes: Goods, Virtues and Diversity in the Liberal State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 Galston (op. cit. n.46), 106.

48 Appiah (op. cit. n.40), 85.

49 In spite of this, it is common for thinkers to move between neutrality in policy-making and neutrality in public deliberation without justifying this move. For example, see Klosko (op. cit. n.11) and Galston (op. cit. n.46, 98–117).

50 Galston (op. cit. n.46), 109.

51 David Velleman, ‘Love as a Moral Emotion’, Ethics 109: 2 (1999), 338–374, 343.

52 Nussbaum (op. cit. n.18), 33.

53 Nussbaum (op. cit. n.18), 39.

54 Nussbaum (op. cit. n.18), 38–9.

55 Nussbaum (op. cit. n.18), 29.

56 Callan, Eamonn, ‘When to Shut Students Up: Civility, Silencing, and Free Speech’, Theory and Research in Education 9:1 (2011), 3–22Google Scholar, 13.

57 Callan (op. cit. n.56), 12. This is similar to the argument put forward in §B.

58 Williams, Bernard, ‘Toleration:  An Impossible Virtue?’, in Toleration: An Elusive Virtue (ed.) Heyd, D. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 18–27Google Scholar.

59 See Rawls (op. cit. n.8), 194; Larmore PL (op. cit. n.7), 358, n.4; Klosko (op. cit. n.11).

60 I am grateful to Luc Bovens, Alex Voorhoeve and David Coombs for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.