A PERSPECTIVE ON "VALUE-CENTERED" EDUCATION1 + RUSSELL GOUGH + Assistant Professor of Philosophy Humanities Division Pepperdine University "Man finds himself inevitably in the value-centric predicament, because the very rejection of value judgments is itself a value judgment."2 D. Elton Trueblood To begin with a crucial point on which I shall also end: I hope and pray that the issues currently being discussed concerning the nature, method, values and goals of the Christian university never become dead issues. These matters can be quite emotive if not incendiary, and frustrating to be sure, but they comprise the elan vital of our very existence as Christian institutions of higher learning. Concerning such issues, perhaps you have overheard remarks from well-intentioned, exasperated colleagues, such as, "We've been through all this before" and "What's the use? We never seem to reach any agreement anyway." As a prelude to this essay's main theme of values, consider the following brief, twofold response to such remarks. First, I suspect that there is much wider, substantive agreement concerning the Christian university's core, constitutive values than the remarks above suggest. Second, questions such as "What does it mean to be a 'Christian' university?" and "What are Christian values?" are moments of an essential 1 and unending process of institutional self-examination. As Socrates could have said, the unexamined university is not worth sustaining. In my own words, when Christian universities, as educational institutions, cease to examine their very reason(s) for existence, they cease to be institutions that are truly educational, not to mention Christian, in the truest sense of the terms. 2 I. What is meant by "value-centered" education? First, it will be helpful to focus on the ambiguous, slippery term "value(s)."3 Unfortunately, it is currently used to describe so much that it describes very little. Its meaning was once clear and its use limited. "Value" meant the relative worth of a thing; the worth in question was mainly economic or quasi-economic. Beginning in the nineteenth century, however, philosophers such as Nietzsche began to take the notion of value and values in a much broader sense, enlarging it into a general theory of value that included economics, ethics, aesthetics, politics, and education. This broadened usage subsequently spread to psychology, the social sciences, the humanities, and even to conventional discourse. Importantly for present purposes, this widespread usage retained from its simple economic usage the assumption-now very often covert-of relative worth, i.e., the assumption that nothing really has "objective" value. This assumption in large measure is responsible for the myth of value-neutral education, which contends that our world is one of bare facts, that empirical knowledge bears no intrinsic relation to moral or social values, and that value judgments are purely relative expressions of subjective feelings and preferential attitudes. Facts, then, are said to be value-neutral, and education is concerned with facts, not feelings and attitudes. 3 But of course schools which profess value-neutrality are imparting values under the guise of imparting none. All institutions-educational or otherwise-are value-laden. Indeed, language itself is so value-laden as to render value-neutrality nearly impossible. The question, therefore, is not "Should we teach values?" but, "Which values should we teach?" In this regard, I would suggest that Christian educators reject the modern university's ostensibly value-free and tradition-free environment. We should make it clear that, as educational institutions, we are overtly value-laden and tradition-dependent.4 Moreover, given that the rhetoric of value-neutrality is misleading at best, and given consequently that all educational institutions are in fact value-laden, it still remains to be seen what it would mean for a university, specifically a Christian university, to offer a "value-centered" education. Technically speaking, the phrase is redundant: all forms of education necessarily involve specifiable values, i.e., beliefs, attitudes, virtues, or behaviors which are seen as better or best suited for the purpose of realizing some obtainable goal or striving for some unattainable ideal. It is precisely here that we encounter semantic difficulties with the term "value" or "values." Notice that the preceding conventional definition of "values" contains six distinct terms which themselves are often denoted by the single term "values." The term is used to describe beliefs, 4 attitudes, virtues, behaviors, obtainable goals (e.g., his values of familyhood), and unobtainable ideals (e.g., her value of being Christ-like), among others. We clearly cannot equate "values" with one and only one of these terms, as some writers have suggested. For example, Hunter Lewis, in his recent and widely read A Question of Values, contends at the outset that "values" should be synonymous with personal beliefs.5 But if it is that simple, I find it a bit ironic that he didn't title his book A Question of Beliefs, which surely would be less confusing. This last statement is meant to be taken seriously, for consider the nakedly obvious redundancy in the expression "belief-centered education." Unless one qualifies "belief-centered" with some substantive adjective, such as "Christian" or "Marxist," the term seems utterly superfluous.6 It is true, however, that the redundancy is less obvious, perhaps covert, in the expression "value-centered education." But this much is clear: the term "value" is more slippery, often packed with more covert ideological assumptions than any one of the six aforementioned terms. To repeat an earlier point: "value" is used to describe so much that it describes precious little. But an important caveat is in order here, for this point belies the covert and powerfully influential ideological and political usages of the term. Consider especially the plural, concrete noun "values," as in "her values," "American 5 values," and "Christian values." Whether for an individual or for a group of individuals, more often than not this usage suggests a system of values, a Weltanschauung, a picture of the way the world is and should be, an ideology. II. Lest the reader think that by speaking of systems or ideologies I am attempting to paint the term "values" as necessarily dark and sinister, I will offer two timely and significant provisos. First, I would suggest that the intimate connection between certain uses of the term (like "American values" or "Christian values") and an underlying system, worldview, or ideology should not surprise us nor bother us. But what should bother us are any institutions which impart moral values-an ethic-under the pretense of imparting none. All institutions are value-laden. It follows that all institutions have a specifiable ethic; it may be covert and unacknowledged, but it is there. And it is crucial to recognize that all ethics, even non-Christian ethics, arise out of a tradition that depicts the way the world works-what is real, what is worth having, and what is worth believing. For example, to preclude religious belief, personal or otherwise, from the classroom is not an example of so-called value-neutrality, nor is it "objective" pedagogy; it is instead a subjective value-judgment informed by a particular value-system, worldview, ideology. In my view, an important conclusion to draw here is that there is no objective 6 knowledge apart from a tradition's worldview or ideology that sustains it.7 Therefore, just as the question was not "Should we teach values?"; but: "Which values should we teach?"; so also the question is not "Should we impart 'objective' knowledge?"; but: "Which view of 'objective' knowledge should we impart?"8 Second proviso: philosophically speaking, it is easy for me to see why many do not care for the term "value(s)." I believe the term is much more confusing and obscurantist than it is helpful. I would prefer, in fact, to eradicate the term from our moral vocabularies altogether. But, of course, such a preference is unrealistic, if not impossible, given the term's widespread usage in both its vernacular and academic milieus. III. Suppose, then, for the purpose of describing effectively what it might mean for a Christian university to provide a "value-centered" education, I were to distinguish the following senses of "values": (1) a system of values, as in "Christian values," implying a framework of ideological assumptions; (2) core values, referring to particular foundational principles or presuppositional beliefs which undergird a system or framework; (3) values of conduct, designating specific mandates for behavior; and (4) idealistic values, describing unattainable desired ends. (In spite of these seemingly helpful distinctions, the reader is again asked to notice the obvious superfluity 7 involved, for the noun "values" adds nothing to these concepts. Why not just talk in terms of worldview or ideology, core beliefs or presuppositions, rules of conduct, and ideals? Again, it would seem that "values" confuses and obscures more than it enlightens.) Since values rhetoric is so embedded in our vocabularies (or, I might add, until we as Christian institutions agree upon some clearer mode of discussing these issues), I will continue to use the term with the distinctions I have suggested. It seems to me that the crucial sense here of "values" is that of core values. Discussions I have had with various faculty and administrators on these matters always seemed for one reason or another to center on or ultimately fall back on the notion of core values. I suspect that many of us who are involved in Christian education use the expression "Christian values" as I have defined core values: as presuppositional beliefs which undergird an ideological framework. Of course, an all-important and delicate question still looms unanswered: precisely what are these core values, these presuppositional beliefs which undergird the Christian university's ideological framework? First, notice a couple of things which they are not. They are not trivial mandates for behavior, what I earlier described as values of conduct. We certainly do not want to equate core values with rules concerning drinking, smoking, and sexuality, important as 8 such rules may be. Nor, for that matter are core values to be identified with any specific denomination's theological tenets or doctrines. This assertion need not be inconsistent with my earlier claim that a Christian university is tradition-dependent. For this tradition, as I see it, can be (or is) twofold: the Christian tradition, in general, and a denominational tradition, in particular. The upshot here is that what I will identify next as the core values of Christian universities will by and large be values shared by both the general and the particular tradition of a given Christian university. What, then, are these core values? I do not believe they are that hard to find. Nor do I believe they are as incendiary as they might seem, at least not prima facie. I suspect that many of us may only have to look as far as the early pages of our school catalogs. For example, on page 4 of Pepperdine's catalog, on a page entitled "Pepperdine University Affirms," I would suggest that the first three affirmations listed, "That God is," "That He is revealed uniquely in Christ," and "That the educational process may not, with impunity, be divorced from the divine process," are core values of this institution. I am not sure that the three constitute an exhaustive list, but certainly they are irreplaceably foundational for any adequate conception of a Christian educational institution. I would suggest further that the other (six) affirmations 9 (e.g., "That the quality of student life is a valid concern of the University," or "That spiritual commitment, tolerating no excuse for mediocrity, demands the highest standards of academic excellence"), as well as Pepperdine's infrastructural rules and guidelines, reflect beliefs, attitudes, goals, and ideals-in short and loosely, values-that issue out of or follow from the core values.9 It is of utmost significance that these core values, these presuppositional beliefs, do not lend themselves to precise and systematic analysis or method as regards Christian education. The ways of remaining faithful to and consistent with them are varied and many. Thus, talk of a right way and a wrong way regarding methodology or implementation can at times not only be on very precarious ground, but can also be completely inappropriate, given the inherent generality of these core values. I would humbly suggest that Christian educational institutions of higher learning should seek to appreciate fully the wonderfully gray area of liberty that is involved in such over-arching generality. IV. To come full circle with the point on which I began, I will describe what I see as two central characteristics of any model of "value centered" Christian education: dynamism and idealism. It is dynamic in that it is an on-going, never-ending process. We should not expect to find a once-and-for-all static picture of the Christian university, 10 a picture replete with a precise cataloguing of specific "values"-for, of course, such a picture does not and should not exist. What importantly does remain static are our core values, for they are the ultimate criteria against which we judge competing ideas, methods, and behaviors. I asserted earlier that there is no objective knowledge apart from a tradition's worldview or ideology that sustains it. Every institution-educational or otherwise-reflects a tradition that depicts the way the world works, what is real, what is worth having, and what is worth believing. The Christian university's view of objective knowledge, then, in part consists of our specifiable core values. These core values, and thus our view of objective knowledge, places the Christian university in stark contrast with most other contemporary educational institutions. Therein lies one of our most important uniquenesses. As an institution we are openly and admittedly coming from somewhere in particular. So is every other institution, philosophically speaking, although many of them are coming from somewhere under the guise of coming from nowhere. The second characteristic, idealism, describes long- or short- range goals which might not or can not be perfectly realized, but which nevertheless must be faithfully pursued. At Pepperdine, for example, we are attempting to provide a "student-centered" education and a "value-centered" education in an overtly Christian environment. Goals such 11 as these imply a commitment to the total development of the student, nurturing more than just the student's intellectual capacities. These lofty aspirations, of course, echo classical views of education such as Plato's, who observed, "If you ask what is the good of education, the answer is easy-that education makes good persons, and that good persons act nobly." Such a conception presupposes a view of what it is to be a good person, and such a view is objectified by the tradition, educational or otherwise, that sustains it. Further, as Aristotle later suggested, a good person-a well-educated person-is one who is properly trained in both the intellectual and moral excellences. So any view of what it is to be a good person-a well-educated person-involves a particular ethic replete with assumptions about what is good. It may seem that I have digressed for a moment, but I am in fact as centered on the main issue as I have ever been. Recall the lamentable picture of contemporary American civic psychology portrayed six years ago by Robert Bellah and four younger colleagues in Habits of the Heart.10 The authors concluded that most Americans' inner lives are stunted by an inability to conceive any goal larger than individual achievements, possessions or experiences. Moral traditions that once supplied broader allegiances, such as biblical religion, are losing their influence, and nothing is taking their place. Further, they contended that the exclusive pursuit of self-interest, however enlightened, 12 cannot sustain a complex, interdependent society. Where there is no vision of a larger, common good, they reminded us, people perish. The classical view of morality recognized over-arching goods and goals. It involved a philosophical vision of what it was to be a good person, in an idealistic sense, and sought to identify those means which would best enable one to strive for that goal. In short, the classical view provided a context for meaning and purpose which Habits of the Heart laments is increasingly absent in contemporary society. Regarding what it might mean for a Christian university to provide a value-centered education, I want to suggest that the Christian university is a relatively small yet powerfully influential community that provides such a context for meaning and purpose. In its dynamic, on-going, self-examining process of becoming the best Christian university that it can be, it should do so while unabashedly identifying, and offering as objectively real and true, its core values. As Elton Trueblood has written, "A Christian college is one in which the Christian perspective is accepted openly, avowedly, and unapologetically."11 We should relish the task of asserting our assumptions and their over-arching framework in the marketplace of competing ideas. We must remember and combat the great myth of the View from Nowhere, the view that "objectivity" means coming from nowhere in particular. Such a notion is theoretically 13 and practically impossible. All education is value-centered. We should overtly offer our core values as truest and best. I hope it goes without saying that clear and emphatic avowal of our worldview and of our core values does not imply forced indoctrination. The Christian university's core values are the bases of education and freedom of inquiry in the highest and richest senses of those terms, for all truth is God's truth no matter where it is found. Our attitude emphatically should not be that we have arrived- intellectually, morally, or, for that matter, theologically. Christian higher education should be the epitome of a humble yet relentless search for truth and a humble, unending quest for moral and intellectual excellence. References 1I am indebted to Lorie Goodman Batson, Tom Olbricht, and Richard Hughes for their helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this paper, to Lydia Reineck for comments on the present paper, and to Richard Hughes for inviting me to present these ideas as part of a colloquium on "The Idea of a Christian University" at Pepperdine. 2D. Elton Trueblood, "The Concept of a Christian College," in Faculty Dialogue, 14 (Spring 1991): 27. 3I have followed here the description of "value" as given in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: MacMillan Pub.), Vols. 7-8, pp. 229-30. 4My claims involving value-neutrality, (the myth of) academic "objectivity," and tradition-dependence, of course, require much more development, but I will, for present purposes, assume them to be true. There are several authors who have defended these claims in depth to which I would refer the reader. Most notably I would mention the writings of the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (to whose tutelage I am greatly indebted) and the moral theologian Stanley Hauerwas. 5Hunter Lewis, A Question of Values (New York: Harper and Row, 1990), p. 7. He writes, "Although the term values 14 is often used loosely, it should be synonymous with personal beliefs, especially personal beliefs about the 'good,' the 'just,' and the 'beautiful,' personal beliefs that propel us to action, to a particular kind of behavior and life." 6I am not sure, though, that this proviso helps all that much. Why not simply say, for example, "Christian education"? 7Again, readers familiar with the writings of MacIntyre or Hauerwas will notice my obvious indebtedness to them. See especially MacIntyre's Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). 8Though these claims may seem to lend themselves to relativistic conclusions, I do not believe my position necessarily entails moral relativism. 9Concerning comparisons and contrasts drawn between these core values and civic values (e.g., American values), I would caution against any attempts to set up unbridgeable, radical disjunctions between Christian values and civic values, if for no other reason than that many of us who teach in Western Heritage programs spend a great deal of time emphasizing the profound debt which contemporary culture owes to Christian thought and practice. Certainly Christian ideology and civic ideology collide with earth-shattering force at times, but it still remains to be seen precisely how and in what ways the Christian university's core values are congruent or incongruent with the values of the civitas. 10Robert Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). 11Trueblood, op. cit.: 29. 15