The Purpose of the University

tl;dr I believe the purpose of the university is not to solely pursue truth, champion social justice or impart vocational skills, but to grow the person by being wholesome and balanced in various ways, possibly combining the above aims.

In “Why Universities Must Choose One Telos: Truth or Social Justice”, Jonathan Haidt’s central argument is that each university must (and can only) explicitly choose between truth and social justice as its telos. This is because truth and social justice are compatible at the individual level, but not at the institutional level. He attributes truth to Mill and social justice to Marx. Clearly, he stands by Mill, suggesting that academic freedom and intellectual diversity exist if and only if truth, not social justice, is king. Although he tokenistically tries not to moralise the issue by allowing universities to choose between the two teloses, he doesn’t bother to do a good job at it. “At the very least, be explicit about the choice!”

In “Creating Conservative Universities Is Not the Answer”, Alan Jacobs agrees that every university should be explicit about their mission, but disagrees with Haidt’s dichotomy and assumption that academic freedom brings about intellectual diversity. Jacobs, a self-professed conservative, presents a more complex argument. His analysis begins with one basic question: As academia increasingly leans left, is establishing a greater number of conservative universities an answer? No, he discovers.

Jacob’s argument is as follows. He cites two models of the conservative university, shows that both of them are necessarily polemical and rejects them. He then discovers a paradox: “The new university [...] cannot be ‘open’ to the ideas that will destroy it. But if it is not open to those ideas, it cannot be a truly liberal institution.” He realises that there will never be absolute academic freedom, because “freedom” and “openness” are constrained and subjective. Therefore, Jacob finds, academic freedom isn’t the real problem. Conservative professors will find tremendous academic freedom in a conservative university, but this university is epistemically closed nonetheless. The real problem is intellectual diversity, of which (it is implied that) academic freedom is a necessary but insufficient condition. Jacobs concludes that establishing a greater number of conservative universities exacerbates the pernicious consequence of self-selection. Each university will be “ideologically monolithic”, attracting students who are already inclined towards what the university stands for. The result? A greater diversity of views among universities but not within them, which leads to more polarisation on a national scale.

So what is the telos of the university? For Haidt, it is the universal value of truth. Jacobs does not specify one, but he does emphasise intellectual diversity. We must note that in doing so, Jacobs’ top priority is reducing polarisation, not approximating towards truth. And what about DPM Tharman Shanmugaratnam’s remarks at this year’s PIIE “Combating Inequality” conference: that “we have trundled into an overwhelmingly academically oriented college education” due to the illusory “college premium” and a shift towards vocational training is in order? The university has an economic role too.

The pursuit of truth gives us facts of the world — what it is and how it works. But what it should be, why it should be, and how to live our lives in furtherance of our visions of the world are equally as important if we conceive of education as holistic and not purely receptive and transactional. Unlike Haidt, I think that universities as well as individuals can aspire to understand the world in order to change it.

I propose a candidate for the meta-telos that accommodates truth, social justice and vocational skills. Here, I turn to Dr Adrian Kuah’s call to reimagine the university and revisit the university’s ancient roots. Before the Enlightenment’s fixation on scientific truth or Industrialism’s on hard skills, the prevailing telos of education was human flourishing. This tradition has a long history, duly cited by Dr Kuah: “the Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese traditions of the ‘academy’, an ‘institution through which individuals could come to stand in a new and surer relationship with the world’.”

Unfortunately, developing the whole person today is often justified in pragmatic and instrumentalist terms: soft skills courses, skin-deep classes in a contrasting subject — means to navigate through a VUCA world. Justifying a holistic education consequentialistically and not virtuously is satisfactory, but flourishing nevertheless remains an afterthought. It’s like continuing to stick to an unbalanced diet but, in consideration of the health risks, downing a whole bottle of vitamins every day. I guess that’s one way to stay healthy, but eating well for its own sake produces the same outcome!

Questioning the university’s telos is timely and relevant, partly due to the debate surrounding Alfian Sa’at’s module on dissent at Yale-NUS. I am against politically charged modules being compulsory. But I am also against the university being stripped of political activity, especially if it originates from students. This is because first, developing the whole person necessarily develops their political consciousness. Second, political subject matter is an inextricable part of the arts and social sciences, and upon STEM students’ slightest exposure to these contrasting subjects, political means and ends will be introduced. Third, the university is an incubator of ideas and projects, including political ones, which can originate from anyone anywhere. Last and most importantly, “political activity” does not have to be partisan; social, cultural, volunteer and activist student groups all engage in “political activity” in one way or another.

I have discussed this topic with fellow NSFs during breaks. One suggested that the university’s purpose is to only impart knowledge and skills for graduates to find jobs — the so-called “average taxpayer’s view”. Another suggested that the university is whatever one conceives it to be; seek and ye shall find.

My position remains that the university is a continuation of general education, and the telos of education is to grow the whole person, to instil virtues — epistemic (which includes the love of truth), practical (which includes hard skills) and civic (which includes political participation), among others, in various proportions. Truth, social justice and practical skills are not mutually exclusive if their boundaries are well-defined and respected. These boundaries can be negotiated, but not without considering the overall impact on students’ flourishing. ∎