Education to Virtue: By Mark Lutz One of the most serious and now most urgent questions facing liberal

democracy is whether there is a place in it for virtue. We seem to founder for the lack of it and to risk losing the autonomy we cherish by taking direct steps to foster it. For Many years, there was broad agreement that liberalism is a system of institutional checks and balances that functions smoothly without regard to the virtue or vice of its citizens. Perhaps the clearest statement of this view is Kants suggestion in Perpetual Peace that liberal institutions could effectively govern a race of devils. But today a remarkably broad range of thinkers agree that if liberal democracy is to survive it must undertake new efforts to cultivate its own civic virtues. There is an emerging consensus that we suffer a decline in values, a crisis of character, a lack of higher purpose. In particular, we hear warnings about the absence of personal responsibility to family and to society, the slackening of self-discipline, the lack of tolerance, the debasement of culture, the coarsening of political debate, among others. it thus becomes far clearer than before that liberalism has always depended on particular qualities of character. yet there does not appear to be complete agreement about which virtues without threatening our freedom. Nor is there solid ground about what virtue is. To begin the task of identifying, ranking, and fostering the virtues, we find that the models of virtue that inspired earlier generations of citizens seem to have lost much of their luster. Lockes model of the rational and industrious individual is widely considered to be petty and isolated, based on an excessively materialistic and narrow understanding of human nature. Similarly, the Kantian model of the autonomous individual who acts in accordance with universal moral categories seems abstract and rooted in dogmatic, enlightenment conceptions of reason an natural right that are no longer tenable/ Seeking a model of virtue that combines independence of mind with a sense of civic responsibility, some thinkers look back behind modernity to the figure of Socrates. A hero of many is recognized as the paragon of citizenship. Richard Rorty identifies liberalisms civic virtues as the Socratic virtues of talking, listening, and deliberating about common concerns. Socrates eagerness to consider every opinion and to reason with everyone about virtue makes him the image of democratic man. While Socrates may be so

appealing an example of citizenship that some will emulate him without further consideration, but it would be useful to learn what convinced him that his practices are virtues. For how do we know his virtues do not merely resemble our virtues but in fact differ from them fundamentally? While agreeing that Socrates exemplifies virtues we hope to find in liberal democrats, Leo Stauss argues that Socrates is especially useful to us because of what he can teach us about virtue. Accordingly, liberal democracy is intended to be an aristocracy that has broadened into universal aristocracy but has, instead, devolved into a narrow and spiritless mass culture that emphasizes security and efficiency and pays scant attention to excellence or virtue. In order for liberal democracy to accomplish its original goal, we must recover the liberal Education that Socrates practiced as he led his friends to perfect gentlemanship to excellence and greatness. Plato indicates that in its highest sense, this education is philosophy. According to Plato, a philosopher such as Socrates possesses all the virtues of which mans mind is capable, to the highest degree. As a philosopher Socrates is a perfect gentleman. Strauss say that we are not philosophers and cannot acquire the highest form of education, we must strive to share in it by listening to the great conversation among the greatest minds. Socrates is not only an example of a virtuous man, but also our best access to learning and caring about virtue. For Socrates is that one among the greatest minds who because of his common sense is the mediator between us and the greatest minds. Only by studying how Socrates examined and chose among the competing claims of the greatest minds can we share in the liberal education that completes the promise of liberal democracy. Thomas Pangle identifies the highest form of liberal education with a Socratic education. While Pangle agrees with Strauss that liberal democracy always needs Socratic education to help it lift its gaze above the merely practical and mundane, he places more emphasis on how we need Socratic education to alleviate problems that threaten liberal democracy from within. The most serious danger for liberal democracy is, not unsettling skepticism of revolutionary discord, or the excesses of passionate diversity, but instead the deadening conformism to a bloodless and philistine relativism that saps the will and capacity to defend or define and principled way of life. This is analogous of Tocquevilles observation that a perversion of the principle of equality often puts a powerful

pressure to conform on citizens of democracies. This is because we are not omniscient, we must take our bearings from some authoritative opinions about our rights and duties and goals. But as democrats, we believe that we are equal to others and should be independent of opinions that are held by everyone and by no one in particular, that is to say, opinions held by the public at large. Because of the overwhelming reliance on the public opinion, individuals who are tempted to dissent from it are quickly isolated and overcome. Pangle argues that this pressure to conform in democracy has become all the more powerful and dangerous now that it has embraced an especially intolerant form of relativism. He claims that even though democratic tolerance and equality promise everyone the opportunity of attaining a just rank in the natural hierarchy of talents and attainments, of virtue and wisdom, liberal democracy is now haunted by the dangerous tendency to degenerate from the ideal of fertile controversy between competing moral and religious ways of life into the easygoing belief that all ways of life and all points of view are equal. Those who hold this view are prone to think that no particular ways of life points of view are really worthy or in need of profound examination and passionate defense. Moreover, they suspect that anyone who offers a substantive, principled, reasoned argument for the superiority of any one way of life, including for the superiority of liberal democracy, are for this reason elitist and immoral and intolerant. Only a Socratic education can liberate us from the dogmatic beliefs that prevent is from experiencing true independence of mind and from rekindling the serious and free-ranging moral, religious and political debates from which the liberalism derived its original strength and purpose. Socratic educations makes us deeply aware of our limits of knowledge and of the power of the arguments against our beliefs. Without a taste of Socratic education it will be very difficult for students to develop the moral seriousness and intellectual freedom needed to practice our civic virtues. -Mark Lutz A Response: A Critical Exposition on the Extended Quote From Mark Lutz Some weeks ago I had posted an extended quote by Mark Lutz concerning how virtue and liberal democracy seems to be at odds

with one another. It was not my intent to have this be an albatross on the blog. Yet as I return and continue to update and polish all of my writings on this blog my mind continued to chew on what was written by Lutz. It seemed to me that I would need to justify its being included in, what I am calling, the canonical works of education to virtue. I had assumed much too far that readers would also see why I had chosen to insert that particular section of writing. Thus, there are three points of contention that I would like to address in the wake of posting the extended quote from Mark Lutzs work, Socrates Education to Virtue, concerning liberal democracy and a place for virtue in it. Firstly, I want to answer why this is even of value to the purpose or the essence of this blog. The text seemed to me of dire importance for the reason that it is directly pointed to concerns I have for the university and its student body. In my wiriness of making speculation on the contemporary society I want to be very careful about how I apply the terms Lutz uses values, a crisis of character, a lack of higher purpose in the article. Although they do seem to be contemporary existential concerns, a vein of this kind of concern, by social interpreters, historians, and commentators, has existed since the beginning of written history. Social reform, religious crusades, world wars have been the effect of assertions made about the impeding social decline in value, character and misunderstanding of the higher purpose. Yet, Lutz applies them appropriately within the context of the quote. The second point I want to address is concerned with the definition of what Lutz quotes as Socratic Gentlemanship. Briefly, this is an ideal man that is produced from the education to virtue through Socratic education. Thirdly, and most importantly, I will give my opinion to the questions of what are the virtues that are produced and how Socratic education produces them. These are highly contested points and I will admit that I am still a student of the Socratic education and therefore, my opinion is, exactly that, at best. Finally, in dealing directly with pedagogical styles, I want to address how it is that other forms of education attempt to instill/cultivate the virtues and attempt to show why Socratic education is the superior style to these. Much of what Lutz writes is based on the correct presupposition that education to virtue by way of Socratic education will

develop a moral seriousness and intellectual freedom for students. This is the main reason I wanted to post this quote from Lutz; to highlight what is at stake for the student today. Without too much finger pointing and mucking around in commentary on society and the current state of affairs in America, Lutz brings up some real concerns to the modern student and the university. Lutz writes In particular, we hear warnings about the absence of personal responsibility to family and to society, the slackening of self-discipline, the lack of tolerance, the debasement of culture, the coarsening of political debate, among other problems (Lutz quote). Sounds like a lot of doom and gloom that everyone, that is aware, agrees on, but cannot agree on the remedy. In democracies there is pressure to conform in the belief we are equal to one another. This gives rise to philistine relativism that saps the constitution of principled ways of life. And hence, we take our opinions from everyone and no one in particular. The reliance on public opinion to create an individual belief watermark is overwhelming. And then those who differ or choose to dissent from the publics opinion are quickly isolated and destined to be a pariah. Thus it is clear that the university is deficient in at least one area. If one of its main goals is to produce graduates who will contribute to society and help make it a better place, then without educating virtue the university is in actuality contributing to the problem previously stated. It should be mentioned that the term gentlemenship is androgynous and is available to all cultured people, and we are all cultured. Then to address the question of definition of the word gentlemanship in the text, I take this to mean: post-cultivation in the virtues of Socratic education, one will be concerned only in matters of truth and striving to reach objective good in society, thus living a life of moral seriousness and intellectual freedom. This would be human excellence. Socrates, in the dialogues, is shown to attempt to illuminate the possibility of achieving the status of gentleman with each of his interlocutors. And it cannot be emphasized enough that Plato thought that education in the highest sense is philosophy. Philosophy is the quest for wisdom or the quest for knowledge of the most important things. Since wisdom is inaccessible to man; we cannot be philosophers and therefore we cannot acquire the highest form of education. We can still love philosophy and try to philosophize. This may be a deep

interpretation of the dialogues, but is a worthwhile endeavor nonetheless, for what is at stake is the failure to achieve the full potential in each individual. The virtues that are produced from Socratic education would be courage, self-discipline, and a sense of civic responsibility. It seems to fit into the premise that Socrates attempted to lead his friends to gentlemenship, which would take courage to confront. So, by the professor challenging his students to look to challenging views and opposing strains of thought to the mainstream, courage will undoubtedly be produced by Socratic education. The virtue of self-discipline would be a product of Socratic education. In the daily rigors that placed on the individual to state exactly what he/she believes would promote the practice of mental selfdiscipline. A sense of civic responsibility would be a byproduct of Socratic education. What is different about Socratic education that makes it distinct from other kinds of education? This question is in particular need of justification especially when we think that Socrates model runs opposite of modern and postmodern thought. The difference can be found in the dialogue of the Symposium, which I mentioned briefly in my post about Alcibiades, when Socrates makes the positive knowledge claim of erotic matters. The importance of this knowledge is when one discovers that it includes knowledge of how to cultivate our erotic longing to be noble and good and manifesting true virtue. Socrates learned this from Diotimas teachings. In many dialogues Socrates is able to show that his interlocutors are moved by and erotic need to know how to be both noble and good. This is the difference of Socratic education from others because it is based on an innate human want to satisfy the noble and good, once it is exposed that they, in fact, do not know what virtue is. In each dramatic dialogue, Plato shows what can prevent us from obtaining civic virtue. There is a facet of Socratic education that is particularly obtuse to current education. Socratic education takes years of painstaking study to accomplish. In the current setting, a philistinism of education is settling in where the easiest class is the best. Socratic education would break this trend and replace it with a dialogue on what is justice?, what is good?, what is admirable? about a work of literature; to produce an elevated discussion of the arts and the sciences.

To conclude, what has been briefly and loosely described here is liberal education. Liberal education is training in the highest form of humility and at the same time in boldness: it demands us to break from the noise, the rush, the thoughtlessness, the cheapness of the Vogue of the intellectuals. It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or the least popular opinions. Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity. The Greeks called it apeirokalia, the lack of experience in things beautiful. Liberal education supplies us with experience in things beautiful.