Art of Decision

How well is the U.S. college teacher carrying out his primary responsibility, i.e., teaching his students how to think? Not at all well, says Harvard Philosopher Ralph Barton Perry (Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus), in the current Harvard Alumni Bulletin.

"Limited by their self-imposed code...'on the one hand' and 'on the other hand'...teachers hesitate to teach their students how to choose among opinions, and hesitate themselves to choose." They are reluctant "to be explicit on questions of value. Social 'science' no longer embraces knowledge of the good. Values are left to personal 'attitudes,' and to tamper with these is to expose the teacher to the charge of...'indoctrination'..."

But, says Perry, "thought is applied to action through decision...One cannot postpone...decision indefinitely...I suggest that there is what might be called an 'art of decision'--an act of commitment following an interval of noncommitment. The teacher should help his student to learn this art.

"First, he should practice it himself. The teacher who makes no decisions is evading the hardest part of the task. It is comparatively easy to raise doubts....But doubt should be regarded as the prelude to belief...If beliefs are demolished, they should be built again, or others in their place. If this is not done, the vacuum will be filled by authority, hearsay, or superstition.

"And then, having exhibited the art of decision, the teacher should help his students to reach their own decisions...This is something very different from proselytism. It is respectful of other minds; it is both scrupulous and modest. But at the same time, it is responsible. It is an attempt to be of help to those whose minds have been awakened to doubt, but are suffering from indecision through being ignorant of how to make decisions...

"The fact is that the honorable teacher has a creed, and cannot, if he tries, withhold its influence...The rightful freedom of minds, the maxims of logic and experimental proof, of intellectual honesty, of tolerance and persuasion, are themselves values. Together with all their personal and social implications they constitute a body of indoctrination to which no objection can consistently be raised. Here, I believe, is the reconciliation of the teacher's scruples with moral and political education. Let him look to the ground on which he repudiates indoctrination. If he is against it, it is because, fundamentally, he is for something."

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