In Defense Of Liberal Education

Christopher Ryan Maboloc

Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:16 AM | Friday, April 10th, 2015

A small child, quite untidy, extends her arm to beg from passing strangers under
the searing midday sun. It is a familiar sight but it does not get everyone into
thinking. Almost everyone is preoccupied with their own lives, unmindful of the
world at large. They are busy building their own ivory towers in order to please
the gods, but they are indifferent to the mortal life that is not their own. It is this
very truth that makes philosophical thinking matter above all else.
Philosophical questions are not only meant to produce the epistemic foundations
on the nature of truth. Rather, philosophy looks into the implications of human
action in order to realize the moral, social or political ends of society. As the
novelist JM Coetzee says, We need institutions where teachers and students
can pursue unconstrained the life of the mind because such institutions are, in
ways that are difficult to pin down, good for all of us: Good for the individual and
good for society.
But thinking is dead. The governments overemphasis on calibrating Philippine
schools so that it may respond to the demands of the global economy is an
assault not only on the spirit of free inquiry but also on freedom itself. This
unwritten policy reduces everything that a young person does in his/her college
life to a matter of practicality. Coetzee argues in an article that a certain phase in
the life of the university has come to an end not just because the neoliberal
enemies of the university have succeeded in their aims, but because there are
too few people left who really believe in the humanities.
While we cannot take away the immense contribution of the sciences, specifically
engineering and information technology, in allowing us to adopt globally and
benefit from the explosion of human knowledge, the problem really is that the
moral purpose of learning has been left behind. While technocracy is important in
understanding how the bureaucracy and the basic structure can be improved, the
values necessary in order to realize the meaning of justice and the common good
are not there.
For instance, philosophy matters to college students because it introduces them
to first principles. There is no prescription with respect to success or to the
solutions to our problems. Policymakers look into the sciences and innovation.
But something is more basic. People make choices. And philosophy is important
because it allows one to be critical about those choices. Philosophy enables the
person to ask the right questions and to question decisions when he/she feels
that these are not right. While technology can propel any country to greater
economic development, the very spirit of that development can only be found in
the foundations of the liberal arts. A robot cannot make a choice for the person

with regard to how one must live. And this is because if something takes over
from the person the basic capacity for making a choice, that person surrenders
what it means to live.
Coetzee points to a counterargument posed by critics: If critical literacy is just a
skill or set of skills, why not just teach the skill itself? One can respond by saying
that there are certain things that cannot be simply handed down as a matter of
skill. One can point, for instance, to the meaning of values. When teachers are
serious about what they do, they are not just relaying some information. Their
commitment becomes the model of what it means to be good.
Science is very important. Science has changed the world. But innovation
requires a basic element: It must have a purpose. Development should not only
mean the accumulation of more wealth. A dictionary is useful not because it has
250,000 definitions. It is most useful because a young man or woman is reading
Shakespeare or Hemingway and he/she discovers a new term. Knowing, in this
regard, brings us further. It tells us why life matters above all else. In Rudyard
Kiplings immortal words: If you can dreamand not make dreams your master;
if you can thinkand not make thoughts your aim.
The liberal arts thrive in criticism. But students need to know whyand how.
While a lot is objectionable in the thoughts of Jean-Paul Sartre, one would not
really be able to question his points unless one understands what he meant
when he said that existence precedes essence, which can be translated into
the idea that man has no history. This point is difficult for an uninitiated mind, and
yet the mind of young people should be exposed to such a manner of
questioning. Our assumptions need to be questioned critically because believing
in something without discernment means that one is simply being dominated by
pretentious authority.
Indeed, what our government lacks with respect to many of our problems today is
not only resources or the scientific analysis of experts. What it does not have is
the basic capacity for good decision-making.
Christopher Ryan Maboloc teaches philosophy at Ateneo de Davao University. He has a masters
degree in applied ethics from Linkoping University in Sweden.