I read with great interest and considerable sympathy the argument of Professor Richard Walton about the relationship between rights and responsibilities, and the application of this theory to the practices inherently associated with a professoral calling. I find myself swayed by many of Walton's arguments, but I still have difficulty with even a casual suggestion that rights exist only in the abstract, or that we can use right, liberty, and privilege as interchangeable terms. I can lay claim to all the privileges I can imagine, but that will not affect the prospect that I can actually enjoy them. Similarly, I remain at liberty to do as I please, so long as I stand ready to accept the consequences of my actions. In my view, if I have a right to act in a particular manner, or to enjoy some benefit, then I have a claim that I can assert and defend against any and every one else. And it follows that I must also accept the duty to defend the same right for any and every one else, or I have no way to assure my own enjoyment of that right. While Walton clarifies his use of terms, he nonetheless denies any nexus between rights and duties.
In contrast to Walton's argument, I assume a direct relationship between rights and duties, seeing them as reciprocals of each other--or, as the nineteenth century philosopher Bradley put it, contraries of the same thing. I see no way to assure the existence of a right unless I accept the personal and direct responsibility to defend it for others, because only if we all accept that duty can I anticipate its protection for me. I agree with Walton that we need to state clearly what we intend when we use the term "right"--natural, human, civil, or contractual. However, I tend to side with the contractarians who assert that all rights result from the basic agreements which allow for and undergird social order. I understand the arguments of those who say that all rights extrude from the barrel of a gun, but I disagree that might makes right. Jefferson argued in his classic statement that the failure of government to respect the rights of its citizens negated the allegiance citizens owe to their governments. It seems to me that Jefferson's view derived as much from Hobbes as from Locke. Remember the Hobbesian description of life in the state of nature as solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, or words to that effect. Our forebears contracted among themselves--and we have continued that contract--to create a government capable of protecting the rights of all. That social contract derives and retains its inherent force only if everyone accepts the duty of defending the rights of all. Otherwise civil society quickly degenerates into a state of nature, with each attending to individual concerns and none focused upon assuring that which we can only share in common. Surely we have learned this much from our study of history and the experience of life in the chaotic twentieth century.
I tend also to disagree with Walton's distinction between duties and responsibilities. He argues that "Duties may be imposed, but responsibilities, properly so-called, must be evoked." In Walton's view, employment contracts impose duties, while family relationships imply or evoke responsibilities. I find the distinction tenuous at best, misleading at worst. For it appears to require that we accord higher status to some relationships than to others. While we may wish to do so, I doubt that we can responsibly without further analysis of the implications. In my understanding of these relationships, I think that I have responsibilities to my employer that transcend the explicit terms of a written contract of employment. In this sense, I remember the counsel of my parents who always urged me to attend more to the responsibilities of the position I hold than to the specific terms of the employment agreement. My commitment, they said, taken when I assume the position, goes beyond simply living up to the words on paper. I continue to regard that as sound and prudent counsel.
In that regard, I doubt that Walton's tenuous distinction offers any additional insight concerning his argument about the nature of the intellectual life. I admire, appreciate, and wholeheartedly endorse his successful effort to identify the responsibilities of those who aspire to the intellectual life. I also concede that, while we all recognize them, some practitioners--more than we like to admit, and seemingly more in recent years--have violated the standards "intrinsic and essential to the intellectual life in its various forms." His differentiation between the external and internal goods which accrue to the practitioner helps us to grasp the significance of those standards and responsibilities. As he notes, the products--which he describes as "objects or services of value to others" produced by the practice--"are mediational; they are the point of coincidence of the practice's internal and external goods, binding the two types of goods together." These products generate a return in the form of money for the practitioner-at once a benefit and a potential source of corruption. As Walton points out, "When the practitioner neglects internal responsibilities in favor of pursuing external goods the integrity of the practice is destroyed." But I fail to see how this relationship differs in reference to various forms of endeavor. Let me explain my concern.
The athlete, amateur or professional, who neglects the pursuit of the skills and understanding requisite to the sport will not long enjoy the fruits of attainment. The teacher who neglects study or sells grades will not long have any students. The faculty member who neglects the discipline and ignores pedagogy will not long retain a position. The father who neglects the family and ignores duties will not long enjoy the benefits of a family. I see no good reason to argue that one group of relationships involves duties and the other responsibilities. In fact, it strikes me that the relationship between internal and external goods remains the same, whatever the form of endeavor. The practitioner pursues the internal goods in search of excellence in the practice, and must always guard against the allure of external goods. In that argument, I see no logical basis to distinguish between the duties and responsibilities of these relationships.
Walton seeks to illuminate the distinction by citing the example of a performance by a violin virtuoso:
Mr. [James] Buswell had studied Brahms' score diligently; he knew as well as anyone could what Brahms' musical intentions were. He understood his task as performer to reveal Brahms' music as the composer created it; no more and no less. In performance we saw Buswell withdraw into the music, inhabiting it, rather than the stage, exploring the music's profound beauty.
While I admire Walton's description of the performer and the performance, I have serious reservations about the claims he makes. Buswell probably does know "as well as anyone could what Brahms' musical intentions were," but that alone will not enable him to "reveal Brahms' music as the composer created it." The performer accomplishes at once a good deal less and a good deal more. To argue otherwise amounts to an assertion that ideas and intentions do not have physical and temporal contexts, which they obviously do have. Robin Collingwood, the philosopher of history, argued that the good historian literally experiences the same ideas as the historical actors under study. I think Walton wants us to accept such a proposition, which I believe inaccurate and misleading. We come as close as we can to understanding original intentions, but we always impose our own intentions no matter how hard we try not to do so. That results in something less and something more than the original intentions.
Nonetheless, I concur with Walton's general argument about the responsibility of the practitioner. I simply do not see the basis for the distinction between duty and responsibility. If I have a responsibility, then I also have a duty to act in a particular way so as to fulfill that responsibility. If I have a duty to act in a particular way then I have the responsibility to fulfill an obligation that I have accepted, whether to employer, spouse, child, or any other. It strikes me that to argue otherwise offers too many loop holes to those who want for whatever reason to evade a duty or responsibility. To argue that my obligations depend upon a distinction between duty and responsibility strikes me as post-modernism run rampant.
Walton's discussion brought to mind Richard Hofstadter's useful definition of an intellectual as a person having the capability to remain at once pious and playful toward ideas. Hofstadter thought piety essential to assure the devotion requisite to mastery, and invoked playfulness to prevent extremism. He viewed the resultant balance critical to intellectual life. In our own experience and our study of history, we have seen what happens when piety prevails and the zealots emerge triumphant. We have also learned to abhor the playfulness of the dilettante capable of accomplishing nothing. Hofstadter reminded us of the responsibility and duty of the intellectual to maintain the balance.
Walton seeks to apply his argument to modern universities as organizations increasingly under the ideological sway of "managerialism." In his explanatory scheme, modern universities have become the battleground for the struggle of the intellectuals striving to remain true to the callings against the transformationists, seeking to use the university to solve the problems of today, and the mangers, wanting only to sell the external goods produced by the university. According to Walton, neither the transformationists nor the managers have any conception of the distinction between internal and external goods, since they recognize only the external goods susceptible either to manipulation of the public or to exchange in the market place. That strikes me as an incomplete and misleading description. In a footnote, Walton tries to narrow the scope of his discussion. However, I found no such limitations in his general argument.
I have no doubt that every campus has some transformationists intent upon bringing the resources of the university to bear to help solve social problems. But transformationists come in different varieties and beliefs. They do not all share the same philosophical positions. Some insist upon imposing solutions, while many others stop short of the zealotry that Hofstadter warned us to avoid. These latter seek instead to bring rational intelligence and discipline to the task of understanding societal problems, and allow the enlightened public and its representatives to make the policy decisions. I think it does an injustice to many in this group to paint them all with the same brush.
I will make a similar argument with regard to the so-called managerialists. While many people resist management and insist upon the right to manage themselves, complex organizations nonetheless require management. Undoubtedly some managers will succumb to the fatal attraction of mortgaging the long term to the short term. That frequently happens in every form of undertaking. But that does not of itself mean that managers lack the capacity to understand the internal goods that alone contribute to the long term viability of any undertaking. Nor does it mean that all managers mistake training for education, or that training has no value or place in an educational institution. Once again, a great deal depends upon context. To ascribe the same motives to all managers approximates the error of conflating all institutions of higher education, making no distinctions with regard to mission, purpose, and function. Surely we need much more appreciation for the differences that exist. Surely we must respect the integrity of those who approach management as a calling with internal goods as demanding as those of other callings. If not, then we need a principled basis for making invidious distinctions of this kind.
In that regard, I think it unacceptable to assert that managers in higher education today all ascribe solely to the "primary standard" of efficiency. Certainly every manager accepts efficiency as one criterion, but many other criteria also influence decision making in higher education. The single-minded devotion to one criterion resembles the zealotry that Hofstadter described, even if it has taken a new form. One can find managers whose dedication to the "bottom line" soon undermines their effectiveness and efficiency. One can also find managers in higher education who understand full well the internal goods and work hard to assure the balance between internal and external goods. Unfortunately, life in complex institutions does not lend itself to single mindedness. The good manager must exhibit the balance between piety and playfulness that Hoftsadter described.
I want also to comment briefly about the emergence of information technology and its use to enhance teaching and learning. I think it goes without saying that information technology will not remove all the challenges and joys that have attracted talented people to academe. To the contrary, the new technology has the capacity to enhance the educational process, and we must use our resourcefulness and intelligence to make certain of its appropriate use. I see no reason to believe that it will have the effect of eliminating student contact "with the life of the mind in its flesh and blood presence." Of course, if one means that the life of the mind requires the more familiar--not to say, traditional--approach with the faculty member in front of the room referring to yellowed notes to deliver a tired lecture, then hopefully the new technology will bring radical change. I do not mean to imply by that comment that all lectures lack validity in this new era. As one who has taught history at virtually all levels, I believe in the efficacy of the good lecture. My mentor in college once described the experience as that of observing how a finely tuned mind works through some very complex issues. The responsibility of the teacher and the learner comes through quite clearly in that description. However, I do mean to imply that we must focus sharply upon the learning that occurs rather than the time spent in pursuit of it or the medium of instruction.
Nonetheless, I concede that, under current conditions, a fundamental difference separates those students served at a distance using information technology and on-campus students. Much as we seek to treat them all as students entitled to the same services, we have yet to develop the means to assure full equity. In part, that results from our lack of familiarity with the technology and its attendant techniques; in part, it reflects a market difference dictated not by the managers but by policy makers and fiscal realities. The distance learner has opportunities for courses and services that derive from either the willingness or ability to pay. Finances drive the outcomes far more than with on-campus students. That will remain the case until 1) we identify the funds to serve everyone, wherever located, or 2) we deploy the new technology creatively to reduce the costs to everyone and eliminate the differences.
Finally, I will close by confessing my sense that we have yet to articulate the relationships we must pursue in order to fulfill our function as educators. Many argue today that the students, the parents, or the employers constitute the consumers of higher education. I disagree. Society consumes higher education, and to the extent that it does we have a better society. In my mind, "consumption" in this context refers to the need for educated people to maintain a society with the quality of life to which we all aspire. I applaud Professor Walton for correctly noting the need for academics to attend to their responsibilities.However, I think the internal good of higher education lends new significance to the internal good of the intellectual life. For we will ignore at our peril the imperative to remain attentive to the equally fundamental need of our society for educated citizens.