One of the reasons I have gotten behind in blogging is my work with a summer program here at Williams.  I am the director of Summer Humanities and Social Sciences, which brings 18 in-coming first year students to campus for an early introduction to the rigors of liberal arts education.   This is the fourth year I will have taught in the program but this year I have added responsibilities for overseeing everything: student travel, student accommodation, curricular integrity, etc.  It takes some time, but has certain rewards.

     To start things off this year, I invited a philosophy professor to give a talk on the meaning of a liberal arts education.  He did a great job.  Essentially, his approach was virtue ethics – without ever using that term (Virtue ethics on the sly?)  He started by asking each student for an answer to the question “what is the purpose of life?”   He then asked each to suggest a characteristic or quality that might help achieve one’s purpose in life.  And then went on to ask if such characteristics or qualities could be taught and learned, or whether they are simply inherent.  He led us, ultimately, to a mission statement for the college penned by a former president, Hank Payne:

Our mission it to nurture in outstanding students the academic and civic virtues, and the related virtues of character, in the intellectual tradition of the residential liberal arts college and in the context of the current and future needs for leadership in our society.  The academic virtues include the capacities to read closely, explore widely, express clearly, research deeply, connect imaginatively, listen emphatically, and the skills to do so effectively.  These virtues, in turn, have associated virtues of character.  One cannot research deeply without the virtue of perseverance.  One cannot listen emphatically without the virtue of tolerance and respect.  One cannot be committed to community life without the virtue of concern for others.  And so on.

    It all made me think of Confucius.  While I am certainly sympathetic to Payne’s vision, I think a Confucian would be concerned that the process of character-building in it is a bit too indirect.   It may be true that learning to “listen emphatically” (what a nice way of putting it) can instill tolerance and respect.  But a Confucian would want more work.  To gain sufficient tolerance and respect one should, from a Confucian perspective, daily perform one’s social duties: caring for parents, cherishing the young, welcoming friends and the like.  Virtue education must thus extend outside of the classroom; it must penetrate virtually every facet of our lives, every act we  undertake.  That’s why it’s hard to be a Confucian.

   Still, I think there is a certain Confucian resonance in Payne’s words, and a certain compatibility between Confucianism and virtue ethics, as scholars much greater than me have amply argued.  

    I should also add that when my philosophy professor friend posed his first question – what is the purpose of life? – one student answered something to the effect of taking care of family.  I took note of the response: it suggests that the most basic assumptions of Confucianism – that our love of family can be a starting point for a broader ethical framework – is alive and well in contemporary America.  

    And that gives me something to build on.  In my class with these same summer students we are reading Mencius right now.