Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE
Are There Any Unacceptable Points of View in the Seminar Room?
Author: Hugh McCormack
Journal Title: Discourse
ISSN: 1741-4164
ISSN-L: 1741-4164
Volume: 9
Number: 2
Start page: 193
End page: 200
Return to vol. 9 no. 2 index page
This essay was the winning entry to the 2009 Subject Centre for PRS essay competition.
'Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.' Colossians 4:6
Freedom of speech is often considered a fundamental social and political right. It is often said to be a necessary factor in the pursuit of truth, a fundamental pillar of any democratic system, and a crucial element of human dignity and well-being. Yet in even the most liberal of societies, it is widely recognised that there are constraints to what people should be allowed to say. Obscenities and incitements to violence or criminality are often constrained in this way. The issue addressed in this essay is what constraints to free speech there should be, if any, in an academic seminar.
The focus of this essay will be the discussion of religious beliefs in academic seminars in UK universities, although much of what is said can be extended to other kinds of controversial beliefs in other types of social interaction in other cultures. However, since the argument is grounded on several social and cultural norms, changing any of these three factors might well result in a different conclusion.1
I am going to argue that there are no points of view that are unacceptable in a seminar per se, but whether and how opinions are expressed should comply with certain rules. After arguing that freedom of speech is crucial to academic progress, I consider the distress that free speech might produce in participants of seminars in philosophy of religion and religious studies. I then argue that by advancing two practical measures, the level of distress can be maintained within reasonable bounds, undercutting any motivation to constrain free speech.
Freedom of speech in seminars
An academic seminar is the meeting of a group of students under the guidance of a tutor, to exchange information and discuss theories, with the aim of advancing academic thought and understanding. The seminar functions by bringing into focus different competing claims, and these are assessed by discussing their strengths, weaknesses and implications.
Academia is typically motivated by truth and knowledge, in that academics aim to increase human knowledge.2 The academic seminar room, as a microcosm of academic practice, should strive for the same.
The pursuit of truth and knowledge is often said to proceed most efficaciously with free speech. Progress is most likely to occur only if people are able to express, criticise and discuss all kinds of relevant ideas and information. If an idea is not articulated and debated, it cannot be objectively assessed, and we can never be confident of its truth unless it can survive legitimate challenges. To constrain discussion allows a claim to go unchallenged, and if it goes unchallenged, it will survive even if it is clearly false. So, it seems, to constrain discussion in a seminar is to inhibit the pursuit of truth.3 Indeed, such a constraint would inhibit fundamentally the effectiveness of the seminar, especially in a subject like philosophy. It seems to be that one of the fundamental aims of philosophy is to bring to light and question the assumptions from which all arguments proceed, something that simply cannot happen if these assumptions are exempt from critical discussion.
Consider the following historical example. In the 17th century, French philosopher Rene Descartes considered the possibility that God might not exist, in the course of arguing that in actual fact God does exist.4 Descartes' approach was heavily criticised in some quarters for even suggesting that the non-existence of God is possible. Nevertheless, his arguments were highly influential in expanding the emphasis of philosophy from considering merely what there is (metaphysics), to also considering what we can know (epistemology). The moral seems to be that by defying the constraint that the existence of God should not be discussed, Descartes was able to significantly advance the study of philosophy.
The distress caused by freedom of speech in seminars
Despite the virtues of free speech, in academia and elsewhere, it is generally accepted that it cannot be absolute. There are some things that we should not allow people to say, especially if these things will or might cause harm. Defamatory talk can damage a person's reputation and cause them social disadvantage, even when completely fabricated. Speech can also incite unwarranted hatred, such as when a political speech attacks a racial or religious group. As a result, even liberal democracies have laws to restrict the freedom of speech.
Although it is widely accepted that some speech should be constrained, it is more controversial which speech should be. Perhaps the two most important factors here are how valuable free speech is in the particular domain in question, and how harmful free speech might be if practised in that domain. Thus a reasonable judgement might uphold free speech in the seminar room if it were considered as more beneficial than harmful, and constrain free speech if it were considered as more harmful than beneficial. For the purposes of this essay, it seems reasonable to assume that this simple two-factor model can be effectively applied to the assessment of free speech in the seminar room.5
Given the fundamental importance of free speech to academic progress, as discussed above, free speech in seminars seems highly beneficial. Thus it should only be constrained if the harm it would or might cause is considerable. It could nevertheless be argued that this is indeed the case for some seminars, especially those in philosophy of religion and religious studies.
Both philosophy of religion and religious studies consider religion from a secular point of view, in that they study human religious belief and behaviour from outside any particular religious tradition or viewpoint. As a result, academics and students of both these disciplines need to be able to consider matters from outside their own religious beliefs in order to properly engage in their discipline.
For some students, especially those with strong religious convictions, this may not always be easy. In seminars and elsewhere in their studies, they can end up feeling that some of the beliefs they value most are being doubted, criticised or undermined. It is plausible that the distress so caused might be so great as to disrupt the student's studies, and perhaps even cause the abandonment of the class or course. As a result, it might be asserted that seminars in philosophy of religion and religious studies can be distressing enough to justify the constraint of free speech therein.
Understanding and reducing distress
Despite the risk of distress in seminars, it nevertheless seems that through the employment of two practical measures, distress can be kept at a low level. If this is so, then there does not appear to be good reason to constrain free speech in a seminar.
Distress occurs when a student is uncomfortable with the way a seminar is conducted. This could be for one of two broad reasons. The student might be uncomfortable with the norms by which a seminar is properly conducted, and/or the seminar might not be proceeding within these norms. One way to keep distress at an acceptably low level is to prevent either of these happening.
So it is firstly important to regulate how the seminar proceeds. Perhaps the two most important factors here are the norms that apply to social interaction and the norms that apply to the practice of the particular discipline. I consider these two factors in turn.
Social norms apply to a wide range of social interactions, including academic seminars, business meetings and other similar situations. These norms dictate how such social interaction is usually and properly guided and constrained in the particular culture. In the UK and other cultures, participation in such situations should be polite, non-aggres198 Hugh McCormack—Are There Any Unacceptable Points of View in the Seminar Room? sive and relevant, and all attendees should have the opportunity to contribute. It is not, for example, permissible to punctuate a valid point with expletives, nor turn a question into an impassioned rant on a different issue. The aim should be to constructively develop ideas, not to pursue some personal agenda or go off into irrelevant areas.
Discipline norms are distinctive to the particular academic discipline concerned. They relate to the subject domains it covers, and the methods employed by practitioners. Philosophy of religion and religious studies are popular disciplines that are taught widely in UK universities. Their domains and methods are well-established. In philosophy of religion, debate is primarily focused on the existence of God, whereas religious studies compares and contrasts disparate beliefs from across different doctrines. In philosophy of religion, great emphasis is placed on evaluating the claim that God exists. In contrast, religious studies involves a comparison and contrast of the beliefs of different faiths, and there is less emphasis on evaluating them.
So, a seminar is properly conducted if it proceeds according to the social and discipline norms. If this does not occur, however, then the risk of student distress increases. For example, if a seminar in philosophy or religious studies is allowed to facilitate the destructive or malicious criticism of a particular religious belief, then this could easily become distressful for someone who held this belief. A participant should never be told that they are stupid or deluded for holding a particular religious belief, such as a belief in reincarnation or faith healing. The consequence is that the participants in a seminar—and most particularly the tutor—have a responsibility to ensure that the seminar is conducted within the social and discipline norms.
However, a seminar may also be distressful for a student, even if it is properly conducted, if the student is not comfortable with the norms by which the seminar properly proceeds. Philosophy of religion and religious studies require students to be open-minded enough to dispassionately consider various kinds of religious beliefs from different doctrines, including many that they might find implausible. So, for example, a student of philosophy of religion needs to be able to entertain both that God exists and that God does not exist, in order to engage fully with the subject.
Students should also be aware that a seminar room is a place of debate and discussion, and that such debates and discussions might cover any ground within the subject's academic domain. To cross the threshold of the seminar room is to cross the threshold into academic debate. So merely on account of being in the seminar, participants have tacitly accepted the norms of discourse for their particular discipline.
It is possible, however, that a student has not realised what they have undertaken by enrolling onto the course. They may have simply not understood what is studied in philosophy of religion or religious studies, or the method by which this study takes place. They may not have realised that their own religious beliefs might be examined, assessed or criticised, and they may not be comfortable with this happening.
So if the students are aware of the social and discipline norms by which their subject proceeds, and only enrol on their course if they find these norms acceptable, and if the seminars of their course proceed within these norms, then the seminars should produce a low level of distress. It is my conviction that if this occurs, then there would be insufficient grounds to justify the constraining of speech in seminars.
Conclusion and recommendations
In this essay I have argued that no viewpoint in a seminar is unacceptable, but it should only be expressed if it can be done within the social and discipline norms that apply to the seminar.
The risk that students of philosophy of religion and religious studies might be distressed in their seminars suggests that two practical measures should be employed. First, it is important to ensure that seminars are conducted within the relevant social and discipline norms. Second, steps should be taken to ensure that students are aware of the norms by which their chosen discipline is studied before they enrol.
Endnotes
- In this essay, the term 'norm' is used in a semi-technical sense to designate a standard or set of rules.
- Plausibly there are exceptions to this, such as in disciplines that champion aesthetics (such as art history) or values (such as ethics or political science), but these disciplines are subject to parallel arguments motivated by such goals as creativity or moral right, instead of truth and knowledge. Moreover, both philosophy of religion and religious studies appear to be motivated by knowledge and truth.
- The claim here is not, of course, that truth always emerges from a seminar, but merely that the seminar's environment should be conducive to its emergence. It may be, for example, that the participants are unable to see through irrational prejudice or distinguish truth from error, but if the discussion is constrained, it is even more difficult for the participants to deduce what is true.
- Descartes, Rene, ' Meditations on First Philosophy' , (1641) in Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, translated John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
- This model is not entirely uncontroversial, however. Most notably, it is plausible that the value of free speech in academia can never be wholly disentangled from its value in the broader culture. If, for example, democracy is highly valued as a political system, as is currently the case in the UK and elsewhere, then the value of free speech may be highly valued simply as a result of its role in the democratic system. Thus free speech in a UK seminar room may be valued more highly simply because free speech is highly valued as a political concept in the UK culture. However, such considerations seem to concern the details of the debate about the value of free speech, while this essay is concerned with a bigger, wider picture. So it seems a justifiable strategy in this essay to ignore such details and employ the simple twofactor model.
Return to vol. 9 no. 2 index page
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
