Science, scholarship, and intellectual virtues: A guide to what higher education should be like

ABSTRACT

Many thinkers are accustomed to separating facts and values—knowledge and morality. They believe that morality enters into the choices scientists and scholars make about what is worth studying, but after that, the cold logic of evidence assessment takes over. This sells science and scholarship short. I will suggest that science and scholarship, done right, are the best exemplars we have of a set of intellectual virtues that are essential if we are to be moral individuals living in a moral society. These virtues include love of truth, fair-mindedness, perseverance, and wisdom. Science and scholarship with these virtues is a way of interacting with the world to which we should all aspire. Nurturing these intellectual virtues, and not job training, is what university education should be for. Students with intellectual virtues will be better employees, in whatever career path they follow. And they will also be better citizens, willing to contribute to societal well-being in general.

KEYWORDS:

• Fact-value distinction
• intellectual virtues
• morality
• education
• science

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is an emeritus professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and a visiting professor at the Haas School of Business at Berkeley. He researches the intersection of economics and morality. He has written The Battle for Human Nature, The Costs of Living, The Paradox of Choice, Practical Wisdom, and most recently, Why We Work. In addition to his scholarly work, Schwartz has written for sources as diverse as The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Slate, Scientific American, The New Republic, the Harvard Business Review, and the Guardian. Schwartz has spoken three times at the TED conference, and his TED talks have been viewed by more than 20 million people.