Worldviews, humanism and the (im)possibility of neutrality

Abstract

Cooling identifies two starting-points from which to approach the question of the place of religion in education. He calls them ‘the Argument from Fairness’ and ‘the Argument from Objectivity’. He attributes both of them to humanists and to me personally. He says that he accepts the Argument from Fairness, but rejects the Argument from Objectivity, which he takes to be at the heart of more particular disagreements between humanists and religious believers. I point out that his attribution of the Argument from Objectivity to me and to others rests on a misunderstanding. I suggest that the Argument from Fairness is in fact a shared starting-point from which humanists and religious believers can debate the contentious practical issues, but it needs to be detached from his contestable claims about the inescapability of worldviews and the impossibility of neutrality. I find a good deal to agree with in what he says about the importance in education of deeper reflection on beliefs and values. I suggest, however, that his positions on collective worship and on religious schools cannot be reconciled with the Argument from Fairness.

Keywords:

• religion
• humanism
• fairness
• objectivity
• worldviews
• neutrality
• faith schools
• collective worship

Notes

1. Cooling attributes it to me largely on the strength of my use of the word ‘clutter’, to which he alludes on almost every page of his report. I use the word in my book On humanism (Routledge, 2004). I there argue for the existence of ‘shared human values’ which are ‘not the exclusive preserve of humanists’ but ‘feature in the moral codes of the various different religions’ and are ‘common ground between religious and humanist moralities’ (p. 118). The word ‘clutter’ is used to mark the contrast between these shared values and the penumbra of exclusively religious values which sometimes surround them in specific religious traditions. The examples given are Catholic teaching against contraception, and the condemnation of homosexuality by some Christians, which are described as being based not on shared human values but on theologically specific ideas of ‘natural purpose’. These are the only ideas which are referred to as ‘clutter’. I do not, there or anywhere else, apply the word to religious beliefs in general.

2. Cooling assigns to me a position which he calls ‘objectivism’ and which he contrasts with his own ‘critical realism’. He formulates the ‘objectivist view advanced by Richard Norman’ as the view that ‘education is … the process of liberation from the shackles of other people’s interpretations’. This runs together the view that beliefs, including systems of belief which constitute worldviews, have to be assessed by reference to an independently existing reality—which I do maintain—and the view that only non-religious worldviews make any such appeal to objective evidence—which is not what I maintain. Cooling accepts that ‘one can connect with objective reality from within one’s own worldview and … this can change one’s perception … [T]hrough encounters with reality and with other people’s worldviews … one becomes autonomous as one actively participates in constructing one’s own interpretation of the world, so that it is more shaped by reality’ (p. 32). If that is his ‘critical realism’ it is not so very different from my ‘objectivism’.

3. I have said something about worldviews in Richard Norman, The moral philosophers (2nd edn) (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 214–216 and 222–223.

4. An earlier attempt of mine to tackle some questions about neutrality in education was ‘The neutral teacher?’ in: S. C. Brown (Ed.) Philosophers discuss education (London, Macmillan, 1975).

5. The United Church Schools Trust (formerly the Church School Company) and its subsidiary the United Learning Trust, which run a large number of church schools for the Church of England, define their Christian Ethos as follows: ‘The Christian faith acknowledges the value and uniqueness of every human being regardless of gender, age, ethnic origin, creed or sexual orientation. It teaches the importance of love, respect, forgiveness and the need to work for peace and justice. We believe that true education must encourage the mental, physical and spiritual development of each pupil’ (http://www.angelfire.com/nb/lt/docs/called40.htm).