Abstract
Universities are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the economic and social relevance of the research they produce. In the UK, for example, recent developments in the UK under the Research Excellence Framework (REF) suggest that future funding schemes will grant “significant additional recognition…where researchers build on excellent research to deliver demonstrable benefits to the economy, society, public policy, culture and quality of life” (HEFCE 2009). Having conceded that this and similar developments are likely to continue into the future, this paper explores the problematic ethical terrain facing philosophers of education under increasing pressure to produce work that has unambiguous, demonstrable practical value on terms offered by various funding regimes. A preliminary ethics of relevance is developed through an examination of the debate between John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas on the relationship between philosophy, public policy and public reason. The paper then articulates and defends a principle of legitimate relevance. This principle is then applied to the case of directing disciplinary competence in philosophy of education for the educational policy process as a means to producing social and economic benefits.
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Notes
The issue is not the UK’s alone, of course. Canada’s main funding regime for academic research activities has recently included a greater emphasis on awarding scholarships for ‘business related degrees’.
There is also the argument that Kant’s own views on education might place philosophy of education in the higher faculties. But I am not sure much could be made of this argument. If philosophy of education is a higher faculty, its interest in Truth is secondary to the interests of government. On this view, philosophy of education is not actually philosophy. The discussion ends here. But this is exactly the take on the philosophy of education that I think we should be resisting irrespective of what Kant himself would or would not say about the philosophy of education.
One could, for example, argue that at the very least philosophy of education must at least make some reference to existing educational concepts, policies or practices. While such an argument could be made, I would be hesitant to endorse this position because of the potentially unnecessary epistemic restrictions on our arguments this would create. Consider that many of our insights on education have been the result of the application of philosophical reflections and argument that by themselves may have had little or nothing immediately obvious to say about education at the time of their formulation. Such relevance may only become clear to us with the passage of time.
See The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Polity, 1989).
For a brief but informative contrast between Rawls and Habermas, see Regh (2003).
This ambiguity can be found elsewhere. For example, Rawls refers to what he calls the liberal principle of legitimacy where it is not actual public justification, but the expectation of acceptability by reasonable persons that justifies the political conception of justice (1995, p. 137). Once the conception has been established, only then do public standards of justification apply because these public standards are established through the conception of justice. But what is the standard that justifies the conception?
We could anticipate that, given the soundness of an argument, the normative claim is likely to be accepted. For example, we could ask that, given certain reasonableness conditions have been met, could the argument pass the test of publicity? Or take another variation: could all rationally will that norm? Or: could all affected by the general observance of that norm agree to that norm without coercion? Passing such a test could well add to the strength of the argument, but it does not fully justify it. Rawls would agree: “Always, we must be attentive to where and whence we speak. To all these questions the answer is the same: all discussions are from the point of view of citizens in the culture of civic society, which Habermas calls the public sphere. There we as citizens discuss how justice as fairness is to be formulated, and whether this or that aspect of it seems acceptable.and whether the principles themselves are to be endorsed.” (Reply, PL, 382–383).
But see my comments on a more indirect influence of such positions at the end of this paper.
As Habermas’ describes Rawls on this point: “Only with the legal frame for a self-governing association of free and equal citizens does the point of reference arise for the use of public reason which requires citizens to justify their political statements and attitudes before one another in light of a (reasonable interpretation)of valid constitutional principles. Rawls refers here to ‘values of public reason’ or elsewhere to the ‘premises we accept and think others could reasonably accept’. In a secular state only those political decisions are taken to be legitimate as can be impartially justified in the light of generally accessible reasons, in other words equally justified vis-à-vis religious and non-religious citizens, and citizens of different confessions.” (2006, p. 5).
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank the reviewers for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this paper. Additional thanks to the London Branch of the PESGB for the opportunity to present an early version of the paper, and to the audience of that session for their many helpful questions and comments.
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Martin, C. Philosophy of Education in the Public Sphere: The Case of “Relevance”. Stud Philos Educ 30, 615–629 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-011-9260-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-011-9260-9