Are College Students Relativists?

Several weeks ago I came up with the following hypothesis.

Hypothesis: College students aren't actually relativists in a normative philosophical sense as many philosophy teachers love to complain about, but rather students look at philosophical questions through a sort of descriptive "pop social science" lens. That is, they don't understand the distinction between the question "What is the truth?" and the question "What do people say is the truth?" Very little in our broader culture or education system prepares them to answer the Socratic question, "What should I personally think is the truth?" beyond unargued personal preference.

Corollary 1: Go easy on your students, philosophy teachers. We are asking them to do something our entire culture (and maybe even human nature) either militates against or deems literally unthinkable.

Corollary 2: This maybe also explains a lot about why philosophy and the humanities more generally are so misunderstood, disrespected, and ignored by the larger culture.

My concern here isn't so much whether relativism is true (like most professional philosophers, I tend to think it is not), or whether it's an enlightened, sophisticated view (maybe it is in contrast to the more obnoxious forms of absolutism, but relativism can be obnoxious, too). I've written about these topics before (see "The Irrationality of Moral Relativism" and "Does Relativism Make Us Dumber and Nastier?").

Rather, my point here is really about teaching philosophy, at least in US colleges and universities.  This is maybe a bit more specialized than what I tend to write about on this blog, but non-philosophers or non-teachers are of course welcome to sit in if they like!


What is Relativism?  It Depends!

There are many types of relativism, but the type of relativism that philosophy teachers tend to complain about (and I have been one of them) is roughly something like what I identified in a previous post:

In the most general (and craziest) sense, relativism is the view that every view on anything is just as good as every other view, or alternatively, that a belief is made true just by the fact that some individual or group believes it to be true.  Few people go this far.  While I occasionally find a college student willing to bite the bullet and say that things like the shape of the Earth or the fact that 2+2=4 are relative to society’s whims, the type of relativism most prevalent is what I would call scientistic relativism.  This is the idea that science, especially hard sciences like physics and chemistry, gives us the cold, hard facts about reality, while every thing else – aesthetics, politics, religion, philosophy, and value of any kind – is relative to the beliefs of some individual or group.   

The problem with this view when it comes to trying to teach philosophy to undergrads is that an awful lot of philosophy (even of the "postmodern" kind) is about trying to find the truth (or "truth" for postmodern types) about things that science doesn't touch on.  If you think the truth is just whatever some individual or society thinks it is, there is quite literally no point to philosophy.

To find the answers, you would take a poll or an online quiz about yourself.  No philosophy required. Even a "postmodern" debunking of objective truth (or whatever) has no point if everyone is equally right ("well, that debunking is true for you...").  You don't have to examine your beliefs as Socrates exemplifies, you just sort of have beliefs the same way you have your keys, an Instagram account, or a stamp collection.

And in a consumerist society like the US, having hip beliefs can shape your identity like having the latest iPhone.  And much like iPhones, the more you examine your beliefs (where they come from, what they are, whether they contradict your other beliefs, whether you have any good reason to believe them, etc.) the less likely you are to be satisfied with them.

The problem with this is actually quite practical: if your job is to teach people to examine ideas and they think all ideas are equally valid (with science-y ones maybe a little more valid), there is no point to such examination to find better and worse ideas. The mere suggestion that anything, even murder or genocide, could be "bad" and "good" (and students sure do love putting "good" and "bad" in scare quotes) beyond irrational personal or social preferences is on par with trying to prove that chocolate ice cream is objectively better than vanilla as far as students are concerned.  So philosophy teachers are trying to get students to engage in an activity that their relativism militates heavily against.  It would be like a math teacher trying to work with students who refuse to learn how to count.


A New Hypothesis

But lately I've come to suspect this analysis may be wrong.  Whether my new hypothesis is better or worse than the standard hypothesis of rampant student relativism, I'm not sure.  But maybe if it's right, it could help philosophy teachers better direct their efforts.

According to the new hypothesis, the problem isn't that students have a bad philosophical theory (relativism), it's that they have no philosophical theory at all.  Any philosophical claim uttered in a classroom is likely to be taken as a social science claim about what some people think rather than how people should think.

According to this hypothesis, students lack anything resembling what philosophers would call a philosophical conception of normativity (ethical, logical, epistemological, etc.).  Whereas normative relativism says that some belief really is true for some individual or society, the attitude I'm hypothesizing here has no room for the very idea of "really is true" at all.  Philosophy is totally dissolved into social science in students' minds; philosophy teachers yammer on about things students literally do not understand.

I in no way mean to suggest that social scientists are responsible for this or that disciplines like psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, etc. are as shallow as the type of "pop social science" students come to college with (although I do think these disciplines, especially economics, make philosophical assumptions they might do well to examine).  Where students get this pop social science attitude I'm not sure, but I suspect hastily written click bait articles and media puff pieces containing the words "studies show..." or "according to science..." have a lot to do with it.  But that diagnosis will have to wait for another day.


Where Do We Go From Here?

Where do philosophy teachers go from here?  I'm not sure, but here are some thoughts.  As I stated in the corollaries above, we should go easy on our students (I beg the pardon of logicians, my use of the word "corollary" is a bit loose here).  We are asking students to do something that is especially difficult for them (not that philosophy came so easy to any of us if we bother to remember our first encounters with it).  And if this hypothesis touches on a larger societal factor, it might also explain why it's so hard for us to explain what we do to our non-philosopher colleagues, friends, family, etc., much less to our larger society or (more importantly than ever these days) our university's executive administration.

One tactic I've started using in the classroom is to make it clear that I am asking students specifically about their own ideas.  I'll ask, "What do you think about Plato's Ring of Gyges thought experiment and why do you think that?" rather than "Does the Ring of Gyges thought experiment show that everyone does justice unwillingly?"  The first question invites students to reflect on their own beliefs, which at least opens up the possibility of examination (you might even ask, "What would you do with that ring?" for best results).

The second question ("Does the Ring of Gyges thought experiment show that everyone does justice unwillingly?") makes sense as a spur to genuine philosophical examination ... for trained philosophers.  But I've found that students will often play what I call a "Get Out of Thinking Free Card" by saying something like, "Many people disagree" or "Who's to say?" or "It depends on the person."  I'm also tempted to call this sort of move a "sociological evasion," since it replaces a philosophical question with a sociological one (not that there's anything wrong with sociology, of course, but it is, as Wittgenstein would say, a different language-game).

Lately I've been getting a lot of "it depends on the person."  I sometimes respond by saying, "Yes, and you are the person I'm asking!" or "Yes, but why do people's ideas differ, and which ones to do you agree with?"  Again, the idea is to block the social science move to externalize the question by encouraging students to investigate their own ideas internally.


Is It So Bad?

One thing that makes me think this isn't as bad as it sounds ("Students have no metaphilosophical view about philosophical inquiry!  The horror!") is that it's easier to show students what philosophy is if they're coming to it fresh than it is to dislodge a bad philosophical view.  While leading more experienced students to greater depths has its rewards, my favorite teaching moments are when I watch the lights come on in the previously unused philosophy attic of students' minds, seeing them realize the power of philosophical inquiry to enrich their own lives.

And if we philosophy teachers are honest, we'll admit that the process of philosophical inquiry is not often easy or comfortable.  Especially when you first come to it, it can be downright scary to question your own beliefs.  And why would you do that, anyway, if your whole life has involved at most a shallow pop social science analysis of things like ethics, knowledge, reality, and personal identity?  If you can't google the answer, can it really be an answer?

The good news is that I honestly think many students deeply want to ask philosophical questions.  They just don't know how.  And that, more than the beleaguered berating of student relativism, really does give philosophy teachers something exciting to do!