The Sophist, American Universities And the Death of the Soul

Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Three quarters of all college seniors report that their professors teach them that what is right and wrong depends "on differences in individual values and cultural diversity," a poll conducted for the National Association of Scholars (NAS) reveals.

Only about a quarter of 400 college seniors randomly selected from campuses around the country said their professors taught the traditional view that "there are clear and uniform standards of right and wrong by which everyone should be judged."

The poll was conducted in April by Zogby International, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percent.

A large majority of students also report that they've been taught that corporate policies furthering "progressive" social and political goals are more important than those ensuring that stockholders and creditors receive accurate accounts of a firm's finances, the study said.

The article "College Seniors Taught Right and Wrong Is Relative" was clicked my way last week. Whoever sent it to me did so, I suspect, because he or she knows I teach Introduction to Ethics to college students. The article is by Lawrence Morahan, a Senior Staff Writer for CBS News. Surprise, surprise, surprise! The poll conducted by the National Association of Scholars does as most surveys do: it states the obvious. The students in American universities are relativists; they think morality is a matter of opinion, that right and wrong depends "on differences in individual values and cultural diversity." Which is as it should be, given the vast majority of college students are the products of school systems where "cultural diversity" is the politically correct pablum fed by the teachers of the state to the youths of America.

Cultural diversity rests on the doctrine of cultural relativism that any high school or college student will recite like a talking doll when you pull her string. Cultural relativism states that all men live in cultures; a culture is a common belief and value system which a group of people pass on to their offspring. Cultures are composed of subcultures. A subculture is a similar value system held by a small group of people who inhabit a similar environment. Examples of subcultures are Hell's Angels, fast-food workers, Wal-Mart employees, Corporate CEOs, working moms, soccer moms, university administrators, service-bay lube jockeys, etc. A person may belong to more than one subculture. People who are members of a particular culture or subculture cannot understand people who are not in their culture or subculture. No culture or subculture is superior to any other culture or subculture. People must be tolerant of people in other subcultures and cultures.

Anyone who swallows the dogma of cultural diversity thinks that whatever they value is valuable to them because they value it. This does not mean that their values are superior and right or that another person's values are inferior and wrong. It just means that there are no standards and that different people have different values that change from generation to generation and place to place.

Back to teaching Ethics. I asked a student if Jeff Dahmer, the man who was convicted of murdering people, cutting off their heads and then eating various parts of their bodies, was wrong in valuing the taste of human flesh?

I think he was wrong.

Did Jeffery Dahmer think that what he was doing was wrong?

No, Jeffery Dahmer did not think he was doing something wrong.

So, he was right?

What he did was not right to me.

But it was right for him?

Yes.

So you are both right?

Yes, but the majority of people would agree that what he did was not right.

OK. Now, if you were in the German military in 1944, would the majority of soldiers agree that gassing the Jews was right?

Yes, but that would not be the right thing to do now.

That is not the question. Would it have been the right thing to do for a Nazi?

Yes.

So, thinking the Nazi soldiers are wrong in gassing the Jews is right for you, and the Nazi soldiers thinking gassing the Jews was right was right for them?

Yes.

So you are both right?

We are both right in our own minds, but the majority would no longer think the Nazis were right.

So what is right changes with the times? So, you may think cannibalism is wrong today, but someday you might value the taste of human flesh and that will then be your value?

Yes.

So, some day the majority may side with Jeffery Dahmer in thinking it right to be a cannibal?

That's right.

If, in fact, three quarters of all college seniors report that their professors teach them that what is right and wrong depends, on differences in individual values and cultural diversity, then the majority of professors are sophists and are incapable of moral judgment with regard to human actions, their own as well as others.

Sophists are not new to the academy. Plato in The Republic characterized a sophist as a private teacher who, working for pay, discerns what man is by observing his behavior and keeping a record of his observations. A sophist has no idea of what is good or evil, right or wrong, just or unjust, but he does know from observation what pleases and displeases man. Here is how Plato depicts the sophist:

It is as if a man were acquiring the knowledge of the humors and desires of a great strong beast which he had in his keeping, how it is to be approached and touched, and when and by what things it is made most savage or gentle, yes, and the several sounds it is wont to utter on the occasion of each, and again what sounds uttered by another make it tame or fierce, and after mastering this knowledge by living with the creature and by lapse of time should call it wisdom, and should construct thereof a system and art and turn to the teaching of it, knowing nothing in reality about which of these opinions and desires is honorable or base, good or evil, just or unjust, but should apply all these terms to the judgments of the great beast, calling the things that please it good, and the things that vexed it bad, having no other account to render of them, but should call what is necessary just and honorable, never having observed how great is the real difference between the necessary and the good, and being incapable of explaining it to another. Do you not think, by heaven, that such a one would be a strange educator [The Republic, Plato, 493, A.D.]?

The sophist claims man to be an animal. His man does not have a soul, a will, a conscience, or the ability to grasp the principles of morality in order to live a virtuous life by exercising his free will in choosing the rational virtues of being just, wise, courageous, and moderate and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

Sophists are private teachers "who work for pay." They are not to be confused with philosophers, with those who are concerned with knowing the truth. Philosophy is defined as the love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual and moral self-discipline seen best in the life of Socrates. Imagine being a teacher of philosophy, of biology, of chemistry, of music, of mathematics, of sociology, of political science, of English who worked for the pay, who taught for the money. This is not to say that a teacher should not be paid for teaching; however, the reason to teach is "not for pay" but out of the love for truth. A teacher is a philosopher, a Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy) who teaches his discipline as truth. He is dogmatic in that he has a doctrine he teaches which is true. This is not to say that all philosophers have to be in agreement about the truth, as though we would expect a Marxist to agree with a Wittgensteinian. But it is to say that anyone who professes to be Marxist must believe what he is teaching is true. No one belongs in the ranks of professors at universities who is not teaching the truth as he sees it.

The Sophist is not a philosopher, but he does, ironically, have a truth that he teaches. Here it is: there are no moral absolutes. The sophist arrived at his truth, he supposes, by using the scientific method of observation to observe man's behaviors in order to understand his nature. This frees the sophist from the study of art, music, literature, poetry, philosophy, and religion. It is, after all, easier to observe man calling the things that please it good, and the things that vex it bad, than it is to study what has been written, painted, and played by authors, poets, philosophers, musicians, and theologians throughout the ages.

The sophist is an unnatural scientist (he is the object of his own study) who pretends to be objective and removed from making value judgments regarding the nature of man, the beast he is observing. In fact, the sophist does not think there is any absolute value to human life and that any thing a human may value is an opinion, a view, or a perception. In the words of the sophist Protagoras (481-411 B.C.), "Soul is nothing apart from the senses and everything is true."

Given that everything man knows is by the senses, then everything he knows by the senses is true to him. They are after all his senses! However, if everything is true, then nothing is true. The sophist knows, "nothing in reality about which of these opinions and desires is honorable or base, good or evil, just or unjust, but should apply all these terms to the judgments of the great beast, calling the things that please it good, and the things that vex it bad." In short, the sophist is a cultural relativist; he only knows what he perceives and he does not have any idea of what he ought to think. Thus a sophist will never attach moral terms to his observations, e.g., fidelity, fortitude, perseverance, honor, dignity, generosity, love, greed, sloth, lust, or decadence. He admittedly is incapable of making qualitative judgments about human actions. He does, however, hold that whatever feels good is good at the moment to the man who experiences the pleasure of the moment. So he can, when shopping for a car, select a Lexus over a Ford Escort, a double latté over truck-stop coffee, a leather couch over a futon, human flesh over beef, etc.

The sophist in today's modern University is the same as the sophist Protagoras in fourth century B.C. Greece. They are the same because they are both thoroughly modern. The word "modern" comes from the Latin modo which means "just now"-hence the word "modish," that is, being in or conforming to the prevailing or current fashion. Being modern has always been sensible: a sensible person can grasp what is the object of his senses at any particular moment. A sophist is a sensible person having only the object of senses to tell if the current sensation is pleasurable, painful, or somewhere in between. Being incapable of judgment, he does not think but he feels the moment and goes with the flow of the now, floating from one impression or fad to the next. He is a mindless creature who does not discriminate whether his perception is "fine or shameful, good or bad, just or unjust."

The man of modish mind has an open mind through which everything flows like grass through a goose. To be open-minded, in this sense, is the same as having no mind at all because he lacks the ability to discriminate and make qualitative judgments about human actions, his own as well as others. Such a mind is democratic: it treats all ideas as equals thereby putting "his pleasures on an equal footing."

In Plato's words,

Sometimes he drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, he drinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical training; at other times, he's idle and neglects everything; and sometimes he even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He often engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever comes into his mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he's carried in that direction, if money makers, in that one. There's neither order nor necessity in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he follows it for as long as he lives [561d].

A sophist is carried away by his senses which leave him utterly senseless in questions of morality. He "perceives," and this is the operative word, that when it comes to ethics and morality everything is a matter of his perception (What other perception could you possibly have?) so there are no moral absolutes. A social scientist as a social scientist will not talk about moral principles and argue for the right and true course of action. A social scientist will take a survey, and after he has gathered a pile of "evidence" (data), he will do a statistical analysis of the situation and offer up the norm as truth, what the majority of people perceive to be the case at the moment.

A social scientist does not go beyond stating the obvious, what is the case, and he will not state what ought to be the case, for to do so would bring the charge of imposing a value judgment based upon his sensory mode of observation upon others.

It is not surprising that the students in universities think morality is a matter of opinion. At my university, General Studies requirements include 12 hours of social sciences (history is a social science) and only 3 hours of humanities, which houses philosophy among its offerings as an elective along with all the other courses in General Studies.

Finally, while all our students are required to take Economics, only the nursing students are required to take ethics. I suspect this is because when we are sick or dying we do not want some one incapable of moral judgment and ready to do what feels good at the moment watching over us.

And there you have it.