Review Article-Plato, Utilitarianism and Education

Review of Robin Barrow, Plato, Utilitari- anism and Education (London: Rout- ledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), ix + 201 PP.

If it is true, as Russell suggests, that “. . . there can be no agreement between those who regard education as a means of instilling certain definite beliefs and those who think that it should produce the power of independent judgment,”’ then many will be forced to disagree with Barrow at the outset. His recommenda- tions for education are designed more to instill certain beliefs than to produce the powers of independent judgment. As he puts it one place, “With a world as full of diverse tastes, ideas, proposals and so on as ours, what is needed is convincing ar- gument in support of some set of ideas or proposals not more unsubstantiated ideas or proposals.” (p. 11, emphasis added)

To understand what Barrow is about, one must identify the source and sub- stance of his “set of ideas.” The source is obviously Plato, or more accurately, Bar- row’s somewhat unorthodox interpreta- tion of the Republic. Barrow’s thesis rests upon three claims: 1) Plato was a utilitar- ian, 2) utilitarianism is the only accept- able ethical theory, and 3) that the first two claims have significant implications for education. “Plato alone,” argues Bar- row, “has a real grasp” of what adher- ence to utilitarianism would involve; Plato “alone” unblushingly spells out the implications of utilitarianism. (p. 1)

In reality, Plato is not alone, for Barrow is prepared to join Plato and “unblush- ingly’’ suggest to educators that “a great deal of current educational theory and practice is fundamentally unacceptable.” (p. 1) Also, ”. . . all a priori assumptions about the nature of education have to be discarded or else the Platonic politico- ethical philosophy has to be discredited.”

Before dealing with these claims, Bar- row finds it necessary to demolish Plato’s distractors, for they alone are responsible

1. Bertrand Russell, Education and The Good Life (New York: Avon Book Division,

(P. 188)

By J. Charles Park

for our failure to see Plato as a utilitarian. In fact, he states, “There has been con- siderable and detailed interpretation of the Republic almost all of which is quite inaccurate.” (p. 7)

The major misinterpretors of Plato, ac- cording to Barrow, are Bertrand Russell, K. R. Popper and R. H. S. Crossman. He quickly dispatches each. Popper’s book, The Open Society and Its Enemies,2 is “in a real sense wholly unnecessary.” (p. 7) Russell’s emotive phraseology and tech- nique “becomes almost the only manner of argument by the time ’Philosophy and E d ~ c a t i o n ’ ~ was written.” (p. 3) And “Crossman’s4 claim to have proved Plato wrong shows no evidence of any attempt to prove anything.” (p. 3) “It is not only the quality of liberal-democratic criticism of Plato, it is the fact that liberal- democratic philosophy is at best obscure and at worst incoherent.” (p. 8, emphasis added)

Having disposed of these critics, Bar- row makes it apparent that he is not so concerned with these critics as with the entire philosophy of “liberal-democrats.’’ What is not so clear is whether he equates “liberal-democrats” with Rus- sell, Popper, and Crossman, or whether the term encompasses a much larger spectrum. But, in any event, the basic problem as Barrow sees it, lies in the “lynch-pin’’ of their belief in a plurality of ultimate moral principles. The liberal- democrats believe that the principles of equality, freedom, and happiness consti- tute a plurality and that in case of a clash between two or more principles one can- not say that one necessarily ought to take precedence over the other. (p. 8) In Bar- row’s view, i f we accept the arguments of the liberal-democrats, we cannot make a reasoned choice between a wide variety

2. K. R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962).

3. Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950), Rus- sell’s article “Philosophy and Politics” may be found in a number of collected readings. See, for example, Thorston’s Plato: Totalitarian or Democrat?

4. R. H. S. Crossman, Plato Today (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959). 1926). p. 8.

J. Charles Park is a Professor of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

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of educational proposals. (p. 9) Further- more, these liberal-democrats are guilty of indecision. In claiming a little bit of justice, equality and happiness in one specific situation and denying them in others, they merely restate the problem in polite manner. This syndrome Barrow identifies as the Manfred Syndrome in memory of Gilbert’s line from Patience: ”A Little of Manfred, but not very much of him.” “The price of tolerance,” claims Barrow, “is impotence!” (p. 14)

The liberal-democrats, according to Barrow, have two weaknesses: 1) their commitment to a plurality of principles of equal weight, and 2) their contention that value judgments cannot be known to be true or false, while holding at the same time that judgments are known to be wrong. (pp. 12-13) “Once the framework of liberal-democratic theory is jolted all the concepts that derive their favorable con- notations from it have to seek to defend themselves as best they may.” (p. 199)

The crux of Barrow‘s dispute with the liberal-democrats is the question of knowledge. Russell, Popper, and Cross- man support the views of faith in the indi- vidual, tentativeness of what can be known, and a belief in the growth of soci- ety through knowledge. Thrasyrnachus- like, Barrow leaps like a wild beast upon the argument, determined to seek a posi- tion of certainty and to resist the traumas of reflection, choice and change. On the surface such an argument is attractive and will not go unnoticed in a world seek- ing solace from uncertainty, change, and fear of individualism.

“The only way to discredit liberal- democratism,” writes Barrow, “is to offer a convincing. argument for an alternative value scheme.” (p. 14) Barrow finds this alternative value scheme in what he somewhat surprisingly calls Plato’s util- itarianism. To show that Plato is a utilitar- ian, committed to happiness as the ulti- mate good, presents some problems for Barrow. As he admits, Plato “effectively denied that he is one and that, in any case the only reason for supposing that he might be is his reference to eudaimonia as an objective, which does not in fact mean happiness.” (p. 40) And so it be- comes necessary for Barrow to invent a view of happiness to which Plato can be said to be “clearly committed.” Barrow’s search for the ultimate principle (happi-

ness) is further complicated and hedged by the observation that “. . . Plato cares about the pursuit of truth and knowledge and that this is something that he values at least as highly as happiness. This as far as one can judge is true.” (p. 42)

But we are told “if the assumption is that utilitarians are those who believe it to be true that happiness is the supreme end, then Plato may be one, despite the undoubted fact that he values the pursuit of knowledge and truth, which includes, for him, the pursuit of understanding the supremacy of happiness.” (p. 43) In any case, writes Barrow, we are dealing “with the language of a mystic, what matters is what lies behind the language.” (p. 41) One would suppose that Barrow sees more clearly than most that which lies behind the barriers of language,

Barrow continues his task of demolish- ing liberal-democracy by asserting that “if one cannot know the validity of one’s ultimate values, one cannot know the in- validity of somebody else’s.’’ (p. 45) Bar- row tells us, “It is undoubtedly true that Plato believed in the absolute validity of his moral principles,” and that, “If the liberal-democrats lay stress on the un- knowability of ultimate ends, they cannot consistently claim to know that happi- ness is not the end.” (p. 47)

At this point one might ask whether granting that an assessment of any set of values involving the use of another set of values necessarily commits one to the be- lief that the evaluator’s values are either ultimate or true in the ordinary uses of “ultimate” and “true.”

Barrow then proceeds with his argu- ment by raising three questions: 1) Is there a real distinction between aim- ing at the happiness of the whole ,and aiming at the happiness of the individ- ual? To this question, we are told that it is clear that Plato means: “the welfare of the community as a whole is to be put before the welfare of any individual or group, should the two conflict.” (p. 50) 2) Does the Republic, as conceived by Plato provide Happiness? Yes, Barrow answers, for “The state may only properly be described as happy if its citizens are happy; that is precisely why Plato is not interested in making some minority group happy at the expense of others, for he is trying to construct a just city, and a just city, like a just man, will in Plato’s

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view be happy; if it can be shown that citizens are not happy in the kpub l ic , then it has been shown that the state is not organized on just principles, accord- ing to Platonic doctrine.” (p. 51)

For a more complete understanding of the role of the Republic in providing hap- piness, Barrow finds it necessary to ana- lyze the concept of happiness. This he proceeds to do, without reference to Plato.

Again he finds a most difficult problem, for ”. . . it is doubtful whether we can ever hope adequately to describe the state of happiness.” (p. 52) But i f it defies de- scription, how shall we know when hap- piness has been attained? Happiness, he observes, involves “a relation between two variables, the person and his circum- stances.” (p. 53) This relationship Barrow calls enmeshment. “What is meant by saying that a person is enmeshed with his surroundings is that he is in such a rela- tion to his situation that the demands of that situation are willingly met, and the restrictions of that situation are not irk- some.” (p. 63) “Happiness,” Barrow sug- gests, “means an absence of such things as anxiety, depression, or frustration.” “To be happy is to be devoid of such feelings as those that indicate a desire that the world as it impinges on oneself should be in some respect otherwise.” (p. 64) And so, not surprisingly, we learn that the Republic provides happiness be- cause “The stability of the state denies the possibility of anxiety, the correlation between aptitude and function denies the possibility of frustration“; “The citizen in the Republic will as a matter of course be enmeshed for his social role is decided by his nature”; “he does not feel that he has any reason or right to do anything else that is being denied to him.” (p. 67, emphasis added)

“If happiness is the supreme principle we can establish that the state can max- imize the happiness of members of the community and that it ought to do so . . . provided it has control over both variables-the individual and the situa- tion.” (p. 87) Thus, “the completely happy man is one who is in all respects en- meshed with his situation and who there- fore has no desire to alter any aspect of that situation.” (p. 79, emphasis added) One might conclude that Barrow’s paradigm of an enmeshed person is one

who is contented because he is an igno- rant slave or in a coma.

Barrow goes on to say that a society dominated by a liberal-democratic theory would contain certain features that mili- tate against enmeshment. Among these features are personal desires, individual initiative and responsibility, and a belief in moral relativism. The latter, moral rel- ativism, “destroys an anchor that people want to cling to.” (p. 73) Unhappiness is inherent in the open society, argues Bar- row, for such a society encourages an individual to not be happy with his sur- roundings.

Having concluded that happiness is enmeshment, Barrow proceeds to raise his third and very crucial question. 3) How important is happiness?

Barrow argues that happiness is su- preme. His case can be inferred from the following quoted passages: 1) “the no- tion of justice presupposes the principle of happiness.” 2) “the principle of happi- ness is the only principle that commands universal assent and therefore does not need proof. . . . It must be accepted as the supreme principle because enmeshment, and hence happiness, is the only thing that all men necessarily desire, and hence is the only thing that all men can accept as morally desirable; and in lieu of any formal proof to establish the validity of any principle, we must accept the uni- versal agreement of mankind.” (p. 93) 3) “. . . the other principles put forward by the liberal-democrats as being of equal significance to the principle of happi- ness, namely the principles of freedom and equality cannot be substantiated ex- cept by reference to and as subordinate to the principle of happiness.” (pp. 88-89)

We are now obligated to consider how freedom and equality are to be regarded as secondary to happiness. In an appeal to the authority of Plato, Barrow observes that freedom must be secondary due to ‘ I . . . the mere fact that Plato adheres ruthlessly to the idea that the principle of happiness must override the principle of freedom.” (p. 108)

Noting that some people “prefer re- striction” and that the general welfare of the state becomes the test of all political decisions, Barrow concludes that for the sake of a ”just and happy” community, freedom must be restricted.

If enmeshment is to be achieved then

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we should establish norms that will come to be accepted by all. For this to occur these ideas should be presented in such a manner that they are not to be ques- tioned. “For the sake of enduring happi- ness, the whole ethos of the Republic is designed to foster in the individual a sympathy for, and an approval of the so- ciety and its values.” (p. 112)

It follows that it is not wrong for chil- dren to be brought up to believe in cer- tain values, and that as adults, they should not have to question ideas, for questioning brings uncertainty and may not lead to enmeshment. It would seem that indoctrination becomes necessary to produce acquiescent citizens.

Equality, like freedom, must also be subordinate to the claims of happiness, says Barrow. Thus, a caste system is not such a bad thing “in the damaging sense,” (p. 145) for all persons will be equal in their enmeshment and the power given to individuals will be a function of their inherent aptitude and natural ability. Thus, the “adult in the Republic takes up the role to which he issuited by nature as a result of the educational process, he is presumed to have interest in the respect of that role.” (p. 146, emphasis added)

Barrow admits that in practice selec- tion by birth as well as the solidification of different groups within the society as self-perpetuating may be necessary. But, I ‘ . . . to admit this is not to concede any- thing to critics who see it as a caste state of the embodiment of racialism, for what they wanted to establish was that birth was the allotment to a group, and this they have failed to do.” “Aptitude, by which is meant both ability and inclina- tion, is still the criterion.” “The individual is not born with a specific aptitude, rather the aptitude of each of us is the product of the external influences that play upon us while we develop, combined, perhaps, with some innate tendencies; to disentale the natural tendencies and the effects of external influence, seems, in our present state of knowledge, an impossible task.” (p. 149) “All that Plat0 required,” claims Barrow, “is that people should do that for which they are by nature most suited.” (p. 149)

Equality of opportunity thus becomes a tenuous concept. For if all are required to have an equal chance for things they may not be capable of, we risk unhappiness.

Thus, Barrow claims, ”. . . the Republic is specifically designed to achieve the equivalent of a situation in which those who are not able to be managers, do not desire to be such.” (p. 153) In essence then, Barrow rejects the view that the claims of equality could be said to be met by doing one’s best to compensate for inequalities at birth, via education, and then leaving all equally free to compete for various goods. We must also reject the demand that citizens ought to have equal political power. (p. 159)

Having set forth Barrow’s claim as to the importance of happiness and the subordination of freedom and equality to it, what are the “political consequences” for education? The concept of “child- centered education” is of particular interest. Barrow concludes that “There seems no obvious reason to assume that child-centered education is demanded by a utilitarian ethic.” (p. 169)

In Barrow’s mind, educators are left with three basic tasks: 1) to produce so- ciable and happy citizens; 2) to train ail children from an early age to adopt the norms of society; 3) to determine the exact nature of education for the child based upon the child’s aptitude and the demands and needs of the society. (pp. 179-80) To avoid conflict, we must ensure that social norms are “successfully and universally inculcated.” (p. 184) There is no need to encourage a search for ra- tional justification to the beliefs that we hold, for ”. . . our desire is to implant rational beliefs and aptitudes and behav- ioral tendencies in people, where there is a choice between rational and irrational, and not that each individual should be his own philosopher.” (p. 188)

Barrow concludes by telling us that “it becomes an open question whether in- doctrination, defined in any of the pro- posed ways is necessarily undesirable, whether censorship differs in any sig- nificant way from any other form of posi- tive manipulation or control, and whether one must want even the least interested and least adept mind to attempt to reason out for itself problems that are perhaps insoluble.” (p. 199)

Thus, has Barrow claimed to “jolt” the liberal-democratic “inconsistency” and expose what he regards as the “mush” of conflicting demands. “The ‘mush’ must be therefore lived with,” he tells us, “un-

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less, Plato was right and a knockdown blow can be delivered to the notion that it makes sense to refer to a man‘s right, undefined, without reference to a higher principle of happiness.” (p. 199) But the question is, has Barrow, with the aid of Plato, delivered such a knockout blow? It hardly seems so. Instead, he has provided us with an alternative to the more con- ventional conception of democratic edu- cation. In this sense, his book is worth- while, for it gives a different backdrop against which we can view our educa- tional theory and practice.

But the impact of Barrow’s proposals seem deeper than a passing essay on Plato and Education. For in the backdrop of his previous publications, Barrow has argued that ”philosophers [presumably Platonic philosophers] should issueprac- tical directives in educat i~n , ”~ (emphasis added) that objections to the inculcation of a religious belief is meaningless, be- cause discussion about religions is “in- doctrination in atheism.”6 His book An Introduction to Philosophy of Education contains but two brief and somewhat crit- ical pages about John Dewey; an argu- ment against child-centered education; and a full chapter on indoctrination, with a concluding commentary titled “What’s Wrong With Indoctrination?’’’ Is it possi- ble to suppose that we have here evi- dence of a 1984 mentality? If so, we may be wise to remember that philosophic camps are within the view and employ- ment of political and military camps.

It is unfortunate that Barrow has al- lowed his apparent need for certainty and social stability and his distaste for what he calls liberal-democrats to cloud his

5. Robin Barrow, “What’s Wrong With the Philosophy of Education?“ British Journal of Educational Studies (June 1974): 133-46.

6. Robin Barrow, “Religion in the Schools,” Educational Philosophy and Theory (March

7. Robin Barrow, An lntroduction to Phi- losophy of Education (London: Methuen, 1975).

1974): 49-57.

discussion. Moreover, his selected refer- ences to the Republic, his attempt to prove that his concept of happiness is supreme-which he presents with slight reference to Plato-and his disdain of contemporary social science and history makes his position suspect.

In fact, Barrow’s book is not so much about Plato, utilitarianism or education as it is rather the presentation of Bar- row’s view of how the world should be brought to a stop and how we can return to order and certainty. It is perhaps pre- dictable that we should encounter such an appeal considering the magnitude of problems confronting us today. As Crossman has observed, “_ . . the age of Plato and our own bears a striking simi- larity.”8 But, as he has also noted, “The Republic is therefore a solution of the problem of government which could only be successful if men were not what they, in fact are.” “When we translate this dream into the sober language of politics, it is seen to be an empty i l l u s i ~ n . ” ~

It is fascinating to ponder the confu- sion generated by those who write about Plato’s Republic. Like the behavior of small children and the content of certain political speeches, it is subject to a vari- ety of interpretations.1° As Bambrough suggests, “The friends and enemies of the Republic see it so differently that a reader of their books is soon very uncer- tain what Plato does say on some of the important points at issue.”l‘ Such diver- sity of opinion may easily lead to one’s mumbling with Adiemontes that ”. . . people who stick to philosophy become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues; even the best of them are made useless by philosophy.’’

It is doubtful if more than a handful will find Barrow’s elixir palatable.

8. Crossman, Plato Today, p. 17. 9. Ibid., p. 184. 10. Ibid.. p. 185. 11. Renford Bambrough, Plato, Popper and

Politics (Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1967). p. 8.

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