Education Redefined

What's the point of a university? Is it only to cram society's settled opinions into the minds of young adults, to prepare them for a smooth transition into the workplace once they've snatched a diploma? Or is it also to ignite those minds, to expand upon a student's innate abilities, and encourage him to challenge and improve the received wisdom while stretching the boundaries of theory and research? To rephrase the question with regard to current news: Does controversial ethicist Peter Singer belong at Princeton University? Princeton obviously thinks so, since it hired the Australian thinker as a professor of bioethics.

At issue is the subject of Mr. Singer's new book, Practical Ethics, which has lately been the recipient of international media attention, and had been discussed widely in the Yeshiva classrooms. In Ethics, Singer outlines his argument that parents of a severely disabled infant may, depending on circumstance, be ethically justified in choosing euthanasia for their child.

His views, which have sparked a series of protests and seem to disagree with the moral and ethical values of Judaism, are no doubt unsettling; his discussions are carefully nuanced but highly disturbing and debatable nonetheless. However, to defend Mr. Singer's presence at a great American university is not to defend his arguments, not to declare them off-limits for criticism. Conversely, probing the soundness of any unorthodox view is a vital part of scholarly debate, and it is to the peril of their souls that some professors have previously tinkered with ideologic clampdowns on such speech. Princeton should not necessarily be condemned for hiring Singer. To let social protest short-circuit the academic dialogue that will in the end judge the worth of a man's views would be to violate Princeton's mission as a university.

College professors should not indoctrinate, and few students fall for it when they try. The teacher's job is to inspire intellectual ferment in students who don't taste it enough in their drably utilitarian education. That's the point of a university, and if we don't grasp that point, the phrase"American university" might someday become a rueful oxymoron.