Defending Indoctrination: Liberal Education, Critical Thinking, and the Myth of Thinking for Yourself

Considering charges that liberal arts institutions indoctrinate their students, this book investigates the conceptual connections between critical thinking and intellectual independence and between epistemic values and social-political values.

Simon Feldman argues that neither charges of indoctrination from political conservatives nor professorial boasts of teaching critical thinking recognize the full range of values embedded in liberal arts education; most faculty want both to teach certain social values and to nurture students’ intellectual independence. Yet the indoctrination charges do raise deep questions about the ethics of teaching and learning, and they and take place amidst growing concerns about the social, political, and economic viability of liberal arts institutions themselves.

In conversation with defenses of the liberal arts, In Defense of Indoctrination asks us to consider whether and how the transmission of the various values that undergird the liberal arts comports with the aim of cultivating students’ independent critical thinking. Balancing the complex intersection between epistemology and ethics, Feldman explores how inquiry is intrinsically value-laden and suggests that the cultivation of students’ ability to ＂think for themselves＂ is neither a coherent nor desirable pedagogical ideal. Characterizing indoctrination as ＂the transmission of beliefs or values by nonrational means,＂ the book argues that there are forms of indoctrination that are unobjectionably employed in the context of higher education, as teaching is an intrinsically value laden enterprise.

Simon Feldman is associate professor of philosophy at Connecticut College, USA.