Abstract

External pressure to determine the agenda of universities has systematically increased in the preceding decades. The content of university research and teaching is no longer established by the universities themselves but by the state, by patrons, by sponsors and by client. The authorities view universities as a means to advance regional competitiveness because they are capable of contributing to innovative technological development and because they form young people into creative and enterprising workers. Major companies see universities as centres to which they can outsource research at relatively low cost. Students see universities as training centres that provide them with the competencies necessary to further their personal careers.But how do universities see themselves? Do they have their own vision of the kind of knowledge that ought to be developed and passed on? The days in which universities saw themselves unashamedly as Bildungscentra in which the elite enjoyed a humanist formation via critical confrontation with literature, art and science would appear to have passed.Universities have come to see themselves as players on a market. They have started to advertise their ‘products’ and ‘wares’, angling for students and research investments and pumping up their ‘public relations’ budgets to hitherto unknown levels. This market mentality explains the enormous fuss created by the appearance of the first university rankings.The lecture delivered by Ben Sowter during the 7th Ethical Forum that took place last year in Brussels continues to attract my attention.Sowter testified to the fact that the first report was put together in haste and was unprofessional. Everyone could see that it lacked cohesion, and even its creators presumed it was unlikely to cause a stir. Against every expectation, however, the commotion initiated by the report bordered on mass hysteria. Media attention and university interest was overwhelming. While later editions of the product demonstrated improvement, the scientific quality of such rankings continues to be the subject of discussion. One might ask, for example, what inspires universities to make such a fool of themselves why they are supposed to provide their students with a critical education and teach them to be careful when it comes to statistical research?The rankings case serves to illustrate that an uncritical belief in progress has found its way into our reflection on what universities ought to be today, couple with the idea that quality will find its way to the surface in a free market. Universities will improve, it is claimed, to the extent that they are able to perform better than other universities on the basis of all sorts of verifiable criteria.Mutual competition will force them to invest more and be more goal oriented. When this conviction is shared, it becomes more difficult to distinguish the language of the academic authorities from that of managers and politicians. It goes without saying that many an organisational technique and policy instrument that has proven itself of value in the business world has the potential to lead to thriftier and more streamlined universities, but the idea that competence based on verifiable criteria will lead to an improvement in qualitative output is a presupposition that can be called into question. It is not unequivocally clear that a university committed to a solicitous, honest and functional production and transfer of knowledge, attuned to the needs of society, will prosper.Our experience of the media suggests the contrary. In a commercial environment, the quality of news coverage, for example, appears to be under threat. The reasons for this also hold true for the universities. Ideas that are truthful and prudent ideas are vulnerable, costly, complex and difficult for the general public to distinguish from lies. Instant ideas are much more successful, cheaper and more attractive to the general public.Only specialists can see the difference, but the number of specialists is dwindling. The problems facing academics can be compared with those facing the other trades: those who take their professionalism seriously are never going to be rich. Doing so calls for enormous amount of time, energy and practice for relatively inconspicuous results. As is the case with a fully-fledged academic, the courage to take your professionalism seriously depends on the awareness that the end product is authentic. If academics are expected to achieve target figures, it won’t be long before this intrinsic motivation is exhausted to the point of extinction. If academics are forced to focus on quantity, all we can expect in the future will be researchers who can play it smart and skilled in pretending.The present edition of Ethical Perspectives contains two contributions on rankings that were initially presented during the 7th Ethical Forum: Patrick Loobuyck’s position and the conclusion offered by Philippe Van Parijs.The edition also contains a contribution on the question of consensus with respect to egalitarian liberal conviction that moral consensus no longer exists together with an article on moral disagreement. Ethics is a broad discipline in which more wide-ranging reflection is interspersed with particular discussions on often very concrete practices.Per Sandin’s introduction to the “ethics of firefighting” is an excellent example of just such a discussion