Boston University - HUB Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 15 text:

.-, Kr. A-' Y' . .Hg Vi? Lf.. S 'ji M 'Toe always wanted to call him Pete, but it's tough to get on a first-name basis with someone who acts as a liaison between you and God. Steve Malekian .7434-Sian--' ' J 5 151 , ff I ,rfff 9

Page 17 text:

Dear Class of 1976, It is refreshing to find the editors of the HUB engaged in a serious examina- tion of Boston University's motto. In recent years, Learning, Virtue, Piety, has appeared in only two contexts: on the arms of the University, and in ribald discussions. That the editors consider this phrase worthy of careful analysis is an indication, like the continued life after the rebirth of the HUB itself, of a restoration of spirit and concern at Boston University. Presumably I need not demonstrate the relevance of learning to the Univer- sity, only a pessimist could find that necessary. What can and should be said is that Boston University, as a large and highly complex institution located in a city of many and diverse resources, is a center for learning of great intensity and variety. In an age of surpassing cyncism, it may be less obvious that virtue is a necessary companion of learning. But there can be no learning in the absence of virtue. For the pursuit of knowledge is dependent on the virtue of the in- quirer, who must exhibit a moral fidelity to truth by the avoidance of the contamination or distortion of evidence. Kant correctly insisted on the pri- macy of practical reason fthat is, ethical reasoningj, over the intellectual uses of reason. One reason that virtue is no longer valued is that it is too often defined in a narrow and negative way as the absence of trivial vice, but also because the moral relativism of the time makes us uncomfortable about believ- ing or asserting that any one action is morally preferable to another, and there- fore we shy away from talking about a personal characteristic that might lead some people to perform more morally than others. All around us in the world of politics and in the environment itself we see evidence of knowledge applied without virtue and the damage it can inflict. The greatest philosophers have been correct in giving the highest priority to defining and in calculating vir- tue. Action that is not guided by virtue is little better than random action, shifting in its nature and objects according to whim or self-interest. Piety has lately had an even worse press than virtue. It is often condemned as a residue of traditional, and therefore unfashionable, religion. Piety is also confused with the mannerisms of skilled but low-level hypocrites. But piety historically begins with the recognition that one has not made oneself, that one is dependent upon others for one's creation and sustenance. Historically, piety has been the behavior consequent on this recognition. The Hebrew Bi- ble and classical antiquity agreed on the importance of this recognition and behavior. The recognition is nowhere more eloquently put than in the 100th Psalm: the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. Perhaps comparatively few college students would now accept their creation by God, but all can accept their creation by a process whose scope and com- plexity approach divine dimension and mystery. In an age dominated by hedonistic exhortations that are institutionalized in every aspect of American life, we especially need the perspective to be gained from an understanding that we have not created ourselves. Piety, like learning and virtue, remains a live concept of great pertinence to higher education. These three conce ts ap ear in Boston University's original charter, in es- tablishing them as the endpof the University's work, its founders were build- ing not for an age, but for all time. Iohn R. Silber President