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The morality of university decision-makersCécile Hatier aa School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications , Universityof Wolverhampton, Wulfruna Street , Wolverhampton , WV1 1LY ,UKPublished online: 07 May 2013.

To cite this article: Cécile Hatier (2013): The morality of university decision-makers, Studies inHigher Education, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2013.777408

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The morality of university decision-makers

Cécile Hatier*

School of Law, Social Sciences and Communications, University of Wolverhampton,Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1LY, UK

Ethical failures in UK higher education have recently made the news but are not arecent development. University decision-makers can, in order to adopt an ethicalway of reasoning, resort to several ethical traditions. This article focuses,through the use of concrete examples, on three which have had a significantimpact in recent higher education policy: utilitarianism, in the form ofstakeholder theory; principled theory, used in ethical codes of conduct; andvirtue ethics, as interpreted by role model theory. It is argued that, althoughthese traditions help clarify the immoral content of a decision, they also havetheir limits and shortcomings, and give a naive illusion of certainty. The moralreasoning of university decision-makers would instead benefit more fromengaging with a theory less known in public management circles. It is the ‘dirtyhands’ theory used in political theory, which helps stress the centrality of choiceand judgement in decision-making.

Keywords: ethics; decision-making; stakeholder; code of conduct; role model;judgement

Introduction

Given that a series of ethical lapses in British higher education (HE) have recently madethe headlines, the morality (or lack of it) of university decision-makers deserves morescrutiny. The London School of Economics (LSE) saw its director resign in 2011 over alarge donation by Saif Gaddafi, its former PhD student and son of the now deposedLibyan leader. The donation was widely described in the press as ‘dirty money’ orig-inating from a dictator now out of favour with the international community. The suspectorigin of revenues was also at stake in another controversy that same year, when theUniversity of Wales was forced to withdraw the accreditation of courses with itspartner institutions in the UK and abroad. It was accused of poor quality standardsand bogus degrees (Matthews 2012). The list, however, does not stop at these twoexamples, and the academic literature shows that ethical failures are neither rare nornew (Kelley and Chang 2007). Although such misbehaviours may not appear of signifi-cant immorality to the unfamiliar eye – compared to more bloody and obvious evils –they raise many issues in a sphere which likes to see itself as embodying the publicinterest, and thus committing itself to virtuous practices and to a selfless pursuit ofknowledge.

© 2013 Society for Research into Higher Education

*Email: c.hatier@wlv.ac.uk

Studies in Higher Education, 2013http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2013.777408

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Given this, how exactly does one assess whether an action is ‘ethical’ in higher edu-cation? The answer to this is, undoubtedly, linked with the vision one has of what anideal university should be. The gap between the ‘idea’ of it (to borrow CardinalNewman’s famous phrase) and the reality of university practices is partially whereits moral failures can be located. Many scholars have recently stressed those failureswhilst redefining the moral ends of universities, either in response to the changes setout in the UK by the White Paper of 2010 (Campaign for the Public University2011; Collini 2012), or in reaffirming what constitutes the public good within HE(Nussbaum 2010; Marginson 2011). Even though elements from these discussionsare inevitably of relevance, this article is focused on a different approach to morality.The object of our scrutiny is restricted to ethical reasoning in the decision-makingprocess in HE: namely, the instances when actions need to be carried out (forexample, a department closed, or an admissions policy changed). In other words, ourattention rests with the difficult but recurrent business of having to make choices, forwhich there is not always an obvious path to follow. Hence, it is moral reasoning,rather than morality as such, which will be the object of our study. It can be definedas ‘the set of cognitive skills a manager employs to reason about a moral problem’,according to Elm and Nichols (1993, 818).

This article aims to assess which theoretical ethical frameworks could assistdecision-makers when a verdict involving moral matters is about to be reached. Bythis we mean the major philosophical models that have dominated the discipline ofethics for a long time, but are not necessarily familiar to decision-makers with no phi-losophical background. This is not to say that other factors have no influence in thedecision-making process: the particular dynamics of a team, the specific relationshipbetween certain individuals, their mood, the context of the decision (time frame,etc.), the culture of the organisation, and so forth. These elements must, no doubt, betaken into account, but should be complemented with a more philosophical approach,which returns to some ‘basics’ of the discipline in an attempt to analyse their viabilityand limits. This, however, should be done with a pragmatic aim in mind, namely toengage managers with the moral components of their actions, and so the conceptswill be illustrated with examples taken from current UK higher education settings.

Amongst the many foundational ethical theories, the article focuses only on a fewmajor ones, for reasons of space but also of relevance. The egoistic tradition (‘do whatyou think is good for you as long as you are sure that it will not backfire’) is put aside,even though it is a crucial stage in a prominent model of moral judgement, that of Kohl-berg (1984), who labels this initial stage ‘preconventional level’. It is assumed, never-theless, that decision-makers do not need long explanations to have a clear grasp of this.The other two levels of Kohlberg’s theory do, on the contrary, deserve more scrutiny.They are the conventional level, inspired by the utilitarian tradition, and the post-conventional level, based on respect for ethical principles, in a deontological orKantian fashion. Another level is added to this, in the form of virtue ethics, whichhas been more dominant in the past thirty years. All three of these traditions havehad some impact on decision-making in HE, though it will be argued that their benefitshave limitations and even negative effects, and that their implementation is thereforerestricted. A fourth tradition, however, could be very useful if it were used in HE,even though its influence tends to currently be limited to politics: it is a theory ofjudgement and radical choice brought up by ‘dirty hands’ dilemmas, which showthat reaching decisions is not a simple matter of applying a set of rules, and that con-flicts of value may well be irresolvable.

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Each of the four ethical traditions will shortly be analysed in turn, and the argumentis that the inadequacies of the first three can be downplayed by giving more space to thefourth. But beforehand, it is useful to briefly present the concrete HE cases which willbe developed further in the course of the article, in order to illustrate these theories.Faced with tighter budgets, resulting mainly from a drop in income from undergraduatefees (itself the result of political decisions), many English universities are having to findnew sources of income and reduce their expenses. One way of generating new incomeis by actively searching for donations from generous individuals. The LSE/Gaddafiscandal is a well-known case, but in general universities’ alumni offices are workinghard to develop fund-raising. The obvious moral issue resulting from donations isthe identity of the donor, in particular how the money came into their hands, andtheir own agenda. Another new source of income is internationalisation – though ithas an initial cost – which takes various forms. The most common is recruiting moreinternational students, and a new way of doing it is by opening offshore campuses incountries like Cyprus, China or Malaysia, sometimes with a partner institution.Ethical questions can be posed about the quality of teaching and welfare provision(cf. the University of Wales’s case), or the use of bribery and other practices denouncedin the UK. Universities could also be accused of cultural hegemony.

In order to reduce costs, universities have several options. One is to close an academicdepartment, typically the foreign languages department (many of which have disappearedin the UK in the past 10 years, for instance in Bradford). This would be a department thatdoes not recruit high numbers of students compared to, say, law, and is costly to run as itrequires small classes, international multimedia access, languages labs, and the tech-nicians to run them.At stake here, from amoral point of view,would be that the universitywould participate in the disappearance of a valuable subject; future students would be pre-vented from taking on languages, and therefore the academic desert would widen in thearea, where many languages departments have already closed. It would also send amessage to the younger generation that languages are not of worth, and are solely the pre-serve of the public school-educated elite. The multicultural feel of the university wouldalso be partially damaged, and so would be its openness to the world. Finally, membersof staff would be made redundant, which may create tensions and a sense of injustice.An institution can also resort to cutting its workforce costs in other ways. One possibilityis outsourcing some of its non-academic departments, such as catering or humanresources, to make efficiency savings. Another is to ask top earners to take a pay cut togive a sense of equity among employees, or to amend the contract of staff so as toreplace, for instance, costly permanent academics with casual staff paid per hour theyteach. The practical risks of doing these things are numerous: there is a big questionmark over the future quality of service and thus the reputation of the institution, whichcould negatively impede on other revenues, such as those from research, consultancy,etc. To these are linked clear ethical matters, such as treating people (staff and studentsalike) with fairness and respect – partly by fostering a specific university identity andsense of community – and caring for the original missions of higher education (excellencein knowledge transfer and acquisition, but also the old-fashioned project of ‘civilising’society). Let us see how all these can be assessed by the three classic ethical traditions.

Utilitarianism applied to higher education and the problem of ‘the good of all’

Utilitarian ethics belongs to the wider ethical approach labelled ‘consequentialism’

because it concentrates on the consequences of actions, i.e. their various impacts on

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all people concerned (as opposed to the motives of an action, described in the next part).Utilitarians (such as Bentham and more recently Peter Singer) assess the morality of anaction according to what they call the principle of ‘utility’, which is measured by anaction’s achievement in pleasure-seeking and pain avoidance (Bentham 1982). Its cal-culation varies depending on criteria drawn by these authors, such as the intensity, theduration of the pleasures and pains, or the quality of the pleasure (debates are ongoingabout the criteria to use). The overall happiness of the society consists in the maximisa-tion of utility for the greatest number of people in this society. This tradition is popularin the domain of business ethics, and by extension in public management, and its mostcommon implementation takes the form of the stakeholder theory (Bowie 2002). Whenapplied to higher education, it entails that the interests of a variety of parties must betaken on board: students and customers, employees, suppliers, other HE providers,the government, educational bodies, the law and society as a whole. The task is notsimple, given the extreme diversity of interests within certain categories of stake-holders. But it has nevertheless become a common practice, with plenty of consul-tations and surveys organised at national and local levels. In the UK, the most well-known application of the stakeholder theory is the yearly National Student Survey(NSS). Consultations of employees are also regular, directly via surveys, or indirectlyvia trade union representation. Other stakeholders are also given a voice, often triggeredby the government.

Combining all these interests seems very ambitious, yet stakeholder theorists remainoptimistic about the outcomes that can be achieved. The attraction towards this theorycomes from its supposed rationality, and its related logical, scientific character, itssense of objectivity. Its implementation is viewed as mechanical: the various interestscan be recorded, measured on the scale of utility, and combined to produce a universitysystem that will satisfy the greatest number. Such a procedure would therefore have aclear democratic dimension. Going back to our examples, the millionaire’s offer of alarge donation to the university appears to be a win-win situation for all parties: the uni-versity can spend this new income to better the student experience, recruit staff, build newfacilities, etc., whilst the donor will be pleased to have done a good deed. The happinessof the greatest number is achieved, and acceptance of the donation thus seems ethical.One objection, however, can be made in utilitarian terms: if society as a whole is to beincluded in the calculation, then questions must be asked about the origin of the sumoffered: if it is the result of pain of a large number of individuals (e.g. the money isthe result of theft or exploitation, as Gaddafi’s gift was perceived), then happiness forthe greatest number is not attained. If, on the other hand, no harm has resulted throughthe accumulation of income, then utilitarians would approve, as would be the case, forinstance, with the £26 million donation of Mica Ertegun, the widow of the AtlanticRecords founder, to Oxford University in 2012. With regard to international expansion,overseas students’ satisfaction should be carefully monitored, as well as that of staff andof the communities in which new campuses are created, in order to avoid the accusationof imposing new forms of Western cultural imperialism. The impact on the ‘old’ cam-puses should also be taken into account. But again, this looks like a potential win-winsituation in utilitarian terms.

Things become trickier with spending cuts, as by definition they create a lot ofdissatisfaction, whether through pay cuts, job cuts, or departmental and services clo-sures. Basic utilitarian reasoning recommends that the majority of people should be sat-isfied, even if it means that a minority suffers. From this point of view, it is moral to‘sacrifice’ one service or one team for the greater good of the whole university.

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Another utilitarian concept, decreasing marginal utility, can also justify pay cuts for thehighest earners. According to this view, after a certain threshold, the satisfaction createdby financial wealth is not very consequent and is best redistributed elsewhere (Singer1972, 242). Despite often being portrayed as individualistic, utilitarian ethics is infact a great leveller.

If the utilitarian way of reasoning can help clarify some ethical dilemmas encoun-tered by university decision-makers, the latter should nevertheless be aware of its limit-ations and shortcomings. The first and most obvious one is that, in reality, stakeholdersare not equal, and some have more influence than others, the government in particular.It is clear that, despite the rhetoric, British universities are not completely autonomous.They have to comply with political decisions: in many ways it is the political stake-holder who decides, for instance, what ‘public good’ university should achieve. Inthis regard, the hands of HE decision-makers are tied. A second defect of utilitarianthinking also needs stressing: at its roots is the fundamentally misleading assumptionthat morals are based on a simple measure of interests, which can easily be ascertained.This fallacy has repeatedly been exposed by opponents of utilitarian ethics (Williams1981). It is a myth that all stakeholders are in full knowledge and control of whattheir real interests are, and that these interests are largely fixed. What is, in this view,the student ‘interest’? Is it to get on a cheap course with little ‘theory’, few unchallen-ging assessments, and to obtain a grade-inflated degree whilst having the time to enjoythe brand new university sports facilities? Or is it to be intellectually challenged – tohave a hard and testing time acquiring skills and knowledge that they didn’t thinkwere necessarily valuable in the first place? Collini (2012) and Vincent (2011) havealready forcefully stressed the limits of the analogy between student and consumer.

Calculating the utility of each stakeholder may therefore prove very tricky, but not astricky as that of society as a whole. This brings us to a third and most contentiousproblem: it is notoriously difficult, and perhaps even hazardous, to define the ‘greatesthappiness of the greatest number’, or, to use a simpler phrase, the ‘good of all’. For uni-versities, it has historically meant enhancing knowledge and understanding throughteaching and research. More recently, though, political leaders have controversiallycome to include contribution to national ‘economic growth’, and a task of ‘strengthen[ing] civil society’ (Browne Report 2010). If such criteria are taken into account, thenthe languages department should be expanding, not closing, given that businesses,through representatives like the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), repeatedlyclaim that Britain needs more workers with linguistic skills. But how do we knowwhich disciplines will be of more use to the economy of the future? Furthermore, howeasily can universities combine economic and social targets? At a more conceptuallevel, philosophers like Rousseau have pointed out that ‘the public good’ is not identicalto ‘the will of all’, which is the simple aggregation of the private interests of all membersof a society (1993). What should guide decision-making is the ‘general will’, whichresults from reflection on what is best for the community as a whole, regardless ofone’s sectional interest. To illustrate the difference, a British taxpayer who has no chil-dren and runs a small retail outlet may not see any personal interest in having publicmoney invested in language courses. But she may nevertheless have a sense that the‘public good’ could be enhanced, and the values of global citizenship and prosperity fos-tered. Serious outcomes result from the refusal of utilitarian ethicists to giveweight to thisdistinction. One is that individuals are treated asmeremeans, not ends in themselves, andthat a majority of people would happily sacrifice the interests of a minority, its livelihoodand identity with nomoral regret (Williams 1981). Concretely, in HE, it wouldmean that

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(a defined number of) employees are reduced to a tool to achieve the satisfaction of (agreater number of) students. Other ethical theories condemn such actions as unethical,the deontological one in particular, which now deserves scrutiny.

The deontological tradition and ethical codes of practice

Whereas utilitarian ethics focuses on the consequences of actions, the deontological tra-dition concentrates on the motives behind decision-making. Roughly speaking, this tra-dition, whose most famous representative is Immanuel Kant, recommends compliancewith a few overarching imperatives which entail duties. Kant himself, for example,insisted that individuals should always be treated as ends in themselves, not means tothe satisfaction of others; the autonomy (in the sense of self-mastery) of individuals isalso central. Crucial for deontologists is the nature of the process through which deedsare carried out: if an action produces ethical results but the means used to achievethem are not ethical according to a priori imperatives, then the action is wrong.Applied to the world of work, this frame of reasoning has led to several practices, themost dominant of which are currently ‘ethical codes of practice’, ‘codes of conduct’,‘statements’ or ‘policies’ on ‘corporate social responsibility’ (CSR). They broadlycontain lists of dos and don’ts about ‘professional’ and ‘ethical’ standards of behaviour.Although, strictly speaking, not all of these items are necessarily related tomorality, theircontent is stated in an attempt to clarify duties in a specific context (their virtuous dimen-sion will be dealt with when discussing virtue ethics).

Codes of conduct abound in British higher education. They are produced by indi-vidual universities (such as a students’ charter, or a CSR statement), or follow guidancefrom various national or international codes, such as the European Charter forResearchers (European Commission 2005). They are meant to provide a strict ethicalframework, and obedience to it is perceived as facilitating moral behaviour in HE.Several scholars have recently attempted to compile codes specific to HE. To givejust one example, Sharrock (2010, 369) proposes developing two ‘Hippocratic oathsfor HE’, one for academics, one for managers, the former comprising the following:‘dare to know, be responsible, transparent, collegial, respectful, open-minded’, etc.The reasoning behind such practices is familiar to a large strand of Kantian-inspiredtheorists: through the production of universal and neutral criteria, and their rationaland procedural implementation, a fair system can be achieved.

Looking at the example of the donation, it must be noted that the Council forAdvancement and Support of Education (CASE 2011) makes available to itsmembers (universities across the world) various statements on ethics and principlesof practice for fundraising. Some principles relate to the source of the money (no indi-vidual should have been used as a means, i.e. exploited, for the specific aim of thedonation); others insist on making sure that the motives of the donor are not unethi-cal, e.g. exercising influence on the results of a piece of research. Some purists,however, argue that public universities should only be funded through the taxsystem, as no donation is ever laudable in its motives (many of which are drivenby a sole desire to avoid tax). The principled approach does not, however, resolveall ethical conundrums raised by gifts from controversial figures such as RupertMurdoch to Oxford University. The same can be said in the case of our otherexamples, even though they are covered by more and more codes of conduct. Suchcodes can in fact prove to be more of a hindrance than a service to moral reasoningin decision-making. Let us see why.

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Advocates of codes of conduct are themselves aware of some of their limitations.The most obvious is that the codes mustn’t go unheeded, and fall on deaf ears. Theirsuccess relies on their implementation, which is why HE management experts stressthe role of ethical training courses and refreshers, audits and the like. It cannot bedenied that spelling out some crucial norms regularly helps enlighten the least reflectiveamongst us. Nevertheless, the pitfalls of codes of conduct are more substantial than this.Some result from the terminology used, which is seen as too vague and generic, andtherefore impossible to apply unless you are a professional philosopher. What does itmean, for instance, to be ‘respectful’ and ‘open-minded’ when dealing with overseasstudents? If they are to be treated as ends in themselves, we should not attempt touse their considerably high fees simply to balance the university accounts. The auton-omy of these students must be promoted by good-quality teaching and welfare, and thesetting up of offshore campuses must not involve unethical means such as bribery, etc.But respecting their culture could also mean adapting to practices that are unethical inthe British mind, like giving presents, or adopting a more distant and hierarchicalapproach to relationships between staff and students. The principle, therefore, doesnot solve everything.

Other scholars, however, welcome the broadness of some principles, because theyleave scope for interpretation, and instead condemn policies which tend to enter intoexcessive detail about how to assess behaviours. Critics fear that the increasingnumber of policies (paired with audits and other forms of monitoring) is a sign of asociety that has lost its sense of trust (Putman 2000; O’Neill 2002). The increasingculture of mistrust in HE governance has already been pointed out by Vidovich andCurrie (2011). These policies do not relate much with the Kantian project any more,and their ethical objectives can be called into question. That is not to say that weshould have blind confidence in all HE participants. We have to be aware that somemay have bad intentions. But it is quite possible that the other extreme has now beenreached, and that ethical codes of practices are now being compiled for a very cynicalreason, namely the fear of litigation, or, as Camilla Stivers (2008, 141) nicely puts it,in order to ‘cover your anatomy’, put politely. Taking the example of efficiencysavings, pay or staff cuts could easily be ‘ethically justified’ by the non-compliance ofindividuals to petty ‘principles’ like ‘staff must reply to queries within two workingdays’ or ‘staff should not print or photocopy anything unless absolutely essential’.

Finally, codes of conduct (but not deontological thinking as such) containmany itemsthat are not easily compatible (cf. the respect and open-mindedness example whendealing with other cultures), and thus may not easily be applied in a purely mechanicalmanner. There is some unease about an understanding ofmoral reasoning that consists ina box-ticking exercise, as it seems to present the parties concerned as robots. The risk isbest described via an anecdote reported in Stivers, whose colleague ‘used to tell [his] stu-dents: if you don’t know the difference betweenwhat you’ve been ordered to do andwhatyouwould do if you could, then you are just a hired gun’ (2008, 146).One essential ingre-dient is missing in the compliance to ethical codes, namely judgement, without which, itwill be argued later, the exercise of moral reasoning remains incomplete. But beforedoing so, the tradition of virtue ethics needs to be applied to HE.

Role model theory and its dangers

Virtuous ethics, presented by Aristotle or, more recently, MacIntyre, sees morality inthe fulfilment of a virtuous life of excellence. Applied to the public sector (and

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deviating quite drastically from its original meaning), it insists on the moral necessityfor civil servants (managers mainly) to see themselves as stewards of the public, ‘ser-vants’ in the original sense of the term. Behind this moral stand is the view that the civilservice is a vocation, almost a calling, which entails virtuous behaviour based on self-sacrifice. The example of the Hippocratic oath discussed earlier conveys this dimensionof dedication. It has, however, a symbolic dimension that makes it depart from the pro-cedural rationalism of the deontological method. Instead, it stresses that the achieve-ment of one’s personal virtues is inherently linked with that of one’s role. In otherwords, to be good is to do good. Adopting virtuous conduct implies setting anexample to others, being a role-model figure, and not bringing the profession intodisrepute.

But what does it entail to be ‘virtuous’ in higher education? The notion can be inter-preted in various ways (Bruhn et al. 2002). In the cases that concern us, it could entailthat staff would happily accept pay cuts, thus proving how dedicated they are toyounger generations. This is especially the case for the highest earners, who wouldalso want to bring a sense of equity among the workforce. This may soundfar-fetched, but the symbolic force of such a gesture has in fact been evidenced inthe political sphere, when the British Cabinet in 2010, and the French president in2012, reduced their respective salaries on arriving in power. It can even be imaginedthat some individuals would be prepared to offer their resignation (or work for free?Look at the thousands of volunteers who contributed to the success of the London2012 Olympics) to save what they would see as a worthwhile institution or project.There can be no doubt that donors also desire to make honourable use of theirfortune (they should therefore give more than a tiny proportion of their wealth).

The issue with virtuous behaviour is that its content is difficult to define: what oneindividual regards as a crucial element in fulfilling a role is not necessarily consideredso by another. Furthermore, virtuous achievement in one role may have negative reper-cussions on another role that any same person exercises (such as being a family’s mainbreadwinner). Role model duties can be far-reaching and could extend to elementswhich are not, as such, related to the profession. There is a recent tendency tomeasure the virtue of public figures, including HE decision-makers, in relation tofacts such as: whether they smoke, send their children to public schools, drive a 4x4car, etc. Going down this route, there comes a point where being a ‘good’ academicor executive is identical to being a ‘good’ person or citizen. The implication is thatthe boundaries between the public (i.e. one’s professional role) and the privatebecome blurred, and that public and private moralities merge. Should we be worriedabout the potential invasion of privacy that such moral reasoning may lead to? It canbe argued that we should, with perhaps one small exception, that of individuals whohold essentially symbolic and honorific roles and are thus chosen for the virtues theysupposedly embody. This is the case of chancellors in HE. It would entail, for instance,that the position of Lord Ashcroft, Chancellor (and generous donor) of Anglia RuskinUniversity, ought to have been under threat in 2010 after revelations of his non-dom taxstatus. Nevertheless, for the vast majority of individuals involved in higher education,the dangers of conflating private and public morality are evident. Such an approachgoes down the slippery slope of requiring perfect behaviour that cannot be knownsince what constitutes perfect behaviour is essentially evolving. Reaching the adequate‘virtuous’ behaviour proves impossible, and individuals become open to constant criti-cism. For example, an academic who refuses to socialise with her students (or amanager with her junior employees) could be blamed for remaining too distant,

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whilst another could be blamed for doing the opposite, on the grounds that it leavesthem unable to impartially assess the students’work (or employee’s contribution). Indi-viduals could become threatened not only in their professional position, but in theirchoice of lifestyle more generally. Reasoning in terms of ‘role models’ shows, there-fore, its limitations.

To sum up, the three main ethical traditions discussed can provide food for thoughtto university decision-makers, but have their own flaws if applied in a strict manner.They tend to create an illusion of certainty about decision-making where ethical reason-ing is, in fact, substantially trickier. Whether they can easily be combined to producecumulative advantages is also doubtful. The level of complexity in ethical reasoningis thus best understood through another theory, borrowed from political theory butthat can be applied to HE.

Ethical decision-making and dirty hands

A whole strand of the political theory literature discusses ‘dirty hands’ dilemmas andtheir implications. Though such a topic is briefly referred to in some higher educationmanagement sources (Larsen, Maassen, and Stensaker 2009), it remains largelyuntouched. It is therefore anticipated that an in-depth study of this field couldprovide a useful complement for a fuller understanding of ethical reasoning in HE.What dirty hands theory insists on, roughly, is that decision-making is not a mechanicaltask (contra some tendencies described earlier). It is neither a mere repetition of pre-vious decisions, nor the systematic application of rules. It involves, instead, a certainlevel of interpretation, of discretion, of speculation about the outcomes. This is why,for instance, the political theorist Hannah Arendt fiercely condemned the ‘conventional,standardized codes of expression and conduct’, which she accused of having ‘thesocially recognized function of protecting us against reality’, as they impede our per-sonal judgement (2003, 160). The main reason why decision-making is such a trickytask is because ends (i.e. values) collide. They don’t always do so, and even whenthey do, there are instances when it is possible to find a ‘lesser evil’. However, refusingto admit that values conflict is a sign of narrow-mindedness. As Isaiah Berlin (1991, 15)pointed out, a ‘final solution’ to a moral quandary is often a dangerous illusion. WhatBerlin means is that there is no overarching standard to follow, and that even peoplewith the same values will not necessarily make similar judgements. When deciding,we are left with a void, in a state of undecidability. Remaining in such a state is,however, not only undesirable but in fact impossible. The case of Buridan’s donkey,who found himself placed at equal distance between two stacks of hay, and starvedto death because he was unable to decide which side to use, is a stark reminder ofthe dangers of indecision, but also of how difficult it can be to act. For Berlin,values can be ‘incommensurable’: it does not mean that they are all equal (he is not rela-tivist), but that they cannot be compared. The reason for this is not an imperfection inour knowledge, which (if it were to be compensated) could result in a possible compari-son. For Berlin, there is simply no common currency for value measurement.

Decision-makers like politicians encounter ‘dirty hands’ scenarios involvingincommensurable values: given the complexity of a context and the incompatibilityof the moral values to be rescued, ‘something morally disagreeable is required’ (Wil-liams 1981, 60). They are damned if they take a specific course of action, but equallydamned if they don’t. To put it bluntly, the politician cannot stay pure. The mostradical illustration of dirty hands in politics is, no doubt, the ‘ticking bomb’ scenario

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(Walzer 1973): a terrorist, the story goes in some variations, is in your custody, andyou know that he knows the location of an explosive device which will be set offin a matter of hours. Will you be prepared to order his torture to get the informationthat will save civilian lives, even though you disagree with the use of torture? Themoral quandary posed by this case is quite easily solvable from the point of viewof a consequentialist: if the overall happiness of society is guaranteed despite theloss of dignity of one man, then so be it. Similarly, for a Kantian, facing thedilemma is simple: torture is always wrong, as it treats a person as a means not anend. So the politician will not proceed with the torture, and will not feel guiltyabout the possibly horrendous outcomes of her actions. The likes of Berlin, Walzerand Williams, however, argue that these two stands are phenomenologically counter-intuitive. Whatever she does, the politician will experience deeply the conflict betweenincommensurable values and with it a sense of loss – labelled guilt, ‘moral remainder’,or ‘agent regret’.

Despite these dilemmas, choices are inevitable, and therefore personal judgement iscrucial. Relying on individual judgement can be viewed negatively. It is bad newsbecause the tough decisions to be made are nothing but a moral tragedy in themselves.The tragic nature of decision-making, the irreparable loss that occurs, is ever present inBerlin’s writings, and contrasts sharply with the optimism of CSR reasoning, forinstance. That is not to say that Berlin does not believe in settlements through compro-mise. But he reminds us that moral reasoning is an agonising exercise in the constantdemise of some of our most valued principles. Radical choices can, furthermore, beinterpreted as verging on arbitrariness, since the absence of an Archimedean moralstandpoint leaves much leeway to decision-makers. There is a genuine fear that theywill be too subjective or prejudiced. Worse, decision-making could be seen as aform of decisionism, which combines irrationalism (distrust in reason) with relativismand nihilism (seeing all moral values as equally redundant).

However, this is a misunderstanding of choice and judgement, which must be pre-sented in a more positive light. Our capacity for judgement is remarkable because it is asign of our humanity. Because we are not robots, we make decisions, and not merelyinfer them and conform to rules. This makes us unique according to Arendt. Her defi-nition of judgement is complex, but can be summed up as a combination of twoelements. One is ‘thinking’, which consists in a dialogue with yourself, during whichyou exercise your power of imagination and empathy to assess possible alternatives.Judgement renders thinking manifest, and creates the link between the general senseof rule obtained by thinking and the particular context of a situation (Arendt 2003,137, 188). Hence it is crucial not to leave out the second element, known as phronesis,or practical wisdom. It now becomes clear that judgement is remote from prejudice andsubjectivity: it involves intersubjectivity, goes beyond opinions, and is also a ‘child ofreason’ in its capacity for critical thinking (Schedler 2012, 24). Finally, moral conun-drums are a sign of the richness of our moral lives (Gray 1995). This means that thediversity of ways of flourishing is expressed through our freedom of choice and self-creation. Our choices, ultimately, bear testimony for who we want to be, and howwe want to be portrayed. The prioritisation of certain values will therefore reflect thepersonal, psychological, and even ideological, position of the practitioner. In thecase of higher education, decision-making reflects how university decision-makerswant to be understood individually, but also what identity, and moral culture, theywant their institution to have.

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Looking back at the dilemma resulting from the necessity to balance the universityaccounts, it must be stressed that none of the possibilities are ideal, value-neutral. What-ever decision you take, there will be practical andmoral damage. There will be bad thingsdone that cannot be undone. Even the apparently straightforward solution of accepting adonation can easily backfire, as the LSE case shows. All stakeholders will suffer, thoughnot at the same level, depending onwhich options are chosen. To focus solely on students,their learning experiencemight (thoughnothing is certain) be damagedmore by the loss ofexperienced academics than by outsourcing catering; the would-be linguists will suffermore than others from the closure of the languages departments; local and internationalstudents may lose (through poor standards and absent staff on ‘flying faculty’) or gain(through good value for money) from the opening of offshore campuses. Faced withuncertainty, decision-makers can adopt a position that will emphasise certain elementsof their personality: they may want to be perceived as drivers of innovation. In thiscase, they would not be afraid of making radical cuts (to whole departments) and newinvestments (abroad), even though they would then be accused of lack of duty of careand opportunism. On the other hand, they could prefer to be seen as good administrators,in the sense of looking after their staff and maintaining a maximum of subjects on offer(even if with reduced capacities), in which case lack of a vision could be a criticism.The ideological stand of educationalists also ultimately shows in their decisions: somemay favour elitism, whilst others want to widen participation to lower classes, regardlessof the political agenda; some favour vocational courses and elements that boost the ‘pro-fessional’ skills of their students, whilst others believe in the role of generic subjects suchas the arts and humanities. Somemay decide to reduce the teaching of students altogether,as they see universities as the main source of scientific discoveries, whereas others preferto focus on the mission of ‘civilising’ the young, at home and overseas. In any case, theyultimately rely onmore than traditional ethical theories: their judgement is themain driverof decision-making. They cannot hide away from individual responsibility.

Conclusion

Decision-makers, in HE and elsewhere, are keen on quick ethical fixes which allow themto forget about the ethical dimension of their decisions, and to focus on their many otherchores. But decision-making contains an element of moral uncertainty which no ethicaltheory can remove entirely. Good intentions and careful ethical calculations ultimatelydo not guarantee ethical results. Asserting the centrality of judgement and choice offerseducationalists no real comfort, which will undoubtedly frustrate them. What it stresses,however, is that they cannot shy away from the burden of responsibility, and must avoidbeing the ‘victims of forms of self-induced myopia, blinkers that may make for content-ment, but not for understanding of what it is to be human’ (Berlin 1991, 14). Are HEdecision-makers ready to dirty their hands, and face the guilt and regret entailed? Further-more, beyond those in the highest position in academia, are academics also prepared tomeet the challenge of dirty hands, in a context where the very conception of the universityis deeply threatened?Leaving behind the ivory tower is thefirst step in thefight against theapathy of many academics who happily let others stain their hands on their behalf.

AcknowledgementsI would like to thank Yasemin Erden for inviting me to a Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture atSaint Mary’s University College, London, to present an earlier version of this paper, and partici-pants for their questions and comments.

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