Science, scholarship, and intellectual virtues: A guide to what higher education should be like

Many thinkers are accustomed to separating facts and values-knowledge and morality. They believe that morality enters into the choices scientists and scholars make about what is worth studying, but after that, the cold logic of evidence assessment takes over. This sells science and scholarship short. I will suggest that science and scholarship, done right, are the best exemplars we have of a set of intellectual virtues that are essential if we are to be moral individuals living in a moral society. These virtues include love of truth, fair-mindedness, perseverance, and wisdom. Science and scholarship with these virtues is a way of interacting with the world to which we should all aspire. Nurturing these intellectual virtues, and not job training, is what university education should be for. Students with intellectual virtues will be better employees, in whatever career path they follow. And they will also be better citizens, willing to contribute to societal well-being in general.