Professor Herbert J. Phillips [University of Washington philosophy professor accused of Communist activity], and probably a few other American Communists, seems to have believed that the characterization of the true Communist as an indoctrinator and propagandist, without a free teacher’s respect for objective truth, is based on a slanderous misconception of the Communist Party U.S.A. . . . In view of the pretty well established fact that Communism sets out to be a thoroughly intolerant religion, we may assume that it is substantially correct, i.e., not far from the Communist theory of the Communist educator in the capitalist world. Subject, then, to no substantial qualification, we have here a valid argument for excluding the perfect Party member from university faculties, and every flesh-and-blood Party member so far as he is not empirically distinguishable from the perfect member. But as it is not certain that this conclusion would suffice to exclude any actual person, the argument must be put forward in empirical dress. This can not be legitimately done—though it is done every day—simply by reading the second premise denotatively, “Every Communist indoctrinates” (or, “No Communist anywhere respects freedom of inquiry”). For obviously we could know this to be true, as a proposition in extension, only after we had made the very examination of Professor X’s own academic behavior, which the exclusion argument is supposed to render unnecessary. . . .

Receipt of official instructions and the proddings of local party leaders would be enough to spoil a man as a teacher if we knew that he was a docile, one hundred per cent Communist. But, lacking that identification, on what basis are we so sure that that man is a propagandist? Is it not through tacit appeal to the concept of the perfect Communist that this indirect evidence against him appears overwhelming?

If only the psychology of human beings were simpler, their behavior might more easily be inferred from the knowledge of their doctrines and party organizations. The assertions of exclusionists, beginning with the favorite rejoinder, “The man must have known what he was doing when he joined the Party!” rely too much on an ideal, rationalistic psychology. I mean the psychology which holds that a sane man could not perform an act important to him without knowing (as we later know!) what he was doing, that his conduct is consistently obedient to his major conscious purposes, that if he has a sincere conviction he will act it out, that once he has recognized an authority he will follow its instructions perfectly, and if he really believes a certain end to be supreme he will in fact sacrifice everything to do it. If in this year 1951 we know anything about human beings, we know that this psychology is false. It is, however, required for any substantial use of the method of vicious intellectualism on human subject-matter. . . .

Those who predict man’s behavior from his -isms and his party forget the great fact of human variation. Worse, they express an attitude which is too like that which Europeans and Americans in earlier centuries regularly adopted toward communicants of other religions. The same belief that everyone who embraces this other faith is necessarily dishonest in all his activities; the same exaggeration of the truism that the act of embracing or continuing in one’s faith is not a mere expression of belief but an act (the Catholic “tenders allegiance to a foreign prince”); the same willingness to use this one empirical fact, of having joined a dangerous party, as an adequate substitute for the many facts of each situation in which we meet the man. Such pouncing upon an empirical, but seldom and oh so official, fact (the man has a party card!) is also exactly what we should expect of a philosopher if his embattled soul wanted a short cut around the full-bodied empiricism he professed. . . .

Two of the prime achievements of democracy are establishment of the principle that an accused person has a right to a hearing on the charge made against him, and recognition of the obligation, which that entails, to search out and present all the evidence relevant to the charge. Whenever we have flouted that principle and that obligation, we have shamed ourselves in our own eyes. You can not set them aside. Also, the morale of any faculty whose morale is worth preserving will not be improved by the knowledge that this principle and this obligation are not going to be well respected. The unjustly accused should, and in fact usually do, welcome full impartial hearings. But whatever anyone’s feelings may be, and whether the accused be few or many, the principle and the obligation are binding.

When the right to a hearing is granted only on condition that the hearing stop with determination of Communist party membership, because direct inquiry into fitness to teach is said to be not feasible, we should realize that this means refusing the obligation to search out and present all the evidence which is relevant to the original charge. More charitably interpreted, it is a confession that we are not resourceful enough to find out about, and judge, a Communist professor as an individual and as a professor. It would be better to say plainly that the task is not to our taste; that what we want is a rule which will dispense with the trouble of treating troublesome individuals individually.

Source: Journal of Philosophy 48, no. 4 (July 5, 1951), 439–43, 445–46.