Ethics vs. Morality: Political Economics of Education

This article examines a controversial case in a Turkish university in which an undergraduate student of visual communications design prepared a porn video as his graduation thesis. The project, which was carried out ‘to find out the limits of academic freedom,’ resulted in the firings of three professors who approved the thesis proposal -but failed the actual thesis- and sparked a heated debate in the country. The case spells a divergence between the distinct perspectives of philosophy and political economics. Philosophical tradition contends that producing knowledge is a function of the separation of ethics and morality, and normative judgments passed on research that observes academic guidelines are detrimental to the process. While the thesis may be controversial from the angle of morality to some observers, it is endorsable from the viewpoint of intellectual freedom. The issue reveals a negative spillover of the practical link between academia and politics in Turkey’s higher education system. This peculiar form of political economics in academia begs the question of whether a secular and libertarian state is a prerequisite of human progress.