Ethics, Metaphysics, or Mind?

Soon, the new Gourmet Report is going to be out, with the customary ranking of graduate programs in philosophy. Already some of the area rankings have been released, but I gather that the complete report won’t be out for another week or so. One innovation this year is that participants in the survey also ranked schools for their strengths in particular areas, including the stuff that we here at the Garden tend to work on. I’ll be really surprised if UC Riverside (three cheers for our blog hosts!) isn’t in the top tier for the Philosophy of Action.

Something I have always found interesting about the Report is the way it groups work on free will and moral responsibility under the heading of Philosophy of Action.

That makes a certain amount of sense, and for the purposes of the report it is difficult to imagine there being a better way of doing it. However, there are some pretty big differences in approaches and directions of interest that this categorization tends to leave out. I don’t take this to be unique to work on free will and moral responsibility— it will be true for any active field in philosophy. I just think that the case of free will might be worse than most other fields. Here’s why: people who work on free will are often principally anchored in (or driven toward) concerns in one of three more traditional fields: ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind (maybe I should throw philosophy of religion in here, too). There are exceptions, of course. However, I bet that in early stages of a career you could almost always identify a more traditional field that covers the range of concerns that drive that philosopher’s work on free will.

One of the good things about grouping in free will/moral responsibility issues with the Philosophy of Action is that it rightly makes it clear that the issues don’t fall neatly into metaphysics, ethics, mind, etc.  Maybe this will have the long-term of effect of getting people to think about this as a distinct field, rather than as a subfield of some more traditional area. However, I wonder whether this development would benefit or harm graduate students currently working on these topics. The JFP never lists jobs in free will, or for that matter, the philosophy of action. And, I don’t expect that to change. So, if locating work in this area as a subfield of the Philosophy of Action takes hold in the imagination of analytic philosophers, it might have the effect of making graduate students who work in these areas seem like marginal candidates in ALL the traditional fields they would want to apply to. And, that would be bad. If people did regularly advertise and try to hire in Philosophy of Action, this would be less of a problem, but even so I suspect that it would not benefit many folks, given how unlikely it is that there will be more Philosophy of Action jobs than metaphysics, ethics, or mind jobs in the foreseeable future.

(True story: When I went on the job market in the Fall of 2001, I applied to open jobs and jobs in ethics, plus a few jobs looking to hire in Latin American philosophy. Something funny happened on the way to employment, though. In at least two places I interviewed, I was reclassified as a metaphysics candidate (and in both of these places I didn’t find out until fairly late in the process!). All things considered, that was a good thing, but it did get me wondering how many places my application was downgraded because I was viewed as “really” working in metaphysics. My suspicion is that other Gardeners have even better stories about the craziness and difficulties of working in this area.)

So, what’s the upshot? I don’t know. You tell me. Is it better or worse for the visibility of our work, employment, and so on that free will/moral responsibility be thought of as distinct from more traditional areas of philosophy, as the Gourmet Report has it? Or, is it better to emphasize that free will does not really fit well under the heading of Philosophy of Action? If it doesn't fit well enough for the purposes of the profession, what are the best alternatives?

Comments

[Fritz Warfield]

As one who has likely read as many job files in the past decade as anyone, let me say just a bit about what "Action" files look like and how they are treated in entry level searches.

Free will and/or action theory people can, depending on the "slant" of their work, apply for metaphysics jobs and/or ethics jobs. And of course they can also apply for open jobs. (Those who do the foreknowledge side of the free will literature exclusively are likely relegated to philosophy of religion jobs only).

When such people apply for open jobs, they will invariably be put into either the ethics pile or the metaphysics pile depending on the quick judgment of whoever in a department is doing the initial sorting into large piles. Those screening, eg, the ethics files might then move a file to the metaphysics pile if they think it properly belongs there. [Yes, those screening metaphysics files might then bounce it back to ethics -- if that happens, it's going to quickly end up in the "no interview" pile]

Most (though not all) job candidates with AOS in "Action" list themselves as: AOS - metaphysics (especially action) or AOS - Ethics (with some indication of work in phil of action somewhere nearby). Some who list their AOS as action will list a 2nd AOS (eg, metaphysics). Still others indicate the slant of their work (in ethics or metaphysics) with their listing of AOC.

As for the new Gourmet Action rankings --
I doubt I'm betraying deep confidences in giving a small preview to this dedicated audience: Riverside on top. Stanford 2nd. Followed by a 3-5 grouping of NYU, Notre Dame, and Texas. No big shocks on that list - for the rest of it wait patiently for the report to be released.

[Andrei A. Buckareff]

With regard to Fritz's post, what about those who are on the market whose work in action theory is on foundational problems (e.g., intention and intentional action, theories of action, reasons explanations)and not primarily on free will? Do you expect that such persons applications would be put in the philosophy of mind pile?

[James Gibson]

"With regard to Fritz's post, what about those who are on the market whose work in action theory is on foundational problems (e.g., intention and intentional action, theories of action, reasons explanations)and not primarily on free will? Do you expect that such persons applications would be put in the philosophy of mind pile?"

In other words... what about the person... whose name is.... Andrei? :)

[Fritz Warfield]

In my experience, no one with an AOS of "phil of action" has ever ended up in the philosophy of mind pile. One working at the foundations of phil of action in the way Andrei describes would most likely end up in the metaphysics pile. If the work more heavily features work on "reasons explanation" then the file might land in ethics. (I'm describing, not defending...)
Reasonably broad work at the foundations of action theory almost certainly gets coarse-grained classified as "metaphysics".

[Randy Clarke]

I'm very surprised that phil. of action types aren't considered to be in phil. of mind. The latter course heading is the one under which I teach action theory courses, when I do.

[Fritz Warfield]

I agree, Randy, that some large parts of phil of action are best classified as part of philosophy of mind. But I've never seen this happen here (and we search nearly all the time) and I haven't heard of it happening anywhere else (and I hear about searches at many other places). Strange, I agree.

[Tamler Sommers]

Ah, it's nice to go to the Garden so I can take my mind off of this all-consuming job search. Oh wait.

Yes, it's tough or at least strange for us poor free-willers (or anti-free willers) on the job front. On the advice of my supervisors, I put my AOS's as Ethics/Moral Psychology AND Metaphysics/Phil Mind. I had considered adjusting my CV depending on the job, but that seemed a little dishonest, or if not dishonest then something that would ultimately confuse me to the point where I was placing the wrong cover letters in envelopes and applying for comparitive literature jobs in Wales. My worry though in putting all of these as AOS's is that I will be seen as a Jack of some trades but master of none. But what can you do? (Or given my views I should say: what "can" you do?') (Or: what can "you" do?) (This job search is getting to me.) I'm sure letter writers for free will specialists have a tough time too, especially if the applicant is targeting a wide range of jobs.

I was told that putting something as an AOS means that you can teach a graduate seminar in that area. But take metaphysics. While I can certainly teach a graduate seminar in causation, personal identity, action theory and free will/moral responsibility, I probably cannot teach one in, say, universals and particulars, which is not a small part of metaphysics. The same probably goes for philosophy of mind. Although I have published and presented in that area, there are aspects of Phil Mind in which I would not be able to teach a top-level course. The same is true to a lesser extent for ethics and moral psychology, although there it's mostly that I would not could not teach a graduate seminar in (shudder) Kantian ethics. (Just kidding, Ethics jobs I've applied to. You did not read that...You did not read that...you did not read that...)

But I guess the bottom line is that if you're bitten by the free will/moral responsibility bug, nothing will take you away from it. It does seem like one of those areas you go into because you love it, because you're passionate about it (I was obsessed with this topic as an English major 12 years ago)--and as far as jobs go, you just hope for the best.

[Manuel]

Well, my post wasn't supposed to be about the job market- as I was thinking about it, it was more about the implications for the field that come along with thinking about free will/moral responsibility issues But I guess the job market implications are what capture a lot of people's attention right now. (Sorry Tamler!)

A couple of more thoughts on the recent Gourmet Report:

(1) Philosophy of Action gets grouped in with metaphysics in the general area of "M&E" rather than "Theory of Value."

(2) The people in the Group 1 & 2 departments (Riverside and Stanford) who work in these areas are compatibilists. You have to get to Group 3 before incompatibilists start showing up. (If you look at the median scores, it is actually the top 3 places that are all compatibilist). What's the meaning of this? Probably nothing, because the sample size is small and the gradations aren't large. But if it does mean something, it isn't because incompatibilists don't make up a large chunk of the evaluation pool.

[Fritz Warfield]

Notice that some (though not all) of the compatibilists Manuel refers do little work on *freedom* -- the bulk of their work is on "action" more generally. It's not like there are 20 freedom/determinism compatibilists at Riverside & Stanford....

[Andrei A. Buckareff]

I share Randy's (and Fritz's) surprise about phil. of action not being regarded as under phil. of mind. Regarding Fritz's remark about reasons explanations, I'm curious about why someone working on reasons explanations of action would be lumped in with moral philosophers. I can understand why folks working on practical reason are. But given the close relation of the debate over reasons explanations to issues about mental content and mental causation, I would have thought that work of this nature would fall under mind.

Oh, as per James's remark, I was talking about myself. But my other AOS is epistemology (after all, I am at Rochester). So I don't worry too much about simply listing action theory as my other AOS. One look at my CV would make it apparent that I work in the field.

[Jing Zhu]

Regarding to the rankings of the philosophy of action, I would suggest that the University of Pittsburgh (Michael Thompson, Kieran Setiya, and Michael Perloff) should be given a place among the list.

[Andrei A. Buckareff]

Jing,

I agree with you. Another shocker was that St. Louis and Georgia weren't even part of the survey.

I do think that one explanation of the relatively poor showing for schools like NYU and Princeton, along with Pittsburgh's absence from the list is that most (eight of the twelve) of the evaluators work principally on the free will problem. On the other hand, I believe that only one of the evaluators has worked exclusively on what I've been calling "foundational issues" in the philosophy of action. To my knowledge, only one of the evaluators has worked equally on the free will problem and everything else.

I suspect things would have been different if the evaluators were more evenly split between people who work primarily on autonomy/free will/moral responsibility issues and those who work on what I've been calling foundational issues. I think some schools might be on the list that are not, but I suspect that most of the schools in the top three tiers would still be in the top three tiers, even if ordered a little differently.

Also, I can't help but wonder how things would look if moral psychology had been treated as a category separate from normative ethics (it seems it should be). If moral responsibility were placed under moral psychology, I suspect UCR would come out very well under both action and moral psychology.

[Fritz Warfield]

Andrei -- with that view of the work of the evaluators, I'm, well, glad you aren't an evaluator! just kidding, sort of....

[Andrei A. Buckareff]

Fritz,

I did not mean to suggest that the evaluators did a poor job. If you took that to be implied by my comments, I am sorry. On the contrary, I think they did a good job.

However, I do think the research interests of the evaluators can make some difference for how they rank a department. I did expect NYU and Princeton to do a little better. And I agreed with Jing that Pitt deserves to be on the list--at least mentioned along with Georgia and St. Louis. But my sentiments are no doubt (at least in part) a function of my interests and whose work I'm best qualified to evaluate. Also, I indicated that I wouldn't expect things to look much different if the make-up of the evaluators changed to more evenly represent the two big areas in action theory (viz., the free will debate and what I christened "foundational" issues).

As for my moral psychology comments, I was wondering out loud if the Gourmet should go back to listing moral psych independently of normative ethics (or metaethics, for that matter). It seems it at least wouldn't hurt. It may help students with interests in action and moral psychology (which is not uncommon--much as connected interests in action and mind are not uncommon).

Once again, please do not misinterpret my comments. I think very highly of the work of all of the evaluators that were selected by Leiter. And, like yourself, I am glad I was not one of them. I am sure that it is not an easy task.

-Andrei

[Fritz Warfield]

oh, you took my sort of joke the wrong way -- I didn't mean to be joking that you thought the evaluators did a bad job. I meant to be partly joking about your assessment that so few of the evaluators are tuned in to the "foundational" issues. There is of course *some* truth to the main areas of publication for many of the evaluators, but I for one am pretty sure that one really needs to be pretty up on "foundational" issues in order to do even halfway decent work on, eg, freedom, responsibility, etc... Though moral psychology might indeed be separable from the cluster falling under Gourmet's phil of action I don't think that the others are. My joke/suggestion was: have more confidence that the evaluators know the field and the work of people in it pretty darn well.

About Pitt, the relevant work of the younger people at Pitt has not yet fully registered in the profession -- younger people take awhile to register even if they're doing great work. NYU did very well (didn't they?). One might argue for placing them #2 instead of #3 (or one might argue for a tie at #1 with one or two other places) but the differences at the top are known to be small so we shouldn't lose sleep over the difference between #1 and #3. As for Princeton, I personally think they are rated too high in the report. We must be making different qualitative assessments of relevant work (or perhaps we have different information about retirements). Just a few thoughts.

sorry about the ambiguity in the phrase "work of the evaluators" -- I meant "research work" not "work in doing the evaluations".

[Jing Zhu]

Fritz:

"About Pitt, the relevant work of the younger people at Pitt has not yet fully registered in the profession -- younger people take awhile to register even if they're doing great work. ... As for Princeton, I personally think they are rated too high in the report. We must be making different qualitative assessments of relevant work (or perhaps we have different information about retirements).

If, in the envaluation, it is sensible to consider information about faculty retirements, isn't it more reasonable to recognize promising young people who have already landed positions at leading institutions and are doing good relevant work?

Jing

[Fritz Warfield]

Jing --

I'm not sure I made my point clearly:

Both retirement issues *and* the good work of junior people *should* matter. I was simply identifying two factors that in my view play a role in the rankings.

in speaking about junior people, *of course* I agree that their relevant work ought to be recognized. I was simply making the factual claim that it takes awhile for this to happen. It takes awhile even for specialists working in the same idea to fully inform themselves of and internalize the contributions of very strong junior people. I base this claim on discussions with evaluators in several areas over the past few cycles of the report.

Perhaps this happens for bad reasons (perhaps people are behind in reading the leading journals) and perhaps it happens for good reasons (perhaps people want to see if a junior person will sustain a record of contribution in a field before recommending to prospective grad students that they rush off to be near the person). It's also important to realize that a junior person with fabulous *promise only* is unlikely to matter much these sorts of evaluations - it's hard (though not impossible) to have a national or international reputation in a sub-field *before* one begins publishing in the field.