Comments on: Jobs in Philosophy

By: matt

matt — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 22:31:56 +0000

I’d mostly agree w/ the last post, though think it’s still perhaps a bit too strong- I’d think that applied ethics is at least as well represented in the top 50 programs as, as, philosophy of biology, and probably better represented than mathematical logic. One thing that is pretty sure, though, is that it would be pretty rare for a top program to hire someone, esp. a junior person, who could only do applied ethics- I’d guess Liz Harman falls into the group-her published work is all at least arguably applied ethics, but she can surely do fine work in other areas (I feel funny sounding like her press agent now.) Most of the people I’d consider the top applied ethics people also do very good work in other areas (Buchannan, Little, Daniels, etc.) One other point- I’d guess that the reason many applied ethics people work at least partly outside philosophy departments isn’t so much because they couldn’t get jobs in the top departments (_Surely_ Kamm, Daniels, Buchannan, etc. could) but rather because the money is much better in med schools and the like.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 05:33:05 +0000

I was primarily just looking at the numbers – the relative falloff from all jobs to top 50 jobs in applied ethics is really steep. In the last comment I was pointing out one possible reason for this. (Though I obviously didn’t provide any empirical support for that – it’s a conjecture not a theory.) Here’s another way of putting the point. If applied ethics was as big at top 50 schools as outside them, you should be able to run off a list ten times that long of applied ethicists at top 50 schools. Compare how many philosophers of language, or mind, at equivalent schools one could name without trouble. There’s an interesting terminological issue here by the way. For JFP purposes I wouldn’t have classified Liz as doing applied ethics. This one I do have some motivation for – we interviewed Liz for a job that was explicitly not in applied ethics. (She withdrew from the search before we made a decision, so there’s no gossip to spread about how well she did in the search.) Obviously her work has applications – the paper Sarah McGrath and I are doing on cloning draws heavily on Liz’s discussion of the non-identity problem, for example – but I’m pretty sure by job search standards she counts as on the theoretical side of the divide. And Frances Kamm’s primary appointment is in the Kennedy School, which is some good news for my thesis that one cause of the difference in rates we see here is that applied ethics jobs move outside philosophy departments at higher ranked schools. To be sure she has a secondary appointment in the philosophy department, and even an office there, so this isn’t an ideal case. But again, if we have to look at people who are not primarily employed by philosophy departments to find applied ethicists, my conjecture that top philosophy departments don’t hire many applied ethicists looks pretty good!

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 04:22:47 +0000

I’m not so sure about top 50 programs not employing applied ethics people, even if they are not hiring that many- Kamm spends a lot of her time doing what can only be called applied ethics, and she’s at Harvard after years at NYU, Gerald Dworkin at Davis does applied ethics, Rutgers just hired Jeff McMahon (and Penn thought about hiring him), Singer is at Princeton, Liz Harman does what can be called applied ethics and she’s now at NYU, There are several people at georgetown, Norman Bowie at Minn., etc. Do you just mean that there are not a lot of jobs advertised this year in the top 50 for people who mainly or only do applied ethics? That might be right, but it’s surely wrong to say that even in the very top programs applied ethics isn’t taught.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 01:05:15 +0000

Most of the time spent was tinkering with the software. Once I had it set up the way I wanted I think the data entry took less than 2-3 hours. It took a bit longer to get the database set up the way I wanted, but it’s there if I want to use it next year. But it’s not an enormous time commitment if someone wants to redo it using their preferred categories. I agree the Top 50 line was the most interesting, and the least likely to be repeated by a professional survey. Let me add one thing about the lack of Top 50 Applied Ethics jobs. Most applied ethics jobs are in bioethics. And most Top 50 depts are in schools that have medical schools, who usually employ their own bioethicists. So it isn’t as if these universities aren’t employing bioethicists, just their philosophy departments aren’t doing so. That’s not perfect, especially if you are a bioethicist who wants to work with other philosophers, but it’s not as bad as the numbers might suggest.

By: Michael Otsuka

Michael Otsuka — Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:06:42 +0000

Well, on second thought the APA would never go for a separate Top 50 category, which is one of the most revealing.

By: Michael Otsuka

Michael Otsuka — Sun, 30 Nov 2003 23:56:23 +0000

Thanks for counting all these jobs. Out of curiosity, how many hours did it take? It would be especially useful to see long-term trends, and perhaps the American Philosophical Association could be convinced to hire someone to do this. At the moment, they’ve got some rudimentary statistics posted here http://www.apa.udel.edu/apa/profession/jfpstats.html but a detailed breakdown like yours would be much more useful.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Sun, 30 Nov 2003 16:08:11 +0000

I feel the need for a standard form disclaimer at this point. I don’t mean ‘core’ to be an evaluative term. Like in a real machine, I use ‘core’ to denote the part that has the least contact with the outside world. This fortunately maps on to the standard usage. E.g. metaphysics, especially of the kind I practice, is clearly part of the core. Admittedly philosophy of science as it is now practiced doesn’t really fit that description, but it seems to fit in with the other areas. Perhaps Harry is right and I should have parcelled philosophy of science off onto a separate track though. It would have been less tendentious to use ‘descriptive’ and ‘evaluative’ for ‘core’ and ‘ethics’, I guess, although even that is problematic. (Epistemology is more evaluative than descriptive after all.)

By: harry

harry — Sun, 30 Nov 2003 16:03:04 +0000

Chris is right and wrong. Science is not in the core; theoretical ethics is; but I’d keep political philosophy and applied ethics out of the core (they’re about as far from it as sicence is). However, for Brian’s purpose, analysing the job market, I think its sensible to group ethics, political, and applied ethics together; but still misleading to include science in the core. What is my criterion for the core? I don’t know. One thing is this—I insist on political philosophy students getting themselves a good background in epistemology metaphysics ethics and phil of language; I would think it odd if Dennis Stampe insisted on his students getting a good background in political philosophy (but similarly odd if he didn’t insist that they get a background in theoretical ethics). Similarly, someone in Science should get a good background in M,E and P of L; but no reason for students of those to get a background in Science. Why are you surprised at the paucity of applied ethics demand in top 50 departments? I’m surprised there’s as much as there is; both from casual observation of past JFPs and from observation of who is where.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sun, 30 Nov 2003 09:03:24 +0000

Having recently sat through a philosophy of science presentation which was IMHO 100% science and 0% philosophy (I’m not saying this was typical) I feel at bit miffed at the prejudicial term “Core” to refer to logic, epistemology &c. Issues about how to live, the metaphysics of value and what justice is are just as much core questions as issues about what a good explanation is.