Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Q&A on the Philosophy Job Market

One student writes with a series of questions that may be worth answering publically; I intersperse my answers and comments:

Student: "I just read your Leiter Report post on the philosophy job market. It is reassuring to know that candidates from top-5 programs still have a good chance of landing a tenure-track job. How fast do these odds diminish as you move down the ranking scale? For example, how do the odds of top-10 or top-20 graduates compare to those of top-5 PhDs?"

Leiter: It's hard to give a general answer, since while there is a quite strong correlation between faculty reputation and job placement, it is not perfect. Fortunately, most departments now post job placement data, so it is possible to do some checking. But bear in mind that a faculty with a relatively weak overall reputation may nonetheless have areas of real strength, where its graduates are routinely employed. (An example would have been Texas, which was not in the top 20 overall until fairly recently, yet almost all graduates in ancient philosophy got tenure-track jobs, many at research universities, going back to the 1970s.)

Student: "I'm also curious about the prospects of an excellent graduate from a merely adequate program. The admissions cliche is that top-ranked PhD programs reject several highly qualified candidates for every student they accept. Statistically, one would expect at least a few Princeton-caliber applicants to end up in lesser programs--whether by bad luck in admissions, seductive funding packages, or strong desire to remain in a particular region. If I understand you correctly, you're saying that students should think very carefully about doing a PhD anywhere besides the very top programs."

Leiter: I didn't mean to imply that. But the weaker the PhD program, the more carefully a student needs to think about the decision to attend. The prospect of becoming an "invisible adjunct" goes up at a less reputable program. That was the only point I wanted to make in the original posting.

Student: "PhD program strongly predicts marketability, but academic ability strongly predicts where an applicant is likely to get in. So, the placement records of top programs are confounded by academic ability. How does your advice apply to students with high academic ability and poor admissions options? Would it be foolhardy for this type of applicant to attempt to prove their mettle in a respectable but undistinguished program?"

Leiter: This is tricky, for epistemic reasons: how can the student be confident in his or her "high academic ability" when he or she can not secure admission to any reputable (say, top 50) PhD programs in the US? This may seem like harsh advice, but my inclination is to think it is in the student's best long-term interest: if you are unable to get in to any reputable PhD program, you should take that as a judgment on your likely success in academic philosophy. A reliable measure of "high academic ability" in philosophy is that at least some admissions committees consisting of professional philosophers at reputable PhD programs judge the student to be someone worth admitting and funding for graduate study.

UPDATE: Timothy O'Keefe (Philosophy, Georgia State) writes with the following sound addendum to the preceding:

"I think you gave good advice on the philosophy job market in your 5/31 posting. But here's one thing you might want to add (similar to a piece of advice already in the gourmet report):

"If a student is unable to get into the sort of Ph.D. program she'd like to get into (and with the sort of funding she'd like), she might want to consider applying to a good terminal M.A. program. This will allow her to shore up her philosophy background, polish a piece of writing as a sample, and get additional letters of recommendation. She may then be in a better position to reapply to reputable Ph.D. programs. From the POV of long-term success in the academic job market, I think a student would probably do better pursuing this strategy rather than going directly to a really weak Ph.D. program."

UPDATE: More on the general topic here.

Adjudication in a Police State

Is this how it works?

A good writer

I like the name of this blog ("The Maggot Hammer") and I like the writing in this posting in particular:

"It's good to see that the world is still here, at least. Still war, still slimy crypto-Nazi pornographers of the spirit, still tiny bleating liars with enormous voices and no words."

"Tiny bleating liars with enormous voices and no words": that's good. Andrew Sullivan anyone? Glenn Reynolds? Nice.

Philosopher Siegel turns down Arizona

Susanna Siegel (philosophy of mind and language), currently an untenured (but tenure-track) associate professor at Harvard University, has turned down the tenure-track offer from the University of Arizona--I will leave it to Matthew Yglesias to figure out why!

Burning Bridges

This big-firm associate isn't planning on coming back, it appears. From his parting e-mail to colleagues at the law firm:

"While I have a high degree of personal respect for PHJW as a law firm, and I have made wonderful friendships during my time here, I am no longer comfortable working for a group largely populated by gossips, backstabbers and Napoleonic personalities. In fact, I dare say that I would rather be dressed up like a pinata and beaten than remain with this group any longer. I wish you continued success in your goals to turn vibrant, productive, dedicated associates into an aimless, shambling group of dry, lifeless husks."

The Arguing-with-Rorty Game

Pascal Engel (Paris/Sorbonne) summarizes it well:

"[The editors] identify correctly the difficulties of criticizing Rorty and of playing with him the usual game of exchanging arguments. In the first round, Rorty attempts to undercut some traditional philosophical thesis – Platonism, Foundationalism, Representationalism, etc. (always a capital letter!) – with the intention to show that a) everyone in the tradition and on the contemporary scene more or less subscribes to it, b) that it rests upon some mythological conception (e.g. the Given, Reality in itself) or upon some false dualism which has been debunked by some Great Figure (e.g.: ' Since Heidegger, Dewey and Davidson we know that…'), or c) by taking an extreme counterposition, 'a tactic that seems to suggest that all positions on the topic are somewhat arbitrary' (p.30). If the opponent protests that the so-called thesis has been caricatured, and that one can nevertheless give some reasonable defense of the attacked thesis, free of the so-called mythological implications, then Rorty redescribes his opponent’s position to make it trivially true or outright false. Or he practices ignoratio elenchi. In the second round, when the opponent objects that this is not good argument, then Rorty admits that he does not care for argument, which is useless and counterproductive and claims that what matters is only the attempt to demythologise and to put forward new ways of thinking. And he adds that in so objecting the opponent is in the grip of one of the mythologies and wrong dualisms that he is denouncing - a belief in some antecedently given Truth of the Matter or some Objective Point View. The game can go on, without there being anything much to do but to admire the artist."

Actually there is another option: stop playing. Surely this paragraph well captures why the vast majority of philosophers have stopped reading Rorty.

UPDATE: Keith DeRose (Yale, Philosophy) points out to me an amusing and sharp review of several Rorty-related books by Jay Rosenberg (North Carolina, Philosophy), which is available to JSTOR users here.

Putting Your Life Where Your Mouth Is

This letter-writer to the NY Times gets it right:

"Joshua Foer has omitted the most critical reason his privileged classmates at Yale have had such overwhelming support for the war in Iraq: there is no military draft.

"This conflict is being fought by working-class and poor kids who joined the military as a viable economic option. The undergraduates at Yale would be shutting down the campus if we had a universal draft with no college deferments."

The point can be generalized beyond navel-gazing Yale undergraduates. I'd find the various bloggers who pontificate about war less nauseatingly pathetic if they would take a leave of absence from their cushy academic posts, and put their lives where their purported "principles" are--or at least if they shipped their oldest child off to war pronto. But the fact is that these dreary pundits are frauds, eager to send others to die, and willing to risk nothing--nothing!--themselves. (That many are childless is surely not irrelevant to their bloodthirsty posture.)

If you really think the war in Iraq was a moral cause, Professor X, then request a leave of absence tomorrow, and get to work. Risk something. Until then, realize that all the world knows a hypocrite when it sees one.

A Sharp Message for "Hawks" with "Second Thoughts"

A real human being--who doesn't, apparently, blog in favor of sending other people's children to war--writes to The New York Times as follows:

"In 'The Hawks Loudly Express Their Second Thoughts' (Week in Review, May 16), you note that the shapers of thoughts and architects of the war now have troubling doubts about their enthusiastic support of the invasion of Iraq. How sad for them.

"I am the mother of Sgt. Sherwood Baker of the Pennsylvania National Guard, soldier 720. That number is seared on my soul now, along with the screams and despair of my family and the wind carrying the sound of taps above the weeping crowd at the grave site of my son.

"To me and mine, the consequences of the failed judgment and outright lies of the Bush administration and its apologists and spokesmen are not just becoming 'depressed' or 'angst-ridden.' We have lost our brave and beloved son, who was ordered to the war these folks dreamed of and hoped for."

This is as good an explanation as any of why one might think Andrew Sullivan and Instapundit, among many others, are morally depraved.

Who's "Hot" in Metaphysics?

For some refereeing work, one of the complimentary books I requested from OUP is the new Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics edited by Michael Loux (Notre Dame) and Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers). This is an impressive, very much state-of-the-art volume, with a detailed index that gives an idea whose work in metaphysics is most-discussed these days. The most-referenced figures? They are (those who are also contributors are marked with an *): David Armstrong (emeritus, University of Sydney); John Bigelow (Monash University); the late C.D. Broad; the late Roderick Chisholm; *Kit Fine (New York University); *Sally Haslanger (Massachussetts Institute of Technology); Mark Hinchliff (Reed College); *Jaegwon Kim (Brown University); the late David Lewis (the most referenced philosopher, appropriately enough, in the volume); E.J. Lowe (University of Durham); Ned Markosian (Western Washington University); Hugh Mellor (emeritus, Cambridge University); Trenton Merricks (University of Virginia); Alvin Plantinga (University of Notre Dame); the late A.N. Prior; Hilary Putnam (emeritus, Harvard University); the late W.V.O. Quine; *Michael Rea (University of Notre Dame); the late Bertrand Russell; *Ted Sider (Rutgers University, New Brunswick) (close to Lewis in terms of discussion in the volume); Lawrence Sklar (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor); *Michael Tooley (University of Colorado, Boulder); *Peter van Inwagen (University of Notre Dame); *Timothy Williamson (Oxford University); *Dean Zimmerman (Rutgers University, New Brunswick).

Also much-discussed (though perhaps a bit less than the preceding) are the following philosophers: Robert Adams (emeritus, Yale University); a bloke named Aristotle; Jonathan Bennett (emeritus, Syracuse University); the late George Boolos; the late Rudolf Carnap; William Lane Craig (Talbot School of Theology); the late Donald Davidson; another bloke named Descartes; Michael Dummett (emeritus, Oxford University); the late great Albert Einstein; Bob Hale (University of Glasgow); Mark Heller (SMU moving to Syracuse University); a bloke named Hume; Mark Johnston (Princeton University); Saul Kripke (CUNY); Leibniz; Lawrence Lombard (Wayne State University); *Tim Maudlin (Rutgers University, New Brunswick); Gideon Rosen (Princeton University); J.J.C. Smart (emeritus, ANU); Quentin Smith (Western Michigan University); Robert Stalnaker (Massachussetts Institute of Technology); Peter Strawson (emeritus, Oxford University); Bas van Fraassen (Princeton University); Wittgenstein; Crispin Wright (University of St. Andrews/New York University).

It is gratifying to note that the institutional affiliation of the philosophers having the most impact on discussions in contemporary metaphysics, as reflected in the Oxford Handbook, maps rather well on to the ranking of programs in metaphysics in the last PGR (some of the discrepancies have to do partly with how the category is defined, and partly with faculty moves since).

Legal scholar links to Coulter Column

My former colleague, the prolific and distinguished legal scholar Michael Rappaport (San Diego Law), has linked, approvingly, to a column by Ann Coulter. Really. Now I've seen everything.

Good News for India

Now that the religious zealots have been ousted from control of the government, there appears to be hope for India: a first good sign is the repeal of India's own police state "anti-terror" laws. Now if we can oust our own zealots, perhaps we can get rid of the Patriot [sic] Act too?

Metaphysician Heller from SMU to Syracuse

Mark Heller (metaphysics, epistemology) at Southern Methodist University has accepted a senior offer from Syracuse University, where he took his Ph.D. twenty years ago under William Alston, Jonathan Bennett, and Peter van Inwagen. This caps several years of strong hiring by Syracuse (other additions at the tenured level during this time include Edward McClennen, Kenneth Baynes, Frederick Beiser, Andre Gallois, as well as several junior hires), after the back-to-back losses of Gendler, Hawthorne, Nolan, Sider, and Zimmerman.

Yale Joins the Pursuit of Philosopher Bealer

Texas and Florida have already made offers to George Bealer (metaphysics, epistemology) at the University of Colorado at Boulder; now Yale has made him an offer as well. Hopefully this will resolve itself before the new PGR survey in early September.

Philosopher Colin Allen from A&M to Indiana

Colin Allen, a philosopher of mind best-known for his work on animal cognition, is moving from Texas A&M University to Indiana University at Bloomington this fall, where he will be Professor of the History and Philosophy of Science.

Right-Wing Bloggers May be Parodies of Themselves...

...but, just in case you didn't get the joke, read this.

(Thanks to Bill Childs for the pointer.)

The "catastrophe" of pragmatism

From Tim Crane's review of Jerry Fodor's Hume Variations (OUP) in the Times Literary Supplement, May 7, 2004, p. 4:

"With characteristic hyperbolic gloom, Fodor calls pragmatism 'the defining catastrophe of analytic philosophy of language and philosophy of mind in the last half of the twentieth century.' Its attempts to do without (something like) the theory of ideas is 'a shambles from which philosophy has yet to fully recover.' But what exactly is pragmatism? The essence of the view is that thinking or having concepts should be understood in terms of abilities: for example, in terms of the ability to classify things, or to make inferences, or to be able to recognize things, and so on. What pragmatism is opposed to is the theory that (in Barry Stroud's words) 'having an idea is fundamentally a matter of contemplating or viewing an "object"'--in other words, that ideas are mental particulars or objects in the mind. The pragmatist argues that this view, supposedly one of the targets of Wittgenstein's later philosophy, is fundamentally flawed because it cannot account for the function of thinking or having concepts; instead this function must be explained in terms of practical or mental abilities....

"The idea that thinking is a kind of ability or activity or capacity is initially attractive; until one starts to try to figure out what kind of ability it might be. Consider the idea that the ability to think about Xs, say, is the ability to distinguish Xs from other things. But what is it to 'distinguish' [sort] something from something else?...

"[Fodor's] objection is that even if one were able to sort the Xs from the Ys--let's say by putting them into two piles--this would not show that one was sorting Xs from Ys as such. Suppose someone had the task of sorting triangles from squares, by putting all the triangles in one pile and the squares in another. The problem is that though the piles are the result of sorting the triangles from the squares, they would also be the result of sorting the trilaterals from the squares, since all triangles are trilaterals and vice versa. Sorting Xs from Ys is therefore compatible with not sorting them as Xs and Ys."

Is Fodor right? Comments are open.

Philosopher Roth to be New Chair at UC Santa Cruz

Paul Roth (philosophy of social science, philosophy and sociology of science) at the University of Missouri at St. Louis has accepted appointment as Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

George Mason's Lederman Offered Tax Chair at Indiana

Tax scholar Leandra Lederman at George Mason University has been offered the chair in tax law at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she will visit next academic year before deciding on whether to make the move.

Copyright Scholar Netanel from Texas to UCLA

Neil Netanel (intellectual property, copyright) at the University of Texas, Austin has accepted the offer from UCLA, where he has been visiting this past year. Neil, who grew up in L.A. and has friends and family there, will be missed here in Austin!

Wicked Political Humor

Photos here.

An "Interview" (sort of) with Dr. James Dobson...

...right-wing religious zealot and crusader for morality: here. A sample:

FAFBLOG: So! How's the Family?
JAMES DOBSON: The Family is in deadly danger, Fafnir.
FB: Danger? Oh no! I like families!
JD: Yes, danger from the homosexual agenda which has been trying for decades to destroy it.
FB: I never knew homosexuals had an agenda! I just thought they were ordinary people who were easily stereotyped as lovers of musical theater.
JD: So they and the gay-controlled Hollywood elite would have you believe. But the Forces of Gay are now closer than ever to destroying the divine institution of the civil marriage certificate, and with it, the family itself.
FB: You must hate gay people then, since they're trying to destroy the family.
JD: We don't hate gay people, Fafnir. We just want them to functionally cease to exist by having them suppress all their natural physical impulses and force themselves to marry and have sex with members of the opposite gender.
FB: Wow. That's a very loving attitude to take Dr. Dobson.
JD: Yes, it is.

You Can Say That Again...

“The global security agenda promoted by the US Administration is bankrupt of vision and bereft of principle. Violating rights at home, turning a blind eye to abuses abroad and using pre-emptive military force where and when it chooses has damaged justice and freedom, and made the world a more dangerous place.”

--Amnesty International Secretary General Irene Khan

The Next Time Some Right-Wing Oaf Says, "What's the Evidence of Abuses under the Patriot Act or in the name of the 'War on Terror'"

...direct them to these two examples: the now notorious and disgraceful treatment of Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield (details and links here) and now the harassment of art professor Steve Kurtz (details here).

Wake up, folks!

Tenure-Track Hiring at Graduate Programs for 2003-04

UPDATED AGAIN: MAY 28

=====

This listing is by the program that trained the students; additions and corrections welcome.

TENURE-TRACK HIRES AT Ph.D.-GRANTING AND TERMINAL M.A. PROGRAMS 2003-04

AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

Josh Parsons was hired by the University of California, Davis. AOS: Metaphysics, Ethics. He was previously a postdoctoral and then research fellow at the University of St. Andrews.

BROWN UNIVERSITY

Uriah Kriegel was hired by the University of Arizona. AOS: Philosophy of Mind/Cognitive Science.

How Does an American Get a Job Teaching in a Canadian Law School?

UPDATED AND MOVED TO THE FRONT 5/26: I realize I don't have many Canadian law faculty readers, but I'm moving this to the front in the hopes that we get some more responses. Thanks.

======================

An assistant professor at a U.S. law school (and with a U.S. law degree) writes with the following questions:

"(1) How is the law faculty hiring process different in Canada from the U.S.?
"(2) How does a U.S. professor get a faculty position in Canada, and vice versa? And how is such movement affected by experience or familiarity with their different legal education systems and bodies of law?"

The U.S. hiring process--at least at the junior level--is described here. In the lateral market--i.e., hiring of those already in teaching positions--my impression is that Canada is not much different from the U.S.: faculty are recruited based on their scholarly record and the area needs of the hiring school. Of course, salaries are generally higher in American law schools than in Canadian ones, so most of the movement is south rather than north (though Michael Byers [international law] recently went from Duke to British Columbia to take up a lucrative Canada Research Chair). It also strikes me that most, but not all, of the cross-border faculty movement is by faculty in fields less bounded by national law: e.g., international and comparative law, jurisprudence, law and economics.

I've opened comments, and invite those knowledgeable about the Canadian law teaching market to offer their insight and advice. The usual rule applies: NO ANONYMOUS POSTINGS.

New Philosophy Appointments at South Florida

Roger Ariew, a distinguished historian of early modern philosophy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, has been appointed Professor and Chair of the Department at the University of South Florida. In addition, Hugh LaFollette (applied ethics) has been appointed to the Cole Chair in Ethics at the St. Petersburg campus (formerly held by Peter French, now at Arizona State University), though I am told he will be available to graduate students at the main USF campus. He was previously at East Tennessee State University for many years.

Congratulations UT Law Class of 2004!

It's been a pleasure and privilege to have had the opportunity to work with many of you during your time in the Law School. I'm sure I speak for all my colleagues in wishing you much professional success and personal happiness in the years ahead.

Continued Light Posting Through May 25...

...as I'm busy preparing my keynote address for the inaugural dinner of the new Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy on Monday, May 24. My topic: "The End of Empire: Dworkin and Jurisprudence in the 21st Century." I hope to upload a draft of the talk in the next week or so.

Legal scholar George from Northwestern to Vanderbilt

Tracey George (law and social science) at Northwestern University has accepted an offer from Vanderbilt University, where her husband Chris Guthrie (behavioral law & economics) teaches. Guthrie had also had an offer from Northwestern, but the couple opted for Nashville. This is the second time in the last year that Vanderbilt has gone head-to-head with Northwestern and won: last year, criminal procedure expert Nancy King at Vanderbilt turned down an offer from Northwestern.

Sometimes U.S. Senators Speak the Truth

Senator Hollings (Democrat, South Carolina) may have a rather implausible (!) theory about the objectives of the Bush Administration in invading Iraq--Noam Chomsky is a lot closer to the mark on that one ("Establishing the first secure military base in a dependant client state at the heart of the energy producing region of the world")--but he is surely right about the fake "war on terror":

"Terrorism is a method, not a war. We don't call the Crimean War with the Charge of the Light Brigade the Cavalry War. Or World War II the Blitzkrieg War. There is terrorism in Northern Ireland against the Brits. There is terrorism in India and in Pakistan. In the Mideast, terrorism is a separate problem to be defeated by diplomacy and negotiation, not militarily. Here, might does not make right -- right makes might. Acting militarily, we have created more terrorism than we have eliminated."

What Historians Think about the Bush Presidency

Jessica Wilson has the details.

Philosophy at one Community College

There is a nice profile of the flourishing philosophy program at Bergen Community College in the May 21 Chronicle of Higher Education; if you or your institution subscribe, you can access it on-line here.

What foreign languages are most useful for philosophy graduate students?

An undergraduate philosophy teacher asks: "In your opinion, for potential doctoral candidates in Philosophy, what is the most useful foreign language by specialty?"

I've opened comments (no anonymous posts!). I'll begin with a few observations of my own.

For the undergraduate still undecided about his or her particular interests in philosophy, the safest bet is German, i.e., it is the language most likely to be useful wherever one ends up concentrating in philosophy. Several of the most important figures in the history of philosophy wrote in German, of course, and German is a primary language in which important scholarship is done in several areas of philosophy, both historical and contemporary. My impression is that French is a distant second to German, though obviously indispensable for certain topics and figures.

In ancient philosophy, one obviously must have classical Greek and probably also Latin, but it is equally essential to have several other languages, given the truly international community of scholarship in this field. My impression is that German and Italian are the most important languages right now for scholars of ancient philosophy, but that French is also valuable.

My impression is that in philosophy of language and mind, metaphysics, and epistemology, the main philosophical work in the English-speaking universities is overwhelmingly in English, though some is in German, and a bit less in French and Italian. (Perhaps the Italian share is larger than I realize.) It is not uncommon for specialists in these areas to have no foreign languages at all.

In moral and political philosophy, English is again the primary language, but German is quite important, both for historical and contemporary contributions. The same is true for philosophy of law, though there one might add, interestingly, Italian, where quite a lot of jurisprudential work is being done, some of which is permeating Anglophone consciousness.

Other perspectives are welcome, and feel free to take issue with the advice, above.

John Gray on Iraq

Conservative political theorist John Gray has a quite interesting essay about Iraq here; since he is a Brit, his conservativism is largely uninfected with the parochialism and nationalist chauvinism we associate with his American counterparts. A sample:

"In toppling Saddam, the Americans destroyed an essentially Western regime, not unlike the Stalinist Soviet Union in its militant secularism. In doing so, they empowered radical Islam as the single most important political force in the country....

"For Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defense Secretary, and other neo-conservatives, the solution to terrorism was to 'modernise' the Middle East. For them, that meant overthrowing many, if not most, of the area's regimes and replacing them with secular liberal democracies. They appear not to have noticed that the region's secular regimes were authoritarian states such as Syria and Iraq. In the Middle East today, as in Algeria in the past, democracy means Islamist rule.

"In part, the attack on Iraq was simply another exercise in the type of neo-Wilsonian fantasy that is a recurring feature of US foreign policy, but it was also an exercise in realpolitik - and a resource war. A key part of the rationale for the invasion was to enable the US to withdraw from Saudi Arabia, which had come to be seen as complicit with terror and inherently unstable.

"If it was to pull out from Saudi Arabia, the US needed another source of oil. Only Iraq has it in sufficient quantities - hence the drive for regime change. In this Dr Strangelove-like vision, once Saddam had been removed and Iraq remodelled as a Western-style democracy, the oil would start flowing. The war would be self-financing, and the world economy would move smoothly into the sunlit uplands.

"Things have not turned out quite like that. Oil prices have risen, not fallen, and they could easily rise further. Partly this is a result of the increasingly desperate security situation in Iraq. The Americans did more than overthrow Saddam's despotic regime; they also destroyed the Iraqi state, with the result that the country is now in a condition of semi-anarchy.

"Given the ill-judged attack by US forces on the Shia holy city of Najaf and the likelihood that the beheading of Nicholas Berg by Islamist militants will be followed by more such atrocities, the level of violence in the country will almost certainly escalate. In that case, Iraq will be the scene of a mass exodus. International organisations and Western oil companies will leave and any prospect of rebuilding the country will be lost. Where will that leave Iraq - and its oil?

"The exodus will not be confined to Iraq. Western companies are already leaving Saudi Arabia, the producer of last resort in the global oil market. Emboldened by the worsening situation in Iraq, forces linked to al-Qa'ida have intensified their attacks on Saudi targets. Economists may say that the world need not fear another oil shock, but they have forgotten the geo-political realities. Saudi oil is still hugely important, and any sign of increased instability in the country is immediately reflected in the oil price. The impact of a major upheaval in the kingdom would be incalculable.

"The US cannot afford an ongoing war in Iraq, but the price of a quick exit will be high. Even so, it looks clear that that is exactly what is about to happen. After the torture revelations, 'staying the course' is no longer feasible. This is not because the American public has reacted with massive revulsion to evidence of the systematic abuse of Iraqis - as has been the case in Britain and other European countries. Rather, Iraq and its people are now viewed with a mix of bafflement and hatred, and a mood of despair about the war has set in. Most Americans want out - and soon....

"In the US, American withdrawal will be represented as a reward for a job well done. The rest of the world will recognise it as a humiliating defeat, and it is here that the analogy of Vietnam is inadequate. The Iraq war has been lost far more quickly than that in South-east Asia, and the impact on the world is potentially much greater. Whereas Vietnam had little economic significance, Iraq is pivotal in the world economy. No dominoes fell with the fall of Saigon, but some pretty weighty ones could be shaken as the American tanks rumble out of Baghdad."

(Thanks to Matthew Mullins for sending me the link.)

Strictly for Austinites: Looking for a School for your Kids, starting as early as age 3?

Rigorous academic curriculum, no idiotic standardized testing (no TEKS), non-religious school, splendid teachers. If you're interested, e-mail me at bleiter at mail dot law dot utexas dot edu. There are spaces for the fall.

Why Won't the Media Report the "Good News" from Iraq?

This item will warm the hearts of all right-wingers who have been pissing and moaning about the failure of the media to report the "good news" from Iraq. A sample:

"Somewhere in Iraq today, a young woman has learned to bake a cake. But because the media insists on covering beheadings and torture, we will never hear about it. This failure is our collective failure as American citizens....[W]e must learn to demand more from our media....

"Rush Limbaugh last week repeatedly [complained] that 'one of the biggest impediments to winning the war is television and pictures.'

"Rush is right about this. Unless the entire audience is behind the venture, war makes pretty bad television. Not many Americans are going to be thrilled to watch video of armless children in the hospital after an American bombing raid (my father did one such report for NBC), or look at pictures of abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Nick Ut's famous 'running girl' photo from the Vietnamese village of Trang Bang did a lot to undermine that war effort, mainly because ultimately Americans were not so angry with the Vietnamese for meddling in the affairs of their own country that they could really feel good about napalming little girls. As Newsweek uber-hack Jonathan Alter hinted last week, these same kinds of images now coming from Iraq might become acceptable if we could only learn to hate the enemy more."

Philosophy Job Placement in the UK--Some Pertinent Observations

Ralph Wedgwood (Philosophy, Oxford) writes:

I was looking at your list of "tenure-track hiring in philosophy" in 2003-04. It occurred to me that strictly speaking, no UK hires are "tenure-track", just because tenure in the strict sense doesn't exist in the UK (e.g., my Oxford Fellowship will have to be renewed after the first 4 years, and then again every 7 years thereafter). "Permanent" UK jobs are in a way better than tenure-track US jobs (there is no ghastly tenure review ordeal in 6 years' time), but not quite as good as tenured US positions (it is at least theoretically easier to lose one's job, although I can't think of any cases in recent years when anyone in a permanent philosophy position has lost their job in the UK).

These days, it is becoming fairly rare for UK graduate students to get permanent positions immediately finishing their doctorates. The lucky ones get post-docs, such as Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) at Oxford or Cambridge. The less lucky ones get temporary jobs that involve a significant (and sometimes excessive) amount of teaching (many of these temporary teaching jobs are just for one year, but others are for as long as five years). In addition, to avoid possible problems with new employment laws, a number of Oxford colleges have recently introduced a new category of 4-year "Teaching JRFs", involving significantly more teaching than traditional JRFs, but a lower teaching load than people in permanent Oxford positions have to put up with. (It would take too long to explain why this is a rational response to the new employment legislation.)

I only know of one philosopher went straight from being a UK graduate student into a permanent job this year, viz.

Chris Timpson, an Oxford graduate student (AOS: Philosophy of Physics, Philosophy of Science), who is going to a permanent job at the University of Leeds.

So far as I know, all the other Oxford graduates who got permanent jobs in the UK this year finished their doctorates some time ago, and have had a couple of years of temporary jobs. E.g.

Lucy Allais (AOS: Kant) has got a permanent job at the University of Sussex, after a couple of years of temporary teaching jobs in Oxford;

David Bain (AOS: Mind and Language) has got a permanent job at the University of Glasgow, after a couple of years of temporary teaching jobs in Oxford and Nottingham.

Apart from Chris Timpson (at least so far as I know), the other current Oxford graduate students who went on the job market this year only got post-docs or "Teaching JRFs" or temporary teaching jobs. E.g.:

Nicholas (Nico) Silins (AOS: Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind) is going to a 2-year post-doc at NYU

Others got positions of these kinds in Oxford:

Corine Besson (AOS: Philosophy of Language) got a 3-year College Lectureship at Jesus College and Trinity College
Dorothea Debus (AOS: Philosophy of Mind) got a 5-year Supernumerary Teaching Fellowship at St John's College
David Wallace (AOS: Philosophy of Physics) got a 3-year JRF (called a "Fellowship by Examination") at Magdalen College
Bruno Whittle (AOS: Philosophy of Logic and Language) a 4-year "Teaching JRF" (called a "Darby Fellowship") at Lincoln College

One of these new Oxford "Teaching JRF" positions is going to a philosopher with a PhD from Harvard:

Øystein Linnebo (AOS: Philosophy of Mathematics, Philosophy of Logic and Language), who has a post-doc at the University of Oslo in Norway, got a 4-year "Teaching JRF" (called a "Fitzjames Fellowship") at Merton College, Oxford
===========

(Note: the list of junior placements has now been updated to reflect these corrections.)

UPDATE: Another placement in a non-teaching JRF: Martin O'Neill, a grad student at Harvard, has been hired at St John's College, Cambridge University. AOS: Political and Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Action.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Michael Otsuka (Philosophy, University College London) adds the following useful information:

"If by tenure one means 'the status of holding one's position on a permanent basis without periodic contract renewals', then tenure in the strict sense does in fact exist in the UK. Most UK academics in 'permanent' posts do not need to have their contracts renewed in the manner of Oxford dons. After an initial probationary period of 3-5 years in the case of those hired as Lecturers, our contracts extend to the age of retirement (65-67 years of age).

"Nobody in the UK is able to move straight from a PhD to a contract which extends to the age of retirement. But a few are fortunate enough to move straight from a PhD to a Lectureship with an initial 3-5 year probationary period and the possibility of renewal to the age of retirement thereafter. (One such person at UCL is Alex Voorhoeve, who is now finishing his PhD here and will be taking up such a post at the LSE in September.) Such jobs are considered as good as permanent, since a vanishingly small percentage of people fail to have their contracts renewed to the age of retirement after the probationary period."

"Strange Doctrines" on "Instapundit"

Here. To which I add: yes.

The Metaphysics of Free Will in The New York Times

Here is David Brooks commenting on Dylan Klebold, one of the two high school students who shot up the Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, killing many classmates, before killing himself:

"My instinct is that Dylan Klebold was a self-initiating moral agent who made his choices and should be condemned for them. Neither his school nor his parents determined his behavior."

So Brooks is a "libertarian" incompatibilist about free will: he thinks free will is incompatible with determinism, but believes we can be self-caused in some sense. Has Brooks been reading my colleague Robert Kane? Or perhaps he is more attracted to Timothy O'Connor's version of agent-causation theories? Or maybe he's a retrograde Chisholmian?

Or maybe, just maybe, he hasn't thought about the issue at all, couldn't make a coherent argument on the subject if his life depended on it, but knows this is what his stinking right-wing sanctimony requires?

Nietzsche, happily, had the Brooks-type pegged long ago:

"The longing for 'freedom of the will' in the superlative metaphysical sense (which, unfortunately, still rules in the heads of the half-educated), the longing to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for your actions yourself and to relieve God, world, ancestors, chance, and society of the burden--all this means nothing less than...pulling yourself by the hair from the swamp of nothingness into existence." (Beyond Good and Evil, sec. 21)

But, of course, Brooks is ascribing responsibility to others, not claiming it himself, and Nietzsche also had "the psychology of all 'making responsible'" diagnosed:

"Wherever responsibilities are sought, it is usually the instinct of wanting to judge and punish which is at work...: the doctrine of the will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is, because one wants to impute guilt...Men were considered 'free' so that they might be judged and punished--so they might become guilty: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within consciousness...."

The metaphysics of free will, Nietzsche concludes, is the "metaphysics of the hangman" (Twlight of the Idols, "The Four Great Errors," sec. 7).

How nice that the hangman writes twice a week for The New York Times.

Kerry-McCain?

Here's a scathing, and often amusing, take on the subject. A sample:

"'The enthusiasm of Democrats for Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, is so high that even some who have been mentioned as possible Kerry running mates...are spinning scenarios about a "unity government," effectively giving Mr. Kerry a green light to reach across the political aisle and extend an offer,' reports the New York Times.

"Aisle?

"What aisle?

"As Gore Vidal tells us, there is but one party in Washington and it is the Property Party. In other words, all property worth owning shall remain in the possession of big honking corporations. Dem-Repub partisanship is merely a squabble over formula. Our citizen-politicos agree wholeheartedly with the strikebreaker Calvin Coolidge, who once said 'the business of America is business....'

"Kerry and McCain -- as determined participants in an immoral war resulting in the death of 2-3 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans -- are remarkably qualified to finish the job in Iraq and in due course invade Syria and Iran, maybe even Saudi Arabia. Thus the Johns avidly embrace the degenerate neocon ethos -- that is to say total and 'preemptive' war against the third world or 'under-developed' countries bearing appreciable measures of oil, minerals, lumber, etc. -- beginning with the Arab Middle East and its uncooperative Muslim hordes.

"Let's call it Bush Lite minus opposition to abortion."

A Defeat for the Minnesota Taliban...

...and a victory for science, education and children. Pharyngula has the details. Meanwhile, the pathological liars at the Discovery [sic] Institute are pretending it's a victory--just as they did when they were squarely defeated in Texas in the fall.

In Memoriam: Alan Gewirth

UPDATED MAY 18

Alan Gewirth (1912-2004)

The informative University of Chicago memorial notice is now available here.

More Perspective on the Academic Job Market in Philosophy

The posting on the academic job market in philosophy has already generated a lot of positive and interesting feedback, some of which I've secured permission to share.

Keith DeRose (Philosophy, Yale) writes:

"I liked your weblog post on job prospects in philosophy. Overly pessimistic misinformation on the topic is perhaps not as harmful as overly optimistic misinfo, but, especially when it gets wildly off the mark, the pessimistic is also awful.

"One comment, though: You link to your '98 piece in the Chron., but without noting how that's become outdated. It's worth noting that things seem to have improved in the intervening 6 years. At least according to the APA's stats: the ratio [of candidates to jobs advertised] has gone down to 1.4 for both 01-02 and 02-03 (the two most recent years they have stats posted on) -- which is lower than any of the ratios they have posted for a year in the 80's. My impression is that these APA stats are quite helpful -- when viewed in the right way. What numbers they end up with for the ratios are hostage to many vagaries of how they collect and handle their data. I'd find the number for any given year to be pretty worthless for that reason. But they seem to have been pretty consistent in how they do things, so what I do find valuable is the sense you can get of how the job market is changing over time. From years when I myself was on the market, or grad school friends of mine, or when I was intimately involved in placement as a faculty advisor, I have something of a sense for how tough the market has been in certain years, and the numbers do a good job of reflecting that sense I have: the years that seemed particularly brutal are years for which the ratio is higher, etc. Based on this sense, 1.4 is still a tough market, but not so very bad."

Jason D'Cruz (a grad student in philosophy at Brown University) remarks:

"I think that you're right that the Village Voice article is somewhat inflammatory. But the worst part of the article is how dreary it makes grad school seem. What student advisers need to impress upon undergrads thinking of doing a PhD is that they must regard grad school as an end in itself, not merely as a means. It is most certainly not a long and arduous apprenticeship that naturally terminates in one's being admitted to the guild. If living off $15000/year and doing some of the most intellectually stimulating work of your life for five to seven years does not sound intrinsically appealing, then a PhD in philosophy is not for you."

Finally, a philosopher in the U.K. at a quite strong, but not very top, British department wrote:

Some Perspective on the Philosophy Job Market

"Here's an exciting career opportunity you won't see in the classified ads. For the first six to 10 years, it pays less than $20,000 and demands superhuman levels of commitment in a Dickensian environment. Forget about marriage, a mortgage, or even Thanksgiving dinners, as the focus of your entire life narrows to the production, to exacting specifications, of a 300-page document less than a dozen people will read. Then it's time for advancement: Apply to 50 far-flung, undesirable locations, with a 30 to 40 percent chance of being offered any position at all. You may end up living 100 miles from your spouse and commuting to three different work locations a week. You may end up $50,000 in debt, with no health insurance, feeding your kids with food stamps. If you are the luckiest out of every five entrants, you may win the profession's ultimate prize: A comfortable middle-class job, for the rest of your life, with summers off."

So begins this typically inflammatory article on the subject from The Village Voice. I will not comment on the humanities market generally, but I will comment on the job market I know rather well: philosophy. Perhaps philosophy is utterly anomalous; that I do not know (though I very much doubt it). I do know that it is highly misleading to suggest that only "one in five entrants" will get "a comfortable middle-class job, for the rest of your life, with summers off."

For what this statement, indeed the whole article, indeed almost all discussions of these topics omit is that one's prospects are directly a function of the quality of the graduate program you are enrolled in. (This, needless to say, is why having reliable measures of quality is so important.) It is simply not the case that only "one in five" who get a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton end up with permanent posts in academia; it's more like nine in ten. (Even if you factor in those who start the program, but then drop out after a year or two, it's far closer to four in five--but, of course, spending a year or two in a program, and then deciding "this isn't for me" is a lot different from spending "six to ten years" studying and finding oneself unemployed.)

Michigan, as I've noted in the PGR, posts exceptionally detailed data on how its graduates have fared over the last dozen years or so. Although not quite Princeton, Michigan has been a solidly top ten program during this whole period. Of the 49 graduates who earned the PhD between 1991 and 2001, 36 currently have tenured or tenure-track academic positions, or about 7 in 10. Several of the recent graduates not currently in tenure-track jobs (typically they are in visiting or one- or two-year posts, not adjunct positions) are, based on past experience, likely to get tenure-track jobs over the next one-to-three years, meaning that before long roughly 4 out of 5 graduates during this period will have permanent, tenure-stream academic posts. (I suppose I should say likely permanent, since some may not get tenure, and then fail to secure subsequent academic employment: this happened to one of the unemployed 13 on the list, in fact.)

Don't misunderstand: that only 4 out of 5 who complete a Ph.D. at a genuinely top department end up with tenure-stream academic employment is a sobering statistic. And it is a statistic that doesn't reflect the number who spent multiple years in the program, but never finished (by my calculation, this might push us back to the 7 out of 10 figure, but not more). Sobering as it is, these statistics are still a far cry from the scary "one in five." (For more sobering discussion of the job market, see my comments here.)

Let's be clear: there are surely PhD programs where "one in five" would overstate your prospects of that "comfortable middle-class" existence. Students need to figure that out before enrolling. They need to investigate the job placement of the program, or of the faculty in the program they are most interested in. They need to gauge the strengths of the program, its reputation, and its commitment to students. But it's a disservice to undergraduates thinking about graduate school to spread absurd misinformation like, "You'll spend ten years in graduate school, and have just a 20% chance of a job." For the student who gets in to Princeton or Rutgers or Michigan (among many others) for philosophy, that's just not true. Philosophy is competitive enough without making up scare stories!

It's unfortunate, in my view, that a minor industry has developed in the blogosphere of scaring students off graduate school. (Here's a recent example.) I'm all in favor, obviously, of giving students as much candid information as possible, but let's not lose sight of something: a career in scholarship and teaching can be extraordinarily satisfying, and for some folks, there really wouldn't be any line of work comparably rewarding. Faculty ought to give candid advice to students thinking about graduate school, but they shouldn't lose sight of why students want to go to graduate school, which is usually why faculty themselves went in the first place. It's really fun and interesting to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, or at least it can be, and teaching and writing are a terrific career, or at least they can be. Students need help in assessing their prospects, and the risks involved, but let's not forget the benefits, which can be splendid. It's bad to be an "invisible adjunct," but it is simply dishonest to represent to undergraduates that, regardless of ability and where they go to graduate school, that they are likely to end up in that situation.

Program/Abstracts for "Nietzsche and Ethics" Conference (Sussex, Sept. 10-12) Now Available

I just discovered that the program of the "Nietzsche and Ethics" conference--which is the subject of the 14th Annual Meeting of the UK's Friedrich Nietzsche Society, which will be at the University of Sussex this year, September 10-12, 2004--is now on-line here: click on "programme" for the schedule, and "abstracts" for short summaries of many of the papers to be presented.

The conference has shaped up rather well, it seems to me. Several papers look to be very interesting (I just hope they don't conflict on the final schedule!): Daniel Came (Oxford) on "Art and Morality in Nietzsche's Birith of Tragedy," Edward Harcourt (Kent) on "Nietzsche and Eudaemonism," Christopher Janaway (Birkbeck) on "Nietzsche and Paul Ree on the Origins of Moral Feelings," and James Wilson (Birkbeck) on "Nietzsche and Equality" all caught my attention. I am looking forward, as well, to spending time with some Nietzsche scholars whose work I've read, but whom I've never met, including Keith Ansell-Pearson (Warwick), Aaron Ridley (Southampton), Robin Small (Auckland), Henry Staten (Washington), and Volker Gerhardt (Humboldt). And, of course, there is a special interest for me in the various papers that will take issue with my views on Nietzsche: Ken Gemes (Birkbeck) on "Nietzsche on Free Will, Action and Morality," Paul Loeb (Puget Sound) on "Finding the Ubermensch in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality," Thomas Meyer (Temple) on "Declining Decadence: On Fatalism and Self-Creation in the Later Nietzsche," and Barry Stocker (Yeditepe [Turkey]) on "Nietzsche's Moral Lessons," which looks to be a sustained attack on my Nietzsche on Morality (Routledge, 2002). And I'm sure that for many, myself included, the plenary address by Maudemarie Clark (Colgate)--who has done more than anyone to make Nietzsche studies philosophically substantial--on "Nietzsche on Moral Objectivity" will be a highlight of the conference.

For those interested, my own plenary address will be on "Nietzsche's Theory of the Will" (which I expect will be my contribution to Ansell-Pearson's Blackwell Companion to Nietzsche); here is the draft of the opening paragraphs, which can serve as an abstract:

How Stupid (Twisted?) is the Right-Wing of the Blogosphere?

The video of Nick Berg being decapitated, and the reaction to it among some right-wing bloggers, is forcing me to ratchet down my already low appraisal of the intellectual and moral level of these folks. Right-wing bloggers (for example) have taken it upon themselves to make the video available; and, in the process, they are lambasting the mainstream media for not showing a video of a young man having his head cut off with a large knife. So, e.g., the aforementioned neanderthal intones:

"The blogosphere has the courage and integrity to show this video (or images from it) while Big Media cries 'Offensive!' as they continue to show pictures of naked Iraqi prisoners piled on top of one another."

What do you say to someone who can't see a difference between a real, graphic decapitation of a human being and naked men in a pile?

What's even weirder is that, in the twisted fantasyland of right-wing bloggers, the failure of the mainstream media to show footage of a young man being decapitated is just more evidence of liberal bias in the media--to be contrasted with the honesty and courage, of course, of right-wing bloggers.

How is it that these individuals don't notice that:

(1) A young man having his head severed by a large knife is a disgusting and frightful spectacle of a kind that is never shown in the mainstream media, regardless of the perpetrator. When a news anchor in Pennsylvania blew his brains out on the air, the national media did not show it. If someone defecates in public, the media do not air footage of it. If a camera captures an accident in which someone is decapitated, the media do not air it. Here's a simple and brute fact about human sensibilities: witnessing a human head being severed is much more disturbing (nauseating, nightmare-inducing, etc.) than seeing a pile of naked men.

(2) When the young man's identity is known, as is the case here, it causes hurt and pain to his family to know that their child's gruesome murder is available for anyone to view. As noted in today's paper, the picture of Nicholas Berg's "father, Michael, crying in the arms of another son, David" shows the father's reaction "after learning that the brutal act was there for anyone to see on the Internet."

(3) The crimes of Abu Ghraib were perpetrated by our government, not someone else's. In a democratic society, where the government is putatively responsible to the citizenry, public attention should be focused on these misdeeds and what our government is doing about them. Last time I looked, the people who killed Nicholas Berg weren't asking for dollars and votes from American citizens.

So, seriously, how stupid, how morally tone-deaf, how devoid of human sensibility are these right-wing bloggers?

UPDATE: You can't make stuff like this up: this from a blogger whose motto is "Bush is a giant amongst us little men":

"I wanna kill these Arab animals. I wanna vomit. I have just seen the beheading of Nick Berg. A fellow American who went to Iraq to help the good people of Iraq. More than ever I am convinced we must root out, kill, destroy, exterminate these terrorists and their ideology of murder."

And he concludes--how else?--"MAY GOD BLESS THE UNITED STATES. MAY GOD BLESS NICK BERG."

He forgot to add: may God bless genocide for the "Arab animals," too.

Free Speech on the Freeway

Pictures here. (Thanks to Ann Bartow [South Carolina Law] for the pointer.)

Meet the Ruling Class

Everything you wanted to know about the people who actually make the decisions that shape your lives is available from this site. Called "They Rule," the site,

"aims to provide a glimpse of some of the relationships of the US ruling class. It takes as its focus the boards of some of the most powerful U.S. companies, which share many of the same directors. Some individuals sit on 5, 6 or 7 of the top 500 companies. It allows users to browse through these interlocking directories and run searches on the boards and companies. A user can save a map of connections complete with their annotations and email links to these maps to others. They Rule is a starting point for research about these powerful individuals and corporations.

"A few companies control much of the economy and oligopolies exert control in nearly every sector of the economy. The people who head up these companies swap on and off the boards from one company to another, and in and out of government committees and positions. These people run the most powerful institutions on the planet, and we have almost no say in who they are. This is not a conspiracy. They are proud to rule. And yet these connections of power are not always visible to the public eye.

"Karl Marx once called this ruling class a 'band of hostile brothers.' They stand against each other in the competitve struggle for the continued accumulation of their capital, but they stand together as a family supporting their interests in perpetuating the profit system as whole. Protecting this system can require the cover of a 'legitimate' force - and this is the role that is played by the state. An understanding of this system can not be gleaned from looking at the inter-personal relations of this class alone, but rather how they stand in relation to other classes in society. Hopefully They Rule will raise larger questions about the structure of our society and in whose benefit it is run."

(Thanks to Doug Barnes for the pointer.)

Outsourcing CEOs

Here's a fine idea:

"American companies are busily outsourcing workers when they should be insourcing CEOs from other countries. U.S. CEOs are way too expensive....

"European and Japanese CEOs run many of the world's leading companies for a lot less pay than Americans. U.S. CEOs make five times as much as CEOs in Japan, four times as much as CEOs in Spain, three times as much as CEOs in the United Kingdom, France, Italy and the Netherlands, and twice as much as CEOs in Germany and Switzerland....

"The average CEO made $6.7 million more in 2003 than in 1980, when they made $1.4 million, adjusted for inflation. The average full-time production and nonsupervisory worker made $31,928 in 2003 and $31,769 in 1980, adjusted for inflation -- a gain of $159. CEOs often spend more than that on dinner.

"CEO pay skyrocketed 480 percent during 1980-2003, adjusted for inflation, while domestic corporate profits rose 145 percent, worker productivity rose 61 percent and worker pay stalled. If CEO and worker pay had increased at the pace of worker productivity, CEOs would have made $2.3 million in 2003 and workers $51,148.

"CEOs made 44 times as much as workers in 1980, and 254 times as much in 2003. British CEOs make just 28 times as much as workers. You'd think the Brits were the ones who rebelled against royalty, not us....

"Overpaying CEOs is bad business. Compensation experts Joseph Blasi and Douglas Kruse analyzed executive pay at more than 1,500 top U.S. companies from 1992 to 2002. Corporations with significantly higher than average shares of employee stock options going to the CEO and the next four top executives had lower average total shareholder returns for the decade."

Best Political Philosophy/Theory Papers of the Last Decade

Chris Bertram (Bristol Philosophy) has started a thread on the subject, with room for comments, here.