Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Great moments in obscure rock 'n' roll: West, Bruce & Laing, "The Doctor," 1972

Individually none of these three were obscure--they found fame with Cream (Jack Bruce) and Mountain (Leslie West & Corky Laing)--but their brief early 70s career as a "super trio" is generally (and not wrongly) forgotten, but this is one of a handful of strong numbers from their debut album in 1972 ("Turn Me Over" and "Pleasure" from that same album are also worth a listen--both feature Bruce on vocals, unlike "The Doctor" which features West.)

 

And Happy New Year!

 

New Books in December

Authors and/or publishers kindly sent me these new books this month:

Shooting to Kill:  The Ethics of Police and Military Use of Lethal Force by Seamus Miller (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Memory and the Self:  Phenomenology, Science and Autobiography by Mark Rowlands (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Norms in the Wild:  How to Diagnose, Measure and Change Social Norms by Cristina Bicchieri (Oxford University press, 2017).

Republic of Equals:  Predistribution and Property-Owning Democracy by Alan Thomas (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Current Controversies in Metaphysics edited by Elizabeth Barnes (Routledge, 2017).

Current Controversies in Bioethics edited by S. Matthew Liao & Collin O'Neil (Routledge, 2017).

The Routledge Companion to Free Will edited by Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith & Neil Levy (Routledge, 2017).

2016: Philosophers who passed away

The passing of the following philosophers was noted on the blog during 2016:  Jose Benardete, Klaus Brinkmann, Desmond Clarke, William Craig, Clement Dore, Jr., Solomon Feferman, Robert Fogelin, Mary Hesse, Dale Jacquette, Tomis Kapitan, Justin Leiber, Hugh McCann, Hilary Putnam, Jerome Shaffer, Morton White.  You can find more information, including (often) links to obituaries by scrolling through the "Philosophy Updates" category (in which this post also appears).

"Moral Grandstanding" makes it to the Huffington Post

Here.

Drexel and the "White Genocide" tweet

The school has now issued a more measured statement.  (Earlier coverage.)

The academic tenant from hell

Moral of the story:  don't rent to David Peritz.

Some publications and working papers this year

I appreciate the many blog readers who also read my scholarly writing--it has been one of the best things about the blog for years that it has been a vehicle for sharing my work with other faculty and students across many fields.   In that spirit, here are publications--or working drafts--that I made available this year:

"The Case Against Free Speech" appeared in Sydney Law Review.

"Legal Positivism about the Artifact Law," forthcoming in an OUP volume on Law as Artifact.

"Theoretical Disagreements in Law: Another Look," forthcoming in an OUP volume on Ethical Norms, Legal Norms:  New Essays in Metaethics and Jurisprudence.

"Philosophy of Law," co-authored with Michael Sevel, in the Encyclopedia Britannica (if you can't access the whole essay, google "philosophy of law," it should come up as a top result and you can get the whole essay that way)

"The Paradoxes of Public Philosophy," in the inaugural issue of the Indian Journal of Legal Theory.

"Why Tolerate Religion, Again? A Reply to Michael McConnell," a working paper (but citable) at SSRN.  (McConnell is a leading conservative religious liberty advocate and law professor at Stanford)

"Reply to Five Critics of Why Tolerate Religion?", part of a symposium on my book published by Criminal Law and Philosophy this year.

A revised version of "The Death of God and the Death of Morality," which will eventually appear in a special issue of The Monist on Nietzsche.

"Moralizing Nietzsche's Moral Psycology: The Case of Katsafanas," which also appears at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

"Moralities are a Sign-Language of the Affects," appeared in 2013 in Social Philosophy and Policy, but I was now able to make the published PDF available on SSRN.

There were actually a couple of other papers I wrote this year that I could not put on SSRN, alas--though hopefully, like the last paper, I will be able to post them in the future after publication.

One piece of good news at the end of an otherwise very bad year

Religion is on the decline in America:

Fewer American adults, especially those under 30, attend church — or even belong to a church.  They tell interviewers their religion is “none.” They ignore faith.

Since 1990, the “nones” have exploded rapidly as a sociological phenomenon — from 10 percent of U.S. adults, to 15 percent, to 20 percent. Now they’ve climbed to 25 percent, according to a 2016 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.

That makes them the nation’s largest faith category, outstripping Catholics (21 percent) and white evangelicals (16 percent).  They seem on a trajectory to become an outright majority.   America is following the secular path of Europe, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and other modern places.  The Secular Age is snowballing.

Good work capitalism!  Of course, the "nones" make up an even bigger part of certain elite institutions, such as universities.  I would guess the percentage of "nones" on the law faculty here, for example, is on the order of 75%.

Realism about democracy watch: the falsehoods that huge numbers of voters believe

And not just Trump voters.

Millions mourn...

...as news breaks that Ted Nugent is still alive.

"Moral Grandstanding"

From a new paper by Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke in PPA:

Our basic contention is that one grandstands when one makes a contribution to public moral discourse that aims to convince others that one is “morally respectable.” By this we mean that grandstanding is a use of moral talk that attempts to get others to make certain desired judgments about oneself, namely, that one is worthy of respect or admiration because one has some particular moral quality—for example, an impressive commitment to justice, a highly tuned moral sensibility, or unparalleled powers of empathy. To grandstand is to turn one's contribution to public discourse into a vanity project.

I will resist naming the professional philosophers who should read this, but you know who you are (or at least your colleagues know who you are)!  The paper also incorporates a useful discussion of group polarization, which as we've noted before, is quite relevant to the phenomenon.

2016 in review, 4th quarter: October, November, December

Here were some of the most popular posts from the last quarter of the year:

Going to law school? Thinking about law school? What should you read? (October)

Tempest in teapot watch: philosophers are rude and vulgar, and right-wing media eat it up (October)

So who should get a Nobel Prize in philosophy? (October) 

2016-17 ranking of the best philosophy PhD programs, taking account of faculty changes since the fall 2014 PGR (October)

A minor major adjustment (guest-blogger Christopher Pynes, October) 

A case of class over curriculum? (Philosophy and the LSAT) (guest-blogger Christopher Pynes, October)

You can't just talk to each other (guest-blogger Darlene Deas, October) 

Writing Samples for PhD programs (October)

Dear APA (November)

Election post-mortem (November)

Election post-mortem, part 2 (November)

How Trump thinks (November)

More Stephen Bannon (November)

So what do readers fear most from a Trump Administration? (November)

Why doesn't political philosophy matter? (November)

NeoNazis in philosophy watch: the case of "Charles Martel" (December) 

On being "over-qualified" for an untenured tenure-track job (December) 

Philosophical Gourmet Report, 2016-17 (December) (all the relevant links in one post)

Jason Reza Jorjani (PhD, Stony Brook) denies he is a NeoNazi (December)

New free on-line system for confidential letters of recommendation (December)

Philosopher Larry Shapiro (Wisconsin) revises his syllabus in case of a law authorizing "campus carry"

This may be a bit too subtle a point for the Neanderthals in the state legislature considering this.

Philosopher Taylor Carman's twitter war on Trump

It's very funny.

2016 in review, 3rd quarter: July, August, September

Here were some of the most poular posts for the third quarter of the year:

Not assigning Professor Pogge's work because of evidence of his misconduct towards women? (July)

Police killings in America: a somewhat different view (July)

How should a history of sexual harassment/misconduct factor into hiring decisions? (July)

Some interesting facts (July)

How are journal editors chosen? (July) 

The voters have spoken, at least here (July)

Three women of colour speak out about the philosophy community's response to the allegations against Thomas Pogge (August) 

Philosopher's Annual: Best Papers of 2015 (August) 

Gardner on "'public shaming and exile' for errant philosophers" (August)

More on the "pathologically self-righteous people" who are busy using social media and other fora to suppress thought and speech (August)

Good news: Crispin Sartwell reinstated by Dickinson College (August) 

Where UNTENURED tenure-track faculty at the "top 20" PhD programs in the U.S. got their PhD, 2016-17 edition (September)  

The latest from Prof. Stevens at Northwestern about the investigation of her conduct (September) (this includes links to other posts about this strange incident)

The latest capitalist defense of the "liberal arts"--and what all this really means (September) 

On an irony about the evolution of "standpoint epistemology" (September) 

Tommie Shelby (Harvard) suggests that moral duties apply to the "oppressed" too and the Society for Analytic Feminism apologizes for his remarks (September)  

Another keynote speaker rebuked (not as badly) at the Society for Christian Philosophers midwest meeting (September)

There are about 10,000 philosophy professors in the U.S.... (September) (I bet Scott Soames will get a National Humanities Medal now!)

Trump Psychological Disturbance watch: Adler weighs in...

...with the help of a mediary.

(Thanks to Howard Berman for the pointer.)

Islamic education textbook in Morocco describes philosophy as "perversion, blasphemy"

All worthwhile philosophy is, of course!  (Another story about this, in French.)

(Thanks to Evan Goodwin for the pointers.)

Prisoners tell their stories...

...at The New Yorker.  This series grew out of teaching that philosopher Jennifer Lackey (Northwestern) does at a maximum security prison near Chicago.

Vera Rubin, astronomer

Here's a remarkable life.  It is particularly tragic that the discoverer of "dark matter" should have, in the end, succumbed to a different kind of darkness, dementia.

2016 in Review, 2nd quarter: April, May, June

Here are some of the most popular posts from the second quarter of 2016:

Why aren't more philosophers writing about climate change? (April)

Why do undergraduate women give up on philosophy? (April)

On study of the humanities (April)

Dickinson College has now terminated tenured philosophy professor Crispin Sartwell (April) 

McMahan's defense of "effective altruism" against the philosophical critics (April)

Carrie Jenkins's electric scooter and other revelations (April)

Ludlow and Northwestern undergraduate settle their lawsuits against each other, and both criticize Northwestern (April)

How hard or easy to move from a faculty position in the developing world to a tenure-track job in North America (for a student with a North American PhD) (April)

Best Anglophone moral philosophers since 1945 (April)

Best Anglophone political philosophers since 1945 (May)

Marquette poli sci professor sues university (May)

Recent PhD placement data: women more likely than men to secure permanent positions within two years of the PhD (May)

Anglophone departments aren't "Departments of European and American Philosophy"... (May) 

Where did the positive valence associated with the idea of "diversity" come from? (May) 

Another creepy Thomas Pogge incident (May) 

How one top ten department understands faculty hiring (May)

A classic metablog moment (June) 

Thinking about a major in philosophy at WIU? Think again (Christopher Pynes, guest-blogger, June) 

160 faculty, including almost all Yale philosophy faculty, sign open letter of protest about Thomas Pogge's conduct (June)

The slave revolt in philosophy, redux (June)

Amazon lists rant by right-wing ignoramus as top-selling work of "political philosophy"!

The legal philosopher Michael Sevel (Sydney) calls this to my attention, and gave me permission to share the letter he sent to Amazon (others should do the same): 

 "Dear Amazon,

I write in regards to a volume entitled Barbarians: How the Baby Boomers, Immigration, and Islam Screwed My Generation, by Lauren Southern, available on your site in both Kindle Edition and Paperback:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MU30NB0/

I spotted this title, both editions in fact, at the top of your list of Best Sellers in Political Philosophy:

https://www.amazon.com/…/bo…/11065/ref=pd_zg_hrsr_b_2_4_last

This 61-page document is not a work in political philosophy, in any sense of the term. Political philosophy is a sub-discipline of philosophy. This is not a work of philosophy, in any sense of the term. While characterizing the distinctive features of philosophy in the Western tradition has itself long been a lively topic among philosophers, it is in every guise marked by a mode of argument the point of which is the discovery of general and abstract truths. That mode of argument is manifested in standard forms of reasoning, for example, in establishing, with evidence, a number of premises the acceptance of which logically requires the acceptance of the truth of a conclusion those premises support.

Fake controversy du jour in right-wing crazy land: the Drexel professor who tweeted about "White Genocide" (hint: there have never been any)

This is a decent account, including about Drexel's stupid response.   From the article (and kudos to these journalists for actually doing some reporting, and not just parroting on-line nonsense):

"All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide," associate professor of politics and global studies George Ciccariello-Maher wrote on Christmas Eve.

 

Not long thereafter, Ciccariello-Maher's tweets were picked up by the Daily Caller, Breitbart and other conservative [sic] news sites....

Reached on Monday by The Inquirer, Ciccariello-Maher offered a reaction to the reaction.

"On Christmas Eve, I sent a satirical tweet about an imaginary concept, 'white genocide,'" he said in an e-mail. 'For those who haven't bothered to do their research, 'white genocide' is an idea invented by white supremacists and used to denounce everything from interracial relationships to multicultural policies (and most recently, against a tweet by State Farm Insurance). It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I'm glad to have mocked it."

Many readers and social media followers didn't get the humor, though - and his employer didn't either.

On Sunday night, Drexel issued an official statement saying: "While the University recognizes the right of its faculty to freely express their thoughts and opinions in public debate, Professor Ciccariello-Maher's comments are utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the University."

The university also said it "contacted Ciccariello-Maher today to arrange a meeting to discuss this matter in detail."

Ciccariello-Maher said Drexel's statemenet lacked "understanding either the content or the context of the tweets," and that "while Drexel has been nothing but supportive in the past, this statement is worrying."

"What is most unfortunate is that this statement amounts to caving to the truly reprehensible movements and organizations that I was critiquing," he said. "On the university level, moreover, this statement - despite a tepid defense of free speech -sends a chilling message and sets a frightening precedent. It exposes untenured and temporary faculty not only to internal disciplinary scrutiny, but equally importantly, it encourages harassment as an effective means to impact university policies."

He added that he has been the subject of "a coordinated smear campaign [that] was orchestrated to send mass tweets and emails to myself, my employer, and my colleagues," and that he has "received hundreds of death threats."

"This satirical tweet became fodder for online white supremacists to systematically harass me and my employer, Drexel University," Ciccariello-Maher said. "As my students will attest, my classroom is a free-for-all of ideas, in which anyone is welcome to their opinions, but expected to defend those opinions with argument. I teach regularly on the history of genocidal practices like colonialism and slavery -genocides carried out by the very same kind of violent racists who are smearing me today."

 Drexel would do well to show that it does not render judgments about faculty based on reporting from the fascist fake news media like Breitbart and Daily Caller.

2016 in review, 1st quarter: January, February, March

Here were some of the most popular posts from the first quarter of the year:

Most important Anglophone epistemologists since 1945 (January)

More PhD programs whose existence is not easy to explain (January)

Actually, no one has recommended closing programs "that better serve women and minorities in philosophy"... (January)

How "professional" is Carolyn Dicey Jennings's data analysis (January)

Twenty "Most Important" Philosophers of Mind since 1945 (January)

Best Anglophone philosophers of language since 1945 (January)

Roosevelt, Reagan, and the Sanders moment (January) (sigh) 

The sociology of English academia in the 1980s and 1990s, and Philosophy academia today (February)

The best post-WWII Anglophone scholars of ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy(February)

Simon Newman, the President of Mount Saint Mary's University in Maryland, is a disgrace (February)

APA issues bizarre statement lumping together the criminal threats and racist abuse suffered by Prof. Yancy with "uncivil" lawful speech on anonymous blogs (February)  

A few comments on the legal and political significance of the death of Justice Scalia (February) 

Best Anglophone and German Kant scholars since 1945 (February)

Best Anglophone philosophers of science since 1945 (February)

American political circus: "Super Tuesday" post-mortem (March)

Soames on philosophy's interdisciplinarity and why it belongs in a university (March) 

Publishing while in graduate school? (March) 

Philosopher Crispin Sartwell, Dickinson College, and Academic Freedom (March) 

Evaluating philosophy programs: a cautionary tale about IBHE (Christopher Pynes, guest blogger) (March) 

Girls, women and philosophy (Darlene Deas, guest blogger) (March) 

The rise of philosophy of race (March)

Heidegger the Nazi, redux

His correspondence with his brother.  The difficult question for those who take Heidegger seriously as a philosopher is whether, and how, the vulgar Catholic prejudices of his upbringing that led him down the road of Nazism and anti-Semitism can be disentangled from his philosophical views:  his hostility to philosophy, towards reason, towards modernity, and so on.  As George Steiner and Walter Kaufmann, among others, have argued, it is not entirely obvious that they are wholly separable.

Vienna, city of the century

A nice write-up in The Economist.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Trump

A few useful tips here.  One can be agnostic about whether it is a "disorder" or a "mental illness":  the point is that it picks out a cluster of regular behaviors and attitudes.

And now for something completely different...

...Merry Christmas from Henrietta and Merna (you'll never forget this):

 

3AM Magazine contributors pick their "best reads" of 2016

Philosophy, literature, and more.

Why Clinton lost: a good summary of the data

Here.  Short version:   African-Americans turned out in lower numbers than when Obama was running, and a number of less-educated whites who had previously voted for Obama switched to Trump.  

Is it possible that but for James Comey's misconduct and hackers releasing e-mails revealing the corruption of the Democratic establishment, enough other demographics would have turned out to vote, thus offsetting the lower African-American turnout and the white voters who flipped to Trump?  Yes, it is possible, but there is no evidence that supports thinking this to be true. 

Did Putin want Trump to win?  Presumably:  Trump's expressed views are less hostile to Russia than Clinton's, and, in any case, it must be obvious to Putin that Trump is an unstable ignoramus who is easy to manipulate.  Did Putin put hackers up to embarrassing the Democrats?  It's not implausible, but we simply don't know, unless there is still someone in America who takes the pronouncements of American intelligence agencies on faith.  Did the hackers embarrass the Democrats by publishing misinformation?  No, they simply put the spotlight on how high-ranking Democratic officials were actually behaving.  (Maybe the moral of the story is that Democratic officials shouldn't misbehave and show some respect for the democratic process?) 

Is it hypocritical for the U.S. to complain about possible meddling in its electoral process?  Obviously, but what else is new?

Realism about democracy watch: Why some Planned Parenthood supporters voted for Trump

Here.

Pharyngula on our NeoNazi "philosophers" du jour...

...though as he notes, it's not really clear, given the pseudonyms, that they are philosophers as opposed to miscellaneous pathetic freaks pretending.

Baylor's James Marcum interviewed...

...at 3AM.

The dynamic lexicon: "sanctiramus"

A philosopher elsewhere writes:

I hereby introduce a new word into the language:

sanctiramus -- a pious scold who does not know what the fuck they are talking about

origins -- sanctimonious, ignoramus

from Latin sanctimonia sanctity, from sanctus holy

from legal Latin, literally: we have no knowledge of, from Latin ignōrāre to be ignorant of; 

Next up for the reactionary religious anti-gay bigots: "First Amendment Defense Act"

This would be such a ghastly piece of legislation that the backlash against it might finally lead to a rethinking of our whole approach to religious exemptions from the law.

Trump's personal physician may be weird, but the physician joining his Administration...

...is dangerous.

(Thanks to Roger Albin for the pointer.)

Tax-exempt NeoNazis!

This is astonishing.

(Thanks to Jay Mullen for the pointer.)

NeoNazis in philosophy watch: the case of "Charles Martel"

Although, as we have seen, the naricissism of small differences is important to our contemporary NeoNazis, mostly travelling under the more benign-sounding banner of the "alt-Right," observers should not indulge them:  these folks are Nazis, who simply missed their decade in the 1930s.  (Some of them are even exquisitely sensitive to public relations, and realize that "alt-right" is much less ominous than their actual identity.) 

All of which brings us to "Charles Martel," the pseudonym of one of the "philosophy" bloggers at what I jokingly called awhile back "Stormfront for philosophers," except I'm beginning to wonder if it is a joke.   Here is Martel defending today's Nazis:

A key thesis of the alt-right, as some contributors here have discussed, is that race is a real feature of the human person (just as sex is a real feature of the human person) and that one’s race can, to a large extent influence (or perhaps outright determine), a people’s intelligence, personality types, temperament, and so forth. The truth of this thesis, the alt-righter might claim, can be grasped at the level of common sense by simply having interactions with persons of various races.

Quite innocently and without meaning to cause scandal, an observer may notice, for example, that the Japanese he has met tend to be deferent and non-confrontational, or that Sub-Saharan Africans he has met tend to be joyous and energetic, or that the Italians he has met may be expressive, loud and impatient, that the Swedes he has met tend to be smarter than the Pygmies he has met, and so forth. But there is also plenty of empirical evidence for this thesis. (Perhaps this is the claim that Shapiro finds “racist”; if so, then either he has a very trivial account of what racism (e.g., the claim that there are racial differences, something that is hardly objectionable and is as true as the claim that there are differences between the sexes) is or he is simply wrong.)

Next comes the following claim by the alt-righter: these biological facts about one’s race go on to influence, outright determine, or, more poetically, flavor the sort of civilization that a race will establish.[1] Thus the high-IQ race that is characteristically deferent and non-confrontational race will establish a peculiar and unique sort of civilization and the low-IQ race that is characteristically brutish, violent and present-thinking will establish a peculiar and unique sort of civilization. The alt-righter might additionally—and very plausibly—claim that a low-IQ race that is characteristically brutish, violent, and present-thinking will not—and perhaps cannot—establish the sort of civilization that the high-IQ, deferent and non-confrontational race can establish (and vice versa).

Now, if there really are racial differences in intelligence, personality, temperament, and so forth—and there is overwhelming evidence that there are such differences between the races—and these differences contribute to (or give a flavor to, or determine, etc.) the sort of civilization that a race will create, then it is not implausible at all to suggest that Western civilization—by which we mean European civilization—can only be fully and genuinely carried on by people of European biological stock (just as, say, Jewish civilization can only be genuinely or fully carried on by people of Jewish stock). Other races that have some biological similarity to people of European stock may carry European civilization forward to some extent—we could say not genuinely (as do, for example, the Japanese, to some extent, in their appreciation of classical music). But the differences between the race groups will inevitably result in differences in the way that European civilization can be carried out, just as we would expect Europeans (that is, people of European biological stock) to be able to carry on with Japanese civilization in a limited manner but never genuinely.

This is quite amazing, on so many levels:  the conflation of culture with race, the cherry-picking of discredited "evidence", the inability to distinguish causation from correlation, all in the service of the most ugly and dangerous Nazi myths about "European biological stock" (as distinct from "Jewish stock" and so on).   This is sick, sick stuff--we thought it was defeated in 1945!--but here it is on a blog that purports to represent contemporary philosophers "on the right."  These are not philosophers "on the right," these are NeoNazi morons.

Why there will not be a socialist *revolution*

Robert Paul Wolff explains.

Trump's doctor is as weird as Trump!

Really!  I'm surprised he hasn't lost his license, but maybe he is more serious about his medical practice than some of his comments suggest.

Four philosophers win NEH Fellowships for University Teachers in 2016 competition

They are:  Sean Kelsey (Notre Dame), Casey O'Callaghan (Wash U/St. Louis), Whitney Schwab (Maryland/Baltimore), and Rachel Zuckert (Northwestern).

New Zealand children quote Trump

I'll vote for any of them over the real Dopey Donald Chump:

 

 

PGR-like guides in other fields?

A reader, currently a law student, writes:

The PGR is a very useful resource for prospective philosophy graduate students. But to the best of my knowledge no other graduate discipline has a similarly detailed, transparently and fairly assessed, regularly updated, and well regarded guide to the quality of its graduate programs.  Or if there are any such guides, they are not easily accessible to prospective graduate students (whose first recourse is of course Google, where they will find only the USN&WR rankings and other such lists whose value and reliability students are in no position to discern). 

It would be a great service to those of us who are thinking about non-philosophy PhD programs if there were a place to accumulate a list of any such guides.  Would you please provide a comment space on Leiter Reports for your readers to post about similarly reputable and reliable rankings for other graduate fields with which they are familiar?

This question has come up before, and I am still not aware of such resources in other fields, and presumably for the reasons noted back in 2009:  no good deed goes unpunished, especially when it involves providing prospective students actual information about program quality! The National Research Council used to provide such a resource every decade or so, but failed in its task the last time around.  The "Qurky Silliness" rankings aren't of much use for philosophy, so presumably aren't of much use in other fields.  So, readers, any ideas about resources?  Any thoughts on the rather sloppy reputational surveys U.S. News conducts about various fields?  Are they useful?  Dated?  Bizarre?

What reactions to the Nazis can teach us about...

...reactions to Trump.  I'm not persuaded by this piece, but it is worth reading and thinking about.

(Thanks to Michael Swanson.)

The science-denial industry

Indeed.

Wisconsin legislature may take up legislation permitting "concealed carry" on campus in January

A beanbrain legislator from rural Wisconsin plans to introduce the legislation, which was defeated previously.  The Associated Students of Madison has launched a petition in opposition, which is here.  You should sign if you have a Wisconsin connection--obviously faculty and students, but also, for example, parents with children at Wisconsin colleges.

UDPATE:  Ohio too is on the edge of this insanity.

(Thanks to Evan Woods for the pointer.)

 

"The Case Against Free Speech"

This long-gestating paper has finally appeared in the Sydney Law Review (it was the 2013 Julius Stone Address in Jurisprudence at Sydney), and can be downloaded here for those who are interested.  This year's electoral catastrophe just underlines the crucial Millian point, namely, that well-being in America will remain in danger as long as Breitbart, Drudge, Fox and the other fact-free media are allowed to operate freely.

Right-wing so-called "populism" in Poland

An informative piece a year after the right-wing nationalist takeover in Poland.  There are two distinctive ingredients to developments there:  first, a commitment to a real social welfare state (including, e.g., cash payments to families with children); and second, conservative Catholic social views.  It's the latter that is responsible for a lot of the wickedness afoot in Poland, though the pattern is familiar.  Until orthodox religiosity of whatever stripe dies out, humanity will be at risk, alas.

ADDENDUM:  Or as RAWA put it:  "Fundamentalism is the mortal enemy of all civilized humanity."

On being "over-qualified" for an untenured tenure-track job

A philosopher writes:

Here are some related questions for a thread on your blog:

(1) How much does having a strong publication record hurt one's chances for getting a job at less research-prestigious institutions? For instance, if a recent PhD has five publications in respected places will this count much against getting a TT job in "the middle of nowhere"? Will hiring committees be inclined to pass over such a candidate, thinking that he or she will just leave in a couple years due to the strong publication record? Or have hiring committees realized that the lack of philosophy jobs makes this strategy a mistake?

(2) Is there much resistance to hiring an associate prof for an assistant job, or a full prof for an associate job, or a full prof for an assistant job? Should there be? Given the horrible job market, an associate or full prof who needs to move from their current position may have few options other than taking an assistant job. 

I'll offer a few thoughts/surmises, and then open it for comments from readers.

On #1, I suspect it is still the case that schools that are non-research-intensive will wonder about the commitment of a junior candidate whose publication record is too strong.  I'm also not sure this is irrational, though it may be a question of degree.  But publication in top-tier journals is the most important credential for professional advancement and opportunities, so a rookie who arrives with articles in top-tier journals is, indeed, probably likely to have and probably seek other positions.  It's importnat to remember that at state schools in particular, there is never certainty that a line that becomes vacant will be authorized to be re-filled--and that may especially be true when it was just filled two years ago, and now the candidate hired has decamped.  That might make a Dean skeptical about whether the department can do appropriate hiring, even if that is an unfair suspicion.

On #2, there is sometimes such resistance, but mostly I expect for budgetary reasons:  if the Dean authorzies a junior position, and it is filled with someone who will likely seek early tenure given his/her record, that may present budgetary problems for the Dean.   Similarly, a Dean may be skeptical that someone qualified for a tenured position will really accept an untenured tenure-track position, thinking the candidate will try to negotiate a higher rank from the start--something which, again, may not be feasible as a matter of the budget.

What do readers think about these questions?

If the right-wing crazies got interested in chess: a parable

Philosopher Jason Stanley (Yale) comments.

Who is to blame for Trump?

Nerds!