Philosopher Peter Vallentyne (Missouri) writes:
In 2014, you had some useful discussion of the role of honoraria for philosophy talks. I’m now wondering about whether people think that honoraria (e.g., $100-$300) should be paid for non-recorded virtual (e.g., Zoom) philosophy talks to other, roughly peer, philosophy departments. On the one hand, there are no travel-time burdens (the hassles of getting from A to B, downtime in the host city, etc.). Of course, valuable informal discussion with members of the host department may be lost, but there will also (at least sometimes) be a gain of avoiding non-valuable informal discussion. Overall, it seems to me that the burdens of giving a virtual talk are generally significantly lower than those for a live talk. A small honorarium would still be appropriate, but, given the hassles of filling out the forms to provide an honorarium, it may not be worth it. I’m interested in readers thoughts on this issue. I focus on non-recorded talks, since there are separate issues for recorded talks.
My own view is that honoraria for Zoom talks are not warranted, but comments are open!
