The public reason field seems to have all the makings of a degenerate research project. It’s a bunch of people debating fine points of definition and who clearly don’t believe in what they say. Take, for instance, Gerald Gaus. He theorized about diversity of thought because he hated it; he didn’t respect anyone other than those that agreed with him and did his philosophy his way. He wanted disciples. He was willing to sabotage his own department to make sure he got his way in hiring acolytes. Yet, oddly, public reason theorists who say they care about public justification never bother to learn what the public thinks or try to justify institutions and policies to them. In my view, Peter Singer cares much more about public justification than Rawls, Freeman, Gaus, Weithman, Benn, Quong, or Vallier. Singer provides public reasons to advocate his ideas; they don’t.
In general, political philosophy still seems to reward people for working on very abstract topics that don’t really matter. I’m not sure why. PPE-style philosophy and non-ideal theory is much harder and more cognitively demanding than definition-spinning and ideal theory, because you have to know more and have to deal with all the problems of human nature. Yet philosophy rewards the easier to do work over the harder stuff.
I wouldn’t worry about fixing philosophy. Just do good work and don’t worry about it. However, in general, I think there is way too much public investment in philosophy. Philosophy classes do not deliver the promised goods, so the money should be used elsewhere. If the field were cut in half and the money went to reducing the cost of college, that’d be a good start.
The public reason field seems to have all the makings of a degenerate research project. It’s a bunch of people debating fine points of definition and who clearly don’t believe in what they say. Take, for instance, Gerald Gaus. He theorized about diversity of thought because he hated it; he didn’t respect anyone other than those that agreed with him and did his philosophy his way. He wanted disciples. He was willing to sabotage his own department to make sure he got his way in hiring acolytes. Yet, oddly, public reason theorists who say they care about public justification never bother to learn what the public thinks or try to justify institutions and policies to them. In my view, Peter Singer cares much more about public justification than Rawls, Freeman, Gaus, Weithman, Benn, Quong, or Vallier. Singer provides public reasons to advocate his ideas; they don’t.
In general, political philosophy still seems to reward people for working on very abstract topics that don’t really matter. I’m not sure why. PPE-style philosophy and non-ideal theory is much harder and more cognitively demanding than definition-spinning and ideal theory, because you have to know more and have to deal with all the problems of human nature. Yet philosophy rewards the easier to do work over the harder stuff.
I wouldn’t worry about fixing philosophy. Just do good work and don’t worry about it. However, in general, I think there is way too much public investment in philosophy. Philosophy classes do not deliver the promised goods, so the money should be used elsewhere. If the field were cut in half and the money went to reducing the cost of college, that’d be a good start.