Isn't this the guy who just published an entire piece on getting rid of morality entirely? Very odd that he's discovered binding moral commitments when it comes to just this one issue, haha. But yes, I agree with your logic here. I think some people who paywall their work are making a mistake in doing so, because it ends up throttling their reach in a way that isn't compensated for by the relatively meager income even on their own terms. But if someone *can* make money off it, and feels like they're still getting their message out there in a way that makes the whole endeavor valuable, then why not? If nothing else, I would imagine that a hard taboo against paywalling would just result in fewer bloggers overall, as you say. It reminds me of my alma mater recently passing a policy that no notes could be posted from professors unless they had alternate text included for the blind - the result was, of course, that professors just don't post their notes anymore.
Oh wow, yeah that alt-text policy sounds really predictably counterproductive.
p.s. not your main point, I know, but I think it's fine to combine metaethical nihilism with first-order normative commitments! And I hope it's clear that I appreciate Walter's provocative takes, even when disagreeing with them :-)
Oh, I appreciate Walter's takes too - still, as far as I can tell, he isn't just a metaethical nihilist, but in fact a first-order one too. In that recent piece, he says he affirms: "The solution […] is to get rid of realist thinking and to start by getting rid of realist language. Speak only in terms that make the subjective nature of value plain. ... Instead of saying that capital punishment is wrong say that you are opposed to it." Looks like that might be harder than he thinks!
Definitely not easy! It's a collective change of how we should talk about our social coordination problem, not about individuals in a society that uses moral language in very different ways. Any large-scale social shifts are incredibly difficult. That would create confusion in the intermediate stages. But if we can keep in mind that we are talking about our intersubjective values rather than objective ones, there would be no problem with moral language, I just think we quickly fall back into realist thinking. The revisionist and eliminativist are very close in meta-ethical, but they disagree on the utility of the language itself. But both are live options discussed in the error theory literature. See the "Now What" problem literature if you're interested. It's really thought-provoking stuff.
I think the alt-text policy is part of a Biden-era policy on accessibility that has recently been weaponized by the Trump administration, but has fortunately had its implementation delayed by a year. I think different universities are interpreting the stringency of the requirement differently, with some deciding it's sufficient for now to tell all professors that they should follow the policy, while others might be actually mandating things.
Interesting. But do you think your (2) is true? I'd expect that the harms from promoting racist norms outweigh the benefit of creating a single job. Hard to know, though, and I guess you wouldn't want the prohibition to depend on that contingency.
A more promising response may be to draw on the questions in my footnote 4: the incentives to create a job are not undermined by prohibiting racism in hiring. So we can expect prohibitions on racism in hiring to largely result in more of the optimal result (hiring without racism) rather than the worse outcome of no job at all.
> the incentives to create a job are not undermined by prohibiting racism in hiring. So we can expect prohibitions on racism in hiring to largely result in more of the optimal result (hiring without racism) rather than the worse outcome of no job at all.
not sure why this would be true? if the employer is truly racist, then presumably they get some disutility from hiring <unfavored_race>. This means that, on the margin, some racist employers would hire if they could discriminate, but not otherwise. probably rare nowadays tho
It's conceivable, but realistically I just think financial motivations are going to be vastly stronger determinants of when or whether people create job openings.
A snippet: In part, I view tenured professors as somewhat analogous to priests, who dedicate their lives to their religion, but instead to the pursuit of knowledge. If a priest chose to pursue ends in direct or indirect conflict to that, it damages the reputation of the clergy as a whole. Something similar could be said, perhaps, for members of the police. You are not technically “off the clock” even when your official work-time ends. You are are symbol for an institution. If some individuals of that institution act in ways that goes against that, which I think profit-seeking does since it has little to do with the search for truth, then the institution is harmed as a whole. And given the current rise (and probably historically common) of anti-science and anti-academia sentiments, I think that this would be really problematic.
But also I don't think this is a purely philosophical question. Whether or not the public perceives certain actions by academics as morally objectionable is what matters here, since the consequences of an erosion of trust into academia are severe.
I've never heard anyone else suggest that paywalled writing undermines public trust in academia, and I'd be frankly shocked if your empirical speculation here were accurate.
I think trust in academia is undermined by perceived partisan bias, "woke" ideological conformity and thought-policing on cultural issues (e.g. the Tuvel letter and "no platforming" practices), wagon-circling in response to warranted criticism (see: Arday scandal), and high tuition fees combined with low academic standards (e.g. various "paid MA degrees used as cash cows" scandals).
"But for what it’s worth, I think of my blogging as something I do in my leisure time, not part of my employment."
This is the part I can't buy -- if an academic had a side business as like, a woodworker or a glassblower, and wanted to be paid for their wares, I would be fine with it. But big academics who get paid for blogging get paid precisely because of the reputation they've established as professional philosophers, and the work they do blogging directly benefits their research/teaching (in the event that your work supports in any way your thinking about your research/teaching areas, which I think is often the case). It's not a "second job" (as Manne called it in her reply to Walter), it's an expansion of what you already do for your first job.
As you said, "If I used too much work time to do public philosophy instead of publishing research papers, the university might reasonably complain that I was not doing the job they hired me for!" -- yes but doing some public philosophy is probably appreciated by your university! And if you got really famous for your public phil, you'd raise the profile of your university and department, in probably a positive way they'd welcome. So I think it's really not wholly distinguishable as something you do just as a private citizen.
Sure, there are obviously connections between philosophical activities I pursue in my leisure time and my academic career. But I don't think it follows from that that I'm not allowed to do philosophy in my leisure time (or that my work clock automatically expands to cover however much of my life I dedicate to philosophical pursuits)!
That was just a footnote, though. My central response to the "double-dipping" worry was that academics are allowed to sell their academic writing via other means (e.g. trade books), so it seems inconsistent to create new prohibitive rules that apply only to blogging.
I think this might be the heart of it: "or that my work clock automatically expands to cover however much of my life I dedicate to philosophical pursuits" --> While I wouldn't want to hold myself to the claim that it automatically expand to cover *everything*, I think it covers a lot more than the position here gives it credit for. I think that's part of having a 'profession' rather than just a 'job' (but we might disagree on the nature of being a professional philosopher, which is fair!).
Particularly for Substack (which, to be fair, I only look at very intermittently), it seems like most blog posts are things that are born out of or will work their way back into, someone's research/teaching. So getting paid for these kind of 'work in progress' thoughts does strike me as double-dipping, while a trade book is a completed project.
I could imagine (and welcome!) a world where doing a significant amount of public philosophy was widely viewed as part of one's professional "service" expectations, but that simply isn't the world we live in.
I'm not sure why the "completed project vs eventually benefits one's other work" distinction is relevant to the question of double-dipping. The more relevant question seems to be whether you're meeting a core work obligation or rather going "above and beyond". Earning more by doing more work than is normal or required seems perfectly reasonable and appropriate to me.
Because "double-dipping" is presumably getting paid to do something twice, so I took it to be that I'm getting paid by my university to research/teach, and then I'm getting paid by my subscribers to do the thinking that enables that research/teaching (which I would already be doing) - so you're not doing much more work (but maybe I'm underestimating the amount of work people are doing on their Substacks).
Regardless, I'm inclined to say that doing public philosophy, whether or not it's rewarded adequately by one's home institution, isn't totally supererogatory - but I think we'll just disagree!
To be fair, I think when it comes to journals with pay walls. It’s a coordination problem since they don’t add any value as you yourself note, but have accumulated a lot of prestige as such academia would be better. If people were able to enforce a social rule against going to those journals or at least going there less often because the alternative is not that people don’t write anything. They were not being incentivised by the payment in the first place since it was not reaching them. The alternative is they write and it’s free, and no money is being burned in a zero sum status contest that only benefits a few journals that contribute nothing to the research process. I think you would benefit from instead of asking whether writing with the paywall is better than the alternative of not writing anything, actually comparing counterfactual where certain types of writing behind a pay wall are socially punished compare to the alternative. In this case, while for example, a blog with a pay wall would be fine since the payment is incentivising the writing journals that don’t actually pay the researchers who write the articles would not be fine because it would be better to have a social rule that punished writing in them.
My guess is that Veit would reject your premise 2--viz., that "Paywalled expert blogging is better than not blogging at all." He seems to think that (i) philosophizing behind a paywall damages the profession's reputation, (ii) to an extent that is not outweighed by whatever benefit comes from the consumption of paid subscribers. In other words, *I think he thinks* that it would be better if philosophers who are only willing to blog behind a paywall didn't blog at all. I don't have the faintest idea about how to assess this claim, but I think it's a fair reading of his argument. (Maybe he would narrow the scope to philosophers who write on social justice issues; I'm not sure.)
BTW, Richard, I'm a long time reader of *your* 'public philosophy,' and very much appreciate your efforts!
I initially thought it was plausible that, for full-time professors, it's plausible that public-facing work could be part of the job. I remember some lip service about this when I was in college—alternative metrics and things like that, but maybe it never picked up steam. But even so, your point about trade books is convincing
The fact that philosophers are talking about this at all is actually kind of cute. Economists do consulting work all the time. Professors in professional fields testify on malpractice. There's always a Harvard epidemiologist who will say that your chemical doesn't cause cancer. And God only knows what Andrew Huberman is doing right now.
Great points, and I’d go even further. Even if you think paywalling is wrong, criticizing can be the wrong approach. You shouldn’t just criticize whatever is criticizable: you should criticize when doing so leads to improvements rather than making things worse.
Example that I think I mention in my PPE paper: some sweatshop researchers are wary of naming and shaming sweatshop operators because that might just cause those firms to withdraw from those markets rather than reforming, leaving workers with even worse employment options!
For what it's worth, I think I *have* seen people criticize others for not posting about the apparent urgent moral issues of the day! (But I think we can usually reasonable ignore these criticisms.)
I was originally assuming they are writing things that are true and would point people towards goodness (and truth). Under that assumption, and assuming they are "built" in the relevant ways to have a blog (can write for layish audiences, is compatible with their vocation, etc.), then probably yes?
But now that you ask that, I realize I don't think most professors would be pointing people towards truth and goodness if they did have a substack, so it kind of depends. Maybe I should say most people should paywall their posts after all 😆. Although i can hope even disagreement helps people get to the truth eventually.
Sorry for messing up the reply location, whoops. But the other thought is that if the money used from paywall goes towards certain goods that make up for whatever the goodness of the knowledge lossed by decreased availability is (coupled with the offset of whatever the buyer would have been doing with the money), then that would also be fair game.
But then again I doubt most professors would be giving to effective charities with their substack earnings
If I bought that there is such thing as supererogatory actions, then I would buy your argument.
Besides my theoretical issue, I'd say it's likely morally permissible but, well, worse, frowned upon, annoying, or something along these lines. I appreciate that your paywalls are rare. I on principle refuse to pay for any substack haha
Interesting thoughts. I would definitely prefer paywalled thought pieces exist than nothing. I would also prefer there wasn't a paywall at all. I hate the concept that knowledge and learning comes with a cost. I guess it often does.
It however is up to me to choose to pay, and as the article points out - it is up to the academic whether they want to charge for their thoughts - ideas generated in their spare time. Is it unethical? I don't think so. Is it a shame? I believe so.
I like to tell myself that if I had specfic expertise I wouldn't charge. I cannot confidently say that - maybe knowing people would be willing to pay would override my principles?! I think most of us are for better or worse not immune to wanting to profit from our expertise. How the world works.
Lastly what about adjuncts? It's true a lot of truth is going behind paywalls while nonsense, lies and conspiracy theories are peddled so freely you have to deliberately avoid them unlike the truth we actually need to do work to find.
Putting the burden to solve this on academics is ineffective and unfair they are rarely the ones peddling misinformation at scale. That's a collective action problem the whole society needs to agree is real then how to mitigate at scale.
Isn't this the guy who just published an entire piece on getting rid of morality entirely? Very odd that he's discovered binding moral commitments when it comes to just this one issue, haha. But yes, I agree with your logic here. I think some people who paywall their work are making a mistake in doing so, because it ends up throttling their reach in a way that isn't compensated for by the relatively meager income even on their own terms. But if someone *can* make money off it, and feels like they're still getting their message out there in a way that makes the whole endeavor valuable, then why not? If nothing else, I would imagine that a hard taboo against paywalling would just result in fewer bloggers overall, as you say. It reminds me of my alma mater recently passing a policy that no notes could be posted from professors unless they had alternate text included for the blind - the result was, of course, that professors just don't post their notes anymore.
Oh wow, yeah that alt-text policy sounds really predictably counterproductive.
p.s. not your main point, I know, but I think it's fine to combine metaethical nihilism with first-order normative commitments! And I hope it's clear that I appreciate Walter's provocative takes, even when disagreeing with them :-)
Oh, I appreciate Walter's takes too - still, as far as I can tell, he isn't just a metaethical nihilist, but in fact a first-order one too. In that recent piece, he says he affirms: "The solution […] is to get rid of realist thinking and to start by getting rid of realist language. Speak only in terms that make the subjective nature of value plain. ... Instead of saying that capital punishment is wrong say that you are opposed to it." Looks like that might be harder than he thinks!
Definitely not easy! It's a collective change of how we should talk about our social coordination problem, not about individuals in a society that uses moral language in very different ways. Any large-scale social shifts are incredibly difficult. That would create confusion in the intermediate stages. But if we can keep in mind that we are talking about our intersubjective values rather than objective ones, there would be no problem with moral language, I just think we quickly fall back into realist thinking. The revisionist and eliminativist are very close in meta-ethical, but they disagree on the utility of the language itself. But both are live options discussed in the error theory literature. See the "Now What" problem literature if you're interested. It's really thought-provoking stuff.
I think the alt-text policy is part of a Biden-era policy on accessibility that has recently been weaponized by the Trump administration, but has fortunately had its implementation delayed by a year. I think different universities are interpreting the stringency of the requirement differently, with some deciding it's sufficient for now to tell all professors that they should follow the policy, while others might be actually mandating things.
This is also a good argument for why racial discrimination in hiring is permissible
1) It’s supererogatory to create a job
2) job created for <favored_race> is better than no job at all.
3) If an act is optional, and doing it for one group than not doing it at all, then doing it for one group is permissible.
4) So racial discrimination in hiring is permissible
Interesting. But do you think your (2) is true? I'd expect that the harms from promoting racist norms outweigh the benefit of creating a single job. Hard to know, though, and I guess you wouldn't want the prohibition to depend on that contingency.
A more promising response may be to draw on the questions in my footnote 4: the incentives to create a job are not undermined by prohibiting racism in hiring. So we can expect prohibitions on racism in hiring to largely result in more of the optimal result (hiring without racism) rather than the worse outcome of no job at all.
> the incentives to create a job are not undermined by prohibiting racism in hiring. So we can expect prohibitions on racism in hiring to largely result in more of the optimal result (hiring without racism) rather than the worse outcome of no job at all.
not sure why this would be true? if the employer is truly racist, then presumably they get some disutility from hiring <unfavored_race>. This means that, on the margin, some racist employers would hire if they could discriminate, but not otherwise. probably rare nowadays tho
It's conceivable, but realistically I just think financial motivations are going to be vastly stronger determinants of when or whether people create job openings.
Probably true
I posted my reply here: https://walterveit.substack.com/p/why-richard-yetter-chappell-is-wrong
A snippet: In part, I view tenured professors as somewhat analogous to priests, who dedicate their lives to their religion, but instead to the pursuit of knowledge. If a priest chose to pursue ends in direct or indirect conflict to that, it damages the reputation of the clergy as a whole. Something similar could be said, perhaps, for members of the police. You are not technically “off the clock” even when your official work-time ends. You are are symbol for an institution. If some individuals of that institution act in ways that goes against that, which I think profit-seeking does since it has little to do with the search for truth, then the institution is harmed as a whole. And given the current rise (and probably historically common) of anti-science and anti-academia sentiments, I think that this would be really problematic.
But also I don't think this is a purely philosophical question. Whether or not the public perceives certain actions by academics as morally objectionable is what matters here, since the consequences of an erosion of trust into academia are severe.
I've never heard anyone else suggest that paywalled writing undermines public trust in academia, and I'd be frankly shocked if your empirical speculation here were accurate.
I think trust in academia is undermined by perceived partisan bias, "woke" ideological conformity and thought-policing on cultural issues (e.g. the Tuvel letter and "no platforming" practices), wagon-circling in response to warranted criticism (see: Arday scandal), and high tuition fees combined with low academic standards (e.g. various "paid MA degrees used as cash cows" scandals).
"But for what it’s worth, I think of my blogging as something I do in my leisure time, not part of my employment."
This is the part I can't buy -- if an academic had a side business as like, a woodworker or a glassblower, and wanted to be paid for their wares, I would be fine with it. But big academics who get paid for blogging get paid precisely because of the reputation they've established as professional philosophers, and the work they do blogging directly benefits their research/teaching (in the event that your work supports in any way your thinking about your research/teaching areas, which I think is often the case). It's not a "second job" (as Manne called it in her reply to Walter), it's an expansion of what you already do for your first job.
As you said, "If I used too much work time to do public philosophy instead of publishing research papers, the university might reasonably complain that I was not doing the job they hired me for!" -- yes but doing some public philosophy is probably appreciated by your university! And if you got really famous for your public phil, you'd raise the profile of your university and department, in probably a positive way they'd welcome. So I think it's really not wholly distinguishable as something you do just as a private citizen.
Sure, there are obviously connections between philosophical activities I pursue in my leisure time and my academic career. But I don't think it follows from that that I'm not allowed to do philosophy in my leisure time (or that my work clock automatically expands to cover however much of my life I dedicate to philosophical pursuits)!
That was just a footnote, though. My central response to the "double-dipping" worry was that academics are allowed to sell their academic writing via other means (e.g. trade books), so it seems inconsistent to create new prohibitive rules that apply only to blogging.
I think this might be the heart of it: "or that my work clock automatically expands to cover however much of my life I dedicate to philosophical pursuits" --> While I wouldn't want to hold myself to the claim that it automatically expand to cover *everything*, I think it covers a lot more than the position here gives it credit for. I think that's part of having a 'profession' rather than just a 'job' (but we might disagree on the nature of being a professional philosopher, which is fair!).
Particularly for Substack (which, to be fair, I only look at very intermittently), it seems like most blog posts are things that are born out of or will work their way back into, someone's research/teaching. So getting paid for these kind of 'work in progress' thoughts does strike me as double-dipping, while a trade book is a completed project.
I could imagine (and welcome!) a world where doing a significant amount of public philosophy was widely viewed as part of one's professional "service" expectations, but that simply isn't the world we live in.
I'm not sure why the "completed project vs eventually benefits one's other work" distinction is relevant to the question of double-dipping. The more relevant question seems to be whether you're meeting a core work obligation or rather going "above and beyond". Earning more by doing more work than is normal or required seems perfectly reasonable and appropriate to me.
Because "double-dipping" is presumably getting paid to do something twice, so I took it to be that I'm getting paid by my university to research/teach, and then I'm getting paid by my subscribers to do the thinking that enables that research/teaching (which I would already be doing) - so you're not doing much more work (but maybe I'm underestimating the amount of work people are doing on their Substacks).
Regardless, I'm inclined to say that doing public philosophy, whether or not it's rewarded adequately by one's home institution, isn't totally supererogatory - but I think we'll just disagree!
To be fair, I think when it comes to journals with pay walls. It’s a coordination problem since they don’t add any value as you yourself note, but have accumulated a lot of prestige as such academia would be better. If people were able to enforce a social rule against going to those journals or at least going there less often because the alternative is not that people don’t write anything. They were not being incentivised by the payment in the first place since it was not reaching them. The alternative is they write and it’s free, and no money is being burned in a zero sum status contest that only benefits a few journals that contribute nothing to the research process. I think you would benefit from instead of asking whether writing with the paywall is better than the alternative of not writing anything, actually comparing counterfactual where certain types of writing behind a pay wall are socially punished compare to the alternative. In this case, while for example, a blog with a pay wall would be fine since the payment is incentivising the writing journals that don’t actually pay the researchers who write the articles would not be fine because it would be better to have a social rule that punished writing in them.
My guess is that Veit would reject your premise 2--viz., that "Paywalled expert blogging is better than not blogging at all." He seems to think that (i) philosophizing behind a paywall damages the profession's reputation, (ii) to an extent that is not outweighed by whatever benefit comes from the consumption of paid subscribers. In other words, *I think he thinks* that it would be better if philosophers who are only willing to blog behind a paywall didn't blog at all. I don't have the faintest idea about how to assess this claim, but I think it's a fair reading of his argument. (Maybe he would narrow the scope to philosophers who write on social justice issues; I'm not sure.)
BTW, Richard, I'm a long time reader of *your* 'public philosophy,' and very much appreciate your efforts!
I initially thought it was plausible that, for full-time professors, it's plausible that public-facing work could be part of the job. I remember some lip service about this when I was in college—alternative metrics and things like that, but maybe it never picked up steam. But even so, your point about trade books is convincing
The fact that philosophers are talking about this at all is actually kind of cute. Economists do consulting work all the time. Professors in professional fields testify on malpractice. There's always a Harvard epidemiologist who will say that your chemical doesn't cause cancer. And God only knows what Andrew Huberman is doing right now.
Great points, and I’d go even further. Even if you think paywalling is wrong, criticizing can be the wrong approach. You shouldn’t just criticize whatever is criticizable: you should criticize when doing so leads to improvements rather than making things worse.
Example that I think I mention in my PPE paper: some sweatshop researchers are wary of naming and shaming sweatshop operators because that might just cause those firms to withdraw from those markets rather than reforming, leaving workers with even worse employment options!
For what it's worth, I think I *have* seen people criticize others for not posting about the apparent urgent moral issues of the day! (But I think we can usually reasonable ignore these criticisms.)
I was originally assuming they are writing things that are true and would point people towards goodness (and truth). Under that assumption, and assuming they are "built" in the relevant ways to have a blog (can write for layish audiences, is compatible with their vocation, etc.), then probably yes?
But now that you ask that, I realize I don't think most professors would be pointing people towards truth and goodness if they did have a substack, so it kind of depends. Maybe I should say most people should paywall their posts after all 😆. Although i can hope even disagreement helps people get to the truth eventually.
Sorry for messing up the reply location, whoops. But the other thought is that if the money used from paywall goes towards certain goods that make up for whatever the goodness of the knowledge lossed by decreased availability is (coupled with the offset of whatever the buyer would have been doing with the money), then that would also be fair game.
But then again I doubt most professors would be giving to effective charities with their substack earnings
Thanks for reflections! I haven’t read them yet but shall do so soon!
If I bought that there is such thing as supererogatory actions, then I would buy your argument.
Besides my theoretical issue, I'd say it's likely morally permissible but, well, worse, frowned upon, annoying, or something along these lines. I appreciate that your paywalls are rare. I on principle refuse to pay for any substack haha
Do you think it's unethical/annoying/etc for professors to fail to maintain a Substack?
On Amazon, Walter’s book costs $56 as paperback and $192 as hardcover. Is it unethical?
Has this guy done a price check on journal access lately? Jeez
Interesting thoughts. I would definitely prefer paywalled thought pieces exist than nothing. I would also prefer there wasn't a paywall at all. I hate the concept that knowledge and learning comes with a cost. I guess it often does.
It however is up to me to choose to pay, and as the article points out - it is up to the academic whether they want to charge for their thoughts - ideas generated in their spare time. Is it unethical? I don't think so. Is it a shame? I believe so.
I like to tell myself that if I had specfic expertise I wouldn't charge. I cannot confidently say that - maybe knowing people would be willing to pay would override my principles?! I think most of us are for better or worse not immune to wanting to profit from our expertise. How the world works.
Lastly what about adjuncts? It's true a lot of truth is going behind paywalls while nonsense, lies and conspiracy theories are peddled so freely you have to deliberately avoid them unlike the truth we actually need to do work to find.
Putting the burden to solve this on academics is ineffective and unfair they are rarely the ones peddling misinformation at scale. That's a collective action problem the whole society needs to agree is real then how to mitigate at scale.
I believe Walter restricted his target to securely employed (e.g. tenure-stream) academics.
Thanks. I should have read more carefully.