Barging in an unrelated field and explaining why it is confused and everybody in it is wrong is the /point/ of philosophy. Like, what do these people think our job even is?
I would also add, this is what makes philosophy fun, interesting and exciting - the very fact that an Alex Byrne or a Tomas Bogardus can come out of nowhere and kick the hornet's nest.
Completely agree. The way to settle these disputes with unfriendly scholars is to show that their arguments fail or that their work is poor in some other way.
Tangentially: many years ago I bought a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach in a second-hand bookstore, and the inside cover had the name of its last owner, “Alex Byrne”. I figured it was the philosopher by the same name, so I emailed him to say hi, since I was considering studying philosophy. He was gracious and encouraging, and I ended up (by chance) studying some of his work on perception and colour. Nice post!
I agree, by and large. One plausible objection, which I'm not sure holds up but could sway me, is that collaborating with a corrupt administration tends to corrode your soul (or however you want to frame the metaphor). It's objectionable on virtue-ethical grounds, but it should invite caution on consequentialist grounds, too. It seems partly analogous to eating animal products once in a while as an ethical vegan. It's totally fine on purely consequentialist grounds, but it slowly chips away at your resolve over time. If something like character is part of a good consequentialist decision-procedure package, then you should think twice before collaborating, even if it seems permissible on first-order grounds. (Similar post-mortem analysis applies to the SBF/FTX debacle, I think.)
Now, with that said, the harms of mob behavior may be on balance much worse than the aggregate harms of a few individuals letting their souls be corroded by a corrupt administration. So, what Byrne did might have been wrong, according to the objection, but the mob response strongly deterring such behavior may have worse overall effects. In other words, I'd like there to be a way to condemn collaboration without succumbing to the depiscable behavior you correctly identify.
I always told (and tell) everyone who will listen that any activity taking place under the rubric “medically ethics”, or “health science ethics” more generally, is a branch of law, not of moral philosophy. (I was a med school professor, with a dose of philosopher on the side.) The word “compliance” dominates; the words “welfare”, “utility”, “moral”, “good”, etc. are almost or completely absent.
I agree with you substantively, and also want to say kudos to you (and of course to him) for saying so publicly. [not sure if my full name shows up here, but it's Julian Jamison and I'm happy to also go on the record for whatever tiny marginal impact that might have]
Should Charlie Brown be faulted for not helping Lucy by kicking the football, knowing that Lucy has a habit of pulling the ball and injuring him (both morally and physically) at the last second?
After all, he *might* be able to help the team - even with a relatively weak kick!
Re 1: While I agree that analytic philosophers as a baseline are enormously skilled at clear thinking and always a bonus to have in the room, we have to admit that we too are capable of epistemic trespassing. It's not just people in other disciplines and always okay when a philosopher does it.
So, if it can happen and be bad when it does, how do we recognize it and how to do we police it? Well, it's tough to recognize, especially when it's not precisely clear what the nature of the contribution was (as in this case). But it might look a lot like a philosopher of mind contributing to a public policy document focused on medical treatment and medical ethics. And what should be done about it? I mean, this is it. You don't want to call in random administrators and investigations; you want to preserve academic freedom at all costs. What you do is collectively call it out as peers. What's the point? It sends a signal to people outside the discipline that this person might be engaging in epistemic trespassing; it acts to shame the trespasser; and it reasserts the norms against epistemic trespassing. Is this a chilling effect for junior scholars? Uh, in 2025, when the US administration is actively pushing for 'diversity' hires purely along the dimension of intellectual diversity? And if it is chilling - well, yes we want to chill epistemic trespassing. This is not 'cancel culture'. In fact, the problem is calling it cancel culture, because inflating it so far deliberately makes it incapable for us to productively collectively police ourselves without it raising to administrative or occupational consequences.
Re 2: It is important that the contribution in this case is not as high stakes as PEPFAR. That it is lower stakes makes it easier for the reasons not to collaborate to win out. Even easier when the contribution itself is negative - and the letter does charge that harm is being done by the contribution (as well, I think, the negative effects of epistemic trespassing). I think Richard is right here about the inefficacy generally of an academic boycott of this government, and I share the fear about making things worse. But it's also true that our collaboration legitimizes this government. We might have obligations of solidarity to do our part in not facilitating such a government, difference or not. I think it does the letter writers dirty to say they're basically afraid of cooties. There's at least good reasons for significant actors within society to not participate in, boycott, actively obstruct this government, and there's good reasons to think that academics have their part in this, even if we're less significant.
re: 1: The assumption that a philosopher on an interdisciplinary team must be "epistemic trespassing" if they don't have topic-specific expertise rests on a failure to understand the subject-neutral nature of philosophical expertise and what value a philosopher could be expected to contribute to such a team.
(One *could* "trespass" if they started claiming empirical expertise that they lack, but no evidence has been offered that Byrne has done anything of the sort. And it is awfully obnoxious to collectively "call out" or shame a colleague without sufficient evidence.)
> "Is this a chilling effect for junior scholars? Uh, in 2025, when the US administration is actively pushing for 'diversity' hires purely along the dimension of intellectual diversity?"
Yes, obviously junior scholars care more about (and are more dependent upon) the opinion of their academic peers than the opinion of the US government.
re: 2:
> "We might have obligations of solidarity to do our part in not facilitating such a government, difference or not."
I don't believe in harmful obligations. If the boycott does no good, and moreover does some harm by preventing one from contributing even slightly positively to improving public policy, then it's simply bad. To establish that it is reasonable, one has to have reason to think that the boycott will actually achieve sufficient good to outweigh this harm. Otherwise, they're prioritizing symbolism over real people, and I think that's morally bad. ("Solidarity" is just the name people give to "avoiding cooties" when they want to endorse rather than condemn it.)
Re 1: The original post made it sound like (or at least didn't acknowledge) that philosophers absolutely can epistemically trespass. And my point is that they can, that it would need calling out, and this is roughly how you'd want to do it. It's fair to say, "Sure, but where's the evidence of epistemic trespassing here?" But I think this moves the goal posts a bit. It's an appropriate place to move to, but also it's worth asking who has the burden of proof and where the presumption should be. Unfortunately, in this debate in particular, it's a bit rife with people appearing to epistemically trespass. When philosophers of art get famous from non-peer reviewed online articles, it's going to feel like some people are getting away with epistemic trespassing. When it's philosophers of art or philosophers of mind not just taking a stand publicly on these issues, but working on public policy documents, isn't the burden of proof on them to demonstrate sufficient expertise, or else that their contribution didn't require it? I'm hazy on the details because it's been a bit, but I feel like the opportunity was there to clarify and justify the nature of his contribution, and it didn't feel taken.
Re chillingness: I think the response conflates issues of public (or profession-wide) opinion and actual outcomes. It's good to reaffirm a norm of the discipline against epistemic trespassing, and it's not bad that junior scholars care about the opinions of their peers. But that they can and should care more about the opinions of others in the profession than the US government doesn't mean that their employment prospects are necessarily more threatened by the former than the latter. Perhaps it's not fair or whataboutism to point to something separate and dangerous for the field; it just felt a bit rich to get worked up over this kind of thing as having a chilling effect in view of the much more chilly surroundings.
Re 2: I'm not entirely sure how I feel about potentially harmful obligations. I think I'm pretty committed to their being an answer to the inefficacy problem that leads you to a good reason to do your part, even if I don't know the best way to go in that debate, and I'm not sure why it wouldn't apply here. Moreover, this all misses the point about legitimacy, which just can't be measured in terms of harms caused or differences made. It's bad to legitimacy a government doing these kinds of things. I'm not sure how to measure that or the normative significance of legitimacy, but given the whole traditions that focus on this, it feels unfair to waive it off as the post does.
Barging in an unrelated field and explaining why it is confused and everybody in it is wrong is the /point/ of philosophy. Like, what do these people think our job even is?
I would also add, this is what makes philosophy fun, interesting and exciting - the very fact that an Alex Byrne or a Tomas Bogardus can come out of nowhere and kick the hornet's nest.
Completely agree. The way to settle these disputes with unfriendly scholars is to show that their arguments fail or that their work is poor in some other way.
Tangentially: many years ago I bought a copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach in a second-hand bookstore, and the inside cover had the name of its last owner, “Alex Byrne”. I figured it was the philosopher by the same name, so I emailed him to say hi, since I was considering studying philosophy. He was gracious and encouraging, and I ended up (by chance) studying some of his work on perception and colour. Nice post!
“I’d take a clear-headed analytic philosopher over a “medical ethicist by training” any day” Preach.
I agree, by and large. One plausible objection, which I'm not sure holds up but could sway me, is that collaborating with a corrupt administration tends to corrode your soul (or however you want to frame the metaphor). It's objectionable on virtue-ethical grounds, but it should invite caution on consequentialist grounds, too. It seems partly analogous to eating animal products once in a while as an ethical vegan. It's totally fine on purely consequentialist grounds, but it slowly chips away at your resolve over time. If something like character is part of a good consequentialist decision-procedure package, then you should think twice before collaborating, even if it seems permissible on first-order grounds. (Similar post-mortem analysis applies to the SBF/FTX debacle, I think.)
Now, with that said, the harms of mob behavior may be on balance much worse than the aggregate harms of a few individuals letting their souls be corroded by a corrupt administration. So, what Byrne did might have been wrong, according to the objection, but the mob response strongly deterring such behavior may have worse overall effects. In other words, I'd like there to be a way to condemn collaboration without succumbing to the depiscable behavior you correctly identify.
I always told (and tell) everyone who will listen that any activity taking place under the rubric “medically ethics”, or “health science ethics” more generally, is a branch of law, not of moral philosophy. (I was a med school professor, with a dose of philosopher on the side.) The word “compliance” dominates; the words “welfare”, “utility”, “moral”, “good”, etc. are almost or completely absent.
I agree with you substantively, and also want to say kudos to you (and of course to him) for saying so publicly. [not sure if my full name shows up here, but it's Julian Jamison and I'm happy to also go on the record for whatever tiny marginal impact that might have]
Thank you very much for the label "argument from cooties," which perfectly describes a very common rhetorical tactic in so much public discourse!
Here's my thoughts:
Should Charlie Brown be faulted for not helping Lucy by kicking the football, knowing that Lucy has a habit of pulling the ball and injuring him (both morally and physically) at the last second?
After all, he *might* be able to help the team - even with a relatively weak kick!
I disagree with the points made here.
Re 1: While I agree that analytic philosophers as a baseline are enormously skilled at clear thinking and always a bonus to have in the room, we have to admit that we too are capable of epistemic trespassing. It's not just people in other disciplines and always okay when a philosopher does it.
So, if it can happen and be bad when it does, how do we recognize it and how to do we police it? Well, it's tough to recognize, especially when it's not precisely clear what the nature of the contribution was (as in this case). But it might look a lot like a philosopher of mind contributing to a public policy document focused on medical treatment and medical ethics. And what should be done about it? I mean, this is it. You don't want to call in random administrators and investigations; you want to preserve academic freedom at all costs. What you do is collectively call it out as peers. What's the point? It sends a signal to people outside the discipline that this person might be engaging in epistemic trespassing; it acts to shame the trespasser; and it reasserts the norms against epistemic trespassing. Is this a chilling effect for junior scholars? Uh, in 2025, when the US administration is actively pushing for 'diversity' hires purely along the dimension of intellectual diversity? And if it is chilling - well, yes we want to chill epistemic trespassing. This is not 'cancel culture'. In fact, the problem is calling it cancel culture, because inflating it so far deliberately makes it incapable for us to productively collectively police ourselves without it raising to administrative or occupational consequences.
Re 2: It is important that the contribution in this case is not as high stakes as PEPFAR. That it is lower stakes makes it easier for the reasons not to collaborate to win out. Even easier when the contribution itself is negative - and the letter does charge that harm is being done by the contribution (as well, I think, the negative effects of epistemic trespassing). I think Richard is right here about the inefficacy generally of an academic boycott of this government, and I share the fear about making things worse. But it's also true that our collaboration legitimizes this government. We might have obligations of solidarity to do our part in not facilitating such a government, difference or not. I think it does the letter writers dirty to say they're basically afraid of cooties. There's at least good reasons for significant actors within society to not participate in, boycott, actively obstruct this government, and there's good reasons to think that academics have their part in this, even if we're less significant.
re: 1: The assumption that a philosopher on an interdisciplinary team must be "epistemic trespassing" if they don't have topic-specific expertise rests on a failure to understand the subject-neutral nature of philosophical expertise and what value a philosopher could be expected to contribute to such a team.
(One *could* "trespass" if they started claiming empirical expertise that they lack, but no evidence has been offered that Byrne has done anything of the sort. And it is awfully obnoxious to collectively "call out" or shame a colleague without sufficient evidence.)
> "Is this a chilling effect for junior scholars? Uh, in 2025, when the US administration is actively pushing for 'diversity' hires purely along the dimension of intellectual diversity?"
Yes, obviously junior scholars care more about (and are more dependent upon) the opinion of their academic peers than the opinion of the US government.
re: 2:
> "We might have obligations of solidarity to do our part in not facilitating such a government, difference or not."
I don't believe in harmful obligations. If the boycott does no good, and moreover does some harm by preventing one from contributing even slightly positively to improving public policy, then it's simply bad. To establish that it is reasonable, one has to have reason to think that the boycott will actually achieve sufficient good to outweigh this harm. Otherwise, they're prioritizing symbolism over real people, and I think that's morally bad. ("Solidarity" is just the name people give to "avoiding cooties" when they want to endorse rather than condemn it.)
Very late responding, but I still disagree.
Re 1: The original post made it sound like (or at least didn't acknowledge) that philosophers absolutely can epistemically trespass. And my point is that they can, that it would need calling out, and this is roughly how you'd want to do it. It's fair to say, "Sure, but where's the evidence of epistemic trespassing here?" But I think this moves the goal posts a bit. It's an appropriate place to move to, but also it's worth asking who has the burden of proof and where the presumption should be. Unfortunately, in this debate in particular, it's a bit rife with people appearing to epistemically trespass. When philosophers of art get famous from non-peer reviewed online articles, it's going to feel like some people are getting away with epistemic trespassing. When it's philosophers of art or philosophers of mind not just taking a stand publicly on these issues, but working on public policy documents, isn't the burden of proof on them to demonstrate sufficient expertise, or else that their contribution didn't require it? I'm hazy on the details because it's been a bit, but I feel like the opportunity was there to clarify and justify the nature of his contribution, and it didn't feel taken.
Re chillingness: I think the response conflates issues of public (or profession-wide) opinion and actual outcomes. It's good to reaffirm a norm of the discipline against epistemic trespassing, and it's not bad that junior scholars care about the opinions of their peers. But that they can and should care more about the opinions of others in the profession than the US government doesn't mean that their employment prospects are necessarily more threatened by the former than the latter. Perhaps it's not fair or whataboutism to point to something separate and dangerous for the field; it just felt a bit rich to get worked up over this kind of thing as having a chilling effect in view of the much more chilly surroundings.
Re 2: I'm not entirely sure how I feel about potentially harmful obligations. I think I'm pretty committed to their being an answer to the inefficacy problem that leads you to a good reason to do your part, even if I don't know the best way to go in that debate, and I'm not sure why it wouldn't apply here. Moreover, this all misses the point about legitimacy, which just can't be measured in terms of harms caused or differences made. It's bad to legitimacy a government doing these kinds of things. I'm not sure how to measure that or the normative significance of legitimacy, but given the whole traditions that focus on this, it feels unfair to waive it off as the post does.