The Philosophers' Cocoon

Teaching Mill's Colonialism (and Other Great Mistakes of Great Philosophers)

By Sam Duncan

I made a mistake in my ethics class this semester: I canceled John Stuart Mill. To be quite honest it wasn’t entirely Mill’s history as an administrator for the East India Company or the fact that he was the author of an unsuccessful defense of the company and its (mis)deeds in the wake of the Indian rebellion that made me drop him from the syllabus. Mill’s Utilitarianism was on the bubble. Mill has an ability to turn a phrase yes, but students are often confused by the meandering presentation of Utilitarianism where he spends much more time arguing with an imagined opponent than presenting the theory itself, and it is hard to overstate how much the higher/lower pleasures stuff muddies the water while also solving no problems whatsoever. But Mill's history as a colonialist and defender of colonialism pushed Utilitarianism over the line for me. The fact that J.S. Mill spent most of his working life involved in a project of injustice and oppression and devoted some of his considerable intellectual and literary gifts to defending that project seemed to settle what would otherwise be a close call. In retrospect, I realize that Mill’s colonialism is actually a powerful reason to keep him on the syllabus. He made huge mistakes, and if someone wants to tear down statues of him I won’t argue against that. But like many mistakes made by great philosophers, and Mill is certainly that, there is much to learn from his mistakes. By dropping him from our syllabi we would deprive students of the opportunity to do just this.

Writing for a political website & the market?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Anonymous US grad writes:

I'm a PhD student who does some freelance writing to supplement my income. I've been offered an opportunity to produce educational philosophy content for a conservative website. I don't personally identify as politically conservative, but I think all audiences have a lot to learn from philosophy, so I'm considering taking the gig. However, I'm wondering if writing for a conservative publication would be a bad career move. I'm going on the market soon. Advice on whether this would look like a negative to hiring committees?

This is an interesting question. My understanding is that there have been some studies indicating that a good proportion of academics report being willing to discriminate in hiring on the basis of perceptions of a candidate's politics. See, for example, this study, which features the following graph:

Percentage of participants ''somewhat'' to ''very'' willing to discriminate in hiring, by academic area. 

It seems to me like the safe thing to do, then--at least as far as the job market is concerned--would be to stay away from contributing to websites that might give search committees an (erroneous?) picture of one's political orientation. Of course, it is a further question whether one should play it safe, and so a lot might depend here on the OP's tolerance for risk, what the website is, and what the OP would write for it. Then there is the question of whether the OP would really want to work with people who would discriminate against them on political bases. Obviously, I can't answer these questions, as I am not the OP. But they seem to me at least some of the relevant issues here.

What do you all think? It might be great to hear from people here who have expressed political views openly or written for conservative venues. Do you think it impacted your ability to get an academic job? It would also be good, I think, to hear from search committee members.