MATEJ SUŠNIK
I.
There are good reasons to believe that professional philosophers do not bring much benefit to the general public. In an article published in the Croatian philosophical journal Prolegomena, I described the three roles that philosophers can take in the public sphere. I argued that we should be skeptical regarding the benefits each of these roles brings to a wider audience. Here is a brief summary of the article’s main points.
A professional philosopher outside the academy walls can act as a popularizer (the goal here is to make philosophy more accessible to the general public), an applied ethicist (the major task is to offer an analysis of various specific moral issues that arise within a society) and a public intellectual (I limit this role to questions that have political connotation). Of course, there are overlaps between these roles and they certainly do not exhaust all possible forms of public engagement of a professional philosopher.
Despite the potential difficulties this classification faces, I believe that distinguishing between these three roles enables us to single out better the reasons that cast doubt on the benefits of academic philosophy in the public space. When philosophers step outside the ivory tower and address a non-academic audience, it is because they believe they have something to offer to that audience. But if we take into account the nature of philosophy as an academic discipline and the way it is practiced today, it is not obvious that the interventions of this kind make the public much better off.
II.
The philosopher as a popularizer seeks to bring philosophical ideas and insights to a wider audience by using simple language. However, many influential philosophers are critical of what is produced within their discipline. Just to name a few, Peter Unger believes that much of mainstream analytic philosophy contains empty ideas; David McNaughton thinks that the pressure of publication produces technical but extremely tedious work that lacks depth; Michael Huemer states that a vast number of philosophical articles are rarely read and that specialization creates researchers with very narrow interests who know nothing beyond their field; and Daniel Dennett points out that there are a whole host of irrelevant philosophical problems that are nothing more than a waste of time and energy. If some of the most influential philosophers have this attitude towards their discipline, why bother to introduce it to a wider audience? How could anyone benefit from the discipline that is described as empty, tedious and sometimes even irrelevant by very those who practice it? Moreover, just using simple language cannot make all these features disappear.
Some people try to justify popular philosophy because academic philosophy is funded by public money and that there is therefore an obligation to make its research beneficial to those who have no contact with it. But there is no such obligation. Academic philosophers at most have a duty to inform the public about what they do, but they do not have a duty to make sure their work benefits the public.
Even though some have made careers out of popularizing philosophical ideas, it is reasonable to assume that popular philosophy mostly benefits those who are already engaged in philosophy or are just getting involved with it. Namely, considering the growing and vast literature in almost every philosophical field, popular philosophy is probably the easiest way for a variety of university professors, lecturers, and students to gain an overview of the basic arguments and positions in the discussion. If this is true, philosophical ideas still largely remain within the confines of the academic community.
III.
Does the situation get any better if the academic philosopher takes the role of an applied ethicist in the public? Hardly. Applied ethicists approach specific moral issues by relying on moral theory or, more specifically, moral principles. But the problem is that there are different moral principles and some of them are mutually incompatible. Since there is no agreement on what our guiding principles should be or how to proceed when they conflict, it is not clear where the benefits of public interventions by applied ethicists could lie. Furthermore, some moral philosophers even believe that moral principles do not play any role in moral deliberation at all. They think that each moral situation needs to be analyzed separately, and not approached, so to speak, with ready-made solutions. Jonathan Dancy, one of the most famous proponents of this view, openly admits: “It would be very difficult for someone like me to be put on a public committee, dealing with ethical matters, because everyone would say that this is just the sort of person that we don’t want”.
Another reason why we should be skeptical of the usefulness of applied ethicists for the general public is that our moral beliefs are largely based on emotions, not rational argument. Research by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt suggests that people form their moral beliefs first and then look for reasons to support them. In light of that, if applied ethicists in the public sphere want to influence someone’s moral beliefs, they will do so most easily by affecting the emotions of their listeners and readers, rather than by relying on rational arguments. Since moral argument is a rational activity, it will most often leave people unaffected. As for the examples where applied ethicists have successfully influenced a general public through their work, there is good reason to believe that they have not succeeded in doing so by means of rational argument. But that means that the influence they have exerted can no longer be considered to be the result of their activities as applied ethicists.
IV.
And what about the philosopher in the role of a public intellectual? One of the main features of public intellectuals is that they often address problems that go beyond their fields of expertise. Since practicing philosophy, the assumption goes, creates competencies that are applicable in other spheres of life, it might seem that the role of a public intellectual is cut out for philosophers. But there are at least three problems here.
First, why accept the assumption that studying or practicing philosophy encourages the development of skills that could be useful in many different areas of public interest? Some have rightly pointed out that we cannot accept this assumption without good evidence. For example, Jason Brennan and Phillip Magness believe that people who pursue a career in philosophy may do so because they already have those skills. Second, the growth of knowledge leads to specialization. This allows an academic philosopher to become an expert in a very narrow field of research, without knowing much about other things within one’s profession, let alone outside of it. A philosopher who has made a significant contribution to metaphysics or epistemology does not necessarily become an expert on the Middle East conflict, and even those philosophers who could comment more confidently on public policy or international affairs are unlikely to be as useful to the public as some experts in other fields of research. Why would it be expected that a philosopher’s opinion could be authoritative in very different areas of human endeavour? As a result, there are fewer and fewer traditional public intellectuals—that is, those who are broadly educated and able to competently speak on several vastly different topics. Third, problems in the public sphere often require practical solutions, not abstract ideas that are sometimes completely out of touch with reality. Someone who wants to contribute to the public debate on an issue often needs to have relevant empirical information at their disposal, rather than relying solely on theoretical insights. Moreover, even when they touch on topics that fall within the public domain, academic philosophers often do so in a way that sounds overly complex and inaccessible to non-philosophers.
V.
When professional philosophers enter the public sphere, their pronouncements are not protected by the academic authority earned in their field. If they want to be more visible and attract the attention of a non-philosophical audience to their excursions outside philosophy, they first have to put their own discipline under more serious scrutiny and in particular reconsider the limits of its reach.
