school suggestions

[philstudent1991]

I know this is a ways off but I wanted to post while a lot of people are still on here.

 

It appears like I've probably struck out in my PhD apps, but I am in at GSU and am very excited about the opportunities I'll have there. I think my biggest weakness was pedigree and unknown letter writers, and GSU will hopefully solve that problem and make me damn competitive in a few years (GPA and GRE are excellent, and hopefully I'll have a strong MA GPA).

 

So, I was hoping I could get some recommendations on schools to have my eye on in a couple years when I apply to PhDs again. My primary interests are metaethics (particularly moral skepticism), ethics in general and philosophy of biology, with a lesser interest in continental (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Camus, Marx). My tentative list as of now is Duke, Texas, UCSD, Vanderbilt, maybe Berkeley, maybe Stanford, maybe Wisconsin, maybe Arizona. I know there is a wealth of knowledge in this thread and I hope you guys and gals can give me some good recommendations!

 

Thanks!

[PhiPhiPhi]

You might check out Calgary for biology. See this Leiter Reports post: http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2013/02/waters-from-minnesota-to-calgary.html .

Edited March 14, 2014 by PhiPhiPhi

[TheVineyard]

I know this is a ways off but I wanted to post while a lot of people are still on here.

 

It appears like I've probably struck out in my PhD apps, but I am in at GSU and am very excited about the opportunities I'll have there. I think my biggest weakness was pedigree and unknown letter writers, and GSU will hopefully solve that problem and make me damn competitive in a few years (GPA and GRE are excellent, and hopefully I'll have a strong MA GPA).

 

So, I was hoping I could get some recommendations on schools to have my eye on in a couple years when I apply to PhDs again. My primary interests are metaethics (particularly moral skepticism), ethics in general and philosophy of biology, with a lesser interest in continental (Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Camus, Marx). My tentative list as of now is Duke, Texas, UCSD, Vanderbilt, maybe Berkeley, maybe Stanford, maybe Wisconsin, maybe Arizona. I know there is a wealth of knowledge in this thread and I hope you guys and gals can give me some good recommendations!

 

Thanks!

 

Have you taken phil bio courses yet? I'm surprised to see it considering your interests. The philosophy of biology is interested mostly in the actions of scientists. Explaining/rationally reconstructing models, identifying and explaining idealizations, working directly in biological science texts...its basically theoretical biology... None of the philosophers you listed are read in phil bio, and phil biologists are not really interested in ethics...its typically a "we will talk about ethics for one day" kind of thing in phil bio courses. Applied ethics or bioethics might be more what you are thinking?

I'm sure I'll be downvoted for this post because some will see it as negative, but I'm a primarily phil bio applicant (and as far as I know, I'm the only one with phil bio as a central focus on these boards) and I just wanted to better explain phil bio because the info posted didn't seem like the sort of thing that phil bio applicants are interested in.

I will second the Calgary recommendation for those interested in the phil bio that I described. I didn't apply there, but only because I want to stay in the USA. Also, keep track of Cincinnati...they are incredibly strong at phil bio. They have made several senior hires in the last year, and plan to make more. It will be clear just how good they are on the next Leiter report. Duke and Wisconsin are obviously top phil bio programs, not much more needs to be said there.

Edited March 14, 2014 by TheVineyard

[nietzschemarket]

It seems that philstudent1991 is interested in ethics, philosophy of biology, and some 'continental' philosophers independently, not necessarily in the Bioethics of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Camus, and Marx. (Although I'd be quite impressed if someone could pass a dissertation with that title)

[bar_scene_gambler]

It seems that philstudent1991 is interested in ethics, philosophy of biology, and some 'continental' philosophers independently, not necessarily in the Bioethics of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Camus, and Marx. (Although I'd be quite impressed if someone could pass a dissertation with that title)

I would eat one of my shoes if someone could write a believable dissertation on Nietzsche and Bioethics.

[philstudent1991]

Yes, nietzschemarket is right that my interests are each independent of one another, though I see why TheVineyard identified phil bio as an outlier. The synthesis between my interests, if there is one, is how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics. But I think it would fall short of the truth to just label that as bioethics, because a scientific analysis of evolution, which is central to my interests, seems very clearly to fall into philosophy of biology, if not purely biology.

[TheVineyard]

Yes, nietzschemarket is right that my interests are each independent of one another, though I see why TheVineyard identified phil bio as an outlier. The synthesis between my interests, if there is one, is how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics. But I think it would fall short of the truth to just label that as bioethics, because a scientific analysis of evolution, which is central to my interests, seems very clearly to fall into philosophy of biology, if not purely biology.

 

This is still an eyebrow raiser to me. I don't think that finding out "how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics" is separate from bioethics. Sounds like a classic case...maybe you mean something like naturalistic philosophy. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "a scientific analysis of evolution." Evolution is a scientific theory, I'm not sure how you scientifically analyze a scientific theory...if what you mean is continue the evolutionary research project by conducting empirical science, that would just be biology. Maybe you meant philosophical analysis of evolution?

 

[lesage13]

This is still an eyebrow raiser to me. I don't think that finding out "how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics" is separate from bioethics. Sounds like a classic case...maybe you mean something like naturalistic philosophy. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "a scientific analysis of evolution." Evolution is a scientific theory, I'm not sure how you scientifically analyze a scientific theory...if what you mean is continue the evolutionary research project by conducting empirical science, that would just be biology. Maybe you meant philosophical analysis of evolution?

Don't listen to [TheVineyard]. He has no idea what bioethics is. Edited March 14, 2014 by lesage13

[philstudent1991]

Ok this is getting off topic lol. Recommendations in metaethics, continental, phil bio, thanks so much

[TheVineyard]

Don't listen to [TheVineyard]. He has no idea what bioethics is.

How well-reasoned. Did that make you feel better about yourself? It is amazing that they call me the negative one.

Bioethics covers a range of topics...one such is how the science of biology (and evolution) relates to or impacts practical ethics and metaethics, as I said.

 

Edited March 14, 2014 by TheVineyard

[dgswaim]

UC Riverside comes to mind, although I don't think they have anything going on phil of biology-wise. Wisconsin might be a good fit. Lots of people working in ethical theory (including metaethics), Elliott Sober doing phil biology, and a couple people doing german idealism, Spinoza and that sort of thing. Wisconsin is a pretty big department with diverse interests. A little something for everyone there.

[ZiggyPhil]

I'd wait until after your first year at GSU to worry about it. Since you have divergent interests (so do I, nothing wrong with that), you may find that one becomes primary, and then choosing schools will be easier.

[lesage13]

How well-reasoned. It is amazing that they call me the negative one.

Bioethics covers a range of topics...one such is how the science of biology (and evolution) relates to or impacts practical ethics and metaethics.

I don't want to derail this thread further, but I also don't want anyone reading that and getting the wrong idea about an important subfield of philosophy.

Bioethics is a form of applied ethics. It is concerned primarily with the ethical issues surrounding biomedical practice and research. Related issues include the impact and application of biomedical technologies, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge with respect to questions surrounding informed consent. If evolution enters the story at all, it will be in one of two ways: (1) Concerns about genetic research protocols; or (2) The application of genetic technologies, including genetic testing (e.g., privacy concerns, discrimination concerns, etc.). Bioethics is not concerned with the import of evolutionary theory per se for ethics or metaethics. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-bioethics/#BioMov, and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theory-bioethics/.

This is the last comment I will make on the issue in this thread. Again, I apologise to the OP. Hopefully, others will have more helpful and relevant contributions.

Edited March 14, 2014 by lesage13

[TheVineyard]

I don't want to derail this thread further, but I also don't want anyone reading that and getting the wrong idea about an important subfield of philosophy.

Bioethics is a form of applied ethics. It is concerned primarily with the ethical issues surrounding biomedical practice and research. Related issues include the impact and application of biomedical technologies, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge with respect to questions surrounding informed consent. If evolution enters the story at all, it will be in one of two ways: (1) Concerns about genetic research protocols; or (2) The application of genetic technologies, including genetic testing (e.g., privacy concerns, discrimination concerns, etc.). Bioethics is not concerned with the import of evolutionary theory per se for ethics or metaethics. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-bioethics/#BioMov, and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theory-bioethics/.

This is the last comment I will make on the issue in this thread. Again, I apologise to the OP. Hopefully, others will have more helpful and relevant contributions.

 

Although you probably think your view is the only view, there is quite a bit of debate regarding what the scope of bioethics is. Some (like yourself) think that bioethics is essentially the ethics of modern human medicine. Many others (including the bioethicist I've studied under) see bioethics as extending to practical animal ethics (and therefore animal consciousness) which, of course, is in the wheelhouse of evolutionary studies. Also, there is metaethical bioethics, which seeks to understand the nature of ethics from a biological perspective. Bioethics even extends to something like social ethics (as your links point out!) and some make the case that human social interactions are best understood as evolutionary dispositions...so a deep understanding of evolved human interaction can be seen as necessary to doing good social bioethics.

Again, it seems as though you've been taught that bioethics is only a very narrow field. There is significant discussion that you must not have been exposed to regarding the scope of bioethics, and it isn't your fault that you weren't exposed, but please do understand that it exists. Don't just tell people that they have "no idea what they are talking about" when they don't agree with you about the scope of a problem/field. In the future, you might want to avoid the ambiguity and just call your view of the discipline "practical medical ethics" or "biomedical ethics," in which case I agree evolutionary theory won't enter the story too much, but I would still argue that it must be deeply understood.

Edited March 14, 2014 by TheVineyard

[dgswaim]

I don't want to derail this thread further, but I also don't want anyone reading that and getting the wrong idea about an important subfield of philosophy.

Bioethics is a form of applied ethics. It is concerned primarily with the ethical issues surrounding biomedical practice and research. Related issues include the impact and application of biomedical technologies, and the dissemination of scientific knowledge with respect to questions surrounding informed consent. If evolution enters the story at all, it will be in one of two ways: (1) Concerns about genetic research protocols; or (2) The application of genetic technologies, including genetic testing (e.g., privacy concerns, discrimination concerns, etc.). Bioethics is not concerned with the import of evolutionary theory per se for ethics or metaethics. See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-bioethics/#BioMov, and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theory-bioethics/.

This is the last comment I will make on the issue in this thread. Again, I apologise to the OP. Hopefully, others will have more helpful and relevant contributions.

Did you just downvote yourself?

[lesage13]

Did you just downvote yourself?

Did you just downvote yourself?

Yeah. I'm on my phone and have fat fingers (wasn't trying to upvote myself either), lol.

[TheVineyard]

Did you just downvote yourself?

 

 

Yeah. I'm on my phone and have fat fingers (wasn't trying to upvote myself either), lol.

 

He/she was just trying to throw a quick downvote to me, it seems.

Edited March 14, 2014 by TheVineyard

[armedneutrality]

I would eat one of my shoes if someone could write a believable dissertation on Nietzsche and Bioethics.

 

Considering Nietzsche's emphasis on a return to the body and to the earth, as in the intro to the gay science, it may not be such a stretch. 

 

As for programs, I think that Boston university would be an excellent fit for philstudent1991. The program seems to be a good balance of philosophy of science and continental.

[TheVineyard]

Lesage is right. Bioethics is not at all related to fields like metaethics or normative ethics. Vineyard, your statement, "I don't think that finding out 'how the study of evolution can impact philosophy and especially ethics' is separate from bioethics" is simply wrong. Do a quick search on Bioethics and you will find that Lesage's definition is the currently accepted one. You seem to be a bit confused about what philosophy of biology is, as well.

 

Moreover, if you are a philbio applicant, you should know that the relation between ethics and biology will not be talked about "one day," but that it is currently a very interesting, rich, and growing field. If you think I'm wrong, and that "phil biologists are not really interested in ethics," please see Ruse, Wilson (both J.Q. and E.O.), Joyce, Foot, Street, Wong, Flanagan, James, Arnhart, Casebeer, Richards, Prinz, De Waal, Boniolo, Sarkissian, Mackie, Alexander, Kitcher, Ayala, Williams, Rosenberg, Rottschaefer, Martinsen, Collier, Stingl, Buller, Fitzpatrick, Fodor, Gibbard, Greene, Haidt, Nichols, Wright, Katz, Rachels, and Axelrod, among many, many others. Also see http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-biology

Well, I've already explained my point about the definition of terms. If you are equating bioethics with modern ethics of human biomedicine then we have no disagreement. I just see bioethics as extending further, and many others do as well. If I'm extending bioethics farther than you want to, that's fine, it's really just an issue of definition and I'm happy to concede the point.

Now, as far as the ethics thing, it was an exaggeration to say that they aren't really interested. Of course some are, many are. That was stupid of me to say. But looking through your list of names, a few of them interest me...Rosenberg for example has stated explicitly that he thinks that evolutionary biology implies ethical error theory or "nice nihilism" etc (its hard to tell exactly what position Rosenberg is taking sometimes). I guess you can call that being interested in ethics...he has an ethical viewpoint, but he doesn't spend the kind of time working on ethics like some of the others you named. I would point to him as a phil biologist who really isn't interested in ethics...there are probably 10 other philosophical/scientific subfields that he does more work on (and publishes much more in...how many publications on ethics has Rosenberg made outside of a couple chapters of his book?)

Edited March 14, 2014 by TheVineyard

[dgswaim]

Well, I've already explained my point about the definition of terms. If you are equating bioethics with modern ethics of human biomedicine then we have no disagreement. I just see bioethics as extending further, and many others do as well. If I'm extending bioethics farther than you want to, that's fine, it's really just an issue of definition and I'm happy to concede the point.

Now, as far as the ethics thing, it was an exaggeration to say that they aren't really interested. Of course some are, many are. That was stupid of me to say. But looking through your list of names, a few of them interest me...Rosenberg for example, has stated explicitly that he thinks that evolutionary biology implies ethical error theory or "nice nihilism" etc. I guess you can call that being interested in ethics...he has an ethical viewpoint, but he doesn't spend the kind of time working on ethics like some of the others you named. I would point to him as a phil biologist who really isn't interested in ethics...there are probably 10 other philosophical/scientific subfields that he does more work on (and publishes much more in).

I was reading an interview with Rosenberg where he said something to the effect that he made a category mistake early in college career by studying philosophy. He thinks he maybe should have been a theoretical physicist.

[TheVineyard]

I was reading an interview with Rosenberg where he said something to the effect that he made a category mistake early in college career by studying philosophy. He thinks he maybe should have been a theoretical physicist.

 

I sympathize with that, and a couple of my advisors are the same way...started in philosophy but find themselves doing more science. Sometimes I feel like I want to do science more than I want to do philosophy...I have so little interest in so much of philosophy (no interest in ethics/morality, continental, early modern, ancient, medieval, or language) but I have intense focus on history of science, and the philosophy of all sciences, as well as metaphilosophy (how should we practice?) So much of it just boils down to wanting to study science and use it to answer the questions of philosophy. Sometimes I feel out of place in a room of more traditional philosophers.

 

 

 

See Rosenberg (1989), "The Biological Basis of Ethics: A Best Case Scenario." It's actually a really interesting article, one of my favorites in "Issues in Evolutionary Ethics" by Paul Thompson. 

 

Thanks, I'll check this out!

 

Edited March 14, 2014 by TheVineyard

[PerpetualApplicant No More]

I want to synthesize a few pieces of disparate advice here.

 

One poster said you should wait until after your first year at GSU to think seriously about this, as your interests will solidify and one might become more important than another. I largely agree with this statement, though I think there's another way in which your interests might solidify.

 

Specifically, I think you'll have a great chance at GSU to find out what particular aspects/viewpoints of various fields are the ones you want to focus on, and that will help you make your list. For instance, as is evident from this thread, different scholars at different schools conceive of the domain of general topics like 'philosophy of biology' and 'bioethics' quite differently. Thus, just looking for people who study phil bio per se might not get you a great match. I study naturalistic mind, but I know at this point I'm much more into empirical-naturalist theories rather than Sellarsian normative/putatively naturalist theories. So, as great a school as Pitt is, my app would get thrown out because I'm such a poor fit for the sort of mind done there by McDowell, Brandom and Haugeland (Edouard Machery would be a good fit for me, but he's in HPS and is the only one). This thread makes the point really well (unintentionally) about how varied phil bio and bioethics are, but I'd bet the same is true for your other interests as well.

 

That said, your interests do kind of scream "BU" to me.

Edited March 14, 2014 by perpetualapplicant

[bar_scene_gambler]

Considering Nietzsche's emphasis on a return to the body and to the earth, as in the intro to the gay science, it may not be such a stretch. 

 

As for programs, I think that Boston university would be an excellent fit for philstudent1991. The program seems to be a good balance of philosophy of science and continental.

Not to get too into this, but I think it's totally a stretch. A return to the body and the meaning of the earth (if we're referring to Thus Spoke Zarathustra) doesn't really have any ethical emphasis (or if it does, it's not normative or applied ethics). If anything in Nietzsche's work has to do with ethics, it's metaethics at most, and the things you're referring to have more of an existential value to them than (meta)ethical. My exclamation at the seeming impossibility of a Nietzsche and Bioethics project also has something to do with Nietzsche's approach to doing philosophy being incompatible with the kinds of approaches I've seen in works by ethicists, so I think there are a lot more problems for a Nietzsche and Bioethics paper than just content issues. But hey, if someone pulls it off and it's actually a convincing reading of Nietzsche's work, I'll legitimately eat a shoe and film myself doing it for the benefit of this forum.

Edited March 14, 2014 by bar_scene_gambler

[dgswaim]

Not to get too into this, but I think it's totally a stretch. A return to the body and the meaning of the earth (if we're referring to Thus Spoke Zarathustra) doesn't really have any ethical emphasis (or if it does, it's not normative or applied ethics). If anything in Nietzsche's work has to do with ethics, it's metaethics at most, and the things you're referring to have more of an existential value to them than (meta)ethical. My exclamation at the seeming impossibility of a Nietzsche and Bioethics project also has something to do with Nietzsche's approach to doing philosophy being incompatible with the kinds of approaches I've seen in works by ethicists, so I think there are a lot more problems for a Nietzsche and Bioethics paper than just content issues. But hey, if someone pulls it off and it's actually a convincing reading of Nietzsche's work, I'll legitimately eat a shoe and film myself doing it for the benefit of this forum.

I've only read Nietzsche informally, but insofar as he does metaethics, wouldn't it only be so in the sense that he purports to undercut the ontological/metaphysical foundations of ethical positions? I ask in earnest. I'm not that familiar with him.

[armedneutrality]

Not to get too into this, but I think it's totally a stretch. A return to the body and the meaning of the earth (if we're referring to Thus Spoke Zarathustra) doesn't really have any ethical emphasis (or if it does, it's not normative or applied ethics). If anything in Nietzsche's work has to do with ethics, it's metaethics at most, and the things you're referring to have more of an existential value to them than (meta)ethical. My exclamation at the seeming impossibility of a Nietzsche and Bioethics project also has something to do with Nietzsche's approach to doing philosophy being incompatible with the kinds of approaches I've seen in works by ethicists, so I think there are a lot more problems for a Nietzsche and Bioethics paper than just content issues. But hey, if someone pulls it off and it's actually a convincing reading of Nietzsche's work, I'll legitimately eat a shoe and film myself doing it for the benefit of this forum.

 

Clearly Nietzsche's views on the body are not to be read as a contemporary ethical argument, and due do his philosophical preoccupation, the two are deeply incompatible. Of course I'm aware of that. My post was not to suggest conflating the two.Though looking back, I can definitely see why you'd think I'd be suggesting the opposite. I think it would be an interesting paper to bring Nietzsche's existential understanding of the body from Zarathustra and the Gay Science into a sort of dialogue with a contemporary bioethical view, which might be feasible, as a reconstruction of any contemporary ethical view, in this paper, would have to anticipate and try to reconcile Nietzsche's gripe with morality, objective thinking, etc. I don't know how it would resolve itself, and I don't believe that'd be such a paper's aim, but 'it may not be a stretch' was to suggest that one could write about the two opposing arguments. 

Edited March 15, 2014 by armedneutrality