Advice on accepting offers: are we doing it wrong?

[Duns Eith]

This may seem like a troll-ish thread, but if the market is so bad, why aren't we advising people turn down their offers so that we ourselves might have better chances at the program?

 

Categorical imperative? utilitarian concerns? ethical egoism? ...

 

Or is this a non-ethical issue at all?

Edited April 1, 2015 by Turretin

[Duns Eith]

Point of clarification, if necessary: I am genuinely happy for people here who got accepted to funded PhD programs, and not just the ones I didn't apply to.

[jjb919]

I'm a little confused regarding the purpose of such advice. If you are willing to admit the market is so bad that those who are accepted should turn down the offer (presumably opening a spot for you), why would you then take the offer?

[Duns Eith]

Thanks for exposing the ambiguity. I meant that the entrance into PhD is so competitive since there are so few positions into PhD programs. Market being bad in that sense. (the context of "offers" was supposed be a controlling theme/context)

Edited April 1, 2015 by Turretin

[jjb919]

ooooh, I get it now.

 

Maybe I'm being optimistic or unnecessarily idealistic, but it seems like a lot of people here are genuinely happy for others who get in, and in some sense offer advice vicariously. There is a lot of genuine empathy and willingness to help from what I can see here. Maybe it's a chance to look at the situation of acceptances coolly without all the emotions involved in being accepted yourself, perhaps with the hope that others would do the same for you should your position change. Or maybe there's a fear that such attempts would be really transparent and bring with them a lot of scorn from others. There's also the uncertainty of your position on a waitlist, so even if you are successful in advising someone to turn down the offer of a school you want to get into, there is no guarantee that it will correlate with an offer to you.

[Page228]

There's also a very low probability that it would help us in any way at this point (decisions are made, we may not have applied to the same schools/AOI and there's no telling how many people don't read this site who we'll never reach with our "advice," etc.) and a much higher probability that we'll be told off and/or ignored. If we've accidentally posted too much info and someone connects us to our real identities AND our motivations are found out, that certainly wouldn't do our careers any favors. Plus, we'd have to live not only with being assholes, but with being assholes who probably didn't even accomplish anything with our asshole behavior.

For a better chance of successful subterfuge, we'd have to start during the application process. Try to reduce the number of applications to our chosen schools and/or spread rumors to get people to mess up their applications. ("I heard that the UChicago way involves not citing your sources. With technology now, they just know. Amazing, right?") ...But then someone would just correct you, and again you'd be an asshole for no gain.

The game might be rigged, but not by us. We might as well help and support each other.

Edited April 1, 2015 by Page228

[Duns Eith]

 

ooooh, I get it now.

 

Maybe I'm being optimistic or unnecessarily idealistic, but it seems like a lot of people here are genuinely happy for others who get in, and in some sense offer advice vicariously. There is a lot of genuine empathy and willingness to help from what I can see here. Maybe it's a chance to look at the situation of acceptances coolly without all the emotions involved in being accepted yourself, perhaps with the hope that others would do the same for you should your position change. Or maybe there's a fear that such attempts would be really transparent and bring with them a lot of scorn from others. There's also the uncertainty of your position on a waitlist, so even if you are successful in advising someone to turn down the offer of a school you want to get into, there is no guarantee that it will correlate with an offer to you.

 

 

Certainly people are genuinely happy people get in (as I stated, I myself am). I also get the lack of guarantee for the improvement of chances. But while we may not have sufficient epistemic grounds for assurance it will secure us a position, do we not have sufficient grounds for us to think we are in a better position? Perhaps the improvement of situation is negligible.

 

More or less, I am not asking a descriptive question, but rather asking what norms are involved. For if getting into PhDs is in fact competitive, then why are we cooperative? I am not saying that we should be competitive, but if there are a limited number of spots available and we want there to be as much shifting on the lists as we can for our own sake, then it would seem we are at least permitted (if not obligated) to give advice that secures us a better position instead of others. (of course, this helps an unknown number of other candidates as well)

 

Of course, if I were to will that as a universal maxim, it would just imply that I would not seek advice (since I would reasonably expect people to give me advice that is in their own interest, not mine).

 

If I were to cite maximal happiness, I don't know how to calculate it. I mean, someone is going into that spot, right? It seems like it is just shifting around the winners and losers in a zero-sum game (no general happiness or suffering maximized or reduced ... Moreover, if you convinced someone to turn down a position, then you aren't coercing anyone, they may even be happy they made an alternate choice quite acceptable to them. If so, then might we have maximized happiness?)

 

There's also a very low probability that it would help us in any way at this point (decisions are made, we may not have applied to the same schools/AOI and there's no telling how many people don't read this site who we'll never reach with our "advice," etc.) and a much higher probability that we'll be told off and/or ignored. If we've accidentally posted too much info and someone connects us to our real identities AND our motivations are found out, that certainly wouldn't do our careers any favors. Plus, we'd have to live not only with being assholes, but with being assholes who probably didn't even accomplish anything with our asshole behavior.

For a better chance of successful subterfuge, we'd have to start during the application process. Try to reduce the number of applications to our chosen schools and/or spread rumors to get people to mess up their applications. ("I heard that the UChicago way involves not citing your sources. With technology now, they just know. Amazing, right?") ...But then someone would just correct you, and again you'd be an asshole for no gain.

The game might be rigged, but not by us. We might as well help and support each other.

 

Lol. Nice.

 

So, you've cited perceptions (basically honor), being an a-hole, making lies/slanderous claims.

 

I have a hard time weighing perceptions in this discussion. So, perceptions aside, being an a-hole may be a serious concern. This is part of the very thing in question, though, whether giving others self-serving advice constitutes being an arse. I guess why does giving advice that doesn't necessarily help them imply being an arse? If the application process is competitive, from applicant pool to admit pool, what controlling concerns say that this self-seeking behavior is arse-making qualities.

 

As far as making lies/slanderous claims, I am not suggesting this at all. Perhaps you see it as permissible on the self-seeking paradigm.

 

It seems you are saying that whatever self-benefit may be gained, it is so thinly distributed it is impractical. Is this a concern? If so, it almost sounds like "one makes me feel good, but the other requires too much work with little/unpredictable payoff"

Edited April 2, 2015 by Turretin

[Die_Kurator]

Altruism.

[Duns Eith]

 

Altruism.

Edited April 2, 2015 by Turretin