Opinion An Open Letter on the Importance of Protecting Philosophy

Australia-based Philosophers

Posted Mon 3 Aug 2020, 9:22am

Updated Thu 15 Oct 2020, 6:19pm

The humanities celebrate diversity in an inimitable way. It is perilous to neglect their outstanding
contributions to our liberal democracy, which is one of the most successful multicultural experiments in
the world. (kokkai / iStock / Getty Images)

As philosophers, we are trained to consider controversial ideas with an open mind, to investigate our own assumptions,
and to cultivate an even-tempered respect for our ideological opponents. But when our discipline is subjected to unfair
critique by powerful figures, and when this critique motivates consequential government policy, we feel a special
obligation to correct misunderstandings. The proposed changes to university fees for Australian students are poorly
conceived, and unlikely to accomplish their stated aim of preparing graduates for evolutions in the labour market. Just as
importantly, they express dismissive attitudes towards philosophy and other disciplines in the Humanities and Social
Sciences (HASS), and they amount to an attack on the autonomy and well-being of universities. We object to them, and
encourage citizens and elected officials to do the same.

The government’s plan to restructure fees for higher education makes implausible assumptions about how labour market
trends and job prospects for students relate to individual courses of study. For example, the plan ignores evidence that
philosophy prepares students for an unpredictable and changing job market by developing their analytical skills, their
ability to solve complex problems, and their facility in negotiating interpersonal differences. It ignores evidence that
employers already prize these very qualities. It ignores the broader social costs of trying to steer a generation of young
people away from philosophical study. More generally, it ignores the fact that Australian Universities are increasingly
prominent on the world stage because of their teaching and research excellence across diverse fields of human
knowledge.
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In defending massive fee increases for HASS students, the government claims that these students “will still pay less for
those degrees in Australia than they would for a similar degree in similar countries, like the USA and the UK.” This is
disingenuous. What’s relevant are the changes to the incentive structure for students attending Australian universities.
One stated ambition of the proposal is to divert students interested in philosophy, and other HASS disciplines, to other
courses of study. Even more misguided is the claim that the plan’s authors are “encouraging students to embrace
diversity.” While science degrees are highly valuable, they do not markedly improve students’ cultural competence. The
humanities celebrate diversity in an inimitable way. It is perilous to neglect their outstanding contributions to our liberal
democracy, which is one of the most successful multicultural experiments in the world.

The government’s stated emphasis is on preparing students for jobs in growing sectors, but its suggested interventions
are unpromising. A growing education sector does not rationalise lowering the cost of English and other language
courses while dramatically increasing the cost of other humanities courses. History majors, for example, are at least as
prepared for a career in teaching as are English majors. More generally, the government’s most recent analysis of trends
in the labour market lists ten sets of qualities most likely to be in demand in the near future. The document is at pains to
note that these qualities are “highly transferable, meaning that they will be valued by many different employers across a
range of industries and roles.” For eight or nine of these ten highly valued qualities (such as “active learning,” “complex
problem solving,” “reasoning”) there is a strong case to be made that philosophy provides equal or better training than
any other major. On the government’s own terms, then, philosophical study should be encouraged rather than
discouraged.

If the aim is to promote growth, to fortify job markets and communities, then universities, which are an engine of
growth, should be supported. To support an institution involves respecting the organisational expertise built up in the
institution over time. Dividing universities into “job ready” and “not job ready” faculties, degrees, and courses will
undermine the holistic culture of knowledge production so critical for research excellence in all fields of inquiry. It will
hamstring important disciplines — whether or not they are the ones intended by the proposal’s advocates. It will deepen
unnecessary and counterproductive culture wars by branding humanities students as leeches on the nation.

Employability is one significant aim of tertiary education. Yet it should not be allowed to trump other aims, even in
strained economic times. An educated citizenry is the backbone of democratic culture. Just as training is needed before
one can successfully build a bridge, or perform a surgery, or teach a class on Australian history, so too is training needed
before one can successfully express complex ideas in clear language, rigorously evaluate policy arguments, or build
coalitions between interest groups with distinct but overlapping interests. The standards of public discourse would be
improved by wider access to philosophical training in both schools and Universities, and would be immeasurably
impoverished in a future world where significantly fewer citizens engaged with philosophy in a meaningful way.

Some people take heart from research suggesting that student selection of courses of study is relatively insensitive to fee
adjustments. This implies that the government’s plan is unlikely to be effective in drawing students away from the
humanities. But incentives do matter, and financial incentives matter more to less financially privileged people. Even if
the overall impact on the distribution of enrolments is marginal, this marginal change will exacerbate socioeconomic
disparities: poor students, who are more constrained by the prospect of a high HECS debt, will have less freedom in
choosing courses of study. The proposal also threatens to deepen culture wars that mire politics in petty resentments by
entrenching class-based differences in intellectual experience and perspective.

Democratic governments, and the voters they represent, must increasingly confront extraordinarily difficult ethical
issues, many of them unprecedented: for instance, issues about how we should tackle climate change, fairly distribute the
costs of pandemics, and respond to refugee crises. Progress on ethical problems like these cannot be accomplished by
scientific and technological research alone. These issues are the subject matter of moral and political philosophy. One
consequence of our distinctive subject area, and of our pedagogy, is a distinctive role in inculcating democratic virtues.
Philosophy students are particularly influential in student governance precisely because they are effective at
communicating, strategising, compromising, and implementing sensible changes. Philosophy majors make up a tiny
fraction of university students, yet our graduates exert an astounding influence in journalism, the arts, politics, and the
legal profession.

Ironically, the world has far more respect for Australian philosophy than the Australian government does. At Harvard
and Oxford, at the National University of Singapore, at Cambridge and the Sorbonne, at Toronto and Princeton and
Edinburgh, at the LSE and Berkeley and McGill, and at most other elite universities around the globe, Australian
philosophy is held in the highest regard. Australian philosophers such as Peter Singer (Princeton), David Chalmers (New
York University), and Rae Langton (Cambridge) are in many places household names. Students from our universities
routinely go on to pursue postgraduate degrees, and professional careers, at the world’s most prestigious institutions.
Decreasing enrolments in philosophy programs, and lending credence to shallow ideas about the impracticality of
philosophical study, functions to undermine a discipline that should be a source of national pride. There is a particularly
painful sting to this ingratitude, which could equally be described as a deficit of self-love. Many commentators have
already observed a further irony, relevant in this connection: a great many of the plan’s architects themselves benefitted
from highly subsidised degrees in law and the humanities.

The government’s attack on the humanities comes at a particularly difficult time, when staff have taken on extra, unpaid
work to facilitate a tremendously difficult and rapid transition to online learning as a result of COVID-19. This transition
is appreciably harder for subjects like philosophy whose teaching involves structured conversation and debate; we cannot
simply post online lectures and automated quizzes and claim to be doing right by our students. The government’s attack
also comes on the back of staggering losses of casual staff, and their wide expertise, which may never be recovered. The
University sector faces short-term job losses of over twenty thousand. At this time of great precarity for Australia’s third
largest export industry — an industry whose role in innovation and productivity is not disputed even by its most feverish
critics — the government is decreasing per-student support, refusing access to the Jobkeeper scheme, and undermining
public confidence in the value of what we do.

The increasing diversity of the problems we confront presents us with a choice. We can invest in making the next
generation insightful and creative and wise. Or we can shrink in the face of unprecedented challenges. Universities are a
force for good, and supporting them should be a national priority. We call on all Australian citizens to take pride in the
rich philosophical tradition of this nation. We call on all citizens to likewise respect and honour the essential
contributions of all academic disciplines to civic life. And, most urgently, we call on all citizens to reject the
government’s misguided approach to the funding of undergraduate education.

—
Signatories:
Dr Miri Albahari, University of Western Australia.

Associate Professor Mark Alfano, Macquarie University.

Professor Peter Anstey, University of Sydney.

Dr Aurelia Armstrong, Head of Philosophy, University of Queensland.

Professor Han Baltussen, Hughes Professor of Classics and Ancient Thought, University of Adelaide.

Professor Dirk Baltzly, University of Tasmania.

Dr Miriam Bankovsky, Director of the Politics, Philosophy and Economics degree, La Trobe University.

Professor Rick Benitez, University of Sydney.

Dr Kaz Bland, University of Western Australia.

Dr Sandy Boucher, University of New England.

Associate Professor Michelle Boulous Walker, University of Queensland.

Dr Sean Bowden, Deakin University.

Professor David Braddon-Mitchell, University of Sydney.

Dr Stewart Braun, Australian Catholic University.

Associate Professor Jacqueline Broad, Monash University.

Dr David Bronstein, University of New South Wales.

Dr Petra Brown, Deakin University.

Dr Rachael Brown, Director of the Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences, Australian National University.

Associate Professor Diego Bubbio, Western Sydney University.