This review could similarly end on the mild, modest verdict that Mele has done his job and done it well. But there is a larger context worth considering.... The science may be of the highest quality, honestly and sincerely reported, but do remember that the message delivered was the message hoped for by the funder. This is not reporting a finding contrary to the goals of the fact-seekers.
So it is important to note that Mele’s research, as he scrupulously announces, and not in fine print, is supported by the Templeton Foundation. In fact, Mele is the director of a $4.4m project, “Free Will: Empirical and Philosophical Investigations,” funded by the Templeton Foundation, almost certainly the most munificent funding of any philosopher in history. The Templeton Foundation has a stated aim of asking and answering the “Big Questions,” and its programmes include both science and theology. In fact, yoking its support of science with its support of theology (and “individual freedom and free markets”) is the very core of its strategy. The Templeton Foundation supports, with no strings attached, a great deal of excellent science that is otherwise hard to fund. The Foundation supports theological and ideological explorations as well, and it uses the prestige it garners from its even-handed and generous support of non-ideological science to bolster the prestige of its ideological forays. It could easily divide itself into two (or three) foundations, with different names, and fund the same research—I know, because I challenged a Templeton director on this score and was told that they could indeed, but would not, do this.
Alfred Mele is in an unenviable position, and there is really nothing he can do about it. Was his decision to stay strictly neutral on the compatibilism issue a wise philosophical tactic, permitting him to tackle a more modest project, demonstrating the weakness of the scientific argument to date, or was it a case of simply postponing the more difficult issue: if, as science seems to show, our decision-making is not accomplished with the help of any quantum magic, do we still have a variety of free will that can support morality and responsibility? The Templeton Foundation insists that it is not anti-science, and demonstrates this with the bulk of its largesse, but it also has an invested interest in keeping science from subverting some of its ideological aspirations, and it just happens that Mele’s work fits handsomely with that goal. And that, as I persist in telling my friends in science whenever they raise the issue, is why I advise them not to get too close to Templeton.--Daniel C. Dennett. [HT Bence Nanay and Daily Nous.]
If JTF [=John Templeton Foundation--ES] likes neutrality about compatibilism, I’m their guy; I’ve pretty much had that market cornered for almost 20 years [before JFT entered the scene--ES].--Alfred Mele.
The two key claims in Dennett's piece are: (i) "it uses the prestige it garners from its even-handed and generous support of non-ideological science to bolster the prestige of its ideological forays;" (ii) "Alfred Mele is in an unenviable position, and there is really nothing he can do about it." Before I say more about (i) and (ii), both, that is (i-ii), are fully compatible with Al Mele's individual virtue and epistemic integrity.* It is important to recognize this because Mele's response misses the point. His integrity is not at stake. I don't know if we are dealing with a deliberate strategy (where Mele and his pro-JTF supporters will relentlessly 'stay on message' and continue to turn this issue into a question of personal integrity), or that Mele simply did not have time to think through what Dennett is saying and so -- this is a natural response if one feels attacked -- responded to defend his integrity. I do worry that by insisting he does not plan "to continue discussing this issue," Mele thinks there really is no more to say.
Note to reader: if you are impatient to focus on (i)&(ii) skip the next three paragraphs.
Second, by professional philosophy standards I am very successful at obtaining grant money; during the last decade I have obtained three big personal grants from national state agencies and my home university, and I am the formal sponsor of six more successful grant applications (mostly from state agencies). To put it in perspective: these nine grants total more than 2 million Euro. I have applied for fifteen such grants, so I am 'batting' about 60%. (The expected success rate is somewhere between 5-15%.) There are a few people out there who, over this period, have obtained bigger or more grants (or both)--Alfred Mele clearly has; but my grants have fully funded my salary nine out of the ten years, and I know few other professional philosophers who can say that (and unlike most of them I don't work in applied ethics). This is unseemly bragging (sure), but I am also recounting -- despite my quasi-civil-servant-status-- professional survival.
In the previous paragraph I am ignoring the countless 'small' grants (under 10,000euros) for travel or hosting conferences that I have received from a whole bunch of agencies during this period. I also ignored the ca $175,000 I have received from Liberty fund to organize conferences on their behalf, and attend some others they host. Unlike the grants described in the previous paragraph, which essentially have made my current position and career possible, the grants mentioned in this paragraph are 'bonus;' they have allowed me to fund projects that I am excited about and events that I thought interesting or useful from a networking perspective (generally both).
Third, I would be seriously deluded if I failed to recognize that working in an environment that rewarded obtaining grants has influenced me and the character of my work on a whole bunch of levels, not the least the intellectual environment I operate in even though I hope that, not unlike Mele, I try to maintain high standards of integrity. (I'll elaborate on the previous sentence below.) Because, again not unlike Mele, I was socialized in a different era (I started working on a lot of topics before I knew I needed to learn to write grants), perhaps, I take the fact that I am in a grant-environment so seriously that it (a) has changed how I understand the methods and norms of philosophy -- that is, that we need to take into account (and make transparent) the incentives we face -- and (b) that I have started to research and publish about how philosophy (and other academic disciplines, especially economics, of course,) ought to be structured and evaluated given that they are in a grant environment. I have also blogged about how corrosive grant environments can be to certain projects. (On the significance of taking one's own incentives into account, read my stuff on analytical egalitarianism.
Fourth, Dennett interprets (recall (i)) a gift from a foundation as a form of exchange. That is to say, in the political economy of academic grant-making, the foundation spends a lot of money for -- let's stipulate -- intrinsic purposes as well as to gain "prestige" that it can use to promote ends that are unrelated to Mele's research. It is possible, of course, that Dennett is all wrong about this hypothesis (i). But one proper response to it is to offer evidence that there is no such exchange; I think this approach would not be very convincing because being associated with Mele (and a lot more Meles) does offer some such status and Dennett can point to JTF's history (and ongoing practice) to suggest that even if the strategy is not intentional some such effect is not inconvenient to it.** Another kind of proper response to (i) is to embrace the implied exchange. For some folk that get money from JTF this is a perfectly respectable response. There are other potentially fruitful responses (e.g., 'better me than somebody else' or 'the free competition of ideas will prevent things like temporary prestige from being too influential' etc.); many of these responses make non-trivial bets on the nature of social reality and/or have non-trivial normative commitments built into them. There is an urgent need to flesh them out and investigate them more fully not because of JTF's particular programs, but because JTF is in many ways becoming the biggest player in town in some areas of philosophy (geographically and by specialization). So, it's presence will skew the future of philosophy in its preferred direction; given that time is a scarce resource not all alternative projects will flourish now (that would have flourished absent its presence). It will achieve this not by interfering with the research that it funds, but basically by generating a very large critical mass of well supported folk working on some topics and not other topics.
I mentioned above that I am very good at getting grants (in my particular grant environment). But I have also learned that some projects simply will almost never be funded and I do not waste my time writing proposals in those areas even though I think it might be good for philosophy in the Netherlands and Flanders, where a whole lot of 'research' is funded by external grants, if there were one person working on, say, Leibniz or on grounding (etc.).
Fifth, if we leave aside the joke about free will embedded in (ii), we can read Dennett as gesturing at the larger political economy of higher education in which not just Mele operates, but many of us operate (although with lots of local variants and notable exceptions). These days, it's almost impossible to say no to large grants. Universities and Deans expect them, and without them one can become very vulnerable, especially if one is not working in a private, well endowed university. Dennett can be faulted for not fully recognizing his own privileged position for being in a position to be able to say 'no.'
Sixth, there is a reason that disclosure of financial support is a 'best practice.' It allows others to interpret your research without questioning your personal integrity. For there is now a huge sociological and economic literature that incentives do matter; they generate tacit biases or patterns of results that are favorable to donor's wishes; the generate discussions where some perspectives are not even on the table, etc.. How this exactly works is not entirely understood (it requires further research) because some patterns of result occur even when researcher's are actively trying to prevent bias in themselves. But this is, for example, one reason why one wants outsiders that are not taking money from similar (or same) sources to be among the referees and reviewers. This also entails that if a donor is a quasi-monopolist, certain patterns of results need to be viewed with general suspicion. The issues raised in/by the previous sentence are more urgent in European countries with one (centralized) grant agency, than Stateside.
Seventh, disclosing a conflict of interest, as one should, does not get you a 'get-out-of-suspicion' pass. It is healthy for an academic culture to discuss what philosophical positions are or remain robustly present in a philosophical landscape because donors keep them so present. This needs to be discussed if only because it allows us to reflect and, perhaps, then generate practices and social organizations that ensure that philosophy flourishes despite the fact that we are human all too human and, thus, incentives matter to us, too.
*Full disclosure: Dan Dennett was one of my undergraduate teachers and an important personal mentor (I am not a DCD groupie, however [recall this post]); I have only met Al Mele once (I liked him a lot); I have never received money from Templeton.
**I have mentioned my association with Liberty fund; I think my association with them does also help indirectly promote the prestige of certain dubious judicial education programs.
2 M€? Impressive. My total: 3 M€. 💪
Posted by: F.A. Muller | 10/22/2014 at 05:52 PM