25 Year Anniversary (Research, post-PhD)

As noted in a previous post, this year marks 25 years in my academic career.  In this post I offer some reflections on a quarter of a century of research beyond the PhD.

25 years ago I had just defended my PhD thesis, a defence of Rawlsian justice that resulted in the following 4 journal articles:  

• Public Reason, Neutrality and Civic Virtues
• Justice and a Citizens' Basic Income
• Incentives and the Natural Duties of Justice
• Does Rawls Support the Procedural Republic?

As you can see from the focus of each of those articles, the central concern which preoccupied my research at that time was critically assessing the various lines of objection raised against John Rawls's theory of justice.  

Now let's fast forward 25 years and these are the last 4 publications from this year:  

• Classics of Political Thought for Today:  An Introduction
• The Role of Science Communication in Advancing Translational Gerontology
• Navigating the Landscape of Translational Geroscience in Canada:  A Comprehensive Evaluation of Current Progress and Future Directions
• Imagination and Idealism after the COVID-19 Pandemic:  The Science of Healthy Ageing

Looking at my most recent publications there would appear to be little, if any, continuity in my research interests over 25 years.  I will try to connect some of the dots here, reflecting on what I saw as key developments which shaped both my interests and the methodologies I utilize. I divide things into 4 distinct (though related) developments:

(1) My transition to non-ideal theory 

(2) The Genetic Revolution

(3) The Biology of Aging and Science Communication

(4) Side Burner Projects

(1) My transition to non-ideal theory 

I detail my transition from ideal to non-ideal theory in my book Justice, Democracy and Reasonable Agreement.  These included things like the terrorist attacks on Sept 11th 2001 and my switching from teaching in a philosophy department to political science departments.  And my research interests in the biomedical sciences was really pivotal as I will detail below in (2).  

Shortly after my PhD I can recall a few important conversations with senior figures in the field that compelled me to re-think my research plans after the PhD.  One comment was something a prominent figure in the field asked me during a job interview I was giving at their department (a job I was not successful in getting).  During the interview this person said:  "I have read your articles defending Rawls against communitarian critiques, and the Rawlsian position on basic income, but when are we going to hear about what Farrelly's position is on issues?"  This question stuck with me over 25 years later because at that time I did not have the self-awareness to consciously reflect on my own intellectual development with much depth.  Indeed, looking back to the state of the discipline in the 1990s I do not think analytical political philosophy encouraged much internal critical reflection.  It was mostly a "puzzle solving" endeavor, with distinct "camps" and most scholars simply aligned themselves with their favorite camp and then worked on the puzzles that camp was interested in solving (e.g. equality of what?  liberal vs communitarian?  deliberative democracy ? etc.).

In my second academic appointment in my second year post-PhD a senior colleague had recommended I publish my thesis as a book, that this was the most straightforward and obvious route to career advancement.  But I told him hat I did not think my thesis was "book worthy", and that instead I was undertaking the process of writing a textbook on contemporary political theory.  Looking back I realize how risky my decision was (fortunately it paid off for me, but I would not advise recent PhDs to follow my strategy!).  My gamble paid off in that by undertaking the research necessary to write a textbook I acquired a breadth of understanding and perspective that I was previously lacking.  Once I had expanded my intellectual horizons by just a little bit, the chinks in the armor of Rawlsian liberalism had, for me, become insurmountable.  I ended up publishing my first research monograph, what I call my "anti-thesis", Justice, Democracy and Reasonable Agreement (this book appeared in print 8 years after my PhD). 

A recurring theme in those early years was intellectual risk-taking:  taking the risk of moving from philosophy to political science, taking the risk of writing my first book as a textbook, and taking the risk of turning against the theory I defended in my PhD, and arguing for non-ideal theory which, at at the time around 2005, was still virtually unheard of.   

(2) The Genetic Revolution

Another big shift in my thinking was taking place in the early 2000s, a result of my growing interest in the sequencing of the human gnome and the development of new gene therapies for rare, but devastating, genetic disorders.  Initially I approached this topic from a standard Rawlsian perspective-- "The natural lottery of life is the result of brute luck, so as science innovation makes it more feasible to ameliorate these "natural inequalities", justice will require a fair distribution of natural endowments".  This article, written over a long Easter weekend in 2000, was my initial foray into this area. This excellent book was also published, by the most prominent scholars in the field, and proved the perfect assigned reading for the new course I designed on that topic.  

The first year I taught the course "Genetics and Justice" was with my excellent colleague at Manchester. Sadly we only co-taught the course for one year, as I took up a position back in Canada.  But that course remains my favorite course to teach and I have been offering it every year since 2002.  As I began to follow the science closely, I realized that ideal theory was ill-equipped to address the issues.  There were complexities like the causes of disease (genes, environment, and the interaction between the two), and uncertainties about both the safety and efficacy of new biomedical innovations like gene therapy (and later genome editing).  There were also issues like the amount of funding to bring new drugs to development, and intellectual properties rights.  To invoke an ideal theory analysis would mean circumventing all these nuances of the real world, which struck me as just a lazy and pointless route to take.  So instead I devoted more than a decade to undertaking the interdisciplinary research necessary to competently integrate normative analyses of the issues with the science. 

While I eventually became a critic of Rawlsian justice, the dominance of his theory in the field proved a useful frame to enable me to develop my ideas around "well-ordered" science, pivoting between political philosophy and bioethics, the culmination of which was this research monograph and a textbook.  However, about 4 years into the research monograph I realized the issues I was grappling with could not be meaningfully resolved by appeals to ideal theory.  I recall a prominent scholar was giving a talk on the issue of biomedical enhancements, and a premise of their argument was that these interventions had to be (immediately?) available to everyone in order to be permissible to develop.  When I asked a question about what their view was for the real-life situation, where no scientific innovation comes into existence being accessible to all of the world's population, they just replied that they were analyzing the issue from the perspective of ideal theory.  The old Colin may have been content with such a reply, when it would have functioned like a secret society's handshake (e.g. aren't you a member of the Rawlsian ideal theory club?).  But to me the comment was not only unhelpful, I felt it was disingenuous.  Theorizing about technologies developed in a fantasy utopia seemed counterproductive to the whole exercise.  If one is functioning with utopic presumptions at play, why not simply assume humans were already enhanced, making any biomedical innovations obsolete.  Alas, that was precisely the predicament that Rawlsian ideal justice had created, as very few political philosophers took (or still take) seriously disease, aging and biomedical science.  

(3) The Biology of Aging and Science Communication

The most significant development in my research interests during this time came from learning about advances in the biology of aging.  This topic has driven most of my journal publications in the last 15 years, in journals in science, medicine and bioethics.  This topic excited my intellectual curiosity like no other.  It raised fascinating questions like "Why do we age?" and "Is it possible to alter the rate of aging?" and "What would the societal implications of translational gerontology be?"  My initial knee-jerk reaction to the prospect of altering aging was that claiming it was an imperative was analogous to claiming that it was a priority to cut taxes for millionaires.  Luckily around 2006, I had become much more interdisciplinary about my research interests, and rather than contemplating the issue of longevity science within the scant discussions developed by philosophers, I emersed myself in both the literature on the growing field of geroscience, as well as the intellectual history of medical science.  And this proved to have significant and far-reaching impacts on my research over nearly 20 years.

20 years ago I would aspire to publish in mainstream political philosopher journals, like these two that have recently folded (though they could be revived).  Now I conceive of my potential readership much more broadly, covering researchers in both the natural sciences and humanities/social sciences, as well as policy makers.    

One of the truly rewarding (though also burdensome and at times frustrating!) features of undertaking interdisciplinary research is you receive feedback from scholars in diverse disciplines.  I have received dozens of referee reports from experts in different areas of science, which has helped me to further refine my understanding of the issues and my broader intellectual development.  One quickly learns that there are distinct "camps" within all fields of research, and learning what divides those camps (e.g. different empirical assumptions or communicative frames) can facilitate better understanding (and success with publishing).  

The latest substantive research interest of mine, which has emerged from communicating the social significant of translational gerontology, is the role of science communication (more broadly construed) within democracy.  I feel that this topic alone could sustain my research interests for the next quarter of a century.  

(4) Side Burner Projects

The core research areas of mine of the past 25 years fall into:  non-ideal theory, genetics and justice/ethics, play (still ongoing, though on the back burner for now), geroscience, and the contemporary relevance of the history of political thought.

But I also have smaller, side projects, that I have kept burning over the years that enable me to satisfy other intellectual curiosities I have.  So taken together these projects easily equal any one of the large projects in terms of providing intrinsic rewards from research.  These are the side-burner projects:

1. Marx's theory of history (here and here)
2. Legal theory (here, here, here and here)
3. Virtue epistemology (here, here and here)

The great thing about side-burner research projects is that (a) they compel you to keep some breadth in your research interests vs becoming overly specialized in just one scholarly niche; (b) they are purely motivated by the intrinsic rewards of satisfying your curiosity (vs one's main research projects for getting tenure and promotion); (c) you never know when side projects might turn into "main projects".  I never would have predicted, after my PhD defence,  any of the 3 main research projects  that came to subsume most of my research over the following 25 years.  

Side-burner projects help remind me what a privilege it is to be employed as a scholar.  Indulging my side-burner research interests feels more like undertaking an eccentric hobby I don't have much time for vs part of my paid employment.  So I have been extremely fortunate in that my love for research and writing is higher now than at any other point in my career.  I could not envision a meaningful life for me that did not entail many hours of intense study and writing most weeks of the year.  The life of a scholar is one of immense responsibility and privilege.  I have been able to pursue my intellectual development and curiosity, in exchange for disseminating that knowledge through academic publications and teaching and mentoring of students.  

One final point about a key (and conscious) decision that I made over a decade ago that I think has served me well research-wise-  I do not let the frenzied, and often combative, domain of social media play any substantive role in shaping either my research interests or the substantive positions I take on important issues.  I have been running this blog, with comments off, for 18 years.  It is really just an opportunity for me to "float ideas" I'm working on by thinking out load, note scientific studies I may want to keep track of etc.  But I do not engage in protracted debates or arguments with scholars on social media.  I think those things are best approached through the forum of peer review publications.  

A low profile on social media has not only been beneficial to my mental health, but I believe it has positively impacted my research agenda.  Avoiding the constant distraction, and echo chamber effect, of social media has probably helped me stay focused on the intrinsic rewards of satisfying my intellectual curiosity. It does come with some cost given that a strong online presence with many followers can build some social capital within academia.  But for me I am ok with that.  Having started my career before social media was a thing, I have enjoyed staying more oriented towards the "pre-social media" mentality.  An orientation that intentionally seeks to cultivate a practice of interdisciplinary "deep thinking" working towards the goal of peer reviewed publications (with the occasional blog post reflection).  Engaging in daily debates on social media about the "hot topics" of the week has never held any appeal for me, and runs counter to what I take to be the spirit of a serious scholar to be (e.g. curious and civil, committed to raising the quality of dialogue and debate).    

In my next follow up post I will offer some reflections on 25 years of teaching.

Cheers, 

Colin