“Fear stalks the tea rooms”•Adams & Balfour [s work on Administrative Evil [ ... The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (2006) Adams and Balfour ... Look,

“Fear stalks the tea rooms”

Or,

Why have we been ‘whining’ about women in philosophy for so long and getting nowhere?

(NB for literalists, ‘Whining’ is ironic) Paula Boddington

An unsolved mystery: what happens to women in philosophy?

This was a puzzle when I studied philosophy as a postgrad at Oxford many years ago …

And it has remained a mystery, far and wide, as for decade after decade we ask the same old questions ….

The odd thing is, you’d think things would have changed more by now.

After all, we’ve had things like lots of anti-discrimination law and policy such as … • The Equal Pay act • Employment legislation e.g part timers workers’ rights • Harassment legislation and policy • Parental leave • Redeployment policies to mitigate short term contracts • Laws against discrimination on grounds of race, gender, etc And we also have things like • Blind marking • Authorship guidelines • Feminist philosophy courses … and so on And we’ve had decades of social research into gender issues.

BUT

So I’m going to focus on one question:

• Why have these changes in law and policy been so relatively ineffective?

And I’m going to look at it by asking:

• Is there any reason to think that such changes would be unlikely to work?

• What factors might impede their operation?

• Could they even do more harm than good?

• Can this be made better?

• Why the problem with women in philosophy?

A clue about regulations designed to produce good behaviour …

OUR VALUES

RESPECT: We treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves. We do not

tolerate abusive or disrespectful treatment. Ruthlessness, callousness, and

arrogance don’t belong here.

INTEGRITY: We work with customers and prospects openly, honestly, and

sincerely. When we say we will do something, we will do it; when we say we

cannot or will not do something, then we don’t do it.

COMMUNICATION: We have an obligation to communicate. Here, we take

the time to talk with one another … and to listen. We believe that information is

meant to move and that information moves people.

EXCELLENCE: We are satisfied with nothing less than the very best in

everything we do. We will continue to raise the bar for everyone. The great fun

here will be for everyone to discover just how good we can really be.

The ethics code was from Enron’s 1998 annual report

Not only did the company fail, when it went, it took with it the livelihoods, pensions, savings, and investments of hundreds of thousands of ordinary hard working people, as well taking with it the previously well respected firm of Arthur Anderson, and producing a vast knock-on effect on the financial system.

Some sources of ideas • Regulation in various institutional settings to

promote ethical conduct has attracted great scrutiny

• Adams & Balfour’s work on ‘Administrative Evil’

• Work in social psychology on factors which promote poor behaviour in otherwise decent people

• Large changes in the institutional culture of universities, consistent with factors known to promote poor behaviour

• Some factors may affect academic life in general, but some may be especially acute in philosophy

What factors incite poor behaviour?

Here are a few that are known to be relevant: • Time pressures – shortage of time, short term thinking,

lack of historical context • Dehumanisation • Diffusion of responsibility • Social conformity • Moral disengagement • All this may encourage maltreatment of whistleblowers

For summary see Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (2006)

Adams and Balfour Unmasking Administrative Evil

• ‘Technical rationality’ in institutions can mask evil and undermine normative judgements

• Professional standards can remove historical awareness; may discourage attempt to understand causes

• And may disengage actors from ethical decisions which may become mere box ticking

• And can foster compliance, uniformity of norms and unthinking ‘group behaviour’

• Rules assume individual autonomy and downplay social forces

• Intention to promote ethical behaviour may be at odds with intention to foster public trust

Don’t be misled by the idea of ‘administrative

evil’ into thinking nothing as bad as all that

is going on. It’s going on.

This can operate at a number of different levels of severity and in a number of ways; it can happen at an institution near YOU.

What’s not working with rules and procedures?

PROBLEM ONE: THE RULES AREN’T APPLIED

External circumstances and pressures on individuals may entice or encourage people to break, bend or ignore useful rules designed to encourage fairness

What’s not working with rules and procedures?

PROBLEM TWO: THE RULES ARE APPLIED

In other cases, it’s actually sticking to the rules that causes the problems

First, some background

• On how things have changed in universities the last three decades, in two powerpoint slides or less

• (Note that these have happened in many places – there will be the further question of the specific context of women in philosophy)

Seemed like a good idea at the time …. Or so some thought

A history of what happened to universities on the back of a postage stamp:

solving ‘problems’ of epistemology and motivation at a stroke:

These are a bunch of useless slackers!

Let’s run it like a business!

Introduce competition!

Look, we can measure things!

Look, that will spur people on!

Look, now we’ll know how good every one is!

Hooray!

Proliferation and formalisation of academic credentials:

The Logical Positivists meet Baden Powell

With the unintended consequences, inter alia, that:

Certain sorts of people, with certain sorts of

experience to offer, and hence disposed to certain values,

are lost to the system, and in particular

Older people, (including women returners) who

will tend to have fewer formalised credentials, find it

harder to get jobs or to get promoted, and hence as a result

Experience is lost to the institution, and also hence

also as a result

Institutional memory is lost, and as a result

Fewer people are around who can track or notice

the changes in values, or who might object to them.

‘Wanted: More dupes. Lots more.’ Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi

Arguably, when universities, squeezed for cash and performance indicators, realised that they could get brownie points and money from the fees from teaching postgrads, they launched into their own miniature version of a Ponzi scheme, accidentally omitting to mention that there could not possibly be enough academic jobs for all.

One consequence: ‘it’s all the fault of the individual, not the system’

Here’s one way it works: • There are too many people qualified for academic jobs

• This is especially a ‘problem’ in disciplines with no clear alternative career path, like ours

• But luckily, with creeping credentialism, the measuring of impact factors, citations, competitive funding, prizes, etc, etc, the system makes sure that a few only will get the largest number of scout badges.

• So, for anyone who does not get through – it’s not because the system is designed to produce surplus, it’s because ‘they’ aren’t ‘good enough’

• The system deflects attention away from itself – a self fulfilling prophesy to ‘find the best’

Together, various factors helped to produce:

An academic Live Action Role Play of a Hobbesian ‘State of Nature’ where life is ‘nasty brutish and short’ – as competition reigns, contracts became shorter, and the unsuccessful are successively told

‘You are the weakest link. Goodbye’ .

With the (presumably?) unintended consequence that

Strains on individuals are such as to create conditions known in advance to encourage

sub-standard behaviour JUST ONE EXAMPLE: time pressures mount up • Short term contracts focus vision on the

immediate future • Cycles of research assessment, grant applications,

etc • Long hours culture and focus on own discipline • Lost institutional memory focuses us on the

present whilst we fail to understand it fully OTHER FACTORS AS WELL WHICH INTERACT

Type One Problems: rules aren’t applied

Rules designed to promote fairness get bent or broken,

often under pressures created by the very institutional environment which

constructs the rules

Example: massaging of authorship guidelines (& this is not always in the direction you first think of)

‘Shall we ask Prof X to be an author?’

‘But he doesn’t even know about the

paper and hasn’t contributed anything.’

‘Yes, but we’d be more likely to get it

published if he’s lead author.’

Pressure to add authors dilutes the contribution of others

‘I’d like to put X’s name on the paper … she really needs to get more publications on her c.v.’

‘But she hasn’t done anything towards this … she just made a few comments at that meeting’

‘Yes but … she should be an author too, she’s applying for posts, don’t be so mean.’

Self-censorship of ideas because of

economic dependency

Comment from members of a group of researchers

dependent upon obtaining short term research grants

from funding bodies and on collaborative work with

research groups:

‘We’d better not say that in the paper. The

scientists might not like it.’

Competitive pressure on departments creates temptation to ignore rules

Example: Feedback to staff member inquiring why redeployment policy had apparently been breached when refused interview for post for which s/he was qualified:

‘Your research was assessed as not contributing sufficiently

to our department’s REF strategy.’

Response from individual’s lawyer: ‘Please explain your REF strategy,

so I can assess if my client has been fairly refused an interview?’

Reply: ‘No we can’t; our REF strategy is confidential,

because universities are in competition with each other.'

[Case settled out of court for undisclosed sum.]

And whistleblowers may have little or no support

because of individuals’ understandable fears about their own job security. Example: Failed attempt to get colleagues to support a complaint about a rigged appointment:

‘I know it’s rigged, but I’m not going to say anything, because I want my slice of the cake when it’s my turn to be favoured.’

(PS this person ended up unemployed)

Type Two Problems: rules are applied

May be many unintended consequences:

Some hamper rules’ effectiveness or make the situation worse;

A particular interpretation of events may be created;

And general problems may be individualised, hence also hampering effective action.

Harassed? Bullied? Just do this …

ONE PROBLEM:

• Harassment policy often requires numerous iterations with different levels to be negotiated

• Each step requires passage to the next step, and there is an opportunity for blocks to occur

• There are numerous opportunities for a system designed to help, actually to hinder

• Each point is managed by a gatekeeper

How gatekeeping occurs Harassment adviser, first point of contact for individual concerned

about bullying or harassment:

‘You can stop there, I know exactly what’s going on, I’ve seen

this sort of thing before. He [the boss] is trying to stop you

from being able to do your job properly, so that you look

incompetent. That’s not bullying.’

Private counsellor, appointed by an institution’s welfare services to

give advice to individual on a possible breach of contract:

‘Nobody takes on X University and wins. And even if you do

win, the institution will destroy you in the process. I would

strongly advise you not to take them to an employment

tribunal.’

and another problem …

Such policies frequently require contact with numerous individual actors and agencies within the institution all with some responsibility

Hence perfectly creating conditions in which diffusion of moral responsibility

is known to occur

and, there’s worse to come

• The rules take over everything, gobbling up everything in their path …

How private experience becomes knowledge subject to public rules and formalised, bureaucratic control by gatekeepers

3. Can I talk to others about my allegations?

• If you feel that you are being harassed, you may wish to speak to someone as described in Section 1 of Part III above. In that section it is recommended that you speak to a harassment adviser before taking any other steps. The harassment adviser will urge you, and any person who accompanies you at any stage of any complaints procedure, to treat all information relating to your complaint in a strictly confidential manner.

• An allegation of harassment made in good faith and expressed in confidence within the context of a complaints procedure, which includes seeking advice from a harassment adviser, should not amount to defamation, even if the allegation is not substantiated.

• However, indiscriminate discussion of your complaint could result in a counter-complaint being made against you for defaming or harassing the alleged harasser. If you feel you need to talk to someone other than your adviser you should ask his or her advice about this matter

‘Personal private experience’ mutates to ‘confidential’ as the formal rules take control

Why philosophy? Philosophy on trial

• OPPORTUNITY

• MOTIVE

• MEANS

The dominant always have the opportunity to keep their power Need be nothing more than self-preservation in a competitive, short-sighted morally impoverished context This includes the consumate power to bullshit for self-protection assisted by training in argument; (& the performance and practice of philosophy creates multiple routes to reaffirm the position of the dominant)

Why philosophy? The ‘night shift phenomenon’

Factors known to bring out the worst in us

• Lack of managerial control

• Isolation from external value cues

• No ‘exit strategy’

• ‘Speaking out’ against abuse may in fact make effective action LESS likely (Milgram)

Academic philosophy

• Lax management encouraged by requirements of role

• Focus on discipline and long hours

• Lack of alternative careers = effective lack of exit strategy

• Focus on argument not doing in philosophy?

It need not be much worse than any other discipline …

JUST DO THE MATHS

• Because short term contracts, etc, mean that there are so many points at which an individual can be lost to the system, then:

• Only minute differences in the chances of getting through at each point will result in

large net decline over the whole system

So, what can we do? A couple of ideas • In some cases, the only answer is to just tell people to

‘get a grip’ – no amount of regulation and policy will obviate the need for moral courage

• Don’t focus so much on your academic life – there’s a need for alternative sources of value,

• There should be alternative ways through policies, routes to fast track, and mechanisms to ensure individuals retain control

• Attempts to prevent diffusion of responsibility such as named individuals with specific assigned responsibilities

• Strategies to help the individual women, e.g. to enter an academic career, may have deleterious effects on the wider situation for women and other disadvantaged groups