Good idea, David. I don't know what to do, but I'm pretty sure philosophy shouldn't proceed without first considering what works and what doesn't in other academic fields. The problem of determining which Ph.D. program to attend or to apply to is not unique to prospective philosophy students. It may turn out that no existing model works well. But we should investigate this first, especially if we are skeptical about armchair politics/epistemology. I imagine that there are people in Higher Education who have studied this very problem. It might be worth finding and reading their work.

The Slate piece (which is indeed particularly good!) was written by Rebecca Schuman, wife of my departmental colleague Waldemar Rohloff. Rebecca is now also an adjunct in the Honors College here at UMSL.

"There is something outrageous about philosophers (or other scholars) that try to get away with systematically ignoring existing scholarship and alternative views." If so, it's a recent phenomenon. Think of the 10 best works in the history of philosophy. Now identify how many of them avoid this outrageous behavior. I think attending to existing scholarship and alternative views is a good-making feature. But it isn't necessary, nor is failure to do so ipso facto outrageous.

Nice post, Mark. I'd also like to hear your thoughts about whether abstracts submitted to workshops should be anonymized for referees. (This has come up locally.) I am starting to think it's a good idea.

Great question. I'm hazy on the details, but the Gospel story of Jesus at 12 years old teaching the rabbis(?) seems to be a coherent example of a moral prodigy. And there are lots of fictional stories about worlds in which the adults have lost their moral bearings, but the young protagonist sees the moral truths.

"Her point is that, contrary to Kant, morality is conditional on desire in a way that etiquette is not. " This isn't true. Foot's point was that the oughts of both etiquette and ethics _apply_ to a person independently of that person's desires, but that one is _motivated_ to comply with both sorts of "oughts" only if one has the relevant desires. Foot in no way contrasted etiquette and ethics in that paper.

Thanks, all, for your ideas so far. My primary worry is whether the very idea of an Ethical AutoCorrect is coherent. If I want to type the word 'the', and I type T, E, then H, my computer displays the word 'the'. Have I typed the word 'the'? I think I have. Further, I think I have typed the word 'the' intentionally. But if I want to do what's right, and so I decide to swim to save my drowning wife, but swimming elsewhere to save two drowning children instead would really be right, I don't think that EAC can make me save two drowning children intentionally. Perhaps it can make my body save the two drowning children, but it cannot make me do so intentionally. (And if I don't save them intentionally, my saving them is not right.) I would like to be able to explain why using AutoCorrect does not make nonsense of the claim that I type the word 'the' intentionally, but using Ethical AutoCorrect makes nonsense of the claim that I saved the drowning children intentionally, and of the claim that I acted rightly.

What Richard says sounds right to me. But even if we suppose it is, I still might wonder whether a) the whole idea is coherent (it sounds like Santiago and gwern think it is), and b) whether one should switch on Ethical AutoCorrect. That is, I acknowledge it's better to act rightly without using Ethical AutoCorrect than to act using it. But those might not be the relevant options. I suspect that the worse one's own unaided ethical judgment, the more likely it is that one should use Ethical AutoCorrect (if the very idea is coherent).

This is why I said above that we are to imagine that Ethical AutoCorrect does not AutoCorrect your decision about whether to continue using it. Otherwise, Brunero's second point would kick in. (He's teaching a seminar right now, so he can't respond immediately. Ha!)

David, That's an important distinction. I was thinking of something more like EAC(1). I want to understand better why you (and others) think that using EAC(1) would not yield action arrived at through deliberation of the right kind. Because I aim to do only what's morally right, I turn on EAC. I am unsure whether to throw the trolley switch. I do my best, but I make the incorrect decision. EAC fixes that for me. So my action turns out right, and it does so because I aim to do only what's right. Isn't this good enough?

Jamie: What's different is that Google Morals gives you the correct answer about what to do. What you actually do after that is still up to you. Ethical AutoCorrect doesn't give you the correct answer about what to do, but alters what you do (if that's coherent), in much the same way that AutoCorrect alters what you write: on the fly. After you do it, of course, you can see how your decision was AutoCorrected. You do choose whether to have Ethical AutoCorrect on or off, and you can change whether it is. So, we are to imagine that Ethical AutoCorrect does not AutoCorrect your decision about whether to continue using it! But I suspect that some people might think that using Google Morals is ok, because with each decision you choose whether to accept its specific advice, while not thinking that using Ethical AutoCorrect is ok, because it changes what you are doing without your decision-to-decision endorsement of the details of its wisdom.

I concur that there is no need for the APA to organize three money-losing regional conferences each year. Perhaps regional conferences made sense before a world of affordable air travel and the Internet, but now they do not. At most one annual conference in the spring or summer would be far preferable. Zero might be even better.

At first, my intuition was different from Doug's. But after thinking about it for a bit, I share Doug's intuition. (Since my intuitions tend to be unusual, Doug probably won't feel much comfort.) But if there is some action description that aggregates the specific acts x,y, and z, such that in normal circumstances to A just is to x,y, and z, then I think you do have some reason to A. E.g, if A-ing is having the prix fixe menu, wherein the appetizer is fantastic but the last two courses are awful. That the appetizer is fantastic is indeed some reason to have the tasting menu. But if the three acts are completely independent of another, e.g. x=scratch an itch, y=watch American Idol, and z=talk to my neighbor...then I have no reason to do x&y&z...in fact, I'm not even sure I understand what such a reason could be.

From an earlier comment: "The primary ethical issue concerns forcing candidates, simply at a preliminary stage, to shell out somewhere between $3500-$4500 to go to the APA..." I confess I haven't been to the Eastern in a while, but I believe this overstates things. If you are in the U.S., you should be able to find a flight for under $500, possibly half that. You are not forced to use the APA's hotel, so you should be able to lodge for under $500; if you are ambitious, you share a room, as I did then. You will need clothes for the APA, but you will need them in the rest of your career too, so it isn't fair to saddle the APA with that expense. No matter where you are, you need to eat. So unless your situation is unusual, I think you are 'forced' to spend at most 1/3 of that. The most significant costs are psychical, not financial, and I don't think we should overlook those. Top research departments can avoid first-round interviews without suffering much. But I imagine that departments who are unable to hire one of the top 5 candidates applying for the position really benefit from the opportunity to meet a dozen candidates early in the process, so that they can make informed decisions down the road. (I have no view about whether Skype replicates these benefits.)

@Anne: Yes, "some of the various" is preferable to "the various". The man in Anscombe's example knows immediately that he's moving his arm up and down because he's pumping water, and this knowledge partially constitutes the intentionality of his pumping water. The man does not necessarily also know he is thereby, e.g. casting a peculiar shadow. @Jimmy: Yes, I like your characterization of Anscombe's view as "So reasons are never causes *qua* reasons." But for her it's clear some reasons are indeed causes; see "Why is it that in revenge and gratitude, pity and remorse, the past event (or present situation) is a reason for action, not just a mental cause?" (Intention, sec. 14). This is not just a borderline case. But I mostly want only to dispel the notion that Anscombe thought that reasons are not causes. For her, at least sometimes they are.