In this interview Justin Caouette, full time, non-tenure track Assistant Professor at Bridgewater State University and a part-time philosophy instructor at Rutgers University, UMass – Dartmouth, and Northeastern University, talks about growing up in Fall River Massachusetts with a single mom, getting kicked out of high school, toxic masculinity, writing about sports for the school newspaper, arguing about the Trinity, AIM, drinking and smoking at Bristol Community college until transferring to Bridgewater State, worrying about money, discovering philosophy, clubbing, basketball, hip hop, libertarianism, Vicodin and OxyContin, working at Lens Crafters, going to Washington State University, Myspace, hiking, moving on to Calgary, getting into the free will and moral responsibility literature, learning to be less aggressive, getting married, becoming a dad, managing responsibilities of fatherhood and graduate school, working on his dissertation while worried about money, butting heads with his dissertation advisor, starting another dissertation, imposter syndrome, the relationship between hard work and success on the job market, Marcus Arvan and Philosopher’s Cocoon, becoming a Bernie supporter, teaching 23 classes a year, underprivileged viewpoints within philosophy, Trump, antics from the left, the problem with optimistic free will skepticism, My Cousin Vinny, Metallica, Juice Wrld, and his last meal…
[10/12/2022]
Where’d you grow up?
I grew up in Fall River, Massachusetts. A blue-collar town known historically for its textile mills that made the city one of the most affluent in the country in the late 1800s and early 1900s and for being home to Lizzie Borden who was thought to famously kill her family with an ax (but wasn’t convicted). More recently it was featured on ESPN as a blue-collar city obsessed with basketball and drug addiction. Former NBA player Chris Herren was from Fall River and ESPN did a 30 for 30 documentary on him which accurately depicted my hometown. A tough, gritty, Northeast city with lots of pride and balls! It has a port and is home to the largest collection of decommissioned US naval ships in the country. The Portuguese culture throughout the city has become well-known as well.
What’s your family like?
My family is small and I’ve been somewhat estranged from them for quite some time. Let’s start with my mom: My mom was a postal worker—a hard worker, who not only worked hard outside the home but did nearly all the household duties as well. She wasn’t one to show much affection, but she always made me feel loved and special in her own way. She grew up in a tough Fall River housing project, she was tough herself and didn’t take any shit and she brought me up to be the same way. If you were one to take shit you wouldn’t last long in Fall River.
Mental illness is rampant in my family. My mom grew up with a brother and two sisters. Her brother (my uncle Steve) was schizophrenic and died at 53 after being taken care of his whole life by my grandmother, and her oldest sister (my aunt whom I was closest to growing up) suffered from psychosis and committed suicide at age 40 (when I was 21). My mom (luckily) was only stricken with anxiety for most of her life. Losing my aunt to suicide had a profound impact on my life and the finger pointing that followed her death (what we all could have done differently to try and prevent it from happening) caused many of us to drift apart for most of my adult life.
I never met my biological father and was told at age 11 that the guy I called dad was not my “bio dad”. At the point I had an “aha moment.” He never talked much to me growing up other than to poke fun at me or tell me how I didn’t do something right so hearing that news at age 11 weirdly came across as good news. I have a younger sister who was his biological child and who grew up in the same house as me. We didn’t get along much and kept to ourselves mostly. He was quite negative (to put it mildly) growing up so I got out of the house as much as I could. Because of this I stood tight with my friends and they became my family, so to speak.
Get into any trouble?
Yeah, I was always finding a way to get into trouble. At 12 I ran away from home (that only lasted two days until cops picked me up). I was a troublemaker as a teen. I was kicked out of a local high school for playing pranks on my teachers and barely graduated from the second high school I attended (I skipped school often and didn’t take things seriously). Most of the guys I hung with were sketchy. Many ended up in jail or overdosed within 10-15 years of high school. Fall River has a way of taking a hold of you in a variety of ways. I was a bit different than my high school peers in that I was a very sensitive kid that wasn’t afraid to talk about how I was feeling. That got me bullied a bit for being a “bitch” but I had a chip on my shoulder and always fought back. It made for some stressful teenage years but they tend to be stressful for all of us so...
Like many blue collar or lower class environments I found there to be a fierce presence of toxic masculinity that I engaged with and participated in myself growing up so in another sense I was very much like my peers.
School?
My favorite subject in high school was journalism. I had a great mentor, my journalism teacher, Mr. V, who trusted me with my own column in the local school paper that was supplemented into The Herald News, our city newspaper, once per month. I really enjoyed writing that sports column and thought I would possibly go to college to be a writer. I got to interview some cool people (The Boston Celtics team when Rick Petino was our coach, Hank Aaron, and a few others). Other than journalism, I’d say history was another subject that didn’t bore me like math or English; it was tough to keep my undiagnosed ADD at bay and in retrospect if I had a handle on it back then I would have enjoyed more subjects. Instead, I clowned around a bit too much and didn’t take school seriously.
What was on your mind in general?
I was passionate about sports and have a wealth of useless knowledge regarding anything basketball and football related. I played often as well. I was a gym rat (I still am) and was always trying to get bigger. I was extremely skinny in high school (not a problem I have anymore!) so the gym was my way to fix that. Other than that I thought about girls far too often and smoked more weed than I should have.
Any signs you’d become a philosopher?
I think so. The biggest sign came in 5th grade. I went to a Catholic school from K-8th grade and we had religion class 4 days a week. When discussing the Trinity I pressed the priest often. So much so that when I went and got my master’s degree at Washington State an old classmate reached out to tell me how much sense it made to them that I was pursuing philosophy. I guess that my interactions with the priest had led them to become atheist and I hadn't known my impact until that moment. A few years later a few other classmates reached out with similar sentiments and that was humbling to hear that I was having that effect on others at such an early age.
Worries?
I didn't worry about anything in particular, that was one of my bigger problems. That said, I worried way too much about everything. I was an anxious kid and worried too much about things that ultimately didn’t matter.
Was college on the table?
I didn't think much about it, I knew I had to go to make something of myself (or so I was led to believe at the time). I went to a community college after high school only because I realized I needed a degree in something to get a job but wasn't sure what that would be. I didn't have much of a plan... I applied to UMass Amherst and Bristol Community College. I got into BCC but was rejected from UMass. My grades were poor so I expected the rejection.
Any political or technological events that had a significant impact on your life before college?
Not really. I didn't follow much in the way of politics or world events other than sporting events before college. Though, I do recall AIM and MySpace being quite the thing for networking and dating...
How was the love life?
I had two long term relationships while in college and a year or so in between them where I dated a bunch. After high school I got with a girl who went to a private high school in Fall River. Her parents were very well off and they really didn't like me, especially her mom. They were well educated and upper class and a bit snooty and I was a football jersey wearing, hat backwards, partying gym bro from Fall River that was regularly getting kicked out of the community college. I'll never forget when her mom met my mom for lunch and her mom said, "you realize that Jill won't end up with Justin, she's just going through a phase". I'll never forget how livid my mom was that she thought her daughter was too good for me (her daughter smoked weed everyday herself and lived a similar lifestyle at the time but I digress). That relationship lasted almost 5 years and helped to shape me in a number of positive ways.
How was Bristol Community College? How did you end up at Bridgewater?
It was an interesting time. I smoked a lot of weed and rarely attended classes. I was prepared academically, the work came quite easy, but I wasn't quite mature enough, nor did I have much direction at all. So, all in all BCC was sort of a holding tank for me for a few years while I matured and got grounded a bit. I attended classes infrequently and drank and smoked way too much weed.
My road to Bridgewater State was an interesting one. I started at BCC then got kicked out for withdrawing from most of my classes several times. Then I went to UMass Dartmouth for a semester and did the same thing. Then I went back to BCC and had a solid year before finally transferring to Bridgewater State with one of my best friends, Roddy Sullivan. Me and Sully made a pact to hold each other accountable and that's what we did. He had a similar track record of signing up for classes then blowing them off. We stuck to our word and we graduated from BSU in 2 in a half years (in 2008). He was a history major and I was a psych/philosophy major. Interestingly, we only took one class together (theatre appreciation).
Worried about money?
I was always worried about money, and it’s still something that worries me! Growing up in a housing project and having your mom pay for a Catholic school before she could even afford her own home was always something that I appreciated but always made me curious about how to get more money. She thought that getting a solid education was more important than getting out of the project which also stuck with me (the importance of education even though she never attended a 2 or 4 year institution herself). She saw it as rising above the project mentality by educating yourself. Anyway, money was always an issue and I took out the maximum amount of loans I could to get by while also working full time throughout my time at BSU. I worked as a residential counselor for kids removed from their homes for a variety of reasons, from abuse in the house to violent behaviours in public. I did that for 5 years in all. I was a manager when I left the non-profit to pursue more money in sales and because I was mentally burnt out from the position. Working with troubled youth can be hard for those of us who deeply care for the kids we were working with. But yeah, money was always an issue and one of the biggest worries in my mind for most of my life. It still worries me because of the nature of my employment. The last 3 years have been great, in that I have had full time work and full benefits, but not knowing what the next year will bring carries a high level of financial stress and anxiety that can be overwhelming at times.
How did you discover philosophy?
I was a psychology major upon entering Bridgewater State and I took a philosophy class to fill an open time slot in my schedule. I took Philosophy of Human Nature with Laura McAlinden and I was immediately hooked. Other favorite classes at Bridgewater were Happiness and Meaning in Life, Plato and Aristotle, and Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus. Aeon Skoble and Ed James were also influential to me when I was a student in different ways.
How did you mature, philosophically?
Aeon and Laura never allowed me to get away with my first take on an issue, they always pressed me to better explain my position and I became a much clearer thinker because of the questions they would ask and more importantly the way they asked the questions. Being a tough person, I saw anyone disagreeing with me as a sign of confrontation, and I would immediately change my tone and begin arguing back and forth. Laura and Aeon could tell I was rough around the edges and rather than just write me off as a punk they took the time to press me in a more sensitive way. They really helped me to build my confidence as a student and thinker and opened my eyes to so many traits I had that were toxic and were holding me back from being the best version of myself. They did this not by telling me anything negative about myself, but by explaining the different positions I would argue against with clarity and asking deep and meaningful questions about why I would hold the views that I would. I'll never forget Laura (she was Dr. McAlinden to me at the time) telling me I was a feminist and I responded by saying "really, what about me comes across as feminine"? I had no idea what feminism was in 2005. I was simply insulated in my little sports, club, and weed bubble and rarely had discussions about gender or feminism or toxic masculinity and I took her comment as a negative one. She then explained what feminism was and I knew right away I was a feminist. She recently passed (suddenly) and losing her is a big loss for me. In fact, the full time position I currently hold was her vacated position in the department. It would be something if I ended up here permanently as her replacement but rarely do things work out in this way.
How did you grow as a student?
School always came easy to me when I actually showed up but Philosophy classes were different. I couldn't get by with my wittiness and general knowledge. I had to do the reading. I was taken aback by the depth of the conversations and for the first time in my life I was reading things for pleasure. I was reading texts that weren't assigned just to get a better grasp on the discussions that were taking place in the classroom. I was bitten by the bug as the saying goes. I went from not even doing the readings half the time in my courses and still doing okay to reading everything that was assigned and then some. I was making connections from the theories we discussed in my psych classes to the philosophical arguments we were having about human nature, identity, and free will. I truly found my passion, as cheesy as it sounds. I became a double major the following semester and I'm convinced that's what helped the most in my success as a student and in life.
What did your mom make of your decision to major in philosophy?
My mom was always supportive when it came to my education. She just wanted me to get a college degree, she would have preferred something with a skill set that got me a job right out of school but at the end of the day she was just proud that I was sticking with school and getting a degree. She was my biggest supporter and cheerleader, and she was always willing to listen to my new paper ideas and ask me good questions.
What did you do for fun?
At BSU I was going to the club a lot less. I was really into hip hop and the club scene in Providence, RI and occasionally Boston, MA but that faded right about the time I got into BSU. The three years I spent there consisted mostly of me reading a lot and dating. That said, I did play basketball when I came up for air, playing basketball and going to the gym were always an important part of my life. I kept in touch with some of my old friends by playing organized flag football for a few years as well. That helped me feel like I wasn't forgetting where I came from, so to speak. For some reason that was always a concern for me. I didn't want to turn into someone that thought they were better than others just because I decided to get the degree and they did not. I had far too much fun bouncing around from BCC to UMass Dartmouth and back to BCC, so I was somewhat better about having too much fun when I got to BSU. In the summers though, that's a different story. The beach was always a good time as were nights out in Providence and smoking with my friends.
Were you into politics?
At BSU I was a libertarian but I wasn't big into politics at all. I cared much more about sports and shied away from most political discussions. Aeon was a libertarian working on his book Deleting the State at the time I was there and he was super influential in my political thinking, but again, this was my first time even thinking about politics and I didn't get active until around 2009. In 2004 (right before I began at BSU) I voted for Kerry but then I voted for McCain in 2008 and this was due in large part to Aeon’s influence on my thinking. Since then, I’ve voted for Obama, and Bernie twice.
Did you…party?
At BSU and even much earlier I dabbled with a bunch of drugs. I smoked a ton of weed, drank a lot, and dabbled with psychedelics, mostly mushrooms. Prescription drugs were all the rage in the early 00's and the effects of their long-term use were not as widely known as they are today so many of us took perks and Vicodin without thinking twice. When Oxycontin came on the scene it was pitched as a really strong Vicodin, so it couldn't be that bad. I tried it once and only remember a few minutes of the night. I never did it again. My two best friends at the time never stopped taking them. One has since died of a heroin overdose and the other has done about 10 years in prison out of the last 20 and has been battling addiction ever since. Watching both of these friends get hooked was a powerful thing for me. It's even led to many of the philosophical interests I found myself gravitating toward in grad school and ever since. I feel lucky to not have been reeled in like so many that I grew up with in Fall River.
When did you decide to go to grad school? Did you consider doing anything other than philosophy?
Upon graduating from BSU in 2008 Aeon and Laura suggested grad school to me. I didn't know much about how grad school worked and when I was told that they would pay me to go to school and give me a scholarship I was in disbelief. Aeon was clear to tell me that I should only do it if I received funding because the job market prospects were not that great. He suggested I take a year off after graduating. I had a pretty good paying job at the time as an apprentice optician and retail manager at Lens Crafters. Acknowledging I was doing well for myself he urged me to make sure I wanted to give that all up. And, after a year away if I still needed to get back into it, then I should and he would be happy to walk me through the process. He suggested a few MA programs and I found a few MA/PhD programs and I applied. I was really hoping to get into Tufts to work with Dan Dennett as it was much closer and I wasn't sure about a big move. But in retrospect that wouldn't have been great at all given I needed the change of scenery and that change of scenery really impacted me more than any other event in my life. I applied to 12 schools after BSU, only one accepted me with full funding - Washington State University in Pullman, WA.
Social media became a big thing…
Growing up we didn't have social media. Myspace came along when I was 23 so I got through my really tough years without posting about it. I am very grateful for that. By "really tough" I simply mean my more immature days. Since joining social media I have been much more politically informed and this has significantly impacted my life and opened my eyes. I was born in 1980, we are the last generation that wasn't raised on social media, nor did we have it as teens, yet we were young enough to still use it regularly as young adults. I think our perspective on social media related issues and the ethics of its use is an important one and one we should try to engage with others about given how central it is in everyone's lives these days.
Surprises in grad school?
Honestly, everything about grad school was a surprise to me. The biggest surprises though were the ones I saw in myself. I had a chip on my shoulder at WSU. I wanted to make a splash so bad that I read everything I could get my hands on. I wanted to be the first student awake, getting my writing in at 5-6am sometimes and I wanted to be the last student to put down the book or computer. I was surprised at how dedicated and focused I was, it was the first time in my life that I felt truly out of my league, and I worked hard until I felt I could be the best at it. I picked up new hobbies (hiking and squash). I was honestly surprised that no one else was really putting in the work that I was.
How did you end up at Calgary?
Joe Campbell was an unbelievable mentor to me at WSU for a variety of reasons but he was the one who put Calgary on the map for me. For my master’s thesis I wrote a couple of chapters defending virtue ethics. That said, in my last chapter I started to dig into the moral responsibility literature and I couldn’t get enough. Blame and moral responsibility more generally always fascinated me given that so many of us have very different intuitions about when it might be warranted and for what reasons, or so it seems. Joe and I did an independent study on moral responsibility and he could tell how much I enjoyed the topic. He suggested I work with Ish Haji on the topic and also noted that Walter Glannon was also doing some interesting work on free will and moral responsibility from a neuroscientific point of view. Given that I was following the experimental philosophy literature on free will rather closely, it seemed to be a good fit for me and I was looking forward to working closely with Ish and Walter on the project. That said, I still needed to be accepted and needed to weigh my options (if I was to have any). UCalgary was the first school to get back to me. I recall the warm phone call from our department secretary, Denise, who became what I referred to as my “Calgary mom”, she was great! I was accepted to a few other schools in the states with funding, but the warm call coupled with a much more substantial financial package made it a no-brainer for me to head north to work with Ish and Walter on free will and moral responsibility. Another reason I wanted to go north was to pursue my newly acquired hobby of hiking that I was coming to love thanks to some friends I made at Washington State.
What was Calgary like?
When I arrived at UCalgary the culture was pretty relaxed. I’d be the first one at the office and often the last one to leave. I started an annual grad student conference, I started reading groups, I started the philosophy grad student association where I was president for the first two years and I talked shop every chance that I could. I really wanted Calgary to be a bigger name as I truly admired the work being done there and the inclusive environment they were able to cultivate and I wanted to do everything in my power to help it get there. I worked as a TA for several professors, I was even hired a few times to help promote some work and projects some philosophers were working on in the department.
What did you do?
Jeremy Fantl, Meghan Delehanty, and Richard Zach hired me to help on a funded project to get the department to be more equitable regarding the assigned readings in a number of intro courses. It was fun to think about making the classroom more inclusive and I was humbled that they thought that I could help.
Ken Waters also hired me for multiple semesters to work on a variety of projects in Phil science and to help him develop an online presence to help promote his work. I was particularly thankful to be hired to work the Canadian Summit on the Philosophers on science project where I got to spend time with all the major players in the field (Elliot Sober, Helen Longino, Phil Kitcher, John Beatty, and many, many others). It gave me a peak into how the profession worked as well as to how these thinkers were approaching their research. Similarly, being hired to work the annual Hume Conference that was held in Calgary (by Ann Levey) also gave me insight into how the discipline as a whole worked. Calgary was a great place to do philosophy and I learned so much.
Working as a TA for excellent teachers and researchers also made Calgary a joy to be a part of. Meghan Delehanty taught an awesome Phil sci/bioethics type course to mostly pre-med students which helped me hone my teaching skills with the breakout style sessions we had. Talking with Marc Ereshefsky about why he included certain readings in his intro to philosophy class still stick with me today. Working with Allen Habib and Ish teaching normative ethics has been quite influential as well. They have very different styles but I’m sort of mash up of the two so being able to see how they went about teaching the same course has made me become a better professor.
I was surprised I was making money doing something I truly loved, that was the biggest surprise to me, that I could get paid to travel to conferences, give talks, and write. I was so excited by this that I worked tirelessly because I didn’t want it to end, but as the job market grew closer I could tell it probably would end for many of us.
Outside of academic life Calgary was a great place to live and to raise a son. I would hike multiple times a week throughout the year. I was sort of known as the hiker in the department and was always willing to take visiting speakers, and new grad students and post-docs on a hike (Banff National Park was about an hour and 20 minutes from campus so I would happily take speakers for a hike.) It allowed me to have lots of time to pick their brains and get to know how they became successful. Many seemed to enjoy themselves, though some, looking at you Catarina Dutilh Novaes, had mixed feelings about the hikes (Catarina and I ran into a grizzly on one such hike).
Banff rules. When you were in grad school, what were you interested in? Where was the philosophical energy in your department?
In general, I was engrossed in the moral responsibility literature, the free will literature, the epistemic justification lit, and the virtue literature so I wasn’t paying too much attention to the general trends in grad school. That said, many in my department were philosophers of science so I found myself digging into debates about values in science, natural kinds, species classification, and pragmatism among many others.
Get along well with the other grad students? Did you look up to any of your fellow grad students? Inspirational teachers, classes, books, or papers?
For the most part I got along with my peers. I hosted a biweekly poker game that most grad students would attend. We’d drink whiskey and hang late and talk shop. We’d put our ideas on the white boards and debate into the wee hours of the morning. Some of the best friends I’ve made in life were my fellow grad students. They made me much better at philosophy, they taught me how to listen better, they taught me how to be less aggressive, and most importantly they helped me build confidence in my philosophical abilities. I was a bit older than most of my classmates, so they’d often come to me for advice both about philosophy and about life and I was very humbled to have such smart people looking to me to help guide their life decisions. Not only my fellow grad students but the postdocs we had at UCalgary were top notch. As I mentioned earlier, I was the unofficial departmental hiking liaison so I’d take everyone up to Banff for their first hiking trips (and often their 2nd, 3rd, and 4th) and those trips were great because we’d talk shop the whole way and get to know one another quite intimately in those conversations; hiking became quite the philosophical enterprise for me. I’m forever indebted to the excellent postdocs Calgary had: Adrian Currie, Kerry McKenzie, Oliver Lean, Kirsten Walsh, Anders Kraal, and Lauren Ross. I’m indebted because they all helped make me feel like I could make it in the discipline. They praised me for how hard they saw me work, and how ready I seemed to them for the job market. I consider myself to be competent in many areas of philosophy of science due to the classes I sat in on with them and the countless hours I spent talking shop with all of them. That said, I did have people I didn’t get along with in the dept. There was one postdoc in particular that truly made life worse during their tenure there. After initially hitting it off, their toxicity started to shine through. Many grad students stopped hanging out together when this person was there; it was a long 9 months to say the least.
You were married?
I met my future ex-wife at 25. She worked at the residential group home program I worked at as well and after our first date it was a wrap. We split after my third year in Calgary, going through that divorce was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through.
How did your former wife feel about being married to a philosophy grad student?
She didn’t like it. She didn’t get it. Because I didn’t have anywhere specific to be she thought I should be at home more but I couldn’t get work done at home so it was a big source of conflict for us.
We stood together for roughly 10 years and split in 2015.
You’re a dad, too, right? How did you juggle your responsibilities as a father, husband, and student?
I became a stepdad first, around 2007. But on July 4, 2012 I became Benji’s dad. I still find it funny that my Canadian born dual citizen son was born on the 4th of July. It was smack in the beginning of my PhD program (I started the program in Sept 2011). It was tough! I tried to limit my time in the office to 9-5 once he was born, so I had to try and give up that ‘get there before everyone and leave after everyone mentality’. I’d try to write when he slept, it wasn’t easy. As he grew, and more importantly as he slept regularly, it got much easier. Me and his mom split when he was 3 and we shared custody 50/50. Once that happened I became a workaholic on weeks I didn’t have him and only worked when he would sleep while I had him. I became much more efficient as a result of becoming a dad, that was a pleasant surprise.
What did you write your dissertation on and why?
I initially wrote my dissertation within the free will debate. “Free Will and Why it Matters” was the working title. I wrote two full chapters (50+ pages each) and had both signed off and edited by my adviser, Ish Haji, and my 3rd chapter was nearly complete (out of a 4 chapter project). But, upon getting ready to schedule a defense date I started going through a divorce. If I wasn’t going through that emotional time in my life I probably would have stood the course with Ish. In 2015, my visa was set to expire in the next year. Knowing I needed to stay longer in Calgary to figure out custody and living arrangements with the boys and figure out my life more generally I knew I needed to extend the visa but there weregn’t many options. That said, if I sold to the department that I needed more time because I wasn’t finished yet then maybe I could stay longer. So this is when I began to think it might be in my best interest to start a new project.
The thought wouldn’t have crossed my mind if Ish and I were getting along well but given that relationship was dicey at best it seemed like a move I should consider strongly given that I needed to stay. Ish was very critical. He was super quick with his feedback. He and I were very alike in many ways. We’d get very excited when we would discuss our views and let’s put it this way, when we would meet all of the department knew about it even with the doors closed. I was to be his first PhD student even though he’d been there for many years. I respected him tremendously. No other philosopher has impacted me as much as he has. He pushed me and made me the best philosopher I could be and if I would have finished that project it would have been the best contribution to philosophy I would have produced. That said, that philosophy is still the best I produced and I hope to get it published one day. If it wasn’t for my teaching load there is no doubt I would have sent it off already! But, because our relationship was so intense and because he wouldn’t let up, even knowing I was living in my office at the time and such, I decided to switch gears completely.
I didn’t want to finish that project with anyone else. Since my funding was going to run out and I needed to find a way to get my visa extended in Canada. So I pitched my department chair at the time the idea that I wanted to write a new dissertation. I’ll never forget his comment: well, I would advise you to defend your current dissertation but if you can get an adviser and a committee together and have them sign off on a proposal in the next month or so then we can see about you getting your program extended. So, I took a paper I gave in Serbia on ‘moral enhancement’, a paper that was on a topic I argued about quite a bit with my peers and back home with non-philosophy folks, and turned that project into a dissertation project. One reason I wrote on an applied ethics topic is because it seemed like a better approach to the job market given how few jobs were being posted for one who was writing on free will. Thankfully I got Walter Glannon to be my adviser on the topic of pharmacological enhancement. I argued that not only were most instances of pharmacological enhancement morally permissible but that many are probably obligated to enhance depending on the context. I never stopped reading the free will lit and I still hope to get that initial project finished even though some of the ideas on there have since been scooped. Glannon was in British Columbia a lot of the time while I was writing so I leaned heavily on Mark Migotti and Jeremy Fantl to finish. Without Fantl at the end there is no way I would have finished this project. He was super helpful and encouraging both philosophically and personally. I’ve been real lucky to have such genuinely nice people in my philosophical life.
Describe Ish a bit more. I’m puzzled. Why didn't you finish the dissertation with Ish, exactly?
Ish has a strong personality. He’s sharp as a nail and he doesn’t pull any punches. He’s well read, he’s a true scholar in every sense of the word, and I respect him as a philosopher tremendously. That said, I always felt that he didn’t appreciate my philosophical approach and didn’t respect me much as an intellectual peer. Whereas other philosophers in my department asked me to sit in on their classes, hired me to do research with and for them, coauthored papers with me, asked me to guest lecture, and so on. Ish never showed me that kind of respect though he did to other students. He didn’t even like my writing style because I was trying to write in a gender neutral way, we butted heads often and on many fronts. A few philosophers even reached out to Ish asking about when I’d be on the market and he would tell them I’m far from ready. I know this because Ish told me this. “So and so was asking about you, and I was like how do you even know him, what has he done to be on your radar?” That always made me insecure. I didn’t feel like he’d have my back on the market and it really made me question if I could do the PhD.
Here’s a recent story that may put my feelings about Ish into perspective a bit more: He recently wrote a book on exactly what I wrote a 72 page chapter on in my dissertation, “Moral Obligation and Free Will.” He also touches on what a few of my other chapters were on as well (forgiveness being a main one). As such, his entire project is related to that dissertation I wrote with him. He was my adviser and he didn’t even acknowledge me in the book. I worked on that project for over 2 years with him, for him to not even acknowledge me in his thinking about the topic speaks volumes to me about what he thinks of me. I’m the kind of person that uses this to fuel me so if anything this has helped to keep me active with my research as I aim in the future to argue against the arguments he offered in the book. But yeah, that’s me and Ish in a nutshell. Me feeling incompetent or underappreciated and Ish not recognizing my thoughts as contributing much to the discipline, or at least that’s how I felt after meeting with him weekly. Ish was happy to say that my stuff was interesting, things weren’t all bad. But when push came to shove I didn’t feel much respect coming from him.
This feeling may very well stem from the imposter syndrome I had as a grad student but I’m not so sure. Here I think it’s important that I acknowledge a few faculty that helped me overcome this insecurity. I’m very appreciative of faculty like Jeremy Fantl, Mark Migotti, Ann Levey, Ken Waters, Marc Ereshefsky, Megan Delehanty, Jack MacIntosh, and Al Habib who all made me feel like I had what it took and encouraged me through the finish line. They often gave advice, they introduced me to their circles of philosophers in a way that showed they believed in me and my ability, they had me guest lecture, they sent other grad students my way to help them navigate their time in the department, they asked me to partake in small reading groups, and they took me on and paid me to help them do research and organize conferences and other professional endeavors, sometimes in areas where I was not a specialist. They were encouraging both professionally and personally and I grew as a person and a philosopher because of them. I’m also grateful to Walter Glannon for having the confidence in me to start a whole new project and for not giving up on me even though he was dealing with some of his own issues at the time as well.
As I stated earlier, I would have stayed the course with Ish regardless of our differences but the stress that came with many of our interactions was a lot for someone who was homeless for 9 months while going through a divorce. When you aren’t independently wealthy and you're in grad school with a family, when that family falls apart there aren’t many live options. Some offered to help but I chose to live in my office instead, hoping that the marriage would work itself out. It never did. So, it ended with Ish because I wasn’t in an emotional space where I could handle his style of criticism and his doubts about me in a way that would have allowed me to finish. If it wasn’t for the divorce, there is no doubt I would have stood the course with Ish, for better or worse.
I mean, Ish did do that anthology with you, right?
Yes. The anthology came about after the 1st annual grad student conference I started. I was approached to have a volume come out as a result of the conference and I approached Ish to help. He gladly said yes and he did a lot of the work. Again, I can’t iterate enough how much I value his work as a scholar and I do appreciate the time he did spend with me at Calgary.
Best talk(s) you saw as a grad student?
I saw so many good talks as a grad student! Talks by Susan Wolf, Angela Smith, Stephen Darwall, Michael McKenna, Alastair Norcross, Helen Longino, Dan Dennett, Randy Clarke, Gary Watson, Derk Pereboom, Al Mele, Laurie Paul, Nomy Arply, Chandra Sripada, Paul Russell, Doug Portmore, Gwen Bradford, and Manuel Vargas, and Miriam Schleifer McCormick all stick out to me for various reasons. The most influential talks for me were the ones I had with speakers after their talks, in the mountains, and when I was alone with them.
What was the job market like when you finished? Were you prepared?
I received my PhD in 2019 but I successfully defended my project in mid-2018 and moved back to Massachusetts in August of 2018 because my visa had expired and I had no way of making money in Canada. The job market was awful and it’s only gotten worse. I wasn’t prepared for the uncertainty of the job market at the end of the tunnel. Everyone always warned me how hard things were every step of the way so the warnings about the difficulty of scoring an academic gig weren’t taken that seriously. “Justin, grad school is tough to crack don’t be disappointed if you don’t get in. It’s not a reflection of your work if you do not.” This is what I heard when applying the first time around after my BA at BSU. I heard similar sentiments when applying to PhD programs from WSU. So when I got to Calgary and heard similar things about the job market I just thought that if I worked harder than anyone else I came across I’d find my way into the academy permanently. To my surprise, I realized that for the first time, no matter how hard I worked it was probably not going to happen.
Any horror stories?
My worse job market horror story wasn’t too bad or nearly as bad as I’ve heard from some. That said, and given how vulnerable I was at the time, getting Skype interviewed for a postdoc at a top 10 program and being told I’d get an answer within a week or 2 tops and then getting ghosted by this big named philosopher was probably the worst. It was bad because this job was my last bite of the season and I was unsure what was I store next for me. He still to this day hasn’t returned my emails (it’s been well over 3 years now) maybe he’s still deciding?! He has no problem interacting on social media with me though, but I digress. It’s been pretty tough to be in such a tough market, I’m thankful to people like Marcus Arvan who have developed space to help up and coming scholars and who have been so supportive of me oftentimes sharing their equally tough struggles. Aside from that space, I had the chance to meet with him in person and his kindness and genuine concern for others was helpful for me, in more ways than I can properly explain. Having people willing to talk about the market and how tough it is to go through it has been important to me and many others trying to navigate what to do next with a PhD in philosophy. The struggle is real.
How did your politics change in grad school?
I was a libertarian. Once I got to Washington State University that changed quite quickly when I became close with one of my grad student peers. He was also a libertarian and was very much drinking the anarcho-capitalism kool-aid and I just found his take on things to be wrong, and downright cruel at times. Through hours and hours of discussions with him and other grad student peers at WSU I became pretty left. I've voted left since the McCain vote. I went from being almost apolitical when college began to being pretty right (libertarian) to being a card-carrying Bernie supporter for the last 8 years. I went from thinking the state should be as minimal as possible to thinking we should all have a basic income and health insurance. Living in Canada for 8 years also helped me to dispel the worries I had about a state-run healthcare approach.
How else have your views changed?
The cultural shift that has impacted me the most more recently is with regards to gender norms. Being a father figure to two boys has also shined a light on how masculinity gets pushed down our throats. Having been brought up in a city that prides itself on grittiness, toughness, and hard work (and other traits often associated with men and masculinity) I have seen first-hand how these traits become toxic. The overemphasis on these traits in men has led to many of us not knowing how to act and what to say. As a single man and trying to date after being married for nearly 10 years it's been tough to navigate the dating world. Many women still expect you to fill your gender role (paying for things, fixing things around the house, fixing cars, not showing emotion, etc) while others say they don't want you follow those norms but then complain about your failure to uphold these norms in different terms. It's not easy to navigate. I think it's a good thing that society is changing in this way, upholding these norms to the level we have is toxic for everyone involved. That said, the fact that things are moving in this direction doesn't make navigating this new world any easier. I'll also say that trying to date while being a philosopher is even harder while undergoing a shift in gender norms.
Where did you land your first job?
I scored a teaching gig at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) while in Calgary. That was an adjunct gig that didn’t provide steady work. When I got back to the states in August of 2018 I was contacted by an old prof who had heard I was back and finished with the PhD, Laura McAlinden. She had just lost one of her long-time adjuncts and asked if I was interested in teaching logic part time (sort of last minute). I immediately jumped at the chance to work at my alma mater and I’ve been teaching 3 classes a semester there since my return. My second gig was at Northeastern University. I had a friend that was hired TT there a couple of years prior and they were in need of a last-minute person to fill an intro ethics class. I quickly put in my application and was hired part time. After working there on a part time basis for 3 semesters I applied for a full-time visiting position and was hired for that in August 2020. It was a one-year renewable position (can only be renewed one additional year due to university policy). Thankfully I was renewed again for the 2021-2022 academic year. As that position ended, I was able to score an Assistant Professorship at Bridgewater State but this is only a one year position. Who knows where I’ll be after that? Between staying on part time at Northeastern, picking up courses at UMass Dartmouth (thanks to Maureen Eckert and Jennifer Mulnix), and teaching 2/2 at Rutgers which started in the fall of 2022 - I’m teaching about 23 courses for the academic year, enough that I can actually save some money and attempt to weather the storm life throws at me next.
Why do you think many tenured are so, not indifferent but oblivious, to the plight of the untenured?
I can’t help but see it as a lack of caring. Things are too bad and too obvious to be oblivious to the plight of the untenured, for those that are oblivious. If I had to guess, I’d say that one issue is that a majority of academics don’t know the details of lower income struggles. I saw lots of white dudes in the discipline, but I didn’t see many from the projects or other places I’m familiar with as someone who was raised on government assistance. This speaks to the need for the hiring of more profs from underprivileged backgrounds. The issues are real and obvious to us and if we are in a position to voice these concerns then maybe they could be handled better? Though I’m not optimistic. Because we (folks that grew up poverty, 1st gen college grads, among other groups) are so underrepresented in the discipline it’s hard to see how the issues will get the voices they need to enact the sort of change that is necessary for temp workers to get the security and treatment they deserve.
Occasionally I feel guilty for pursuing my academic career given the needs of my kid. Do you?
I don’t feel guilty at all. I don’t pursue academic employment that would take me away from my kids and this restricts me a lot in my pursuit for an academic career. I hope that my instability doesn’t affect them, I don’t think it has just yet. If it has, I think my being around more has outweighed that, at least I hope that’s the case. They never go without and I don’t vent to them about my anxiety around my contract situation from year to year and sometimes semester to semester.
23 courses. Does that get to you?
I teach 16-23 classes per year; 14 is the least amount I’ve taught, usually it’s 16-23. I still do research as well. I still review for journals, I still write. Unfortunately, my course load has made it difficult or near-impossible to follow through with many of my writing commitments, this bothers me a lot. If my courses were cut down to 6-8 per year there is no doubt I could follow through with my writing commitments and spend the same amount of time with my family. In fact, I’d spend more time with them as I would need much less self-care time to deal with the financial anxiety that comes with temp employment.
How would you say you have evolved as a teacher?
I’ve come a very long way! The biggest change for me has been my ability to teach online. I am the kind of prof that feeds off the energy in the room and moving to online instruction during the pandemic has forced me to interact differently with students to get the level of participation that’s needed to have a good class.
What was your election night like in 2008? 2016?
In 2008, I was hopeful. I hadn’t voted for Obama in his first election (I did his second time around) but I was on the fence the whole time. When McCain picked Palin I kind of sensed that it was over. I was happy we as a country were able to elect a mixed-race president, to me this showed progress. But I was weary that he would do a good job because he abstained from so many votes and he was fairly inexperienced. That said, I regret not voting for him as he turned out to be a great leader and someone I admire to this day. He brought class to the presidency. But in that night I wasn’t too engaged, I went out with friends and talked sports, it wasn’t until after that election that I became more politically involved.
In 2016, I was in shock. I remember every face in the room that night. I watched from a professor’s house in Calgary. I sat around with some UCalgary colleagues and we watched in disbelief. Some of the profs were present with their families, some of their kids watching an election for the first time and many started to leave early when it started to become apparent that Trump would get in. I remember being so angry, both at the left for the way they handled the election to the voters for voting for someone with his character. I was ashamed!
Thoughts on Trump?
Trump getting elected in 2016 really had an impact on me living in Canada. I became the token American in many conversations where I’d be asked about my views on Trump often, “you’re not one of those Americans, are you?” I voted for Bernie in that election but the fact that Trump was voted in really changed my worldview. I was already beginning to think that some of the antics from the left were going to have some backlash and it was my belief (and still is) that the polarizing way that the left has been doing politics gave rise to many people voting for someone that they normally wouldn’t have in years past. His getting elected really opened my eyes to how pervasive toxic masculinity was and it definitely had an impact on my thinking.
Antics from the left?
Yeah, it’s been disappointing to watch. By “antics” I’m referring to the way we choose to address those we disagree with and the way we characterize the policies we care about and those we disagree with: the canceling, the suggestion that one who disagrees with us must be sexist or racist or a bigot of some kind, chants to defund the police (but we really didn’t mean defund), not to mention putting forward Biden as the guy and insulating him from any criticism that we put forth against him. They seem to turn everything into political theatre, it's old and in my opinion it is part of the reason Trump was so successful in both elections. Many who would have voted against him felt attacked for simply existing, or for disagreeing, we feel silenced, I’ve felt this way with a number of left leaning people who knew me via social media for years.
I was an ally and someone who was trusted until I disagree with an approach or a framing, suddenly my character gets thrown into question. Here’s one such example: I’ve been attacked for asking publicly who I could include as a conference speaker in an effort to make the conference more representative (I was seeking to have representation outside of the white male views we so often hear) and asked for recommendations for women or non-white speakers I could invite as a keynote. I was asked by a grad student who was holding the conference to ask publicly given I had a large following in the discipline on Twitter. I was chastised for it from a well-known philosopher of science. I was dm’ed by no less than 5 academics telling me I shouldn’t stand my ground or defend myself as this philosopher was influential and on lots of committees that could impact me in the future.
This is just one example of more than a handful I’ve had on Twitter with high profile philosophers with tenure. Many of these have come from academics who claim to care about the plight and vulnerability of grad students and adjuncts yet they are quick to make life harder for us if we don’t walk in lockstep with their political views. I’ve seen a hypocrisy that bothers me tremendously. Again, the left isn’t alone in this but it hits different for me coming from them given the shared values and policies we have, I simply expected more from them and it’s become clear I shouldn’t have. I could share other stories as well, not related to social media, where I’ve been thrown to the wolves by fellow left leaning philosophers but I think I’ll stop there.
All this is to say that this has had a silencing effect on me as someone who is in the vulnerable position without permanent employment. I’ve gone from engaging with nearly anyone about a range of philosophical topics to mostly sharing articles that I find interesting and biting my tongue as I don’t want to give others ammo to use against me on the market. At some point I’ll say ‘fuck it’, but for now I’ll lurk in the background and focus on my teaching and my other hobbies. Again, the political right is guilty of all of this too and may be worse in some respects but it bothers me more from the left because I identify as a left-leaning individual with many of the policies and ideas I share and to see them stoop to that level is disheartening. Philosophy of all places shouldn’t seek to silence anyone, yet I’m finding the climate we have in our discipline to foster keeping quiet rather than speaking out, at least for vulnerable voices which arguably should be some of the loudest given what we are facing, but I digress.
In sum, the antics I speak of can be characterized as “If you don’t toe our political line and drink all the kool-aid you get treated as if you are part of the problem.” There seems to be no reasonable disagreement, it’s accept what we say and if you disagree you are less than us, there is something wrong with your character.
You are active on social media. Who do you follow?
I’ve been less active lately, for reasons I mentioned earlier but I tend to follow other philosophers on Twitter. My sharing is usually of articles or papers I read or that I want to read that are related to topics I’m working on or want to work on. I like to see what others are researching and social media helps me to get a grip on what’s trending in the discipline and what papers might be good to read. I tend to follow neuroscientists, philosophers, and psychologists who are actively researching or engaging with the discipline of philosophy. Most of my philosophical interests lie within the realm of understanding the human mind, human interactions, interpersonal relationships, our emotions, mental illness, and morality generally speaking. And as such, I tend to follow those who are engaged in research or who are themselves interested in topics related to these areas.
Seems like you get into it with people on the right and left...how do you pick and choose your battles on social media?
I was never really the “pick and choose” type. If I see something I disagree with I disagree with it regardless of who it is. But, as the climate of online conversations has changed I too have changed. Not to mention that when I started on Twitter I was a grad student with a bit more time on my hands. I’m teaching about 20 courses a calendar year these days and that’s played a role as well in me taking a step back and being more selective about my time spent on social media.
Overall, is social media, and the internet in general, bad for philosophy?
I don’t think the internet is bad for philosophy, nor do I think social media is, generally speaking. I think it helps to have philosophy in public spaces within society and the internet is a great way to get public philosophy going. Social media can also be helpful to those of us not privileged to have an Ivy League stamp on our degree. It provides us a space to do philosophy and engage with scholars from around the world. The work Thomas Nadelhoffer has done with Flickers of Freedom over the years has been super helpful for me! Engaging with the heavy hitters in the discipline on a regular basis makes you a better philosopher and I’m better because of that blog. Marcus Arvan is another great example of this with his Philosophers’ Cocoon blog (and Helen came along and made it even better, I truly admire the work they both are doing over there), the internet can be a great place to have outlets to discuss issues in the discipline and general philosophy. This is why I wanted to help spearhead the APA blog because I think it’s important to have a place on the net to do philosophy in a number of ways. I won’t get into my 6 month stint as associate editor of that blog though, all I’ll say is that working with Skye Cleary was great, she’s a class act!
In general, how are you dealing with the pandemic?
Lots of hiking, lots of hitting the weights, and a lot of just getting outside (away from people for the most part). Trying to live as much as I can. The pandemic has put things into perspective for me. I took a lot for granted and I’m trying my best to not do that on a day to day basis.
What are you working on nowadays?
I have a few projects going and I’m hoping to complete them in the near future. My initial dissertation project with Ish, I’m trying to finish that up. It’s tentatively titled: “Free Will and Why it Matters.” In the project, I connect a number of moral concepts to free will. I aim to show that optimistic free will skepticism (the views espoused by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso) is flawed and that we ought to believe in free will. I borrow from the pragmatic encroachment literature (via Fantl and McCgrath) to make the epistemic claims. I’m hoping to publish a paper from the project before pitching the entire project as a book.
I’m nearly finished with a piece that was started for the Routledge Companion to Free Will, titled “Addiction, Psychopathy, and Free Will”. However, I couldn’t meet the deadline and I’ll be forced to pitch it as a stand-alone article when complete.
I’m also working on punishment. Specifically, I was invited to contribute to a special issue on different conception of punishment and for that piece I’ll be trying to explain why non-retributive construals of punishment ultimately fail even though they are important to make changes to our criminal justice system more generally. I try to develop and defend what I call “reasonable retributivism”. I believe this view keeps what we need about the retributive conception of punishment (it better answers the why we punishment question) while leaving behind the baggage that retributivism admittedly brings to the table. I’m an advocate for criminal justice reform and I believe a reasonable retributivism sort of view is the best way to get us there.
I have a talk lined up in February 23’ at the US Naval College surrounding another project of mine. In that talk I’ll discuss the soldier’s obligation to enhance. It’s part of a larger project stemming from my dissertation where I consider various contexts and what the obligation some may have to enhance, if any.
Other than that I have been reading a few manuscripts and offering comments to a few colleagues.
Where do you want to be in 5 years?
I’d like to be teaching philosophy in a secure position in Massachusetts and I’d like to own my own home so my son can have a house of his own when he’s in high school.
What are you going to do if you don't find a permanent position?
Teach in a non-permanent fashion until I can no longer financially handle the stress, or, I come across a job which affords me the opportunity to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives while also allowing me to spend quality time regularly with Benji.
Where is philosophy in 50?
That’s a tough one. I still think it’ll be in the academy, and hopefully it’s much more public as well. If I had my way it would be taught in middle school high school and if it is, then the discipline would have a much easier way to find employment for some very smart PhD holders that cannot find secure work.
If the guy you were when you graduated high school met the guy you are now, what would he recognize? What would surprise him?
He'd recognize my passion and drive to make a difference in the lives of those around me. He'd recognize my dedication to the gym and my dedication to overcoming the obstacles that life has a way of throwing in front of me. He'd be surprised to see that I have a PhD, that I failed at marriage (because I rarely failed at things I worked hard at), and that I was an avid hiker. He would really laugh at that last fact because I never saw hiking as anything more than walking with a view (which is why I never cared to try it) and it's so much more than that for me now.
Favorite movie?
Depends on my mood: I’m a sci-fi nerd and love Star Wars. Alien is also a fav. Outside of sci-if I like mafia movies and classic 80s/90s flicks and slapstick type comedy. Examples: The Shawshank Redemption, Seven, Good Will Hunting, Goodfellas, Rocky 1-4, What About Bob, Stepbrothers, My Cousin Vinny.
Seven is a great movie. Music?
Again, it depends on my mood but I’m usually listening to hip hop or classic rock. Heavy in my rotation lately, Russ, Lil Wayne, Drake, The weeknd, Lil baby, Wu Tang, Juice Wrld, moneybagg yo, Nas, Future. I sometimes get into chill/poppy stuff like Dave Mathews Band, Lionel Richie, Bob Seger, Pearl Jam, among others. At the gym it’s Tool, System of a Down, Metallica, Biggy, and Tupac.
Tool forever. Favorite show?
I watch less and less tv over the last 10 years other than watching the Celtics or football. I’m just finishing up Game of Thrones, I finally gave in and decided to binge it a couple of months ago. I also just finished the 10 episode series Dahmer. All time favs: The Wire, The Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, Better Call Saul.
Last meal?
Tacos, all the tacos! With a cannabis infused seltzer.
Thanks, Justin!
[interviewer: Cliff Sosis]