As a nominee of the ESJP you obviously study or studied Philosophy, but could you tell us something more about yourself and how your interest in Philosophy came to be?
To be honest, I cannot tell how I initially got interested in Philosophy. I simply always liked how philosophers use reasoning and abstract thinking to understand the world. In any case, I took any philosophy course I could get in high school, and then quite naturally majored in Philosophy at University. I also studied economics. Here, I have a better story of how I became interested: I was surrounded by people criticizing our economic system and economists for failing to improve it. I simply thought this storyline of the ‘evil, dumb economist’ was too short-minded. So, I studied economics to understand what economists are actually doing, how we can learn from their research and whether they should be doing something else. I am still working on figuring that out. ?
Could you shortly introduce the topic of your paper and tell us why you wanted to write about this topic?
My paper discusses how we ought to choose on behalf of others in situations in which we (roughly speaking) have too little evidence to judge how likely certain outcomes of our actions are. I claim that, in certain situations, we ought to not give extra weight to the uncertainty in our decisions, as other people have argued we may. The topic is admittedly quite abstract (and at times technical). However, I believe it is important: There are many situations in which we currently lack evidence for saying how likely some outcomes are, but still have to decide what to do (e.g. Covid 19, climate change, novel medications). When deciding on the fate of others, we should still strive to treat them fairly, despite our severe uncertainty. This is why I wanted to scrutinize how we can achieve just decisions in such uncertain situations.
The ESJP works with a double-blind peer-reviewed process that most academic journals also use, followed by an intensive editorial process in which you get feedback on your work. What did you take out of this experience?
My paper was originally written for a class on distributive justice. As an audience I had admittedly my professor in mind who is also the author of the paper I am criticizing. When my paper was accepted, I then had to rewrite a substantial part of it to explain the topic in an accessible manner. It was a lot of work, but I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially due to the comments of the editors. Their questions, puzzlements and challenging remarks got me to refine my view, to strive for leaving out as many difficult details as possible and to use the simplest language available. I learnt a lot about writing philosophical papers – thank you for that!
Since your paper was first nominated by a teacher for our journal and then passed the double-blind peer-reviewed process, you have shown to be able to write a noteworthy and qualitative philosophical paper. What is your secret?
The best advice I ever got: Do not write before you seem to be done thinking! And when you wrote a first draft think again. And write again. And so on.
For me, this means I often think about the same page of a paper for days, before attempting to write down what I (at that initial stage) believe I want to argue. Then, I go back to the thinking, and then the writing, and then thinking, and writing, and thinking…seems cumbersome, but I ensure you, it is very rewarding to feel like you have understood your point in the end!
You are still a student (or you just graduated) and already have a first publication, what’s next? What are your plans for the future?
I am currently applying for PhD positions in Philosophy (specializing in philosophy of science). I hope to one day be able to sustain a living from doing philosophy, presumably in the academic world.