The Continuing Relevance of Edmund Burke's Political Thought

I recently started re-reading Burke's Reflections, and was struck by the continuing relevance of his argument to today's debates over social justice. I'm surprised that more political philosophers have not attempted a serious appraisal of his work. A former colleague recommended Yuval Levin's book, but it seems primarily intended for a popular audience.

There is also a convergence between Burke's view of the wisdom of inherited traditions and recent work on the evolution of human culture--I'm thinking specifically of Joseph Henrich's The Secret of Our Success. Henrich argues, inter alia, that the capacity to learn a culture is an evolutionary adaptation, and that a crucial element of this capacity is the ability to have faith in customs for which there is no known rational justification. Humans learn their society's culture largely by imitating others, with preferential imitation of people of high status.

An example that Henrich gives that has a Burkean flair is the set of customs practiced by some South American cultures related to the processing of manioc, a tuber which is a staple of their diet. The Tukonoan people, for example, engage in five separate practices--scraping, grating, washing and separating, boiling, and waiting two or more days--that involve great time and effort, but that greatly reduce the quantity of neurotoxins in the manioc--even though none of the Tukonoans have a rational justification for any of the practices, nor are they even aware of the presence of neurotoxins in the manioc. Ex hypothesi, many human customs and social institutions are similarly functional, even though we don't know what function they serve nor how they serve it.

Of course, there are presumably some "junk" customs and institutions in the mix, but attempting to institute radical, revolutionary change is seemingly bound to cause great harm and destruction by weakening or eliminating vital customs and institutions. This is relevant, too, to U.S. attempts to "nation build" in ways that do not sufficiently heed the matrix of existing customs and institutions in other societies.

Choosing a Major and Pursuing a Career

I recently put together some links for students who are seeking advice about choosing a major or pursuing a career. Here they are, with my summaries and comments, listed from most to least recent:

1. "The New College Degrees" (2016/02/04): Blog post by economist Alex Tabarrok about students choosing majors (such as psychology) for which there are few jobs, and about the small number of students choosing majors for which there is a greater need.

2. “Salaries of Philosophy Majors Over Time.” (2015/09/04): Daily Nous blog post which compares average salary for philosophy majors to average salary of other humanities majors. However, several caveats are in order: (1) The list only includes humanities degrees—there are many non-humanities degrees with higher expected incomes. (2) The cause of the high expected income for a philosophy degree is probably NOT the philosophy degree itself. It is much more likely that the cause of the high expected income for philosophy majors is that people who are more intelligent and who are from a higher socioeconomic class are both more likely to earn more and more likely to major in philosophy. Majoring in philosophy will probably not itself make you much more intelligent or raise your socioeconomic class.

3. "Economists Offer These 10 Career Tips for Today's Graduates" (2015/05/22): Sensible, data-driven advice on how what factors relevant to pursuing a career after graduation. Many of these can be acted on before you graduate.

4. "Economists Say Millennials Should Consider Careers in Trades" (2015/02/04): NPR story on how learning a trade can be much cheaper than going to college and yet pay more in terms of ability to get a job and expected income. The fact that non-college options exist should help you assess the costs and benefits of paying for your college education, in terms of time, money, and effort.

5. "Your College Major Is a Pretty Good Indication of How Smart You Are" (2015/02/13): Quartz article on how choice of major correlates with measures of intelligence. Intelligence probably causes people to choose certain majors, rather than the majors causing people to have a certain level of intelligence. Philosophy majors do tend to be smarter than the average bear, but this is probably because more intelligent people are more likely to choose philosophy.

6. "A Philosophy Degree Earns More Than an Accounting Degree" (2015/01/30): Yahoo Finance article which ranks humanities degrees in order of expected income. Philosophy is #1. However, the same caveats apply to this article as to the Daily Nous link on philosophy salary given above.

7. "The Social Science Guide to Picking a Career You'll Love" (2014/12/30): Vox article on how to choose a career that will give you greater life satisfaction, according to social science research. One of the pieces of advice is that salary is overrated. This makes sense to me, but at the same time you need to have an accurate understanding of your expected income after graduation and how that relates to your debt and other financial obligations.

8. "A Bit of College Can Be Worse Than None at All" (2014/10/13): Wall Street Journal article on students who fail to finish college, and how they can be worse off than those with no college, because of the debts they rack up and the opportunity cost of having less workplace experience.

9. "Generation Jobless" (2011/11/09): Wall Street Journal article on students who pick easier majors (such as in the humanities and social sciences) even though it's harder to find jobs, and the jobs one can find generally pay less.