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Is there a stigma against philosophy of religion?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I'd love some frank opinions/advice about including Philosophy of Religion in one's AOS. I'm in a position where I can list it, but I don't yet have publications on the topic, so no one would likely know I do PoR if I didn't include it. I have been told by senior faculty across several universities (including those who work in PoR) that there some quarters where PoR is seen with disdain, and that I shouldn't pursue it openly until I already have a job. There's the further consideration, which I'm not asking about here, that there are few jobs looking for a PoR AOS; what I want to know is specifically whether people think there's anything to the idea that it is most pragmatic, where possible, to refrain from mentioning PoR as an AOS to dodge stigma among job committees.

As a follow-up, if folks agree that there *is* such a stigma, I'd be curious to hear what other topics would also be unwise to voluntarily disclose.

Another reader submitted the following reply:

About listing phil of religion on a c.v. – one reason to do so is that the department may have a course on the books, and they may think it would be nice to have it taught again. So it could be a reason to tip the scales in your favour. But there are a lot of people who regard phil of religion as of little worth. (to be frank with you, I am a philosopher of science who has no patience for any metaphysics)

What do you all think? Is there a stigma against job candidates who work in Phil Religion? Might there be places where it might work in one's advantage? Finally, are there any other topics/AOS's that would be "unwise to voluntarily disclose"?

Posted in ,

32 responses to “Is there a stigma against philosophy of religion?”

  1. depends

    I suspect it depends a lot on the specific department and who is on the search committee. I am a philosopher of science and, like the submitted reply mentioned directly after the OP, I have very little patience for metaphysics. At the same time, I’ll bet many philosophers on search committees out there have little patience for philosophy-of-science-in-practice (my AOS, more or less). Indeed, I can imagine the response, “how is that philosophy?” So, for some job applications, I would downplay the “in practice” part and try (on my cover letter, for example) to emphasize why my research would be of general interest to philosophers. If you discuss Phil religion, perhaps only do so if it helps make the case for why you’re a strong candidate (fit the job ad, dept., etc.).
    Also, if OP doesn’t have publications in Phil religion, then listing it as an AOC seems wiser. This might also lessen the impact of potential stigma…

    Reply
  2. metaphysicianwithlittlepatience

    On the other hand, I think it is simply morally wrong for anyone who is serving in a search committee to have and act on a stigma against a whole subfield as long as that doesn’t conflict with the job req. On the other hand, does OP have any practical reasons for not listing POR as a mere AOC? moral reasons? If not, listing it as an AOC in Op’s situation is probably better.

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  3. ZVT

    I listed it as AOS although I work mostly on the borderline. In our department, it seems to have been an advantage. (But this is UK context.)
    In the US, I think it really depends on the kind of school – I listed it for some and not for others.
    But you should also seriously think about whether you would be happy in a department where people would discriminate against one of your borderline-AOS’s. That doesn’t sound a very good fit to me, and on the long run, that matters.

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  4. grad student

    I guess I’m one who holds the stigma. I think that the combination of AOEs and AOCs together with one’s education and other things listed in one’s CV can provide information about one’s attitude and the kind of contribution one will bring to the department. But that’s not why I write this message.
    I wonder. Specialty in philosophy of religion is usually accompanied by some specialty in medieval and early modern philosophy, or in Kant, or Hegel, or Nietzsche, or some other parts of philosophy. Wouldn’t writing those that are relevant for you as AOEs or AOCs will make you a more attractive candidate that can teach some historical classes?

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  5. Phil Religion as AOC?

    I have a related question. I’m also curious whether anyone has thoughts on the optics of philosophy of religion as an AOC from a search-committee perspective. FWIW, I’m a history of phil scholar, personally an atheist/agnostic, but love teaching phil religion. I’ve been wondering what search committee members think of seeing that AOC on my CV.

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  6. 2CVs?

    I think it depends on the job. If you are really worried about it working against you then maybe make 2 CVs, one that lists PoR as an AOC and one that does not. (As others have mentioned, it’s rare to see ads for AOS phil of religion – something to consider.) If you’re applying for a job at a SLAC affiliated with a religious tradition then the PoR CV is probably safe, and may even work in your favor. Be strategic but try not to be too paranoid. If a committee is discriminating against you for doing PoR that’s problematic, and you might not be happy as their colleague anyways.

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  7. diversified approaches to PR

    I suspect a lot depends on the particular preconceptions faculty have about PR, and in many contexts it is not likely candidates will have an accurate idea of what those preconceptions are. Within PR today, some scholars are taking a more diversified approach to the field (in terms of which forms of religion and non-religion are explored, which aspects of religions are the focus of philosophical attention, what philosophical methods are employed, etc.), but I don’t know how well known this is outside of PR specialists. So, I could imagine a search committee being composed of non-PR philosophers thinking that PR is more or less the philosophy Western theism/atheism, and that could create the wrong impression of a candidate absent other relevant information indicating their approach to the field. In short, the advice above about not being paranoid but also paying close attention to institutional context and putting your best foot forward seems apt.

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  8. Andrey

    If you are interested in PoR, why would you even consider working at a dept. that holds stigma against it?

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  9. not a joke, though I never actually converted

    @Andrey, concerning getting jobs and matters of faith, I’ve considered (1) stretching the truth, (2) entirely lying about, and even (3) formally converting to various religions for the opportunity to work in certain departments. This is how bad the job market is.

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  10. another grad student

    I am a grad student working in PoR. I’ve heard from multiple philosophers that there is indeed a stigma (or at least an implicit bias) if you work on analytic Philosophy of Religion (PoR), especially if you work on topics related to Christianity. So, listing PoR as an AOS/AOC comes with some risk.
    There also seems to be little reason to list PoR as an AOS.
    1. As you’ve mentioned, there’s almost no junior-level TT jobs in PoR. In addition, the job ads for PoR usually state some specific area of PoR (E.g. science and religion). So, even if you have PoR listed, you still might not fit the job at all.
    2. Competition in PoR can be strong. Without a publication, you’ll likely lose to other candidates in PoR. Multiple people in PoR are very productive. Some examples:
    Perry Hendricks (Purdue): 12 (when graduated)
    Justin Mooney (UMass): 10 (when graduated)
    Frederick Choo (Rutgers): 5 (yr 2)
    Joseph Blado (Notre Dame): 3 (yr 2)
    Joe Schmid (Princeton): 11 + 1 co-authored book (incoming student)
    Also, some schools have an advantage for being known for PoR-related stuff or having big name PoR faculty (Notre Dame, Rutgers, Princeton, Oxford, Baylor, SLU, Purdue, Georgetown, Fordham, Yale, etc.).
    3. Finally, what you say suggests that there would be no evidence for PoR on your CV except that it is listed as an AOS. The advice I typically hear is that unless one has evidence of an AOS on their CV (or letters), they should not list it as an AOS.
    Given this, it seems that the cons outweigh the pros in general.

    Reply
  11. PhilReligionQuestioner

    I’m the original poster, and I confess I’m perplexed by suggestions that I shouldn’t want to work with colleagues who are prejudiced against one of my major research areas. (1) In a job market with hundreds of applicants, overwrought job committee members are looking for any reason at all to cut candidates–it would take only a very slight stigma for it to make a difference to an application. (2) Even if we’re talking about serious stigma, those of us on the market without jobs simply don’t have the luxury of being choosey. At this point I need a job and would happily accept one even at a department with grumpy colleagues.
    @another grad student This reasoning makes really good sense to me, and it’s what I’ll use going forward: Thanks!

    Reply
  12. Peter Finocchiaro

    I acknowledge that it’s easy for me to say because I have a job, but I confess I’m perplexed by OP’s perplexity. I agree that the job market is tough, that any reason at all to be cut is something to think about, and so on. But is having a job, any job, in academic philosophy really so important that you’d choose to hide who you are as a scholar for the off chance that you’ll get a job offer from people who would reject you if they knew the truth? What’s the point of earning way less and working way harder than you would outside of academia if you can’t be free to do the research you want to do?

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  13. Daniel Weltman

    For all x, there exists some y, where y = philosophy professors, for whom Syx, where Syx = y holds a stigma against x. So, trivially, yes, there’s a stigma against philosophy of religion as an AOS. The real question is how widespread it is and how strong it is. And, even more particularly, what particular form the stigma takes (if any) at the places where you’re competitive for a job opening.
    Unfortunately it’s pretty much impossible to know this information. You don’t even know beforehand which openings for which you’re competitive: a position that seems written for you is often one that will barely even glance at your CV before they toss it for some other reason having nothing to do with whether you have philosophy of religion as an AOS, and a position you thought was a long shot turns out to have you at the top of their shortlist. Such is the way the job market works.
    My advice is to list it as an AOS because, everything else held equal, it’s better to be more thorough on one’s CV (although as another grad student points out, if you have no publications or other evidence, you may want to pare down your AOS list as much as possible, just to make it more plausible looking). Overthinking this will lead to lots of stress and not to increased success on the job market.

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  14. ZVT

    I completely agree with @Peter. The job market is really tough (I moved 5 times, long-distance, in the last 6 years, before getting a perm job…). But, from experience, I can say that you really shouldn’t try to be in a department where people don’t value what you are genuinely interested in. It will make your life very difficult, and probably take away the best part of academic work (talking with colleagues about your interests).
    That said, I also agree with the advice to tailor your cv to the schools. For jobs you are really serious about, look up what people in the dept are working on, and you will likely get a sense of how friendly they would be to PoR.

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  15. Wouldn’t Recommend

    @Peter. I think you misrepresent the situation. Who we are as scholars is something we create, mold, and craft. We aren’t fully in control but we are to a significant degree. So I think it is a significant question of whether or not a scholar wants to develop themselves in a way that might open them up to stigma—especially if there are other ways one might develop that one would be comparably happy with.
    There’s a well-document bias against religious people in American universities. Having Phil Religion as an AOS is also well-known to correlate with being a religious person. So it is unsurprising that there’s a stigma against people who have Phil Religion as an AOS. Additionally, there are few jobs with Phil Religion as an AOS. And working in Phil Religion could keep you from developing a different AOS that is more popular with more job opportunities. For all of these reasons, I would strongly discourage any graduate student from having Phil Religion as an AOS. The main exception would be if a graduate student was a religious person and their dream job would be working at a religious affiliated liberal arts college. For such a student, Phil Religion as an AOS might be beneficial, and they are likely already going to be exposed to the bias against religious people anyway.

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  16. S

    I think it is important to keep in mind publications as well. Imagine how a CV would be evaluated if any of the following article names appear on the CV:
    “A defense of Biblical inerrancy”
    “Demonic possession and [insert a controversial subject]”
    “Why abortion is manifestly immoral”
    “Alex Byrne is right about gender”
    “Trump was right all along”
    Listing PR or bioethics as an AoS is one thing; having titles such as these on the CV seems to be another.

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  17. Billy

    For the two philosophy of science people who have little to no patience for metaphysics: why? I don’t know the philosophy of science field well. Does that whole field tilt against metaphysics? If so, why? Just curious.

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  18. Assc prof

    I am biased against the kind of PoR that is often criticized as being dressed-up Christian apologetics. If a candidate had an AOC in that, I would consider it a knock against them, but not a deal-breaker. If they had an AOC in PoR, where it was clear that it was not that kind of PoR, then my attitude would be neutral.
    I don’t think this is necessarily unique to PoR though. For virtually every subfield, I think some ways of doing it are silly, I admire other ways, and am neutral towards yet others. These kinds of attitudes do not necessarily track what I think constitutes philosophical skill. There are plenty of ways of doing plenty of subfields which I think show great talent and skill, but which I also think are a waste of that talent and skill.

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  19. Frustrated Naturalist

    I posted in the “How Can We Help You?” thread, but it really seems relevant to this general topic. So Marcus, I hope you’ll indulge me with this.
    But: I have a PhD from a religious institution, but I am very much an atheist with no interest in philosophy of religion. Yet all my interviews for TT have been at phil religion friendly places. (Phil religion is one of the areas my advisor works in, but not the only and not my AOS.) Any advice for someone like me?
    Germane to the OP. I wouldn’t claim phil religion as an AOS. Certainly I think our dept’s placement in my subfield has been affected by the assumption that most people are conservative Christians — or at least that there’s a non-trivial likelihood that they are. Why take a risk that a new colleague might oppose gay marriage, abortion, etc., and just generally be unpleasant to talk to about moral and political issues? Relevant to you, an AOS in phil religion is correlated with these things, and parts of phil religion are just Christian apologetics by another name.
    If you get a job, you can let your interest trickle out once they know you’re not an evangelical or uber-Catholic.

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  20. Helen

    I will never know how many jobs I missed out on/didn’t get because I write a lot in philosophy of religion, including in an explicitly Christian (but not apologetic) perspective.
    But I do know that for two of the jobs I’ve held, it was counted as a definite positive/a plus in my candidature (also perhaps relevant, I do not have any papers with the titles in the style mentioned by S in the comments, politically divisive things like this are always a more difficult sell, I think).
    I’ve advised many students on the job market–POR as an AOS was often a plus, especially in religious schools.

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  21. Genuine Question

    @Wouldn’t Recommend writes: “There’s a well-document[ed] bias against religious people in American universities”
    Genuinely interested in the evidence of this. Is this against all religious people? Across all or only some institutions? Is this for jobs/funding/students? I’m not religious, nor work in the US, but I’d be curious if this is just a perception of bias or there is actual (suitably peer-reviewed, etc.) evidence of this. Also curious if this is real bias or simply the lessening of previous positive biases that religious people (read: Christians?) used to have.

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  22. Hermias

    To be worthy of Socrates, you must write what your daimon tells you to write and drink the hemlock. A good man cannot be harmed in life or in death.

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  23. woman in the US

    I’m also someone who holds the stigma. Other things being equal, if I saw PoR listed as an AOS (or AOC) on someone’s CV I’d count it against them, on the grounds that doing PoR is correlated with being religious, and being religious is correlated with holding certain moral and political views I would NEVER want in a colleague (anti abortion views in particular).

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  24. cecil burrow

    I guess I would count as someone with a bias against philosophy of religion. Christian apologetics seems to me to be full of pretty bad arguments, and I’m not convinced that atheists have had much original to say for some time. The bottom line is that I haven’t read anything written in philosophy of religion in say the last few decades that strikes me as intellectually exciting and innovative. As someone who likes intellectually exciting and innovative philosophy, that leaves me disliking philosophy of religion.

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  25. placement person

    Just speaking as a placement director with no particular horse in this race: given how many jobs there are at Christian institutions in the US, and that there is a (sometimes overwhelming) bias in favor of Christian applicants for those jobs, it seems odd to me to claim that there is a stigma against candidates who work in philosophy of religion (at least, if they are Christian–I suspect it’s more likely that there is against candidates of other religions). No one is going to be liked by every job; what’s important is finding a good fit between the candidate and the position/department/university. Some of my students regularly bemoan how many jobs they either can’t apply to or do, but know it’s not worth it because the position is clearly earmarked for a religious person; if you’re openly and clearly Christian, you definitely have an advantage for a large swath of jobs. Maybe you have a disadvantage for some others; I wouldn’t be surprised if that is true. But that’s true for everyone with literally any feature about them (some departments are biased against non-naturalistic philosophy; some are biased against contemporary philosophy; some positions are in, say, political philosophy and so if you work in epistemology, you’re probably not going to be competitive). I really think it would help job candidates to just be open about who you are and look for good fits, and work really hard on your applications for positions that are in fact good fits, and stop hand-wringing about whether you are competitive for a greater or smaller percentage of jobs than others are (there are a lot of jobs at religious institutions, including jobs that clearly favor religious candidates–so we would need to know the detailed percentages of religious to non-religious candidates, as well as religious-favoring to non-religious-favoring jobs out there to draw any conclusions here–but that really seems like not the right strategy to take, instead you should just be the best version of yourself you can be).

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  26. placement person

    Just a second note–if you’re the kind of candidate who is competitive for R1 jobs, well, at many of those jobs, people are hiring for a particular research profile/trajectory, and at many of those jobs, there is an expectation that you will do at least something related to what you say you will with your research. Not doing so hurts a lot of people at tenure time (there are many exceptions to this, but it’s a real thing!), so you should really present an honest version of what you plan to do in the next 5-10 years in your research, because there is a good chance people will be disappointed if you don’t at least stay in the general area. So if you are planning to write some phil religion papers, you should not just be worried about getting a job–you should be worried about getting tenure, and you don’t want to deceive anyone about your research plans. If you’re not planning to write some phil religion papers, it seems like you probably shouldn’t claim it as an AOS anyway.

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  27. Marcus Arvan

    This is just a quick note that I’m closing discussion of whether any stigma here is warranted. This query was about whether there is a stigma, and this thread has been helpful in clarifying these matters and reasons that some people have for their judgments.
    That being said, several comments have been submitted that I just have no idea what to do with as this blog’s moderator under the blog’s mission: https://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/blog/mission-statement/
    It seems clear to me from the tenor of the comments that a supportive discussion cannot be had on these matters, or if it can, that it would be prohibitively difficult to moderate.
    Readers are welcome to continue weighing in on the original query.

    Reply
  28. Chris Stephens

    I’m coming a bit late to this thread, but I will just add that at my large, public R1 (UBC), competence in Philosophy of Religion is highly desirable. Philosophy of religion – along with, ethics/political philosophy – is one of those areas that many undergraduate students are especially interested in. (If you ask someone who knows next to nothing about professional philosophy what it is we do, those are the areas most likely to come up).
    Our philosophy of religion courses enroll at least as well as our applied ethics courses. It is taught in a variety of different ways, depending on the instructor (traditional arguments for and against monotheism, connections to existentialism/Kierkegaard, topics in science and religion; cross culturally, etc.). Our long standing Hume scholar (now retired), regularly taught it for many years, even though he was not religious.
    I don’t know how many jobs are looking for Philosophy of Religion as an AOS. A possible compromise for the OP is to list it as an AOC. It is certainly attractive to me as an AOC in a potential colleague, given my own interests in science and religion, design arguments, Pascal’s wager, the Clifford-James debate, Chalmers’ arguments about creators of the matrix as “designers”, and the way in which large parts of PR have undergone the “probabilistic revolution” in methodological approach.).
    In an era when philosophy departments are often under pressure, we have found that offering philosophy of religion courses is a good way to help maintain strong undergraduate enrollments. I suspect we’re not alone in this.

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  29. Gay Male Ethicist

    When I think about whether someone would be a good colleague for me, my first question is whether this person recognizes the full moral equality of same-sex and different-sex couples. These days, homophobes in academia usually don’t express their homophobia openly, but covert homophobia can create major problems. So I am always on the lookout for signs.
    An interest in philosophy of religion doesn’t by itself signal anything about a person’s views on sexuality and sexual orientation. In addition to the many secular people who are intellectually interested in religion, there are many religious people who recognize the moral equality of same-sex and different-sex couples. Among them are unaffiliated religious believers, members of liberal religious groups, members of conservative religious groups who reject church doctrine on issues of sexuality, and members of conservative groups who interpret anti-gay doctrines and practices (e.g., refusing to perform same-sex marriages) as ritual prohibitions applicable only to their coreligionists rather than as moral prohibitions applicable to everyone.
    If a job candidate’s CV shows signs of sympathy for conservative religious doctrines, I will be even more than usually attentive to signals about whether they regard gay people as their moral equals. A paper defending a divine command theory of ethics would make me worried. So would a philosophy of law paper defending “religious liberty” for businesses and public service providers that want to turn away LGBT people. If someone is writing about, say, Peter Strawson’s argument that the only possible afterlife involves bodily resurrection, I won’t be especially worried, and I may be intrigued.
    A separate thought: the APA Pacific is almost always scheduled to overlap with Passover and Good Friday. This is some indication that the profession is not all that accommodating to religious practice. If it were up to me, I would choose another week for the conference.

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  30. Andrew M. Bailey

    There is — unquestionably, in my view — a strong bias against philosophers of religion. Academics lean left. This sets baseline expectations about what views and practices are permissible or wise in a colleague. Working on philosophy of religion (unlike working within religious studies, interestingly) correlates with religiosity, which in turn correlates with views and practices out of step with those baseline expectations. So we shouldn’t be surprised by that strong bias.
    I agree with others, above, that there are some countervailing biases — institutions that favour or require religious belief or practice, for example (these are overwhelmingly institutions that are or low or entirely outside the usual professional status hierarchies).
    And the bias can often be overcome, as when a candidate sends strong signals on social media and in their file that they’re “not like those other religious people”.
    But it’s foolish, in my view, to either deny that the anti- bias exists, or, really, to fight against it. This is something that should prompt acceptance rather than seething. If you choose to become an academic, you’re choosing to enter a world that is by and for those who lean left. Plan accordingly.

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  31. Jared

    It’s been said, but let me add my vote in favor of the view that there is, definitely, a stigma (unfortunately). So I’d advise keeping it off the AOS, and replacing it with the areas of philosophy that your PoR work also draws upon, e.g. metaphysics, medieval, modern, etc. And yes, it’s worth getting a job in a department where people are biased against your kind of work; almost everyone who has a job is in that position to some extent.
    BUT, I’d say DO list it as an AOC. For those (few) who want to hire a PoR specialist, it will be enough — together with your cognate AOS — to qualify you and you can clear things up as you go. And for those who hold the bias, one of a handful of mere AOC’s simply won’t count for all that much.

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  32. Some data

    George Yancey previously did a study on philosophers’ hiring preferences.
    https://dailynous.com/2018/04/10/philosophers-less-willing-hire/
    The data shows an anti-Christian slant (and also an anti-Republican slant, though not as strong). And it seems reasonable to think that if one does PoR stuff that is positive towards Christianity, then there is a good chance it signals that you are likely a Christian.
    To note, the data is abit old (more than 10 years ago). It seems reasonable to think that things are worst now given the political polarisation and how Christianity gets lumped into being a conservative. There’s also more recent data on academics leaning left.
    Note: Signalling you work in these topics is sufficient to worry people such that they would prefer another similar job candidate over you. You might defend Divine Command Theory and not be conservative (and perhaps not even be religious), but defending Divine Command Theory is sufficient to make people worried that you do not regard gay people as their moral equals (as as Gay Male Ethicists notes).

    Reply

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