[Editor’s Note: Ben Jones currently is pursuing a PhD in political science at Yale University, and previously as Executive Director of the Connecticut Network to Abolish the Death Penalty directed the campaign leading to repeal of Connecticut’s death penalty in 2012. His writings have been featured on the Jurist and Libertarianism.org.]

In a recent blog post and article, Bas van der Vossen makes a straightforward argument for why political philosophers should stay out of politics: (1) professionals have a prima facie moral duty to make a reasonable effort to avoid activities that predictably make them worse at their tasks (the principle of “responsible professionalism” or RP), (2) the task of political philosophers is to seek the truth about politics, (3) engaging in politics predictably makes us worse at seeking the truth about politics, and (4) therefore political philosophers have a prima facie moral duty to avoid engaging in politics.

As someone who made a commitment in graduate school to lead an issue campaign, I (unsurprisingly) take a somewhat different view than Bas. I agree with the view that certain forms of political involvement often lead to bias. But I would like to offer three objections – or at least complications – to Bas’s argument to suggest that his conclusions are too strong.

1. Activism and partisanship are not always the same. Bas primarily points to the ways that partisanship – identification with a political group or party – leads to bias, but many forms of activism are not partisan. Issue campaigns are not always tied to a particular party. If a political philosopher searches for the truth on an issue and with reasonable certainty arrives at it, and this issue has a straightforward policy prescription, advocating for the policy at this point seems to pose a less severe risk of bias than advocating for a party (and the panoply of issues that entails).

A rather innocuous example of activism highlights this point. A professor dedicates herself to understanding homelessness. Following Bas’s suggestion, she stays out of politics and instead volunteers at her local shelter. One day a city council member proposes measures criminalizing homelessness, which based on the professor’s research almost certainly will have a negative impact. The shelter’s director asks the professor to testify at the upcoming public hearing, since she is the city’s leading expert on the proposal’s potential harm. Such testimony seems to count as activism, but Bas may excuse it as introducing political truths into the public realm (which he allows for). Even so, the professor encouraging her neighbors to also contact the council members and attend the hearing surely would count as activism. Yet how this additional step suddenly raises the risk of bias is far from clear. In light of such cases, Bas’s argument would benefit from distinctions between different forms of activism, and identification of which forms are most susceptible to the biases he discusses. Instead, he conflates forms of activism different from each other in important ways.

2. Activism may both promote and hinder the search for truth. For most of his article, Bas presents activism as working in a single direction: it hinders the search for truth by causing bias. The reality of activism’s effects, however, may be more complex. Activism may predictably lead to bias and insights concerning political truth not readily accessible from the ivory tower. Bas allows for this possibility but dismisses it as a justification for activism by philosophers on the grounds that, though activism can provide insights for politics not otherwise available, an individual still can access these insights without engaging in activism (e.g., by reading activists’ writings). But once Bas accepts the possibility that activism can lead to insights in the search for truth, such activism by philosophers poses a less clear threat to RP.

Suppose that before engaging in activism a philosopher abides by RP – she familiarizes herself with a wide range of canonical texts in political philosophy, keeps up on the latest research in the field from a variety of perspectives, and makes a good faith effort to communicate what she believes to be the truth. As a result of these habits, her ability to find the truth is A. Despite her unquestionable professionalism, she finds her research to be stale and is unsatisfied with it. Looking for new perspectives, she dives into activism, which leads to new insights and biases, and her ability to find the truth becomes A!. If, in her search for truth, the benefits of her new insights consistently outweigh or are equal to the harms of her new biases, she has not violated RP, since the overall effect of her activism results in A! ≥ A. Even if there is an option available to the philosopher more conducive to the search for truth – e.g., observing activists and reading their works while refraining from activism – RP would not require this alternative since it is not the case that A! < A. Bas may push back and say that rarely will A! ≥ A. But Bas himself admits that “academics (philosophers included) are hardly the most ideologically diverse group.” When academia lacks diversity and suffers from its own biases, it becomes more plausible that A! ≥ A in cases where activism involves working with diverse groups and exposure to a variety of viewpoints, especially those scarce in the ivory tower.

3.  Identities beyond strictly political ones also can lead to bias – do political philosophers have to give up those, too? Bas focuses on the ways that political identities negatively impact the search for truth: “We naturally come to think of ourselves as liberals, conservatives, libertarians, greens, or what not. We come to like the views that we hold, we come to like the people who hold similar views to ours, and these likings negatively affect our ability to honestly and impartially weigh the evidence.” This last statement could apply to a number of identities beyond merely political ones, such as religious and philosophical identities. Since these other identities often affect our views on ethics and society, they along with our political identities influence our political philosophy – potentially in biased ways. Yet Bas makes no mention of philosophers needing to give up these other identities.

Perhaps these other identities are more fundamental, and thus it would be unreasonable (and a violation of RP) to require a philosopher to give up, for instance, her religious identity. Political identities have less importance for Bas because, on his view, “Activism is not a necessary ingredient of a good life.” This assumption does a lot of work for Bas. Without it, his argument would apply to a much wider range of identities beyond strictly political ones – a conclusion I think he wants to avoid. Obviously, others (e.g., Arendt) see a more central role for politics in the good life. Bas’s argument ultimately relies on the assertion that political identities are an unnecessary part of life, but that hardly will be persuasive to the individual whose political identity is a fundamental part of her, in much the same way that the atheist dismissing religious identities as unimportant rarely proves persuasive to the believer.

Despite these objections, I am sympathetic to Bas’s general concern that political involvement can have harmful effects on the search for truth. Elsewhere Bas rightly points to power’s corrupting influence on those in politics. The dilemma for the philosopher – or anyone entering politics – is that truth by itself has limited force in politics. Truth needs the assistance of power to have a chance of being implemented. Since power is necessary for political success, there is the temptation to hold onto it at all costs – even if that requires forsaking the truth temporarily or exercising power when we have an imperfect understanding of the truth. These temptations risk eroding our commitment to truth.

In response to this dilemma, the philosopher could flee to the ivory tower, but I am less optimistic about this solution than Bas. Academia has its own temptations of power in the forms of advancement, prestige, wealth, and even fame, which also can bias the search for truth. I am more sympathetic to an approach suggested by Burke Hendrix, which is sensitive to power’s dangers but under no delusions about escaping them entirely. Hendrix envisions political philosophy being done at a local level, in close conjunction with those impacted by policies. In this way, the search for truth and advocacy continually inform one another, while avoiding the exercise of power on a broad scale – and the inevitable dangers that entails.