Christian B. Miller

Christian B. Miller is the A. C. Reid Professor of Philosophy and Past Director of the Character Project at Wake Forest University. His public work proposes that people can take practical steps to improve their character.

 

 

1. What type(s) of public philosophy work do you do?

I write and speak about the topic of moral character and virtue for a nonacademic audience. The main message I hope to communicate is that character is important, and while most of us have a long way to go in becoming virtuous, fortunately there are some practical things we can do in our lives to make progress in the right direction.

 Up to now, this public engagement has taken three forms:

• A trade book called The Character Gap: How Good Are We?
• Articles in a diverse range of places including The Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Slate, Prospect Magazine, Newsweek, Aeon, Greater Good Magazine, Nautilus Magazine, and Christianity Today.
• Talks for nonacademic audiences and podcast interviews, such as with NPR’s The State of Things, KERA’s Think, and Slate’s The Gist.

I also like to write and speak to nonacademic audiences about other topics in ethics, including religion and morality, and the foundations of morality.

 

2. Give an example of a successful project.

What I am most proud of is my first trade or nonacademic book, The Character Gap. It is published in Oxford’s “Philosophy in Action” series, which did a tremendous job designing and marketing the book. I tried to make the writing accessible and interesting to anyone, especially readers who don’t have a background in philosophy. The book has ten short chapters, with very little philosophical jargon and lots of stories, current events, and psychological studies. It tackles questions like: Why does it matter if we have a good character? What does “character” even mean in the first place? What does our character look like today? Are we doing a pretty good job at being good people? Or bad people? Or something in-between? Most important of all, what can we do to try to become better, to become really virtuous?

Since the book came out, I have been humbled by the response. While there has been some criticism, for the most part I am really encouraged by the level of interest and engagement with these issues. I feel as if all the time and effort that went into the book have been worthwhile.

 

3. What motivates you to do this work?

I have been working on the topic of moral character for over ten years in my academic research, including directing one of the largest research projects on character called The Character Project (www.thecharacterproject). The project’s goal was to make progress in answering these central questions:

 (i) Do character traits such as honesty or compassion really exist?

(ii) If they do exist, how prevalent are they, and what is their underlying psychological nature?

(iii) Should character traits such as the virtues be the centerpiece of our best ethical theory?

(iv) How should we go about improving our characters and overcoming our character flaws?

 As time went on, I became convinced that the work I was doing, and that we funded through the Character Project, had important implications far beyond technical discussions in the journals, as these questions hopefully make clear. At the same time, I was moved by reports I saw on how little academic philosophy ever gets cited or even read.

So about four years ago, I made a concerted effort to give popular writing a try. I had never been trained in it, and knew that my attempts could be disastrous. But I also knew that if I didn’t give it a try, and just continued to write for a small group of fellow analytic philosophers, I would second guess myself for the rest of my life.

Fast forward to the present, and I am hooked. I have no regrets, really enjoy what I am doing, and hopefully I am saying something that is helpful.

 

4. In what ways does the work inform your research (or vice-versa)?

In my case it was the research informing the work. I wrote two academic monographs on character—Moral Character: An Empirical Theory and Character and Moral Psychology—in which I engaged with hundreds of studies in psychology pertaining to moral motivation and behavior. I was able to carefully sort out my own view, which in a nutshell is that moral character exists, but for most of us it is neither good enough to count as virtuous nor bad enough to count as vicious. Hence we have what I call a ”mixed character,” which gives rise to cross-situationally consistent and stable behavior, but also does not fit comfortably within the traditional categories of virtue and vice.

With that foundation in place in these two academic books, I was able to branch out and write for a broader audience.

 

5. In what ways does the work inform your teaching (or vice-versa)?

My teaching has been extremely helpful for my nonacademic writing. Not in the sense of trying out drafts of popular pieces on my students first to get their feedback. Rather in the sense of helping me constantly practice making difficult ideas and arguments accessible. It is one of the reasons why I enjoy teaching Introduction to Philosophy every year. Most of these students have never seen philosophy before in any formal way in the classroom, and most of them will never see it again (sadly!). But for our one semester together, I hope that what we say to each other makes sense and is interesting, regardless of whether they agree with it or not.

 

6. If someone wanted to take on public philosophy work like yours, what steps or resources would you recommend?

There’s a lot to say here, but these are a few brief thoughts:

• I have found it helpful to work out my views first in regular academic outlets in philosophy—journals, APA presentations, and the like. I’ve been able to refine my position and also see what some of the objections are before trying it out with a larger audience.
• For my book manuscript, I shared at least a draft of a chapter and in a few cases the entire document with people who had no formal background in philosophy. Their feedback was extremely helpful in, among other things, revealing places where I had slipped back into philosophy-speak.
• When pitching articles to fairly visible places, I learned that the normal response isn’t rejection, but silence. It still amazes me how many places never respond. Be prepared to submit and submit and submit.
• Everyone’s professional situation is unique, but I didn’t start doing this kind of work until I had tenure. Not because my department is opposed to it, but because I knew it would not help me to get tenure.

7. What do you think is the biggest mistake you have made doing public philosophy?

I don’t know if it was a mistake as much as it was just being utterly ignorant about what happens when a trade book is released. I was used to publishing academic books, where basically nothing happens right away. Little did I know that so much of the important reviewing of trade books happens before or immediately after the book is released. I also wasn’t prepared with a good website for the book, a Twitter account, and the like. Going public with philosophy has been a huge learning experience for me, and I would encourage anyone publishing a trade book for the first time to seek out someone who has gone before them and learn the lay of the land.

 

EngagedPhilosophy readers: If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else for an interview, email us at info@engagedphilosophy.com.

Do you want to find out when we post more interviews like this? Subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Facebook.