Thanks for the post Jason. Most or all the mechanisms proposed tend to assume that people are self-interested rather than a mix of self-and-other interest. They play to Hobbesian not Aristotelian stereotypes of the way we are. The scientist turned philosopher Michael Polanyi would argue that many of these functions have powerful ethical dimensions and I’d argue that the structures we’ve put in place, in appealing to self-interest tend to crowd out more ethical motivations. Bureaucracies breed careerism. So I’d want to introduce more randomisation and other kinds of mechanisms to minimise the extent to which the accountability mechanisms we set up don’t just produce more accountability theatre. There are also ways of selecting for merit that don’t involve people performing for their superiors in an organisation. Thus the republic of Venice used the mechanism of the Brevia by which a sub-group of the 2,000+ strong population with political power were chosen by lottery. They then convened behind closed doors and then had a secret ballot. The idea was to insulate the merit selection process from favours to power. It seems to have worked a charm helping Venice to be the only city state in Italy that got through the 500 years from the beginning of the 13th century without any successful coups or civil wars.
Hmm, I don’t agree with how you are characterizing my assumptions about human nature. I’m not assuming that scientists are after money or prestige. I assume most of them, or at least the best of them, are motivated by curiosity, the desire to discover and to know, and the value of scientific knowledge for humanity.
Re accountability, I frankly think we could do with a bit less of it. Accountability is always in tension with research freedom.
Re people performing for their superiors: I actually think scientists performing for their managers would be a much healthier model than what we have today, which is scientists performing for their grant committees. I have another piece on this that I plan to publish soon.
Thanks for the post Jason. Most or all the mechanisms proposed tend to assume that people are self-interested rather than a mix of self-and-other interest. They play to Hobbesian not Aristotelian stereotypes of the way we are. The scientist turned philosopher Michael Polanyi would argue that many of these functions have powerful ethical dimensions and I’d argue that the structures we’ve put in place, in appealing to self-interest tend to crowd out more ethical motivations. Bureaucracies breed careerism. So I’d want to introduce more randomisation and other kinds of mechanisms to minimise the extent to which the accountability mechanisms we set up don’t just produce more accountability theatre. There are also ways of selecting for merit that don’t involve people performing for their superiors in an organisation. Thus the republic of Venice used the mechanism of the Brevia by which a sub-group of the 2,000+ strong population with political power were chosen by lottery. They then convened behind closed doors and then had a secret ballot. The idea was to insulate the merit selection process from favours to power. It seems to have worked a charm helping Venice to be the only city state in Italy that got through the 500 years from the beginning of the 13th century without any successful coups or civil wars.
Hmm, I don’t agree with how you are characterizing my assumptions about human nature. I’m not assuming that scientists are after money or prestige. I assume most of them, or at least the best of them, are motivated by curiosity, the desire to discover and to know, and the value of scientific knowledge for humanity.
Re accountability, I frankly think we could do with a bit less of it. Accountability is always in tension with research freedom.
Re people performing for their superiors: I actually think scientists performing for their managers would be a much healthier model than what we have today, which is scientists performing for their grant committees. I have another piece on this that I plan to publish soon.
Thanks Jason, I don’t think you’ve understood what I was trying to get at.
OK, sorry!