Ethics in the Academy: Response to Simon Derpmann, Dominik Düber, Thomas Meyer, and Tim Rojek

Abstract

My purpose in “Out of Step” was to articulate some core academic virtues—desirable character traits that a professor needs to do his job responsibly and well; and to show how recent changes in the way universities are run tend systematically to erode and compromise those virtues, resulting in what I regretfully described as a steady loss of moral muscle tone. So my criticisms of the use of surrogate measures of academic quality, on which Derpmann, Düber, Meyer, and Rojek focus, were just one thread in a much broader tapestry.