Ben Bayer is a fellow and instructor at the Ayn Rand Institute and an adjunct professor at Loyola University New Orleans. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2007, and subsequently taught at Loyola University Chicago, Colorado College, Metropolitan State University of Denver.
What excites you about philosophy?
I first got excited about philosophy in high school as a member of the debate team. At first, I was interested in it for purely instrumental reasons: I needed to know about how to argue for and against the positions of Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill, Nozick, and Rawls. I soon became fascinated about how philosophy could challenge conventional assumptions and change the terms of a debate. I soon also became interested in the question of whether a secular moral philosophy could not only help me win arguments, but also help me make better life decisions (I had recently become disenchanted with religious morality). As I became interested in a broader array of subjects in the liberal arts, I came to see how philosophy could play a role in challenging or strengthening the foundations of every discipline I was studying, and so could help me navigate through different subjects and through life generally.
What are you working on right now?
After ten years teaching full time in higher ed, I recently decided to take a position as a fellow in an educational think tank, the Ayn Rand Institute. I spend much of my time teaching online classes for the Objectivist Academic Center. We teach not only Rand’s philosophy but also philosophy and its history more generally, along with thinking and writing skills. We have students of all ages from dozens of countries around the world who are working or aspiring to work in a variety of different intellectual fields. I write for our online journal New Ideal (on topics ranging abortion rights to the rights of businesspeople, and anything I can connect to the issue to free will). I also speak at conferences and coordinate webinars for a network of professional intellectuals interested in Rand’s philosophy. But this spring I also decided to go back to doing a little adjunct teaching on the side at my former full-time employer, Loyola University New Orleans, where I’m currently teaching an introductory ethics course.
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
Free Will and Epistemology by Robert Lockie (Bloomsbury, 2018). I haven’t finished it yet, so I don’t yet have an overall view. But Lockie resurrects a classical argument that has been underappreciated by philosophers for too many years: the idea that determinism is self-refuting because to adopt the view is to undercut an assumption on which it relies, that one has adopted the view for objectively justifiable reasons. Lockie is the first philosopher I know of who has explicitly connected this argument to the internalistic view of justification in epistemology on which it depends and works to defend that view against common criticisms.
What time of day are you most productive and creative?
Whenever good coffee is being served.
What are your goals and aspirations outside work?
Someday I may want to write a novel set in New Orleans, a fascinating city with which I have a passionate love-hate relationship.
Which books have changed your life? In what ways?
During my senior year of high school, I was enchanted with John Rawls. I used his arguments in student newspaper articles and even ran them in my debate rounds, sometimes on both sides of the resolution. But A Theory of Justice isn’t the book that changed my life: in my case, at least, I think it only gave me sophisticated-sounding reasons in support of the political views I’d already adopted from my family and friends. The book that actually changed my life was The Fountainhead.
Initially I also read Rand’s book for purely instrumental reasons. I wanted to enter an essay contest about the book and win some money for college. I knew I would disagree with Rand’s individualist philosophy, but I thought that I could still write an impressive critical essay. I didn’t finish reading the book in time for the contest deadline, but by that time I was hooked in spite of myself. I was inspired by the character of Howard Roark, the architect who refuses to compromise his standards with society’s. I was also scared by the fact that I recognized too much of myself in Roark’s rival, Peter Keating, the conventional architect who derived his standards, interests, and values from other people. I began to reconsider my views in moral and political philosophy.
Encountering The Fountainhead is a big part of the reason I decided to change career paths and enter philosophy. I had been training to enter the foreign service, but I discovered I wasn’t very diplomatic and only wanted to argue with my peers about the moral justifiability of questions in foreign policy. I had begun to explore Rand’s nonfiction philosophy and to compare it to what I was reading in my first undergraduate philosophy classes. Eventually I quit the foreign service track, transferred schools, and became a philosophy major. Through the rest of college and graduate school, the image of Roark always encouraged me to define my own research interests, regardless of what my professors would have preferred. I didn’t always make the right decisions. But I think I eventually did the right thing when I decided, after ten years of full-time teaching in higher ed, that I had done enough in academic philosophy, and that I should transition to a non-traditional philosophical career.
Where is your favorite place you have ever traveled and why?
The part of Southeastern Utah near the San Juan River in the Four Corners region. I’ve always found the desert landscapes there to be mystifying, ever since I went on a road trip with my family while listening to U2’s Joshua Tree on my Sony Walkman. I’ve now been back many times, and it never gets old.
What is your favorite holiday and why?
My top favorite is Christmas. Growing up with brutal Midwestern winters, I became convinced that there was a deep human psychological need for a holiday celebrating light and joy and good will during the darkest time of the year. But I also have a mischievous love for Halloween, which I think comes from a kind of cathartic pleasure I take in contemplating the idea of the supernatural from the distance of no longer believing in it.
What’s your poison? (Favorite drink.)
Blanton’s single barrel whiskey. Or, when I want a sugar rush with my alcohol, a good Sazerac (stirred not shaken).
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
I am so blown away with Ben’s authenticity as a New Orleans local. He even likes the local, historic drink, Sazerac! It sounds so cool that he wants to write a novel. I am looking forward to reading it. #impressive #soreal