We are pleased to have just published Duke political science professor Ruth W. Grant’s fascinating new book about the uses–and abuses–of incentives called STRINGS ATTACHED: Untangling the Ethcis of Incentives. Her new book is a must-read for every politician, businessperson, and manager.
Q: When you consider the controversies that currently dominate the political debate, the use of incentives isn’t high on the list. People seem more vexed about policies like the health care mandate or income taxes than, say, the use of a tax deduction to encourage charitable donations. Why did you become interested in the use of incentives as a form of power, and why do you think we should talk about them more?
A: I think that I have always been uncomfortable with certain kinds of incentives in my own experience; for example, incentives in the workplace that undermined team spirit or incentives in my child’s classroom that really made her feel manipulated. Other incentives don’t bother me at all. I began to notice that incentives have become the preferred tool of policy in all kinds of settings – governments, businesses, schools, prisons, hospitals – and it seemed important to think through which uses of incentives are innocuous and which are not. The fact that we have invented a new verb – “to incentivize” – is an indication of how much this approach has seeped into the culture. “To incentivize” is a much narrower concept than “to motivate,” which includes incentives, inspiration, arousing curiosity, etc. Something is lost if we automatically consider only incentives when we want to influence people. It seems important to discuss these issues precisely because incentives are pervasive, but also taken for granted.
What is the shortest possible route for a traveling salesman seeking to visit each city on a list exactly once and return to his city of origin? It sounds simple enough, yet the traveling salesman problem is one of the most intensely studied puzzles in applied mathematics—and it has defied solution to this day. In this book, William Cook takes readers on a mathematical excursion, picking up the salesman’s trail in the 1800s when Irish mathematician W. R. Hamilton first defined the problem, and venturing to the furthest limits of today’s state-of-the-art attempts to solve it.
Cook examines the origins and history of the salesman problem and explores its many important applications, from genome sequencing and designing computer processors to arranging music and hunting for planets. He looks at how computers stack up against the traveling salesman problem on a grand scale, and discusses how humans, unaided by computers, go about trying to solve the puzzle. Cook traces the salesman problem to the realms of neuroscience, psychology, and art, and he also challenges readers to tackle the problem themselves. The traveling salesman problem is—literally—a $1 million question. That’s the prize the Clay Mathematics Institute is offering to anyone who can solve the problem or prove that it can’t be done.
You will find books by Martha C. Nussbaum, Peter Singer, Steven Nadler, John M. Cooper, Emrys Westacott, Patricia S. Churchland, Pascal Bruckner and many more. Many new paperbacks and ebooks are also available. It’s easy to download the catalog to your smartphone or tablet for browsing.
Will we see you in D.C. at the annual American Philosophical Association meeting? We’ll be there in the exhibit hall (booth no. 103). Stop by to say hello and browse new books.
‘Tis the season for giving—and we’re feeling very generous today! We’re hosting 2 book giveaways next week, one on our main PUP Facebook page, and the other on our Princeton Birds and Natural History Facebook page. 1 winner from each page will be selected Thursday, December 22 at noon. All you have to do is “like” our Facebook pages and you’ll be entered to win! Here are the details:
Over on our Princeton Birds and Natural History Facebook page, we’re giving away a copy of The Crossley ID Guide: Eastern Birds by Richard Crossley. This stunningly illustrated book from acclaimed birder and photographer Richard Crossley revolutionizes field guide design by providing the first real-life approach to identification. “Like” this page by Thursday at noon if you haven’t already to win!
Good luck, and Happy Holidays from Princeton University Press!
On Wednesday night, philosopher John Marenbon gave his inaugural lecture as Honorary Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. Marenbon is also Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, and is preparing a book for PUP on Pagans and Philosophers from Augustine to Leibniz.
Check out a great conversation between Peter Singer and Robert Wright on an episode of Bloggingheads! Starting with the reissue of Singer’s book The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress, they go on to discuss how moral arguments have evolved, how human reasoning is linked to moral progress, wondering if aliens would share our morality, and the highs and lows of being a philosopher.
Be sure to re-read your copy of The Expanding Circle for more food for thought on morality as universal or relative, tied up with questions about whether morality is biologically or culturally based:
The shift from a point of view that is disinterested between individuals within a group, but not between groups, to a point of view that is fully universal, is a tremendous change — so tremendous, in fact, that it is only just beginning to be accepted on the level of ethical reasoning and is still a long way from acceptance on the level of practice. Nevertheless, it is the direction in which moral thought has been going since ancient times. Is it an accident of history that this should be so, or is it the direction in which our capacity to reason leads us?
Nicholas Humphrey, author of Soul Dust: The Magic of Consciousness, spoke to journalist Kenneth Baker about his original view on consciousness: Humphrey claims that vivid consciousness makes us happy to be alive. This perspective is a result of Humphrey’s specific approach to the “consciousness problem”:
I’ve tried to understand the function of consciousness. Let’s not think about it as a cognitive skill but as a kind of theater, something we lay on in our own heads about who we are and the world in which we’re living. Let’s ask how does consciousness as we experience it affect people’s attitudes toward life… I say that consciousness is a performance we put on, and philosophers who have disparaged the so-called Cartesian theater of the mind have misunderstood the nature of theater. I think the world we make is in no way a simulacrum of the world.
FACT: “The use of large-scale testing grew exponentially in the United States after World War I, when it was demonstrated that a mass-administered version of what was essentially an IQ test (what was then called ‘Army Alpha’) improved the accuracy and efficiency of the placement of recruits into the various military training programs. The precursors of what would eventually become the SAT were modeled on Army Alpha.”
Uneducated Guesses challenges everything our policymakers thought they knew about education and education reform, from how to close the achievement gap in public schools to admission standards for top universities. In this explosive book, Howard Wainer uses statistical evidence to show why some of the most widely held beliefs in education today—and the policies that have resulted—are wrong. He shows why colleges that make the SAT optional for applicants end up with underperforming students and inflated national rankings, and why the push to substitute achievement tests for aptitude tests makes no sense. Wainer challenges the thinking behind the enormous rise of advanced placement courses in high schools, and demonstrates why assessing teachers based on how well their students perform on tests—a central pillar of recent education reforms—is woefully misguided. He explains why college rankings are often lacking in hard evidence, why essay questions on tests disadvantage women, why the most grievous errors in education testing are not made by testing organizations—and much more.
No one concerned about seeing our children achieve their full potential can afford to ignore this book. With forceful storytelling, wry insight, and a wealth of real-world examples, Uneducated Guesses exposes today’s educational policies to the light of empirical evidence, and offers solutions for fairer and more viable future policies.
“[T]hought-provoking. . . . He questions the anecdotal and statistical evidence that underpins many of today’s education policies and reform efforts.”—Library Journal
“Uneducated Guesses is an insider’s look at using test scores to make high stakes decisions in education. In this rigorous, refreshing rebuttal of conventional thinking, Wainer argues that in the world of education policy, we all would be better served by examining the evidence that demonstrates that our ideas will improve the systems we’re trying to transform.”—Dennis Van Roekel, president, National Education Association
Congratulations are owed to Elizabeth S. Anderson, author of The Imperative of Integration which has just won the 2011 Joseph B. Gittler Award from The American Philosophical Association.
This prize is awarded for “an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences.”
This lavishly illustrated book establishes the towering influence of the scientist Victor Regnault (1810-1878) in the earliest decades of photography, a period of experimentation ripe with artistic, commercial, and scientific possibility. Regnault has a double significance to the early history of photography, as the first leader of the Société Française de Photographie (S.F.P.) and as the maker of more than two hundred calotype (paper negative) portraits and landscapes. His photographic and scientific careers intersected a third field with his appointment in 1852 as director of the Sèvres porcelain works.
Readers are treated to Regnault’s own beguiling pastoral, garden, and forest scenes; striking portraits of the scientists and artists in his circle of friends; quirky images of acoustic experiments; and an insider’s view of the Sèvres porcelain works. Regnault’s richly varied photographs also encompass perhaps the most extensive group of family portraits in early photography, and his romanticized landscapes reflect a moment when the rural outskirts of Paris were being aggressively suburbanized and industrialized.
Occupying a unique and powerful position in the overlapping spheres of photography, science, industry, and art, Regnault was elected president of the newly formed S.F.P. in 1855. By examining his intertwined activities against the backdrop of French photography’s nascent pursuit of institutional legitimacy, this book illuminates an important and overlooked body of images and the irregular cultural terrain of early photography.
“In Laurie Dahlberg’s Victor Regnault and the Advance of Photography, you will find much to satisfy both curiosity about photography’s early technology and pleasure in his subjects. . . . A fascinating book, it combines stunning images with a thoughtful biography.”—Maggie McDonald, New Scientist
The random draw for this book with be Friday 9/16 at 3 pm EST. Be sure to “Like” us on Facebook if you haven’t already to be entered to win!
“The event I propose to celebrate was the publication of an essay in the autumn 1986 number of the highbrow quarterly, The Raritan Review. It was by a professor of philosophy at Princeton University (since retired), Harry G. Frankfurt, and the essay was entitled, ‘On Bullshit,’” he notes.
Well, thank you, David Warren, for choosing this subject for your column today because as any PUP fan knows, that essay became a New York Times bestselling book in a later incarnation.
“The title was memorable. It was not, however, gratuitous,” writes Warren in his celebration of the essay.
On Bullshit continues to hover at the top of our best-selling PUP books list, and, ironically, receives a boost around Christmas every year. Apparently, bullshit is the gift that everyone loves to give.
We have jumped into the high tech world of apps twice now. This is our first offering, based on the best-selling PUP version of The I Ching or Book of Changes. You can read more about the app here, purchase a copy here, or watch the video below to learn more about how to use the app.
Featuring commentary and interviews from Princeton University Press authors, the PUP Blog is a highly respected, timely and indispensable source for learning, understanding and reflection.
We are pleased to have just published Duke political science professor Ruth W. Grant’s fascinating new book about the uses–and abuses–of incentives called STRINGS ATTACHED: Untangling the Ethcis of Incentives. Her new book is a must-read for every politician, businessperson, and manager.
