Conversation with Merve Rumeysa Tapinç, PhD Candidate, Philosophy
Interview with Merve Rumeysa Tapinç
Dissertation Project: “The Duty of Self-Knowledge and Moral Responsibility for Our Beliefs and Commitments”
What is the subject of your research?
My research focuses on the epistemic and moral problem of self-knowledge. For instance, the problem of implicit bias—its harmful effects on others—presents us with both a moral and an epistemic dilemma. We are morally committed to investigate and locate within ourselves that which harms others. In doing our moral duty, however, we run into an epistemic obstacle—implicit bias limits or distorts our perception of what we ought to do. Drawing distinctions between our conscious judgements, our implicit beliefs, our commitments, and our actions, I suggest that others—and not we ourselves—might be better situated to recognize and isolate our beliefs and commitments.
At what stage was your dissertation in March 2020? What effect did the pandemic have on your work?
At first, I thought that lockdown would be an opportunity for me to focus on my studies. However, I soon realized how much I missed being in frequent conversations with other academic philosophers. Philosophy is a collaborative project. We benefit immensely from putting our heads together to clarify what we actually think. Lockdown complicated my ability to explore ideas with peers and professors. Easier online communication, however, also had some advantages. Attending Zoom conferences and workshops has helped me plug into networks of philosophers farther afield—in departments and colleges beyond BU.
Can philosophy help us make sense of the need to continue pursuing academic goals in the midst of a pandemic?
Yes, in a class I teach—Medical Ethics and Contemporary Issues in Ethics—we have attempted to use the tools of philosophy to better understand how we ought to behave during the pandemic. We have considered whether the value of research and the necessity to maintain personal interactions justify the pitfalls of continuing with in-person classes, as well as whether, by emphasizing the risks to the most vulnerable members of our larger community, we would not all be better off going fully online. I hope that, in such deliberation, philosophers and ethicist have played some role in informing the decisions of policymakers during this difficult time.
As well as bringing to the fore the value of human life, the pandemic has also highlighted certain inequities in higher education. Whereas junior faculty at many institutions have been granted tenure-clock extensions to account for the interruption, graduate students have rarely been given such consideration. The pandemic is only the latest manifestation of the precarity faced by graduate students. By augmenting support to graduate students to cushion them from the hardships of the pandemic, universities can help ameliorate this injustice.
Has the pandemic posed particular challenges to international graduate students?
Academic life can be isolating and challenging, especially for international students. I have been fortunate in my cohort of fellow students, who have strived to maintain contact with each other online. Even in the best of times, international graduate students have a tough time making ends meet. Our visas do not allow us to work off campus. We get no summer funding. Whereas I normally go back to Turkey for the summer, the pandemic kept me in Boston this past year. Unable to leave the US, or to work, I have found it almost impossible to live in a city as expensive as Boston. BU ought to be more conscious of the special needs of international students, especially at this time.
Americans have recently been hooked on the Netflix Turkish drama series Ethos (Bir Başkadır). Have you watched it? What might the relationship between Meryem and Peri tell a western audience about contemporary Turkey?
Yes! I loved it when it first came out. In terms of ideology and socio-economic status Meryem and Peri represent two extremes in Turkish society: militant secularism and hyper religiosity. Meryem and Peri are caricatured as representations of two very different social classes. The matter of whether to wear a headscarf, which fuels much of the conflict in the show, might have been a political flashpoint in the 1990s. It is not so potent today. Turkey has changed. Contrary to the story of the show, religious people are no longer, on the whole, socially or economically oppressed. Secular people are not necessarily privileged or upper-class. Nor do they share Peri’s visceral prejudice against women—such as Meryem—who take the scarf. Highlighting the fact that like all societies Turkey is complicated, I hope that the show enhances self-knowledge and mutual understanding between the peoples of Turkey and America.
Merve was interviewed by Arthur George Kamya, April 2021.