{"id":147582,"date":"2022-12-06T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-06T11:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=147582"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:33","slug":"benjamin-mullins-traded-in-working-as-a-chef-in-london-for-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2022\/12\/06\/benjamin-mullins-traded-in-working-as-a-chef-in-london-for-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Mullins traded in working as a chef in London for philosophy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benjamin Mullins dropped out of school in his English town at the tender age of 15. He went off to work as a chef in London. Now he\u2019s completing a PhD in philosophy. Derek Parfit\u2019s book Reasons and Persons<\/em> played a significant role in that.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Mullins went to university to have better conversations with colleagues in the kitchen. Now he is pursuing a PhD in philosophy. <\/span><\/p>

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Benjamin Mullins grew up in a small town in England but was drawn to the capital as soon as he could leave home. With no plan or direction, he finished secondary school at the age of 15 and moved to London. There, he worked in restaurants, initially as a dishwasher and later as a sous chef. \u201cAfter a couple of years, I realised that everyone around me was far better educated than I was. I decided to take evening classes to try and put me on a par with colleagues when it came to conversation. It didn\u2019t really matter what the course was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018That first time sitting in a lecture hall was a magical experience\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Magical experience<\/h2>

Whilst searching online, Mullins stumbled on a philosophy course offered by the University of London designed to enable people without the right prior education to nevertheless continue studying. Philosophy was the only programme Mullins could enrol in with his current qualifications.<\/p>\n

He continued to work as a sous chef next to attending classes. \u201cThat first time sitting in a lecture hall was a magical experience. It looked exactly like it does in the films. The setting and the course content immediately fired me up. The professor who taught that lecture ended up being my thesis supervisor a few years later.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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Books a year: 25 to 50<\/p>\n

Favourite genre: \u201cI used to read a lot of fiction, but I stick to philosophy now. The plan is to go back to reading fiction at some point in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Primary motivation: knowledge<\/p>\n

Last book read: Living High and Letting Die<\/em><\/a> by Peter Unger<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Making a difference (or not)<\/h2>

Mullins\u2019 research pertains to individual contributions to a collective problem. Climate change is a concrete example. This is down to our collective behaviour, but an individual\u2019s behaviour will not change the climate. It is similar to the sorites paradox, or paradox of the heap, explains Mullins. If a man has a full head of hair and pulls one out, this will not make him bald, but if you keep repeating the process, eventually he will be. But at what point will we be able to say that he is bald? Which hair will be the one that tips the balance?<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no accepted philosophical solution\u201d, says Mullins, \u201cbut there is a political answer. In politics you can just draw an arbitrary line and say \u2018enough is enough\u2019. This might be necessary to avoid a climate catastrophe. But as a philosopher, I\u2019m more interested in whether there is a non-arbitrary solution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collective moral problem<\/h2>

He has been working on this topic for years now. He wrote an article on collective moral problems whilst doing his Master\u2019s in London. His lecturer recommended that he read Derek Parfit\u2019s book Reasons and Persons<\/em>. \u201cI was blown away. Parfit\u2019s way of framing these moral collective action problems really captured people\u2019s imagination. He also raised interesting problems about future populations.\u201d<\/p>\n

One idea goes like this: the different policies that we adopt now are almost certain to affect who, and how many people live in the future. We might adopt a policy that has bad effects on specific future people. However, if we had adopted a different policy, these people never would have existed, so it cannot be argued that the policy made them worse off, since they never would have come into being to begin with.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t