A Love Letter
It took just one conference to return me to my roots
When I was young, I used to build those plastic model airplanes you can find at hobby stores. When they were finished, instead of putting them on a shelf, my dad helped me to hang them from the ceiling; so, it looked like a dogfight between an A-10 and a P-47 in the corner of my room.
One morning, I woke up to the sound of my dad’s voice saying, “Joey, Joey! Get up! There’s an earthquake!”
Los Angeles and its San Andreas fault are famous for earthquakes. We lived through several that were 5-plus on the Richter scale.
I sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes and, with all the wisdom of a six-year-old, asked my dad, “how do you know there’s an earthquake?”
“Look at your models,” my dad said. I glanced at the ceiling in the corner of the room. Sure enough, what had been a static snapshot of a dogfight had become bouncing and swaying model aircraft—both submitting to the motion of the quake and defying all the principles of flight.
I decided that evidence was sufficient and crawled down the ladder from the top bunk to join my dad and my sister under the door frame.
From that moment—the moment I, at six years old, asked my dad, “how do you know there’s an earthquake”—I’m sure he knew I was doomed to a life studying philosophy.
I attended a philosophy conference—a real philosophy conference—last week. I hadn’t realized how long it had been. I’ve been to ethics conferences in recent years—military ethics, or professional ethics, or AI ethics. But at those conferences, scholars (including philosophers, but also including many other disciplines and professions) try to answer questions like, what policy should we adopt given some novel technology; or what new development at the big AI labs raises novel ethical questions? But at a real philosophy conference, philosophers try to answer different kinds of questions like, if I adopt this ethical principle, what counterintuitive conclusions will it entail; or is there a logical contradiction between one principle and another? At ethics conferences, scholars try to solve practical problems. At a philosophy conference, philosophers try to solve theoretical problems.
It’s different. And I love it.
I heard a paper about the whether meaning is central to hope; I heard one about our duties to prevent wrongful harm (and whether it is stronger than our duty to prevent other harms); and I heard a paper about the role of bargaining power in defining what friendship is.
And I loved it.
A philosopher—a very good philosopher—is like a very good chef. The chef can bring the sauce to his lips and say, without exaggeration, “I can taste where this sauce is weak, and I know how to make it stronger.” Or, maybe a good philosopher is like a good auto mechanic. With eyes closed, the mechanic can hear a nuance in the timing, or a subtle hum during acceleration and say, without exaggeration, “I can hear where this engine is weak and I know how to make it stronger.”
A very good philosopher is like that, but with arguments. She can read a paper and say, “I can see where this argument is weak, and I know how to make it stronger.”
When I told my squadron commander back in 2012 that I wanted to give up two very promising (and very promotable) career options to pursue a Master’s degree in philosophy and teach philosophy at the Air Force Academy, he did a very kind thing. He said, “if you want me to push you for this philosophy thing, you need to look me in the eye and tell me that you never want to be a squadron commander.”
In the US Air Force, squadron command is often the pinnacle of a 20-year officer career. Even for those who continue to serve beyond 20 years and go on to command larger organizations, there is something special (I am told) about squadron command. And selection for squadron command is competitive. Back in 2012, my commander offered me a very important insight: If you pursue this philosophy career, you will most likely no longer be competitive among your Air Force peers, and you may never be selected for squadron command.
I considered his advice carefully and, ultimately, decided I was willing to make that trade.
In the intervening years, I doubled down on that trade, spending three more years in school to earn a philosophy PhD.
I think I have shown, though, that it really is possible to have a promising career as an Air Force philosopher (and I am by no means the first to have done so). The Air Force has managed to put me in positions where I could—even if indirectly—use my philosophical skills for good: I was the AI ethics expert in Air Force Futures, then the Department of the Air Force’s Chief Responsible AI Ethics Officer. I taught Marines at Quantico and worked on strategy projects for the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.
And yet, I have a perpetual feeling that my philosophy background is never a perfect fit for my institution. What if I had studied something a little more practical and a little less theoretical?
There is a part of me—even if a small part—that wonders, if a young 2012 Joe Chapa were able to ask old 2025 Joe Chapa for advice, what would I tell him? Would I tell my younger self to avoid philosophy because, despite its efforts, the broader institution will never really know how to value that discipline. Would I tell my younger self to pursue graduate degrees in a field the institution does know how to value—political science, or economics, or international relations?
There are moments, to be sure, that I may lean (however temporarily) in that pragmatic direction. But, ultimately, I keep coming back to the my love of philosophy. All academic disciplines are oriented toward the search for truth and I have no intention to be disparaging of any of them. But I do think philosophy is special in this regard: These other disciplines pursue truth for the sake of some other good. The political scientist seeks truth to identify more effective political relationships. The economist seeks out truth to define more efficient markets. The international relations scholar seeks truth to improve relations between nations.
As Aristotle said of his teacher, Plato, “While both [friends and truth] are dear, piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.”
Aristotle was wrong about a great many things, but he was right about this: We may be tempted to sacrifice truth for promotability; or for the outcomes we think are best; or for professional influence; or for “the greater good” (whatever that might mean). But philosophers must resist these temptations and prioritize the truth. And I love it.
I do not regret spending a third of my Air Force career either studying or teaching philosophy. And of my younger self were to ask me today what discipline to pursue, I would tell him to stay the course and to study philosophy, come what may. As a student of philosophy, what other answer could I possibly give?
I love to study arguments. A life of philosophical study has enabled me to continue to ask in my professional life the same question I asked during that earthquake when I was six: “how do we know?”
Credit where it’s due
Views Expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the US Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any part of the US Government.
Your love letter to philosophy is a moment of nostalgia for me. I remember the 2012 Joe Chapa, and although I have the privilege of knowing how it all turned out, would dare say that your decision was absolutely the right one. The question your commander asked was also spot-on, as that is how the institution works. However, I just wonder (rhetorically), what is that institution missing? What would it look like if the service considered both operational track record AND deep thinking ability? You would have been a great commander.
Your path taught and influenced other commanders with a reach both in numbers and depth that would not have been possible otherwise.