A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Archives for November 2019

Demonizing III: Demonic Genetic Fallacy

by 15 Comments

A genetic fallacy is a flawed argument that comes in negative and positive variations.  In the negative version a perceived defect in the origin of a claim or thing is taken as evidence discrediting the claim or thing itself. The positive variation is an error in reasoning in which the origin of a claim or thing is taken to be evidence for the claim or proof that the thing is good. A Demonic Genetic Fallacy is, as would be expected, always negative.

A genetic fallacy, demonic or not, differs from the ad hominem fallacies in that a strictly defined ad hominem always targets an individual while the genetic fallacy can be used to target groups or institutions.

The demonic version of this fallacy involves two steps, the first of which distinguishes the demonic from the normal genetic fallacy.

First, the target, which is the origin of the claim or thing, is demonized. As noted in the first essay on the subject, demonizing is portraying the target as evil, corrupt, dangerous or threatening.  This can be done in the usual three ways: selective demonizing, hyperbolic demonizing or fictional demonizing. Selective demonizing is when some true negative fact about the target is focused on to the exclusion of other facts about the target.  Hyperbolic demonizing involves greatly exaggerating a negative fact about the target. Fictional demonizing is simply lying about the target. Second, the attack on the origin of the claim or thing is taken to discredit the claim or thing.

The demonic genetic fallacy has the following two forms:

Premise 1. Claim (or argument) C originates from group G.

Premise 2. Group G is demonized.

Conclusion: Therefore, C is false (or the argument fails).

Premise 1. A originated from O.

Premise 2. O is demonized.

Conclusion: A is discredited.

The reason why the demonic genetic fallacy is a fallacy is that demonizing a group or origin has no bearing on the truth of a claim, the quality of an argument or the origin of a thing. In addition to the logical error, a demonic genetic fallacy also suffers from the fact that demonizing, by definition, involves deception. At the very least, demonizing involves taking facts out of context and commonly involves outright falsehoods.

A demonic genetic fallacy can have considerable psychological force since demonizing typically goes beyond the usual attacks in a non-demonic genetic fallacies and thus can trigger strong emotions. A common tactic is to demonize the target using stereotypes the audience already accepts and by appealing to their biases, fears and prejudices. Such an audience will be inclined to accept the demonization as true and their emotional response can lead them to accept the fallacious reasoning.

There are two main defenses against demonizing. One is to be aware of the logical flaw in the fallacy. Even if the demonizing claims were true, the reasoning would still be flawed: true but irrelevant negative claims about the origin of something, no matter how terrible, do not disprove a claim or argument or prove a defect in the thing. The other is to be critical about negative claims and only accept them if they are adequately supported by evidence. One excellent example of the demonic genetic fallacy in the real world is Trumps demonizing of the media.

While Republicans have long attacked the media as having a liberal bias, Donald Trump escalated this attack to full demonization. He has gone far beyond accusing them of bias and has labeled journalist as disgusting, crooked, and dangerous. In terms of full on demonization, he has declared reporters to be “the enemy of the American people.” While Trump does attack individual journalists, this general attack on journalists is intended to discredit the claims Trump dislikes, such as accurate reporting of his lies and misdeeds. While the media certainly does suffer from the usual human biases and some journalists dislike Trump a great deal, his demonizing is generally composed of outright lies

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Demonizing II: Demonic Ad Hominem

by 3 Comments

An ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected based on some irrelevant fact about the person making the claim or argument. The demonic version of this fallacy involves two steps, the first of which distinguishes the demonic from the normal ad hominem.

First, the target of the ad hominem is demonized. As noted in the previous essay on the subject, demonizing is portraying the target as evil, corrupt, dangerous or threatening.  This can be done in the usual three ways: selective demonizing, hyperbolic demonizing or fictional demonizing. Selective demonizing is when some true negative fact about the target is focused on to the exclusion of other facts about the target.  Hyperbolic demonizing involves greatly exaggerating a negative fact about the target. Fictional demonizing is simply lying about the target. Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument in question.

The demonic ad hominem has the following form:

Premise 1. Person A makes claim X.

Premise 2. Person B demonizes person A.

Conclusion: Therefore, A’s claim is false (or A’s argument fails).

The reason why the demonic ad hominem is a fallacy is that demonizing a person has no bearing on the truth of a claim or the quality of an argument. In addition to the logical error, a demonic ad hominem also suffers from the fact that demonizing, by definition, involves deception. At the very least, demonizing involves taking facts out of context and often involves outright falsehoods.

A demonic ad hominem can have considerable psychological force since demonizing typically goes beyond the usual attacks in a non-demonic ad hominem and thus can trigger strong emotions. A common tactic is to demonize the target using stereotypes the audience already accepts and by appealing to their biases, fears and prejudices. Such an audience will be inclined to accept the demonization as true and their emotional response can lead them to accept the fallacious reasoning.

There are two main defenses against demonizing. One is to be aware of the ad hominem aspect of the fallacy. Even if the demonizing claims were true, the reasoning would still be flawed: true but irrelevant negative claims about a person, no matter how terrible, do not disprove a claim or argument. The other is to be critical about negative claims and only accept them if they are adequately supported by evidence.

Some of Trump’s defenders have used this fallacy to attack the Democrats in congress and those testifying before them. For example, when Lt. Colonel Vindman testified, he was demonized with assertions of dual loyalty and some even seemed to go so far as to cast him as a spy. The intent was to discredit his claims by lying about him. As another example, some of my Trump supporting friends on Facebook posted images featuring the false claim Schiff used taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment case involving a 19-year old man. The intent was that Schiff’s claims and arguments should be dismissed because of this (false) claim. While some people do believe these sorts of claims, even those who do not can be influenced by them when they are repeated often enough. Laying aside the matter of logic, there is also the moral concern about such attacks and the damage they can do. Those who get demonized all too often become targets of harassment and even death threats. There is also the interesting point that if Trump is truly in the right and should no be impeached, then the truth should suffice. It must be noted that the use of these tactics does not prove that Trump is guilty of impeachable offenses, but it does suggest that he does not have the truth on his side.

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Republicans & Conspiracy Theories

by 11 Comments

Image Credit

During the Trump impeachment hearing some of Trump’s Republican defenders in congress advanced various conspiracy theories. Trump himself is quite the aficionado of conspiracy theories, and is well known for pushing the absurd birtherism.  During her testimony Dr. Fiona Hill pointed out that these theories had been soundly debunked and also chastised the House members who were perpetuating them. While Fox News and other right-wing media outlets have tried to question her credibility, Dr. Hill served under Bush, Obama and (obviously) Trump. She has exceptional credentials and an excellent reputation outside the echo chambers of the right. Given her criticism of Putin, one might suspect that some of the rage against her has been fueled by Russia.

There are three main reasons why the pushing of this debunked conspiracy theories is morally problematic. First, they are not true and those who knowingly push them are lying. While one could advance a utilitarian moral argument in favor of lying to achieve ends, pushing these conspiracy theories creates more harm than good—as will be shown in the second and third reasons.

Second, having authorities push these debunked conspiracy theories can corrupt the critical faculties of those who accept them. While one could argue that people could compartmentalize their belief forming, it seems more reasonable to hold that those who become habituated to believing conspiracy theories based on rhetoric and fallacies will become more susceptible to bad reasoning in general. This can be seen as analogous to Plato’s arguments about the corrupting influence of art in the Republic. Plato argued that those exposed to art causing feelings such as pity, lust and anger would be more inclined to yield to the negative influences of these emotions in reality. Likewise, those who become habituated to accepting conspiracy theories and rejecting good reasoning will be more inclined to reason badly elsewhere. While people with poor reasoning skills do provide an advantage to those who wish to exploit them, this exploitation is typically bad for the exploited and others.

Third, these conspiracy theories tend to be toxically divisive and harmful in other ways. For example, advancing the debunked conspiracy theory about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election serves to distract attention away from the very real Russian efforts in 2016 and their ongoing efforts. Paying attention to and expending resources on debunked conspiracy distracts from real concerns and wastes resources.  One could argue that advancing such theories is acceptable because doing so helps Trump and Trump being president will have good consequences. The obvious reply is that if Trump really is such a good president, then he should not need lies to help him—the truth should suffice.  Since these theories have been debunked and advancing them is morally wrong, one might wonder why Trump and his defenders keep pushing them.

One possibility is that a conspiracy pusher’s epistemic abilities and critical faculties are hot garbage. That is, the methods they use to form beliefs and assess them are terrible, hence they tend to form false beliefs. If these defects are not their fault, then they cannot be held accountable—they are simply incapable of knowing better. If these defects are their fault (they avoid learning), then they would be to blame. To use an analogy, if someone has cancer because they knowingly engaged in risky behavior like smoking, then they bear some responsibility. If a person has cancer because of a gene, then they have no responsibility for their cancer.

A second possibility is that the conspiracy pushers are willfully ignorant: they have adequate epistemic abilities and critical thinking skills to form good beliefs but elect to not use them in the case of these conspiracy theories. That is, they are willing victims of rhetoric and fallacies. In this case they are to be condemned. To follow St. Aquinas, they have an obligation to do their homework.

A third possibility is that their epistemic and critical thinking abilities are potentially adequate but happened to fail in these cases. This is analogous to a batter taking a swing at a pitch but missing. In this case they are, to follow St. Aquinas, not to be condemned—they are acting in the way they believe is best and have put in the effort.

A fourth possibility is that the conspiracy pushers know they are pushing lies but advance them for pragmatic reasons. A likely explanation would be that they believe that advancing such lies will reinforce the beliefs of a base that already believes them or persuade those who do not yet embrace the conspiracies to accept them in favor of the truth.

In the best-case scenario, the conspiracy pushers are failed thinkers. In the worst case they are liars lying to protect a liar.

Demonizing I: Demonizing

by 3 Comments

Image Credit

Many of Trump’s defenders have tried to demonize key witnesses in the impeachment hearings.  Demonizing is a rhetorical strategy that aims at casting the target as evil, corrupt, dangerous or threatening. Demonizing can also be used to fuel or intensify other fallacies. My aim is to provide a discussion of demonizing to help people recognize and, I hope, exorcise it.

By its very nature demonization is a deceitful strategy—one does not need to demonize those who are evil. The level of deception used to demonize does vary considerably. The least dishonest approach is selective demonizing. This method involves making true negative claims but is a dishonest strategy because it involves cherry picking negative aspects of a person or group and emphasizing them without context. For example, if a person is killed by the police those trying to defend the officer might assert that the person “was no angel” and focus intently on, for example, the fact they were once arrested for possession of marijuana. As another example, those trying to demonize a corporation might focus on one bad thing the company did. Selective demonizing grants its user the advantage of being able to claim that what they are saying is true—although they are engaged in deception by omission.

The problem with selective demonizing is that it ignores the full story of the person or group in favor of focusing on the negative, which is unfair. To use an analogy, it would be like a teacher selecting only your worst grades to determine your grade in a course. It is certainly fair to consider the negative aspects of a person or group, but they must be taken in context. The defense against selective demonizing is to consider the broader context.

Hyperbolic demonization involves a greater level of deceit than selective demonization, but still has some connection to truth. This is because it involves hyperbole, which is an extravagant overstatement or exaggeration. Hyperbole differs from an outright lie in that it does have a foundation in truth—but the house built on that foundation is a lie. This allows those using it to claim that what they are saying has some basis in fact. The problem is, obviously, that what they are saying is not true. For example, a person trying to demonize migrants might take the true claim that some migrants commit crimes and explode that into a hyperbolic demonization about how masses of migrants are coming to the United States to rape and murder. The defense against hyperbolic demonization is to learn the facts and resist being manipulated by the exaggeration.

Fictional demonization involves simply making up negative claims about a person or group. This is sometimes done more subtly with innuendo (a rhetorical device in which one suggests or implies something deprecatory) or by using a weasler (a rhetorical device in which one protects a claim by weakening it). For example, defenders of Trump tried to suggest that Lieutenant Colonel might be disloyal to the United States—perhaps even a spy or traitor. In other cases, the demonizing involves directly making false extreme negative claims about a person or group. For example, someone might demonize minorities by claiming that they are engaged in a white genocide.  The defense against fictional demonization is being critical of claims and only accepting them when they are backed by credible evidence—especially in cases involving strong emotional appeals.

While demonization is psychological effective, it has no logical weight. Also, by definition, it involves deception: selected truths, exaggeration or outright lies. As such, it is wise to be wary of demonization.  There is also the moral concern that demonization is typically employed in the service of evil ends. After all, the good do not need to demonize the evil. In the upcoming essays I will look at some fallacies associated with demonization.

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

An Interesting Defense

by 14 Comments

If you ask the Democrats, one reason that Trump should be impeached is that he tried to extort Ukraine to investigate a long-debunked conspiracy about Joe Biden and his son. Put in more general terms, it could be said that one reason the Democrats want to impeach Trump is that he tried to push an investigation of Joe Biden and his son. Interestingly, some Republicans are accepting this claim and using it to defend Trump.

Image Credit

Taken without context, the claim “one reason the Democrats want to impeach Trump is that he tried to push an investigation of Joe Biden and his son” can be interpreted in many ways. Some of Trump’s defenders have made the claim that the Democrats are trying to impeach Trump out of revenge because of what he tried to do to Joe Biden. While this sort of revenge motive would certainly be morally problematic, their motivation is irrelevant as to whether Trump committed acts that warrant impeachment. To use an analogy, the fact that a prosecutor wants to lock up criminals because his family was hurt during a robbery does not entail that the criminal she is prosecuting is not guilty of the crime.

It is certainly fair to consider that motives can bias people, which is why the legal system (at least in the ideal) strives to have objective judges. One unfortunate aspect of almost any impeachment is that congress is made up of politicians who generally have party loyalty and thus it is almost always reasonable to see them as biased. Bias cuts both ways—those defending the president can generally be as biased as those favoring impeachment. While this does show a clear issue with impeachment, it does not count in general against the Democrats more than the Republicans.

A more interesting defense is that the Democrats are taking the view that Trump should have not pushed the investigation (into the debunked conspiracy theory) because they think that Biden, as a candidate, should be protected. As some of Trump’s defenders have noted, this would entail that candidates for office should be immune to investigation. The obvious point here is that we should infer that since this is absurd, the Democrats are wrong to try to impeach the president over this—after all, they also say, he was (incompetently) trying to root out corruption.

I certainly agree that candidates (and office holders) should not enjoy immunity from investigation. But this is not what the Democrats are claiming. Rather, their concern is that Trump used his office to try to coerce Ukraine into “investigating” a debunked conspiracy theory about Joe Biden in order to gain a political advantage in the 2020 election. To use an analogy, it would be as if an official was being investigated for using the police department to harass civil rights workers and her defenders claimed that critics said that civil rights workers should be immune to police investigation. This is, obviously, not being claimed at all. Their concern is with the misuse of the office, not with the legitimate operation of the police. Likewise, the Democrats legitimate concern is with the misuse of the office, not with the legitimate investigation of corruption.

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

Crying Voter Fraud

by 7 Comments

Image Credit

After winning the electoral college and losing the popular vote, Donald Trump alleged voter fraud. He went on to promise a “major investigation” into voter fraud, which failed to support his claim. As it stands, there is no evidence of rampant voter fraud in the 2016 election.

It must be noted that absence of evidence need not be conclusive as evidence of absence—but those claiming voter fraud exists bear the burden of proof. After all, proving that fraud has occurred simply requires finding some evidence of such fraud. Proving that no voter fraud occurred would require analyzing every voter and vote—a far more burdensome task. To use an analogy, if someone claims that there is a monster in Loch Ness, it is up to them to find it. It is not up to others to scour every centimeter of the Loch to prove that it is not there.

Significant voter fraud is rather like the Loch Ness monster—despite the failure of extensive efforts to find it, people keep claiming to have seen it. The latest sighting (of voter fraud, not the monster) was by Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin. At this time, Bevin seems to have lost the election by 5,000 votes. In response he claimed, without proving evidence or answering questions, that there were irregularities in the election.

If such irregularities occurred, it would be a serious matter and call the integrity of the election into question. Unfortunately for the governor, no election official has offered corroborating evidence—the election seems to have been conducted properly. It could, of course, be alleged that every election official is in on the conspiracy or that only the governor can see hidden irregularities. However, the most plausible explanation is that the governor was not telling the truth. Kentucky will, however, recanvas the election results. If it does turn out that Bevin was right, then he should either be regarded as a lucky guesser or praised for having a special ability to discern fraud.

If Bevin’s currently unsupported claim turns out to be wrong, then it would be reasonable to accuse him of crying voter fraud. For those who value the American democracy, this tactic is problematic because it unjustly undermines faith in the election system and thus makes it ever easier for others who lose elections to use the same tactic and thus undermine democracy further. It thus becomes a cycle of corrosion. When the fraud is not real, some people will still believe that the failure to act against the fraud is more evidence of conspiracy and fraud, thus making it worse. While real fraud would be bad, it would be something that could be addressed and thus faith could be restored. To use an analogy, someone who is a hypochondriac can never be cured of an unreal disease. In contrast, if someone is sick, they can generally be cured.

It might be objected that while Republicans cry voter fraud, Democrats cry voter suppression (and other things). Are the Democrats not just as bad? The first reply is that even if the Democrats were falsely crying voter suppression, this would not entail that the Republicans were somehow right about voter fraud or that they would be in the right. To think otherwise would be to fall into a fallacy.

The second reply is that there is, unlike voter fraud, evidence of voter suppression exists. The obvious counter is to argue that all the sources that provide evidence of voter fraud are biased and hence either lying or deceived. The challenge is, of course, to provide evidence that the are in error. In some cases, the reasoning runs in a circle: such sources are wrong about voter suppression because they are biased; they are biased because they claim voter suppression is real. In other cases, there are just ad hominem attacks: the sources are liberal, so they are wrong.

There is, however, no need to rely on liberal sources for evidence of efforts to undermine democracy. The leak of a trove of data recently revealed that certain Republicans believed that adding a citizenship question would help unfairly shift power to the Republicans. Interestingly, recent research shows that the question might not have had the impact the Republicans hoped. But this hardly gets them off the moral hook. If someone thinks you are allergic to peanuts and tries to kill you by secreting peanut dust in your food, they are not off the hook if it turns out you are not allergic to peanuts.

To be consistent, I must also pre-condemn any misdeeds by Democrats that involve making false claims about elections that undermine democracy. Obviously, there must be reliable evidence that such claims have been made and that they are false.

My Amazon Author Page

My Paizo Page

My DriveThru RPG Page

Follow Me on Twitter

%d bloggers like this: