Month: February 2025

In the eternal culture war, folks on the right claim that post-modern neo-Marxist college professors are indoctrinating the youth. Some have a more moderate view, seeing professors as merely being excessively liberal and indoctrinating the youth in liberal dogma. While I am confident the academy is not ruled by Marxists, there are still interesting questions about the extent of Marxism on campuses, the degree to which liberals dominate the academy and whether professors indoctrinate their students.

It is true that there are Marxist professors. I have even met some. In some cases, they do seem to understand Marxism and its implications, at least to the degree that anyone understands a philosophical theory. These folks are often political science or philosophy professors. I have also encountered professors who seem to think they are Marxists, but do not seem to understand Marxism. For example, at a conference I met a professor who claimed to be a Marxist, but also accepted free will and metaphysical dualism. Real Marxists are metaphysical materialists and embrace economic determinism. Fortunately, Marxists are rare even in the social sciences and humanities. As such, the idea that the academy is ruled by Marxists is not true. While there is a non-zero number of Marxist professors who preach rather than teach, I do have complete sympathy for students who get caught up in that nightmare.

Professors do tend to be politically liberal and it has been claimed they are becoming more liberal. From my own experiences, I have extensive anecdotal evidence that professors tend to be liberal. As to why they are becoming more liberal, this is often a matter of relativity because the political right in America has moved to the far right. Relative to the Trump administration, Reagan and Bush would be liberals.

That professors tend to be liberal is no more surprising than corporate executives tending to be more conservative. However, there is a reasonable concern that the academy is dominated by the left rather than representing the ideological diversity of the country. Ironically, consistent conservatives would oppose affirmative action or diversity initiatives aimed at recruiting more conservative faculty. However, they could still earn degrees or encourage other conservatives and increase the number of conservatives in academics. It would be a positive thing to have more conservative intellectuals in the academy (and in general). After all, ideology without opposition leads to a multitude of sins, such as intellectual laziness.

While the alleged liberal domination of the academy is a matter for concern, there is also the question of whether students are being indoctrinated in leftist ideology. I am careful to teach without pushing my own ideology. For example, in my ethics class I do not try to convert the students to virtue theory, they get the tools of moral reasoning as well as information about a range of moral theories. But, of course, I am but one professor and my example is mere anecdotal evidence. My not being a leftist indoctrinator no more proves that indoctrination isn’t taking place than a single example of a Marxist professor would prove that Marxism rules the academy.

As would be expected, there are researchers who argue that the academy does not indoctrinate students and that college does not make people more liberal. It could be contended that they are biased because they are liberals. This is a fair point: liberals defending the academy are biased, just as conservatives attacking the academy are biased. This does not entail that the liberals are wrong or that their arguments are flawed—to think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem: while bias provides grounds for suspicion, it does not disprove a claim. After all, the same sort of bad reasoning could be applied to the conservatives who claim that the academy indoctrinates students to be liberals; as conservatives, they would tend to be biased against liberals.

This question is an empirical one: researchers can comb through a representative sample of syllabi, PowerPoint slides, course notes, and recordings of lectures to find the relevant evidence for or against the claim of indoctrination. This research would need to meet the usual standards of a proper inductive generalization: the sample would need to be large enough and representative enough to provide strong support for the conclusion. Because of this, anecdotal evidence of crazed Marxist professors or professors who teach in a fair and balanced manner do not suffice as adequate evidence. This fallacy involves taking an anecdote as evidence for a general claim. Samples that are too small would result in the fallacy of hasty generalization and biased samples would result in the fallacy of biased generalization.

As would be expected, both conservatives and liberals can be tempted to use anecdotes, excessively small samples and biased samples to “support” their view. I am certainly open to the results of a properly conducted, large scale study of the academy; this is something that could be conducted in good faith by a bipartisan team of researchers. I am sure that there are some professors who try to indoctrinate their students. This would be of concern, but there seems to be no objective evidence that this is a general problem. After all, as folks on the right like to say about the police, we shouldn’t draw an inference from a few “bad apples.”

Even if some professors try to indoctrinate their students, there is also the question of whether they are likely to succeed. Having observed many professors across numerous institutions, such efforts would usually fail. As the joke goes, we have a difficult time getting students to even read the syllabus. Transforming them into deranged Marxists or even getting them to be slightly more liberal is unlikely. This is not to say that professors have no influence nor to deny that there are professors like Jordan Peterson who can sway people. But such charismatic corrupters are obviously quite rare and would be more likely to pursue other, more lucrative careers. Like Jordan Peterson did.

But even if professors fail to indoctrinate their students, it can be argued that they are wasting class time trying to preach rather than teach. This is a fair point. While off-topic discussions can be some of the best learning experiences, a professor spending class time pushing their ideology rather than teaching is a disservice to the students. Of course, professors rambling about fishing stories, D&D, stamp collecting, or their favorite movies also waste students’ time.

That said, it could be argued that professing does have a legitimate role in the classroom—if it has pedagogical value. Even if it does have some value, there is also the worry that by pushing a specific ideology, the professor will mislead the students about the merits or demerits of specific views.  This all ties into the classic problem of the proper role of a professor—although the ideal often advanced today is that of a conveyor of information and skills to prepare the job fillers for their existence as workers.

The intense politicalization of ecological issues makes it difficult to have a rational discussion of environmental regulation. When the left wants regulation, the right can claim they want to destroy jobs because of a deranged preference for tiny fish over humans. When the right opposes regulation, they can be presented as willing to destroy the environment because they value profits over other people and the planet. This conflict leads to the seesaw of regulations as each party takes and loses power. While there is no single solution to this problem, a rational approach would be to try to develop solutions that benefit corporations and the inhabitants of the ecosystem, such as us humans. As an example, I will use the seabirds.

While sea food is delicious and nutritious, modern fishing techniques kill hundreds of thousands of seabirds each year. For example, albatrosses are sometimes killed by longline fishing. As another example, penguins can get caught in gill nets and drown. These dead birds have no value to business and they are an unfortunately bycatch whose carcasses are garbage rather than profitable.

Fortunately for the birds, there are ways to reduce their death toll. For example, long line fishing can be made safer for birds by using streamers to deter them or by weighting the lines so they sink out of reach of diving birds. These methods of protecting birds do cost money and can make things more difficult for the fishing crews. As such, regulations requiring that fishing vessels use these devices and measures impose costs which can impact the pay of the fishing crews and the cost of seafood. Because of this, it would be rational of industry to oppose such regulations to avoid these costs.

While some might be tempted to dismiss this as an obsession with profit, attacking the industry means it will double down on its opposition and lobby against regulations. This will make it even harder for environmentalists to get regulations in place. Aggressive opposition by industry will motivate environmentalists, making it harder for industry to get what they want. In such conflicts, the lobbyists are always victorious.  It would be preferable for everyone (other than the lobbyists) if there was a way to protect birds while also benefiting the fishing industry.

It seems difficult to imagine that protecting birds would benefit the seafood industry in any significant way. After all, they would need to purchase equipment and adopt methods to protect birds. There seems to be no profit in this. But perhaps there is the potential for gain.

Protecting birds could pay off in public relations. A company can advertise it is bird safe and perhaps offset the cost through improved sales and by increasing prices. However, it would be even better if protecting birds was also profitable or at least cost neutral. One example of this is longline fishing.

An estimated 160,000 albatrosses and petrels are killed each year when they get hooked on longlines. While this is obviously bad for the birds, it is also costly to the industry. First, they must waste time removing dead birds from their lines. Second, and more importantly for them, each hooked bird could have been a profitable fish. Keeping birds off their lines means that they can catch more fish. As such, regulations that protect birds can be a win for the birds and the industry.  But this does lead to an obvious objection.

Opponents of environmental regulation can content that if protecting birds is advantageous to the industry, there is no reason to impose regulations. Out of rational self-interest, industry will act without being coerced. So, there is no need to impose regulations.

As I favor minimal state intrusion, I find this appealing: why use the power of the state to compel people to do what they would do without coercion? Especially when an imposition might cause opposition. To use an analogy, think of seat belt laws. Wearing a seat belt is a good idea and people should do so, but some people refuse to wear them because it is required by law. It could be argued that it makes more sense to inform people of the benefits of seat belts and let rational self-interest motivate them.

The obvious counter is that people generally do not operate from rational self-interest. If they did, everyone would be eating the healthiest meals they could get and exercising as often as they could. As such, to follow Aristotle, people must often be compelled to do what is best for them. So, while protecting seabirds would be in the interest of industry, they are unlikely to do so just because it is in their interest. So, regulation is needed to compel them to act in their own interest. To use another analogy, while it is rational for people to learn how to drive properly before taking to the road, the state needs to compel people to do this.

While I favor freedom, freedom can be justly limited on moral grounds when liberty creates significant harm. So, for example, while people should be free to have pets, there should be regulations forbidding people from taking their pet tiger for a walk in the local park. The challenge, as always, is balancing liberty against harm.

By Government of Florida –

DeSantis, the governor of my adopted state of Florida, is plagiarizing Elon Musk’s DOGE. Like Musk, DeSantis claims that his DOGE will eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse.” As with Musk and DOGE, DeSantis already knows what he wants to cut: 70 state boards and commissions and 900 jobs. He also wants to force universities to undergo reviews and audits, and the state will “look into” local government expenditures. As I am not an expert on government finances I will, unlike Musk, leave the merit of any cuts to the experts. Instead, I will discuss the concepts of fraud and waste.

There is an obvious rhetorical advantage to claiming that DOGE is targeting fraud and waste. After all, everyone agrees that fraud and waste are bad. Unless, of course, one is benefiting from either. Fraud, as a concept, is easy to define. It is intentional deception aimed at acquiring an unfair or unlawful gain. While it might seem that fraud would be easy to determine, what counts as fraud will always be a matter of which interpretation of the law is being used. J.D. Vance’s discussion of paroles and Temporary Protected Status provides a good illustration of this. While the Biden administration followed (their interpretation of) the law, J.D. Vance claimed that they had acted illegally, making the migrants in question illegal. The same would also apply to claims about fraud. While, for example, a contract was (interpreted as) legal and not fraudulent when it was made during the Biden administration, under Musk’s interpretation it could now be fraud. While there can be good faith disagreement about the law and fraud, Musk could easily claim that something is fraud simply because he does not like it. Given the lack of oversight of DOGE, fraud could be whatever Musk calls “fraud.” That said, as “fraud” is usually defined in laws, there would be at least some grounds for judging whether something is fraud. The concept of waste is much more problematic.

Wasteful spending is expending resources, especially money, in ways that are either unnecessary or inefficient. While we agree that waste is bad, this is like saying that we also agree that bad is bad. But people obviously disagree about what is wasteful and what is bad. It might seem that inefficiency is an objective matter and in some cases it is. For example, if the government had a contract with one of Musk’s companies that cost taxpayers more than what a competitor would charge for the same product, then that would be inefficient and hence waste. But there can be cases where spending seems inefficient, but it is not. After all efficiency is not just a matter of paying a higher price but involves getting the same or less by paying more. If, for example, Musk’s product was superior to the competition, then the extra cost could be worth it. It is also worth considering the obvious: someone could just lie about efficiency when they want to cut spending. While inefficiency does allow some degree of objectivity, whether spending is unnecessary seems entirely a matter of a person’s values. This applies to everyday spending and government spending.

As an example, consider going out for dinner and buying drinks. Whether that is wasteful depends on your values. While it could be argued that it would be more efficient to cook dinner at home and buy alcohol at the store as the cost would be much lower, some people believe that going out is not a waste of their money. This is because of the return they get from the experience. In terms of who is right, this is a debate of which values are correct and is not something that can be resolved by an Excel spreadsheet. Likewise for government spending.

What is unnecessary is in the eye of the beholder. People who do not like SNAP or Medicaid will see these as unnecessary. People who do not like subsidies for the wealthy will see those as unnecessary. So, when Musk claims to be cutting waste he could be telling the truth: he could be cutting spending that he, as the world’s richest person, thinks is unnecessary. While he sees his lucrative contracts as necessary, he obviously does not need SNAP, Medicaid, or farm subsidies and these no doubt seem unnecessary to him. From a rhetorical standpoint, claiming to be cutting waste sounds much better than cutting programs one does not like, hence that is what Musk says his DOGE is doing.

But has DOGE been a success? Even a cursory review of DOGE’s own “receipts” and claims reveals many untruths and errors. For example, the claims about Social Security fraud and $8 billion in savings in a Department of Homeland Security contract were debunked, with the $8 billion turning out to be $8 million. As of this writing, Musk has made at least 28 false claims, such as the lie about $50 million for condoms in Gaza and the claim that congress gave itself a 40% tax increase. In terms of finding waste, fraud and abuse DOGE has been a failure.

As to why DOGE has done such a poor job, one possible explanation is incompetence: Musk cares about waste and fraud, but he and his DOGE are not very good at their jobs. A second explanation is that Musk does not care about waste and fraud and DOGE has other goals. Going with the reasonable idea that the purpose of a thing is what it does, we should look at what DOGE is doing to see its actual goals. It has succeeded in demoralizing federal employees, it has targeted agencies that protect the American people from fraud and financial exploitation, and it has gone after agencies that regulate and investigate Musk’s businesses. In these areas DOGE has been a success. While DeSantis has yet to announce a billionaire to head up his DOGE, it is reasonable to infer it will serve a similar function in Florida. With the obvious exception of the more Musk focused goals of DOGE. It is reasonable to infer that DOGE is using the rhetorical cover of going after fraud and waste to poorly conceal its real goals. We should expect the same with Florida DOGE.

A few years ago, at my annual checkup, my systolic blood pressure was 145. My doctor was concerned and asked me to monitor my blood pressure. I already owned an automatic blood pressure checker and started taking regular readings, finding that my blood pressure was consistently good (110-130) at home. This inspired an investigation.

I found that one cause was the stress of driving: I’m hyper-vigilant when I drive and my blood pressure spikes. My first reading at the doctor’s office will be high because of this; my second reading is always normal. I also found out that my habit of hydrating also caused the spike. I always visited the water fountain when I arrive, at least until I learned that this also spiked my blood pressure. Thus, I solved my “high” blood pressure problem. But this interest in blood pressure led me to “do my own research” and I recalled that the definition of high blood pressure had changed over the years. The ideal now is 120 systolic (though there was a push for 115). Looking into the change, it turns out that the pharmaceutical companies that sell blood pressure medication were instrumental. This influence extends worldwide, with the WHO panel on this having industry connections. Pharmaceutical companies have engaged in concerted efforts to “educate” and influence doctors. This connection has not gone unnoticed, leading some to question whether the new guidelines are legitimate or a money maker for the pharmaceutical companies. While I will not assume a conspiracy, it is rational to be concerned.

The scientific evidence shows that high blood pressure is unhealthy, but there is still the question of what is too high. There are also practical concerns about properly measuring blood pressure: instruments are often inaccurate; blood pressure varies greatly depending on circumstances and so on. Since I am not a medical expert, I will focus on critical thinking and not directly address the medical issues.

One obvious concern with the seemingly biased research is whether it is accurate. That this is a legitimate worry is illustrated by the infamous case of how the sugar industry paid scientists to blame fat, thus distorting health information. The pharmaceutical companies’ role in the opioid crisis shows these companies have no moral qualms about causing harm to make profits. As such, it is reasonable to be suspicious about the guidelines for blood pressure.

One interesting way to motivate suspicion in this matter across the political spectrum is to make use of climate change. Climate change deniers often assert that there is a conspiracy among climate scientists to deceive the public about climate change. Or, at the very least, the scientists are in error because they are being misled by ideology. Those who believe in climate change claim that the fossil fuel industry has been engaged in a disinformation campaign motivated by a desire for profit.

While the two sides differ about who is engaged in disinformation, they both agree that disinformation is a strategy. As such, it would make sense to them that there could be disinformation about blood pressure. The emotional appeal would be to climate change deniers based on their distrust of science while those who believe in climate change would tend to accept that an industry is engaged in disinformation to the detriment of people.

That said, the fact that research is biased, and disinformation has been spread does not entail that the research must be wrong. The blood pressure guidelines could be medically sound; it might just be coincidence that they were influenced by corporations and that the new guides increase their profits.

The problem is that there is a lack of unbiased research to confirm or discredit the biased research. As such, confidence in the guidelines should be relatively low. That said, the evidence does show that we should strive to keep our blood pressure low. The evidence also shows that the non-drug ways to do this (exercise, rest, good diet, stress management) are good for you even if you don’t have high blood pressure. So, I agree that people should use those methods to be healthy and that high blood pressure is probably bad. However, medication is another matter.

When it comes to medication, the first question (which has been addressed) is whether there is an actual problem. As noted above, high blood pressure does seem to be bad. But it is not entirely clear what is too high. The second question is does the medication work? On the face of it, FDA approved blood pressure medications do seem to work—in that they lower blood pressure. This leads to the third question: if they work, do the benefits outweigh the side effects?

The oldest (and least profitable) blood pressure medication, diuretics,  seem to work with minimal side effects. The new (and more profitable) ones seem to have problematic side effects including increased risk of stroke, increased risk of heart attack, and increased rates of suicide and depression.  As such, the rational approach to these medications (as always) would be to weigh the possible harm against the possible benefits. While there are certainly some objective factors in play here, there are also subjective factors, such as how people feel about risk and side effects. Part of the problem in weighing the harms and benefits takes the discussion back to the question of what constitutes unhealthy high blood pressure. Since the research on this is biased, judging whether the drugs the pharmaceutical companies are selling are worth the side effects (and cost) is problematic. Without trustworthy information on the danger, one cannot make a good judgment about accepting risks to offset that alleged danger.

While my focus is on blood pressure, the same sort of problem arises generally for medicines and surgeries: without independent, trustworthy research we cannot make good health decisions. Unfortunately, there is a problem with independent research. There has been a systematic defunding of public institutions that engage in research, and this creates two major impacts.

The first is that important medical research is often not conducted due to lack of funds. The second is that industry often funds research, which biases it. One plausible, but not perfect, solution is to increase the funding of public institutions so that they can increase independent and objective research into health issues. This, of course, will tend to be opposed by industry and the Trump administration. While this would reduce their research expenses, it would give them far less control over the research, which would be a problem for their profits.

A more radical approach would be to impose additional regulations on the pharmaceutical industry such as requiring establishing the validity of medical claims via independent, publicly funded research before drugs could be marketed. The challenge would be to balance the need for objective, trustworthy research against medical innovation and the legitimate business interests of the for-profit industry.

While some might balk at such regulations and make appeals to the free market, it must be pointed out that the key to the pharmaceutical business is the patent system. This is a form of government regulation that prevents competition that corporations usually like. These patents are backed up by the public institutions of law enforcement and the courts. As such, cries about the free market should not be heeded, unless the regulation is truly unfair and too restrictive. On a personal note, it does worry me that I am unsure whether my blood pressure might be a problem, or whether the pharmaceutical companies are lying so they can extort money through a campaign of deceit. In a civilized nation that cares for its citizens, that should not be a real worry. And yet it is. And it seems likely that matters will only get worse.

 

Now that the ethics of methods and sources have been addressed, I now turn to the content of opposition research. The objective is to provide some general guidance about what sort of content is morally acceptable to research and use against political opponents.

Since the objective of opposition research is to find damaging or discrediting information about the target, the desired content will always be negative (or perceived as negative). While there is the view that if one has nothing nice to say about someone else, then one should say nothing, the negative nature of the content does not automatically make such research unethical. To support this, consider the obvious analogy to reporters: the fact that they are on the lookout for negative information does not make them unethical. Finding negative things and reporting on them are legitimate parts of their jobs. Likewise for opposition researchers. As such, concerns about the ethics of the content must involve considerations other than the negative nature of the desired content.

One obvious requirement for ethical content is that the information must be true. This does raise an obvious epistemic problem: how can the researchers know it is true? Laying aside the epistemic problems of skepticism, this is a practical question about evidence, reasoning and credibility which go beyond the scope of this essay. However, a general ethical guide can be provided. At a minimum, the claim should only be used if it is more likely to be true than false. Both ethics and critical thinking also require that the evidence for a claim be proportional to the strength of the claim. As such, strong claims require strong support. Ethics also requires considering the harm that could be done by using the claim and the greater the harm, the greater the evidence for that claim needs to be. This moral guide is at odds with the goal of the research, since the more damaging the claim, the better it is as a political weapon. But ethics requires balancing the political value of the weaponized information against the harm that could be done to an innocent person. This is not to say that damaging information should not be used, but that due caution is required.

This approach is analogous to guides on using force. Justifying the use of lethal force against a person requires good reasons to believe that person is a threat and that the use of force is justified. To the degree that there are doubts, the justification is reduced. Likewise, damaging information should be used with caution so that an innocent person is not unjustly harmed. For example, if someone is accused of having committed sexual assault, then there would need to be strong evidence supporting such a claim. Although in the current political climate, such an accusation seems more of a plus than a disqualification.

There is debate about when the use of force is justified, and the perception of the person using the force (such as how scared or threatened they claimed to be) is often considered. The same applies to the use of damaging information, so there will be considerable disagreement (probably along ideological lines) about whether using it is justified. And there will be debates about how people see its plausibility. Despite these issues, the general guide remains: the evidence needs to be adequate to justify the belief the claim is true. The use of information that does not meet even the minimal standard (more likely to be true than not) would be unethical. In other cases, there can be good faith debate about whether a claim is adequately supported or not. In addition to the concern about the truth of the information, there is also the concern about the relevance of the information.

The general principle of relevance is obvious: the content must be relevant to the issue. In the abstract, relevance is easy to define: information is relevant if it bears on the person’s suitability for the position.  For example, if the opposition research is against someone running for senate, then the content must be relevant to the person’s ability to do the job of a senator properly and effectively. What should be considered relevant will vary from situation to situation.

One problem is that people have different notions of relevance. For example, some might consider the high school and college behavior of a candidate for the Supreme Court to be relevant information while others disagree. As another example, some might consider a candidate’s sexual activity relevant while others might see consensual sex of any kind between adults as irrelevant. And, as the current political climate shows, being credibly accused of sexual assault or embracing long discredited claims about the cause of autism might be seen as positive rather than disqualifying.

One way to solve this problem is to use this principle: whatever would influence voters (if true) is acceptable to use. While this seems to be entailed by the citizen’s right to know, it provides a very broad principle. In fact, it might be so broad as to be useless as a guide. After all, voters can be influenced by almost any fact about a person even when it would seem to have no relevance to the office/position/etc. in question.

That said, there is also the problem that many offices and positions have little in the way of requirements. For example, the office of President has only the age and nationality requirements. Because of this, using the requirements of the position to set the limits of information would be too narrow. What is needed is a guide that is not too narrow and not too broad.

One option would be to go with the established norms for the position For example, while the requirements to be President are minimal, there (used to be) expectations about what the person should be like to be fit for office, such as basic competence, respect for the rule of law, and not being a convicted felon.

The problem with using the norms is that this seems to embrace relativism and allows for a potentially unchecked race to the bottom as norms are broken and replaced. As such, there should be some restrictions on what is ethical content that goes beyond the norms of the day. Developing a full moral guide goes beyond the scope of this essay, but a general guide can be offered. The guiding principle is that the content should be relevant to the position, while also considering what would reasonably be relevant to the voters. But norms, like laws, only hold when people are willing to follow or enforce them.

When President Trump and Elon Musk do something, the immediate response is usually to ask, “is that legal?” While I am not a lawyer, as a philosopher I say that law is made up and depends entirely on the willingness to comply or enforce.

Law is made up in that people create the laws. But there are those who argue that law is not (entirely) made up but has a real foundation, such as ethics or religion. For example, there are natural law and rights theorists, such as John Locke, who argue for an objective moral foundation for the law. Religious thinkers, such as Thomas Aquinas, argue that while human laws are made by humans, they derive all their validity from God’s law.

Even if we consider that one of these theories might be correct, there are two basic problems. The first is determining which, if any, theory is correct. From a practical standpoint, people usually believe their interpretation of their morality or religion is correct. But since everyone cannot be right, belief does not settle the matter. The practical problem is that we do not know which, if any, is correct.

The second problem is that even if the correct interpretation of the correct theory is found, there is still the problem of translating that theory into human laws and this means that people will still need to create the laws. Thanks to ambiguity, vagueness and other complexities of language and meaning, each person will have their own interpretation of these laws. As an example, people have very different concepts of what is reasonable.

A person following the law will have their own interpretation, which can be significantly different from that of a person enforcing the law. If conflict arises, this can involve the courts and thus the interpretations of the judges, lawyers and jury members can all become involved. This all assumes that everyone is acting in good faith, but this is often not the case. So, in addition to what people think the law means, there is also what they want the law to mean in a specific situation. Thus, not only is the initial law made up, but each interpretation is also made up. And a person’s interpretation will vary over time and from situation to situation based on both conscious and unconscious factors such as bias, financial interest or even being hungry. Even if an interpretation is made, its efficacy depends entirely on the willingness of people to comply or enforce it. So, asking whether something is legal is asking for an interpretation of the law, which leads to the question of whose interpretation matters.

Unlike what some call the “laws of nature”, such as the law of gravity, people can decide whether to follow an interpretation of human law. An everyday example is the speed limit. Unlike the speed of light, the legal speed limit depends on people willingly not exceeding it. More serious examples include laws about murder, firing federal employees, and obeying the president of the United States. Obviously enough, a person can always refuse to obey and thus the law is nothing without the willingness of people to comply with an interpretation of a law. As such, a simple “no” negates all the power of the law.

As an obvious objection, you are probably thinking about the fact that the police can kill people, that the President can command people to hurt other people, and that judges can make rulings. But this also depends on the willingness of people to obey an interpretation of the law. As an example, an officer can decide not to give you a ticket or not shoot you. If no one listened to the President, he would need to try to, one assumes, get a gun and threaten people like a lone criminal. A judge’s ruling only works if other people are willing to act on that ruling. As such, a simple “no” negates all the power of the law. While an officer, a judge, or all the Presidents men could hurt you, they cannot make you say “yes” unless you are willing to do so. And they will not hurt you unless they are willing to say “yes” to somebody’s interpretation of the law.

Interestingly, when Trump and Musk do “illegal” things, they are relying on the willingness of other people to comply based on “legal” authority. This seems to be a bit of a paradox in that Trump and Musk are relying on their “legal” authority or “right” to do “illegal” things. They do have a great advantage, since the process seems to be that they can do whatever they want and then a judge might be asked to decide if the “illegal” action was illegal. It is somewhat like being able to demand that a bank give you money and they must give it to you, with the only recourse is that they could ask a judge to ask you to give back the money.

Getting back to the question of whether something is legal, the answer is that it depends on the interpretation of the person who other people are willing to obey. From a practical standpoint, the legal system works initially on people agreeing to go along with it and if this fails, it becomes a matter of the willingness of some people to hurt others until they either agree or are killed. So, anything Trump and Musk does is “legal” until they agree to stop or someone stops them.

As with any research, opposition research relies on sources. If the goal is to gather true and relevant information, then the credibility of sources matters. There are the usual logical standards for assessing the credibility of sources. In such cases, the argument from authority provides a good guide. After all, to accept a claim from a source as true because of the source is to engage in the argument from authority.  This argument has the following form:

 

Premise 1: A makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: A is an authority on subject S.

Conclusion: C is true.

 

The argument can also be recast as an argument from credibility, if one prefers that to authority.

 

Premise 1: A makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: A is a credible source on subject S.

Conclusion: C is true.

 

Assessing this reasoning involves assessing the credibility of the source. One factor is bias: the more biased the source, the less credible. Other factors include  having the expertise to make claims on the subject, whether the source is identified or not (anonymous sources cannot be properly assessed for credibility), and whether credible sources also agree that the claim is true. It must be noted that a lack of credibility does not prove a claim is false. Rather, a lack of credibility means that there is no reason to accept the claim based on that source. Because people tend to weigh bias very heavily, it is important to remember that biased sources can still make true claims. Proving bias lowers credibility but does not disprove the claim.

If the goal of opposition research is to get true and relevant information, then only credible sources should be used. While there is the question of how credible a source should be, a minimal standard should be that the source is more likely to be truthful than they are to lie. And, to follow the advice of John Locke, the evidence must be proportional to the strength of the claim. So, for example, the claim that a candidate’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination would require considerable support. If the goal is simply to win by any means necessary, then moral concerns are irrelevant. What would matter would be pragmatic concerns about the effectiveness of the information. If the credibility of the source matters to the public (which, as Trump has shown, is often not the case), then credible sources should be used. If the target audience does not care about credulity, then it would not matter, and opposition “researchers” could save time by just making things up. One could also advance the usual sort of utilitarian argument that the end of defeating a bad opponent would justify the means, though this would also require considering the harm caused by setting aside concerns about credibility.

In addition to the credibility concerns about sources, there are also moral concerns, especially about which sources are ethical to use. As was the case with methods, the use of publicly accessible sources usually raises no special moral problems. After all, such information is already available, and the opposition research merely collects it so it can be used against the opposition. As with the ethics of methods, the law can provide a useful starting point for ethical considerations about sources. It can also be argued that the use of illegal sources would be unfair to the opposition if they are staying within the law.  Naturally, it should be kept in mind that the law is distinct from morality, so that the legal is not always ethical and the illegal is not always unethical.

One example that helped bring opposition research into the public eye was the Russian efforts to get information to the Trump campaign in 2016. While Trump claims that they had nothing of value, it is illegal for a candidate to receive anything of value from a foreign source.  In addition to the illegality of accepting foreign assistance in a political campaign, there is also the moral argument that outsiders should not be allowed to interfere in our elections, even if they have true and relevant information. After all, the election is the business of the citizens and foreign involvement subverts democracy. But this could be countered by arguing that any true and relevant information should be available to the voters, no matter its origin.

As another example, someone who violates a non-disclosure agreement to provide information would also be an illegal source. From a moral standpoint, the person who signed the NDA would break their agreement and thus act unethically. Naturally, if the NDA was imposed unjustly then breaking it could be morally acceptable. However, using sources that have freely agreed to remain silent would seem to be wrong. But there is the obvious problem that NDAs can be used to hide awful things that would change the minds of voters and hence they have the right to know.

As was the case with methods, one could advance the argument that winning is all that matters, or a utilitarian argument could be used to justify using morally dubious sources. For example, a utilitarian argument could be made for getting a source to break an NDA that forbids them from talking about the settlement they got from being sexually harassed by a senator. After all, this information would be relevant to deciding whether to vote for the senator.

More broadly, it could be argued that the source should not matter if the information is true and relevant. After all, the right of citizens to know true and relevant information could be taken to override ethical concerns about sources. This is something that likely requires assessment on a case-by-case basis. To illustrate, consider the question of whether political campaigns should accept true and relevant information from foreign powers. On the one hand, there is the argument that the information could help prevent harm by reducing the chance that a bad person would be elected or appointed. However, accepting such aid from foreign powers is to invite the subversion of the election process and could create more harm than what is intended. As such, foreign sources of this type would be unethical to use. In the next and final essay, I will consider the ethics of the content of opposition research, which focuses on the matter of relevance.

To start with the obvious, ethical methods are acceptable, while unethical methods are not. The challenge is developing principles to distinguish between the two. As there are too many possible methods to address, I will focus on commonly used methods.

One ethical method is gathering information using publicly available methods. information One obvious example is acquiring publicly available voting records for politicians. Other examples include gathering information through requests for public documents, searching through public sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  As a final example, interviewing people who agree to be interviewed would, in general, be ethical. While there is an overlap between methods and sources, there are important distinctions that require considering them separately. Methods are how you get information. Sources are where it comes from. While methods are used on sources, there can be a difference in their ethics. An ethical method might be used to get information from a morally problematic source, or an unethical method might be used to gather information from a morally unproblematic source.

Research methods become potentially more morally controversial the further one strays from publicly available methods. To use an analogy, looking at what a person is doing in public is (generally) not morally problematic. Peeping into their house from the sidewalk raises some moral concerns and hiding cameras in their bedroom is clearly wrong. As the analogy suggests, the methods become more morally problematic when they involve breaching the wall of privacy. While it might be tempting to regard all such methods as immoral, it will be argued that this is not the case: there are morally acceptable methods that breach this wall. To use an analogy, reporters engaged in legitimate reporting can justly break the walls of privacy.

In some cases, the desired information is not accessible by publicly available means, but the methods are still morally acceptable. For example, it is acceptable to privately interview sources who willingly talk to the researchers but would be unwilling to be interviewed in public view on, for example, the news.

In other cases, the methods used to breach the wall of privacy would be morally unacceptable. Likely examples include hacking, bribery, theft, and using intimidation or deceit. While these examples provide some limited guidance, what is needed is a more general principle. It is natural enough to seek guidance from the law.

While legality is not the same as morality, the use of illegal methods such as hacking, theft, threat and bribery and so on are morally problematic. In many cases of illegal methods, such as theft and hacking, there are independent moral arguments that establish such actions as wrong (over and above their illegality). It is, however, possible for morally acceptable methods of information gathering to be against the law. For example, a repressive state (such as Florida) might pass laws to shield the activities of politicians from the public. As other examples,  there are laws that hide the identity of campaign contributors or impose draconian non-disclosure agreements. As such, the law is not a perfect guide to morality but does provide a useful starting point.

Because most information is now digital, one method of concern is hacking (broadly construed). For the sake of simplicity, this can also be taken to include such things as phishing and other methods that are not, strictly speaking, hacking. This method includes various means of gaining access to digital information without the permission of the owner.

The various methods that breach the wall of privacy could be morally justified on utilitarian grounds. To illustrate, if a candidate had child pornography on his laptop, then it could be argued that hacking into his laptop would be morally justified because doing so could help keep a pedophile out of power. But this could be countered by arguing that this should be left up to law enforcement. The counter to that counter is that law enforcement can be selective about which criminals they decide to pursue.

Another approach is arguing that the citizens’ right to know justifies the use of means that would otherwise seem unethical. To use an analogy, a person’s privacy rights do not (in general) permit them to hide their crimes from the police. There can, of course, be clear exceptions in cases involving tyrannical laws or oppressive policing. Likewise, a political candidate (broadly defined) does not have a right to privacy when it comes to their misdeeds that voters have a right to know. For example, it could be argued that opposition researchers would be acting ethically by stealing documents from a corrupt politician that prove their corruption.

The obvious counter to such reasoning is that opposition researchers are not law enforcement (or moral enforcement). They are members of the public and lack any special moral right to use such methods. If they suspect that something bad is occurring, they should refer the matter to the appropriate authorities. The danger of citizens taking such research into their own hands is illustrated by the case of a concerned citizen who decided to investigate rumors that Hillary Clinton and other Democrats were operating a slavery ring in the basement of a pizza shop. During this “investigation” no one was hurt, but the “investigator” fired shots. As such, if something is bad enough to seem to justify using morally problematic methods, then the matter should be referred to the police (assuming they are not corrupt) and, where appropriate, to the press. But, once again, there can be situations where the authorities are unwilling to do anything even when crimes have been committed.

In the next essay, I will look at the ethics of sources.

Opposition research is gathering information intended to damage or discredit political adversaries. While the intent to find damaging or discrediting information might seem morally problematic, it can be neutral or even laudable. If the intent is to damage adversaries for political advantage, then this is not laudable but could still be ethical. After all, good might come from using opposition research to harm a bad opponent.

 The intent is to provide citizens with relevant and true information so they can make informed decisions, is morally laudable. This information allows for better decision making and can produce better results than making decisions with false or irrelevant information.

 While motives are relevant to assessing ethics, the morality of the motives is distinct from the morality of the research and its results.  This is because bad people with bad motives might do ethical research (for whatever reason) and end up doing good. For example, a selfish and corrupt politician might expose a worse villain. As would be expected, good people with good motives might engage in morally questionable research or end up causing harm, all from the best of intentions. For example, a researcher might use a questionable source and justify this by telling themselves that their good end justifies this means. As a final point about researchers, their ethics are irrelevant to the truth of the information they gather. To think otherwise, would be to fall into an ad hominem or genetic fallacy. In general terms, this is when an irrelevant negative assertion about a source is taken as evidence against their claim(s).  This is distinct from considering the ethics of the researchers when assessing their credibility. After all, bias reduces credibility and is relevant when assessing their likely honesty. Now to the ethics of research.

For this essay and those that follow in this series, it will be assumed that there are at least some moral limits to opposition research. Without this assumption, writing about the ethics of opposition would be limited to “anything goes.” One could refute this assumption by employing the approach of sophists both ancient and modern. The ancient sophists argued in favor of skepticism, relativism and the view that all that matters is success (or winning, if one prefers). On this view, there would be no moral limits on opposition research for two reasons. One is that skepticism and relativism about ethics results in the rejection of the idea of objective ethics. The other is that if success is all that matters, then there are no limits on the means that can be used to achieve it. What matters to the sophist, in terms of opposition research, is acquiring (or fabricating) information that can damage a political adversary and thus increase the chances of success.

In terms of arguments in favor of their being moral limits, one excellent place to start is by considering the consequences of having limits versus not having them. As noted above, good political decisions, such as deciding how to vote, require that citizens have relevant, true information. Opposition research that provides or aims at providing relevant and true information would enable citizens to make better decisions and (probably) produce better results. In contrast, taking the view that all that matters is victory will tend to produce worse results for the general good. There can be exceptions: a well-informed public might make terrible choices, and an utterly selfish person solely focused on their gain might end up somehow doing good. As would be expected, the general debate over whether there should be ethical limits on anything goes far beyond the possible scope of this short essay.

In the essays that follow, I will also make a case for there being ethical limits on opposition research. The gist of this argument is that if the essays are logically appealing, then that provides a reason to accept that there should be at least some limits on opposition research.  The assessment of the ethics of the research involves considering three key factors: the methods used, the sources and the content. There will be an essay on each.

8

Asteroid and lunar mining are the stuff of science fiction, but there are those working to make them a reality.  While the idea of space mining might seem far-fetched, asteroids and the moon contain useful resources. While the idea of space mining probably brings to mind images of belters extracting gold, one of the most valuable resources in space is water. Though cheap and plentiful on earth, it is very expensive to transport it into space. While the most obvious use of space water is for human consumption, it also provides raw material for fuels and many uses in industry. Naturally, miners will also seek minerals, metals and other resources.

My love of science fiction, especially GDW’s classic role playing game Traveller, makes me like the idea of space mining. For me, that is part of the future we were promised. But, as a philosopher, I have ethical concerns.

As with any sort of mining, two moral concerns are the impact on the environment and the impact on humans. Terrestrial mining has been devastating to the environment. This includes the direct damage caused by extracting the resources and the secondary effects, such as lasting chemical contamination. These environmental impacts in turn impact human populations.  These impacts can include directly killing people (a failed retaining wall that causes drowning deaths) and indirectly harming people (such as contamination of the water supply). As such, mining on earth involves serious moral concerns. In contrast, space mining would seem to avoid these problems.

Unlike the heavily populated planet earth, asteroids and the moon are lifeless rocks in space. As such, they do not seem to have any ecosystems to damage. While the asteroids that are mined will often be destroyed in the process, it is difficult to argue that destroying an asteroid would be wrong based on environmental concerns. While destroying the moon would be bad, mining operations there would seem to be morally acceptable because one could argue that there is no environment to worry about.

Since space mining takes place in space, the human population of earth will (probably) be safely away from any side effects of mining. It is worth noting that should humans colonize the moon or asteroids, then space mining could harm these populations. But, for the foreseeable future, there will be no humans living near the mining areas. Because of the lack of harm, space mining would seem to be morally acceptable.

It might be objected that asteroids and the moon be left unmined despite the absence of life and ecosystems. The challenge is making the case why mining lifeless rocks would be wrong. One possible approach is to contend that the asteroids and the moon have rights that would make mining them wrong. However, rocks do not seem to be the sort of thing that can have rights. Another approach is to argue that people who care about asteroids and the moon would be harmed. While I am open to arguments that would grant these rocks protection from mining, the burden of proof is on those who wish to make this claim.

Thus, it would seem there are not any reasonable moral arguments against the mining of the asteroids based on environmental concerns or potential harm to humans. That could, of course, change if ecosystems were found on asteroids or if it turned out that the asteroids performed an important role in the solar system that affected terrestrial ecosystems. While this result favors space mining, the moral concerns are not limited to environmental harms.

There are, as would be suspected, the usual moral concerns about the working conditions and pay of space miners. Of course, these concerns are not specific to space mining and going into labor ethics would take this short essay too far afield. However, the situation in space does make the ethics of ownership relevant.

From a moral standpoint, the ethics of who can rightfully claim ownership of asteroids and the moon is of great concern. From a practical standpoint, it is reasonable to expect that matters will play out as usual: those with guns and money will decide who owns the space rocks. If it follows the usual pattern, corporations will end up owning the rocks and will exploit them. But how things will probably play out does not determine how they should play out. Fortunately, philosophers considered this sort of situation long ago,

While past philosophers probably did not give much thought to space mining, asteroids (and the moon) fit into the state of nature scenarios envisioned by thinkers like Hobbes and Locke.  They are resources in abundance with no effective authority over them. Naturally, the authorities can do things on earth to people involved with activities in space, but it will be quite some time before there are space police (though we have a Space Force).

Since there are no rightful owners (or, alternatively, we are all potentially rightful owners), it is tempting to claim the resources are there for the taking. That is, the resources belong to whoever, in Locke’s terms, mixes their labor with it and makes it their own (or more likely their employer’s own). This does have a certain appeal. After all, if me and my fellows in Mike’s Space Mining construct a robot ship that flies out to asteroid and mines it, we seem to have earned the right to those resources through our efforts. Before our ship mined it for water and metal, these valuable resources were just drifting in space, surrounded by rock. It would thus seem to follow that we would have the right to grab as many asteroids as we can. To be fair, our competitors would have the same right. This would be a rock rush in space.

But Locke also has his proviso: those who take from the common resources must leave as much and as good for others. While this proviso has been grotesquely violated on earth, the asteroids provide us with a new opportunity to consider how to share (or not) these abundant resources.

It can be argued that there is no obligation to leave as much and as good for others in space and that things should be on a strict first grab, first get approach. After all, the people who get their equipment into space would have done the work (or put up the money) and hence (as argued above) be entitled to all they can grab and use or sell. Other people are free to grab what they can, if they have access to the resources needed to reach and mine the asteroids. Naturally, the folks who lack the resources to compete will end up, as they always do, out of luck. 

While this has a certain selfish appeal, a case can be made for sharing. One obvious reason is that the people who reach the asteroids first to mine them did not create the ability to do so out of nothing. After all, reaching the asteroids will be the result of centuries of human civilization that made such technology possible. As such, there would seem to be a general debt owed to humanity and paying this off would involve contributing to the general good of humanity. Naturally, this line of reasoning can be countered by arguing that successful miners will benefit humanity when their profits “trickle down” from space. It could also be argued that the idea of a debt to past generations is absurd as is the notion of the general good of humanity. This is, of course, the view that the selfish and ungrateful would embrace.

Second, there is concern for not only the people who are alive today but also for the people to be. To use an analogy, think of a buffet line at a party. The fact that I am first in line does not give me the right to devour everything I can stuff into my snack port. If I did that at a party, I would be rightly seen as a terrible person. It also does not give me the right to grab whatever I cannot eat so I can sell it to those who have the misfortune to be behind me in line. Again, if I did that, I would be rightly regarded as a horrible person who should be banned from parties. So, these resources should be treated in a similar manner, namely fairly and with some concern for those who are behind the first people in line. As such, the mining of space resources should include limits aimed at benefiting those who do not happen to get there first to grab the goodies. To be fair, behavior that would get a person kicked out of a party is often lauded in the business world, for that realm normalizes and lauds awful behavior.

In closing, it should be noted that space is really big. Because of this, it could be argued that there are plenty of resources out there, so it is morally acceptable for the people who get there first to grab as much as they can. After all, no matter how much they grab, there will be plenty left. While this does have some appeal, there is an obvious problem: it is not just a matter of how much is out there, but how much can be reached at this time. Going back to the buffet analogy, if I stuffed myself with as much as I could grab and started trying to sell the rest to others behind me in line, then yelling “there are other buffets out there” would not get me off the moral hook.