Month: March 2025

While toxic masculinity faced some criticism, it seems to have emerged victorious. While the term is not used as often as it was, I am still somewhat uncomfortable with it. This discomfort is not because I am a man. Unlike more fragile “men”, I am not threatened by criticism. I can distinguish between criticisms of bad behavior by men and the rare attacks on men simply for being men. My slight discomfort arises two sources. The first is based in ethics and the second arises from pragmatic considerations. I will look at the first in this essay and the second in the following essay.

While this oversimplifies matters, my ethical view includes an acceptance of universal principles. One implication is that if something is wrong to do, then it is wrong for anyone to do. I am aware of the principle of relevant difference: that a difference in the application of ethics can be justified by a difference that warrants this.

For example, some argue that while it is wrong for members of one ethnicity to “put on the face” of another, there are exceptions. One illustration is that is seen as acceptable for Michael Che to “go undercover” as a white female liberal, but the idea of Colin Jost going undercover as a black girl is seen as utterly unacceptable. The moral justification for this rests on the relevant differences between a black man putting on “white face” and a white man putting on “black face.” These differences are connected to the history of racism and power differences. Naturally, people disagree about whether these differences are relevant. In such cases of relevant differences between ethnicities, it makes sense to reference ethnicity when discussing ethics. The same sort of reasoning applies to sex or gender issues.

For example, some argue that male comedians would be sexist if they used the same type of humor as female comedians who do routines about the failures and defects of men. In such cases, the ethics of a joke would thus depend on the gender or sex of the person telling it and the target of the joke. Using these examples, it would thus make sense to talk about toxic white comedy or toxic male comedy because the whiteness or maleness of the comic would be essential to the wrongness of the comedy. But what about toxic masculinity, considered in terms of moral misdeeds and moral vices?

For toxic masculinity what matters is the ethics of the behavior and its consequences rather than on whether the actions are done by men. To illustrate, the moral concern about sexual harassment is with its wrongness and not the gender or sex of the harasser. After all, while most sexual harassment is done by men, it is not restricted to us and its wrongness does not stem from the gender pf the perpetrator. It is equally wrong for a female to engage in sexual harassment. To focus on toxic masculinity would seem to imply that the vices and moral misdeeds are wrong because they are the misdeeds and vices of males, which would seem to be an error.

One reasonable counter is to argue that while the general misdeeds and vices that make up the evils of toxic masculinity are not limited to males, focusing on males make sense because males are the main offenders. Doing so, one might argue, does not exclude focusing on similar misdeeds by females.  It is just that there are less toxically masculine females to worry about.

Another reasonable counter is that the vices and misdeeds of males that are grouped under the label of “toxic masculinity” are male in character because of the masculinity part. That is, they are vices and misdeeds that arise from a concept of maleness, and it is appropriate to use the term. This has considerable appeal and could counter my initial concern. As such, my next essay will focus on pragmatic concerns.

Mark Zuckerberg’s recent crisis of masculinity reminded me of an earlier round in the endless culture war over gender roles.  In the not-so-distant past, the marketing departments of some major corporations decided that pretending to value positive masculinity would increase profits. Gillette attempted this with the Best Men Can Be themed advertisement. The name was based on Gillette’s classic advertising line, “the best a man can get.” This campaign did ignite a response, but not what the marketing department wanted. To be fair, the marketing department probably thought no decent person could get mad at a mild endorsement of minimal male decency. And they were right.  

As would be expected, people like Piers Morgan and James Wood responded harshly. In the case of Morgan, he accused Gillette of virtue signaling, fueling the “global assault on masculinity” and called for us to “let boys be damn boys” and to “let men be damn men.” Woods claimed Gillette was jumping on the “men are horrible” bandwagon and said he was done with buying Gillette products. Other men were not upset, noting  its message appeared to be “Don’t be a jerk. Don’t raise a jerk. Call out other men being for jerks.” And some pointed out Gillette was just trying to sell more razors. While I will not attempt to see it through the eyes of those who hate it, I will address the philosophical aspects of virtue based advertising.

While some loathed the content of the advertisement, it is advancing a set of values, advocating certain behavior and encouraging men to serve as role-models by acting on those values. It is, of course, doing this to sell razors and shaving cream. From a moral standpoint, this raises two questions. The first is whether the values are morally good. The second is whether motivation is relevant.

Since I generally follow Aristotle’s virtue theory, I think that people should be the best they can be. Intuitively, this is morally commendable. That men should be the best they can be seems to be morally obvious and the burden of proof would rest on those who would deny it. The real dispute is over what it means to be the best.

Each society and subgroup have its own notion of the best man, and the easy approach is to go with what they say. The obvious problem with is approach is that moral relativism collapses into subjectivism, and it then collapses into moral nihilism. So “morally best” would end up referring to nothing. This puts an end to moral discussion, so one must accept moral objectivity for the discussion to progress.

While the response to from Morgan and Woods would suggest the values it advances are wicked, this is not true. The values endorsed seem to be classic virtues, such as respect and courage. For example, one man rushes to stop a group of boys who are attacking another boy, which is a virtuous act. As another example, a man is shown talking another out of harassing a woman, which is also a virtuous act. To treat others with respect and to protect those who need protection certain is what good men should do, hence it is odd to condemn the ad. But perhaps the critics did not take issue with these values, but with another aspect of the ad.

While the ad ends with displays of virtuous behavior, it begins by showing men and boys behaving badly, such as talking over a woman at a business meeting and laughing at sexual harassment in a sitcom. It does make sense that the likes of Morgan and Woods would be angry at this. They see it as an attack on men aimed at showing that all men are terrible. The problem with this interpretation is the ad does not say that all men are horrible. As noted above, the second part of the ad presents men acting ethically. As such, the ad simply says the obvious: some men are awful, some are good. Its message is also quite benign: don’t be awful, be the best you can be. There seems to be nothing here to take issue with, unless one thinks that behavior such as bullying and sexual harassment are morally commendable. In that case, the problem lies with those who think this and not with the ad.

Some might object to being preached at by a company trying to sell goods or services by virtue signaling. This is a reasonable objection, and people are free to not watch the ads or complain about this technique. However, the motivation of the company is irrelevant to the correctness (or incorrectness) of the claims and values in the ad. To think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem, that the motivation of someone making a claim makes the claim false. Even if Gillette was cynically trying to sell more razors and shaving cream and did not give a damn about men being their best, the claims and values presented in the ad stand or fall on their own. Naturally, it is reasonable to condemn or praise the folks at Gillette based on their motives, but that is another ethical issue distinct from whether some men behave badly and whether being the best men means acting in the ways presented in the ad.  I agree that if Gillette or another corporation is cynically exploiting values it does not endorse, then that is morally dubious behavior—but, once again, this is not relevant to whether the claims and values expressed are right or not.

There have been a series of violent incidents and acts of vandalism aimed at Tesla facilities, dealerships, vehicles and charging stations. The most likely motivation is anger at Elon Musk. Musk has aligned himself with the far-right and his DOGE has proven both unpopular and harmful. For example, DOGE’s attack on USAID will result in illness and death.  This raises the ethical issue of whether this “war” on Musk is morally justified.

 The obvious moral case against these attacks is that while they are aimed at Musk, they will also hurt other people. While people do buy Tesla vehicles because they agree with Musk, there are many Tesla owners who disagree with him. Anecdotally, most of the Tesla owners I know are wealthy liberals who bought them back when Tesla was presenting itself as a green company. And even if a Tesla owner backs Musk, this would not warrant damaging their vehicle to harm Musk, especially since it will hurt the owner rather than Musk. Going after charging stations will also mainly hurt innocent Tesla owners and attacking dealerships and facilities will harm their owners and the people who are employed there. As these attacks will do considerable collateral damage to innocent people, this sort of war on Musk is morally problematic. An obvious reply to this is to run with the analogy to war.

Even a just war will involve collateral damage to innocents and noncombatants and the same arguments used in favor of just war could be applied to this situation. While it is regrettable that innocent people and people other than Musk and his supporters will be harmed, this is the only viable means to impose consequences on Musk for his actions and the harm he and DOGE have been doing to America and the world. Those who believe in the rule of law will make the obvious and sensible reply that the use of extralegal violence is wrong. Instead, they would argue, legal remedies should be sought to preserve the rule of law and minimize violence and harm to property.

While this reply has merit, it suffers from a serious flaw. Trump has given Musk broad powers and Musk has used this to damage and dismantle the agencies and institutions that would keep him and Musk in check. While lawsuits have been brought against Musk, Trump controls the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court. He can also pardon Musk for any federal offenses. Trump also controls congress, albeit by a thin margin. As such, Musk can operate with impunity and is unlikely to face any meaningful consequences for any illegal acts and harm that he does. While Trump controls much of the state, the parts he does not control are being targeted for destruction. Within the parts that Trump controls, the machinery of the state will serve as Musk’s shield and sword: it will protect him and allow him to harm his foes. While lawyers are heroically bringing lawsuits, Musk’s power is effectively unchecked, and he is likely to have nothing to fear from legal means to oppose him.

As the state is dismantled and gutted, Musk will be able to operate in a lawless zone. In Lockean and Hobbesian terms, he is operating in the state of nature: he can do what he wants and the only means to oppose him is the use of force. People already seem to understand this; they know that Musk will be able to keep inflicting terrible damage and the best that can be done within the system is to bring lawsuits and hope that someday there will be a favorable ruling that Musk will be willing to obey.  Ironically, as Musk dismantles the machinery of the state that protects the rest of us from people like him, he also dismantles his protection. When people realize that they have no legal means to address the harm being done by Musk, some people will turn to violence, just as happened with the execution of the health insurance CEO. This is the state of nature situation in which disputes must, as Hobbes said, be settled with the sword.

It is unlikely that anyone will be able to execute Musk, as he has his own private security force. Some of Musk’s private security were deputized by the US Marshall’s Service and this gives him ownership of his own small police force. He will also be protected by the “normal” police.

There is no independent prison system where Musk could be locked up for his alleged crimes or an independent judiciary that could impose fines on him. As such, the only recourse seems to be inflicting financial harm by targeting Musk’s companies. This does provide Musk with a set of hostages since hurting Musk’s companies also hurts the employees, contractors, stockholders and customers. As such, there is the moral question of whether the harm caused to these people to harm Musk would be morally acceptable. As noted above, this can be taken as falling under the ethics of just war and it can be argued that collateral damage to innocents can be justified as part of a moral conflict against an enemy who cannot be held accountable by other means. Naturally, it could be objected that the conflict with Musk is not just or argued that people must stick with legal remedies even as Musk and Trump gut the system that would allow such remedies.

When politicians shut down the federal government, some federal workers are ordered to work without pay. To illustrate, TSA and Coast Guard personnel are often ordered to keep working even when their pay is frozen. This raises the moral question of whether it is ethical to compel federal workers to work without pay. The ethics of the matter are distinct from the legality of unpaid labor. That is a matter for the courts to sort out based on what they think the laws say.

A sensible starting point is to note that federal workers should expect politicians to shut down the government and freeze their pay. Since the workers accepted the jobs, they seem to have consented to work without pay. This would appear to make it ethical to force them to work without pay. This assumes the workers signed the contracts without being under duress and knowing they would be required to work without pay under certain conditions. If the workers were not properly informed or the contracts were accepted under duress, then they would have no moral obligation to obey such a forced or fraudulent agreement. That said, there is still a concern about what people can ethically agree to.

Philosophers have, of course, considered whether there are limits to what people can agree to. For example, it has been argued that a person cannot freely agree to become a slave. As such, it is worth considering whether a person can agree to do normal paid labor for free because of a government shut down.

One way to approach is to consider that people do agree to work for free. A good example is volunteer work: this unpaid labor is not only acceptable, but often praiseworthy. As such, it would be absurd to claim it is wrong for people to agree to work for free. But what if someone is compelled to work for free? That is, what if they cannot quit and are forced to work for free? This would seem to be something that a person cannot ethically agree to. They are, in effect, agreeing to a form of slavery in which they must work but are not paid and cannot quit. Even if they were paid, it would still be a form of slavery. A key aspect of slavery is not working without compensation, but the lack of freedom. Not being compensated simply makes it worse. As such, federal workers should be free to quit immediately and without any consequences. Otherwise, the state would be claiming a right to enslave citizens, which is morally wicked.

It might be argued that those who entered into long-term agreements with the state, such as a term of service, are obligated to stay in the job and quitting because they are not getting paid would be wrong. While this has some appeal, this would mean accepting that a person can, morally, be locked into working without compensation even when doing so would be harmful. This expects too much of people. Naturally, it could be countered that if they freely entered into a long-term agreement that included the possibility of working without pay, then they are obligated to stick to that agreement—even if they are harmed. After all, a contract is a contract.

While this does seem sensible, it also seems sensible to argue that such agreements should not include the possibility that there will be no pay. That is, it is immoral for this to be included in agreements of this sort, even if people agree to accept the terms. As such, federal workers should always be paid for their work or allowed to terminate their agreements with no harmful consequences being imposed. After all, no one has the right to expect people to labor for free and to demand this would be immoral.

In the previous essay I proposed adding inheritance rules to the standard Monopoly game. The aim was to provide a context for discussing the tension between inheritance and fairness by using the classic board game. Out of curiosity, I also posted my proposed rules on Facebook. Not surprisingly, people got the point of the rules and there were criticisms of my analogy. One reasonable criticism was that while Monopoly is a zero-sum game, the economy is not. This does raise the question of the impact of making a non-zero-sum version of monopoly with the inheritance rules in play.

One response to the zero-sum criticism is to note that Monopoly does reflect zero-sum aspects of the real economy. The classic game is about owning properties and major business and these are zero-sum in the actual world. If, for example, I own a vast tract of land, that means less land for other people. While we can make more usable land by draining swamps and building islands, there is a finite amount of land on earth. The same generally holds true of businesses. There is a finite limit to the number of viable businesses and the success of a business in an area limits the success of others. As such, for the zero-sum parts of the economy, Monopoly is not a terrible model.

The easy and obvious counter to this is to argue that there is no zero-sum economy or that there is a significant non-zero-sum part of the economy that negates the unfairness of the inheritance system. My Monopoly analogy, the criticism would go, fails and inheritance is fair. But what if Monopoly could be made into a non-zero-sum game?

In the real economy, the idea is that the sum grows over time. The same can be applied to monopoly. A way to simulate this is to add in the Board Expansion rule variant to the inheritance rules (unlimited money, houses, and hotels can also be added by printing them as needed). To play this variant, you will need several Monopoly sets.

 

Board Expansion Rules for Monopoly Inheritance!

 

Rule 1: Prior to the start of the next game in the series of games, place another Monopoly board with its Go square adjacent to the Just Visiting square of the prior board. Repeat until the players decide to stop playing. Play begins in the Go square on the board from the first game.

 

Rule 2: Once a player’s piece has completed moving completely around a board (from Go back to Go), they must exit the board and move to the next board. A board is exited via the Just Visiting square and entered via the Go square. Once a piece has completely moved around the final board in the set, the piece must be moved back to the prior board and so on until the original board is reached. The process begins anew and continues into the game ends. The board a piece is on is treated as the game board for that piece.

 

Alternative Rule: Instead of being forced to leave a board after moving completely around it (from Go to go), a player can elect to stay on a board if they wish. This rule allows players a chance to escape the original game’s board.

 

This variant allows for a non-zero-sum game, limited only by the number of Monopoly boards on hand. While this allows the players who do not have the luck of inheritance a better chance, the player who gets the inheritance still has a massive advantage. While there will be a new board with property available to all players each game, the player who has inherited from the previous game will be in a much better position than the other players to acquire the new property. The main effect of the expanding game would seem to be that the heir player will have ever more property at the end of each game and thus the next heir will have an even greater advantage over the non-heirs. While the game is not zero-sum, those that lack inheritance will almost certainly still lose.

Griftocracy is rule by griftocrats.  A griftocrat is a grifter who has secured public office and uses it to grift. What follows is a discussion of the qualities of the griftocrat. This is not an attempt to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for being a griftocrat, but a general overview.

A griftocrat’s focus is on self-enrichment, but a griftocrat might also aim at enriching their family or others. As most politicians use their offices to increase their wealth, it might be wondered if all politicians are griftocrats, the true griftocrat is defined by their means and their goal. As would be suspected, griftocrats use deception such as scams and cons to enrich themselves. To use a non-political example to illustrate the distinction, both the honest real estate agent and the real estate grifter aim at profit. The difference is that an honest real estate agent does not use deception to achieve this end, while the real estate grifter profits from scams, cons and deception. An honest real estate agent will profit from selling you a house; the real estate grifter will profit from selling you the Brooklyn Bridge. Likewise, while most politicians profit from their office, they generally do not use scams and cons. They do use unethical practices such as insider trading and peddling their influence, but these are different from grifting. Naturally, one could see all politicians as engaging in scams, but it is worth distinguishing the griftocrat from other politicians. For example, the “honest” politician delivers when they offer a pay to play; the griftocrat does not deliver; they are running scams and cons.

The griftocrat is often ignorant of what they should know to do their job, but ignorance is not a requirement. Since the griftocrat is engaged in scams and cons, they have little reason to bother with the knowledge and skills needed to do their jobs properly. After all, they can con and lie their way instead.

The griftocrat is also marked by a lack of values (aside from self-interest). This is an obvious point sas they are, by definition, liars, cons and cheats.  They have no meaningful commitment to advancing policies or an ideology except insofar as policies and ideologies aid their grifting. Both conservative and liberal ideologies and polices afford opportunities for the griftocrat, although conservative ideology is more grift friendly. Reducing regulations and shrinking government, when done strategically, makes it easier for the griftocrat to grift. After all, being in charge of or eliminating the part of government that protect people from grifts makes it so much easier to grift.  That said, increased regulation and bloated bureaucracies also provide opportunities for certain types of grifting. The griftocrat is, of course, only concerned with their grift. As such, they tend to be ideologically fluid and easily shift between parties and political groups. They, after all, have no  ideological commitment.

Griftocrats oppose critics and truth seekers, such as honest journalists, scientists and academics. The griftocrat’s cons, lies and scams are endangered by the truth, so they will attack, restrict, dismiss and discredit all those who value truth. This is exemplified by griftocrat attacks on non-allied news sources, on universities, and on science. This is commonly done by griftocrats masquerading as conservatives. They can claim the news, academics and scientists are liberals and use well-established attacks on these targets. Griftocrafts masquerading as liberals also attack those who would expose their lies and scams, but griftocrats posing as leftists will tend to go after conservative institutions, though they do sometimes attack liberal institutions and individuals that pose a challenge to their specific grifting.  Liberal politicians seem to favor non-grifting strategies, such as insider trading.

Grifters usually lack competence outside of their grifting skills; skilled people usually have neither the desire nor the need to grift. The griftocrat tends to be wary of the competent, since they are a danger to their grifting. Griftocrats lack integrity and professionalism and see people with those traits as a danger since they will oppose and expose grifting. As such, a griftocrat will keep an eye on the competent and will do their best to ensure that those with integrity and professionalism are kept in the dark or removed.

Conservative griftocrats can try to rid themselves of such threats by appealing to the notion of small government. All griftocrats will accuse those with integrity and professionalism of bias and weave conspiracy theories, such as the idea of a deep state. As would be expected, griftocrats expect loyalty, but do not offer loyalty in return and are shocked when those they betray turn against them. They are also often shocked when the incompetent and unprincipled people they choose turn out to be incompetent and unprincipled. The griftocrat is thus trapped in a paradox: they want competent people with virtues such as loyalty and integrity to serve them, but their grifting can only thrive in the presence of incompetent or unprincipled people. To get around this, griftocrats often rely on family members; for family loyalty is the most basic form of loyalty and grifters often see certain family members as “worthy” of being in on the grift. But families of grifters often find that a grifter’s only true loyalty is to themselves.

While a griftocrat would seem to be anathema to anyone values, ideology or policy, there are those who a griftocrat as useful. Since a griftocrat lacks principles and ideology of their own, they can be used as tools to advance ideologies, values and policies. For example, a griftocrat might not be committed to white nationalism, but they might find it advantageous to appeal to those who are. The white nationalist can recognize that the griftocrat is not truly one of them but use the griftocrat to advance white nationalism. Those who do want certain policies can find the griftocrat a useful tool. If the policy assists the grifting, the griftocrat is happy to support it.

In general, conservatives find griftocrats more useful, since they share with the griftocrat a focus on profit and the griftocrat will usually favor weakening regulations, oversight and certain aspects of law enforcement to make their grifting easier. The main difference is the conservatives are generally not interested in being pure grifters and they often have an ideology and principles. To illustrate, a CEO will  want weakened oversight and regulation so they can cut costs and increase profits but the griftocrat wants weakened oversight and regulation so they can con people out of more money.

This is not to say that liberals cannot exploit griftocrats as well; but liberals are usually hostile what is most useful to advancing grifting and liberals are often critical of too much focus on profit. That said, while grifting from the left has a higher degree of difficulty, there are those who pull it off.

While a griftocrat can be useful to some, they are a significant danger to a country. After all, they are focused on self-enrichment and are happy to do so at the expense of the public good. Their tendency to be ignorant and incompetent also presents a danger. Even when not acting from malice, they can do damage out of ignorance and by accident. As such, anyone who cares for the good of their country should not support a griftocrat, even if they think they can use the grifter to their own advantage. I hope that more Americans learn this lesson before the country is grifted to destruction.

 

The estate tax in the United States allows a person to gift or donate up to $13.9 million tax free (be sure to check the latest tax law). The catch is, of course, that they must die. The Republicans have long called the estate tax the “death tax” and argue against it. But they also pitch the narrative of a free market, and most Americans praise fair competition and equality of opportunity. So, Americans like inheritance and fair competition. But these are at odds with each other: allowing significant inheritance conflicts with fair competition and equality of opportunity. While it is easy enough to argue for this point, it makes more sense to make people feel the unfairness inherent to inheritance. This can be done by playing my special version of Monopoly.

Almost everyone is familiar with Monopoly. For those who are not, the rules can be found here. The gist of the game is that you win by driving all the other players into bankruptcy. In normal play, the outcome of one game does not affect the next: the game has an equal opportunity start, since everyone begins with the same resources, in the same place and with a chance to win based entirely on ability and luck. My proposed variation adds in inheritance rules to make it more like the real world. This variation requires playing multiple games of Monopoly.

 

Monopoly Inheritance!

 

Rule 1:  The first game in the series is played normally using the standard rules.

 

Rule 2: Upon the conclusion of a game in the series, the winning player records what they possess at the end. This includes money, property, houses, and hotels.

 

Rule Three: At the start of the second and later games in the series, one player is randomly selected to receive the game possessions of the winning player from the previous game. The receiving player is the heir, and the possessions make up their inheritance. The other players start normally. The game is otherwise played using the normal rules, with the exceptions noted in these rules. The series ends when no one wants to play it anymore.

 

Inheritance Variations

Players can experiment with these variations to make the game more “realistic” or “fairer.” The rules need to be set prior to play.

 

Fractional Inheritance: The heir receives a percentage of the possessions of the previous winner (75%, 50% or 25% are suggested). Property is selected by drawing the property cards randomly. Round up fractions up.

 

Multiple Heirs: If there are at least three players, then two players are randomly selected to be heirs, dividing the possessions of the winner between them. This can be a 50-50 split or a 75-25 split at the discretion of all the players.

 

While a player who is not the heir could win the game, the heir has an incredible advantage. Anyone playing by these rules who is not the heir will see how unfair the game is. This should help people feel how inheritance of significant wealth is inconsistent with having a fair and competitive economic system.

From a philosophical standpoint, the first game could be considered a state-of-nature game (of the sort envisioned by Locke) in which everything is initially available to all, and property has yet to be divided up.

The players in the second (and subsequent) game take on the role of the next generation. Since birth is random and inheritance is not merited by effort, the heir is selected at random rather than being the previous winner.

As with any analogy that compares something simple to something vastly more complicated, this analogy will break down quickly. To illustrate, the real-world features multiple heirs, there is no equal start for everyone else, there is not just one game with one winner and so on through all the millions of differences. My point is, of course, not that this game variant is a perfect model of inheritance in the United States. Rather, my goal is to get people who are fine with the inheritance system as it stands to play this variant and see if they still feel that inheritance is a fair addition to the game. And then to think about whether it is fair in the real economy. The question that I want to pose is this: would you play Monopoly by these rules? Why or why not?

As always, I am open to arguments against my view. Perhaps allowing and encouraging massive disparities in inheritance is fair and makes for competitive economic system that improves the general welfare.

Republicans have long raged against what they call the “death tax” and while they have not eliminated the estate tax, they succeeded in changing it. In 2017 the estate tax applied only to individuals with total assets exceeding $5.49 million (double for a married couple). After the Republican tax bill passed, the number was increases to $11.8 million (double for a married couple).  For 2025, it is $13.9 million. Given the exceptional wealth inequality in the United States, the change impacted very few but was advantageous to the wealthy.

Trump justified the change based on his claim that it is unfair that people pay taxes twice: once when they earn the money, once more when their assets are inherited. This ignores the fact that those inheriting the assets did not pay the first taxes on it, so they are not paying the tax twice. But if Trump is right, then sales taxes should also be eliminated. You (probably) pay taxes on your income, then you pay sales tax when you make a taxable purchase with that income. But my focus is not on the fairness of taxes but about inheritance.

While inheritance is seen by some as an ancient tradition and a right, there are rational arguments against allowing it at all. Also, as with any tradition and common practice, it would be a fallacy to infer its traditional nature and common practice justify it. After all, people have been commonly doing bad and stupid things for a long time.

A way to argue against inherited wealth is to contend it has negative consequences that make it immoral. Mary Wollstonecraft argued that hereditary wealth is morally wrong because it produces idleness and impedes people from developing their virtues. While complicated to sort out, this does present an empirical claim: one could do a statistical analysis of the impact of hereditary wealth on idleness and virtue.

Interestingly, while conservatives aggressively oppose estate and inheritance taxes, they also use an argument against welfare that would also apply to eliminating inheritance.

A common argument against welfare echoes Wollstonecraft’s argument against hereditary wealth: it makes people idle and prevents them from developing virtues, therefore it should be restricted (or eliminated). Rod Blum, a Republican representative from Iowa, said “Sometimes we need to force people to go to work. There will be no excuses for anyone who can work to sit at home and not work.” Donald Trump, whose fortune was built on inheritance, has said that “The person who is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than the person that’s working his and her ass off.” While this might sound like Trump is describing himself, it seems to be his criticism of welfare.

If this criticism of welfare is correct, then it also applies to inheritance. After all, people do not earn their inheritance. As such, if Republicans are sincere in their arguments against welfare, then they must apply the same reasoning to inheritance and oppose it for the same reasons they oppose welfare. Obviously enough, they do not take this position. They advance one set of arguments against welfare and give another set in favor of protecting inheritance and see to it that the two do not meet.

While it is tempting to dismiss this as just another example of Republican inconsistency and hypocrisy, it could be argued that there are relevant differences between inheritance and welfare that break the analogy.

One argument can be built on the fact that inheritance is passed on voluntarily to the recipient, while welfare involves taking tax money from some people who do not want their money used for welfare . A similar argument can be made by pointing out that inheritance usually goes to relatives while state welfare does not. While these are differences, they would not seem to be relevant to the argument that welfare is bad because it makes people lazy. After all, it is getting money that one has not earned that is the problem, not whether it was giving willingly or who it comes from. Unless one wants to make the implausible claim that money given willingly by relatives is special and will not make people lazy.

Another argument can be made arguing that inherited wealth is earned while welfare is not. While this might appeal to some, even a cursory consideration dismantles this view. First, some do earn their welfare by paying for it when they are working. For example, if Sally works for ten years paying taxes and gets fired when her company moves overseas, then she is getting back money from a system she contributed to. Second, if a person did work for their inheritance, it is not actually an inheritance, but something earned. If, for example, someone worked in the family business for pay, then they have earned their pay. But merely working for a business does not entitle a person to own the business after the death of the current owner. So, this sort of argument fails.

If the Republicans are right that welfare is bad because it makes people idle and impedes their virtue, then the same would apply to inheritance, especially large inheritances. As such, if they are opposed to the harm of welfare and must combat them, then they must also oppose the harm of inheritance with an equal or greater intensity. If they don’t, one might think that they simply dislike poor people and their argument against welfare is made in bad faith.

It might be pointed out that if someone opposes inheritance, then they must oppose welfare. One reply is to accept this. If welfare makes people idle and inflicts moral harm, then it would seem right to oppose it. A second reply is to argue that welfare helps people in need and is analogous to family helping family in times of trouble rather than being analogous to inheritance, in which one simply receives wealth regardless of need or merit.

Lest anyone start mass-producing straw men, my concern here is with large inheritances; I obviously have no objection to the sort of inheritance most of us will receive and I certainly have no issue with, for example, someone inheriting grandad’s Hummel collection or grandma’s collection of assault rifles.

In closing, whenever a politician makes the “lazy” argument against welfare, they should be asked if they apply that argument to inherited wealth.

Reasoning is like chainsaw: useful when used properly, but when used badly it can create a bloody mess. While this analogy can be applied broadly to logic, this essay focuses on the inductive generalization and how it can become a wayward chainsaw under the influence of fear. I’ll begin by looking at our good friend the inductive generalization.

Consisting of a premise and a conclusion, the inductive generalization is a simple argument:

 

Premise 1: P% of observed Xs are Ys.

Conclusion: P% of all Xs are Ys.

 

The quality of an inductive generalization depends on the quality of the first premise, which is usually called the sample. The larger and more representative the sample, the stronger the argument (the more likely it is that the conclusion will be true if the premise is true). There are two main ways in which an inductive generalization can be flawed. The first is when the sample is too small to adequately support the conclusion. For example, a person might have a run-in with a single bad driver from Ohio and conclude all Ohio drivers are terrible. This is known as the fallacy of hasty generalization.

The second is when there is a biased sample, one that does not represent the target population. For example, concluding that most people are Christians because everyone at a Christian church is a Christian would be a fallacy. This is known as the fallacy of biased generalization.

While these two fallacies are well known, it is worth considering them in the context of fear: the fearful generalization. On the one hand, it is not new: a fearful generalization is a hasty generalization or a biased generalization. On the other hand, the hallmark of a fearful generalization (that is fueled by fear) makes it worth considering, especially since addressing the fueling fear seems to be key to disarming this sort of poor reasoning.

While a fearful generalization is not a new fallacy structurally, it is committed because of the psychological impact of fear. In the case of a hasty fearful generalization, the error is drawing an inference from a sample that is too small, due to fear. For example, a female college student who hears about incidents of sexual harassment on campuses might, from fear, infer that most male students are likely to harass her. As another example, a person who hears about an undocumented migrant who commits a murder might, from fear, infer that many  undocumented migrants are murderers. Psychologically (rather than logically), fear fills out the sample, making it feel like the conclusion is true and adequately supported. However, this is an error in reasoning.

The biased fearful generalization occurs when the inference is based on a sample that is not representative, but this is overlooked due to fear. Psychologically, fear makes the sample feel representative enough to support the conclusion. For example, a person might look at arrest data about migrants and infer that most migrants are guilty of crimes. A strong generalization about what percentage of migrants commits crimes needs to include the entire population, not a sample consisting just of those arrested.

As another example, if someone terrified of guns looks at crime data about arrests involving firearms and infers that most gun owners are criminals, this would be a biased generalization. This is because those arrested for gun crimes do not represent the entire gun-owning population. A good generalization about what percentage of gun-owners commit crimes needs to include the general population, not just those arrested.

When considering any fallacy, there are three things to keep in mind. First, not everything that looks like a fallacy is a fallacy. After all, a good generalization has the same structure as a hasty or biased generalization. Second, concluding a fallacy must have a false conclusion is a fallacy (the fallacy fallacy). So, a biased or hasty generalization could have a true conclusion; but it would not be supported by the generalization. Third, a true conclusion does not mean that a fallacy is not a fallacy. For example, a hasty generalization could have a true conclusion—the problem lies in the logic, not the truth of the conclusion. For example, if I see one red squirrel in a forest and infer all the squirrels there are red, then I have made a hasty generalization, even if I turn out to be right. The truth of the conclusion does not mean that I was reasoning well. It is like a lucky guess on a math problem: getting the right answer does not mean that I did the math properly. But how does one neutralize the fearful generalization?

On the face of it, a fearful generalization would seem to be easy to neutralize. Just present the argument and consider the size and representativeness of the sample in an objective manner. The problem is that a fearful generalization is motivated by fear and fear impedes rationality and objectivity. Even if a fearful person tries to consider the matter, they might persist in their errors. To use an analogy, I have an irrational fear of flying. While I know that air travel is the safest form of travel this has no effect on my fear. Likewise, someone who is afraid of migrants or men might be able to do the math yet persist in their fearful conclusion. As such, a way of dealing with fearful generalizations would be the best way to deal with fear in general, but this goes beyond the realm of critical thinking and into the realm of virtue.

One way to try to at least briefly defuse the impact of fear is to try the method of substitution. The idea is to replace the group one fears with a group that one belongs too, likes or at least does not fear. This works best when the first premise remains true when the swap is made, otherwise the person can obviously reject the swap. This might have some small impact on the emotional level that will help a person work through the fear—assuming they want to. I will illustrate the process using Chad, a hypothetical Christian white male gun owner who is fearful of undocumented migrants (or illegals, if you prefer).

Imagine that Chad reasons like this:

 

Premise 1: Some migrants have committed violent crimes in America.

“Premise” 2: I (Chad) am afraid of migrants.

Conclusion: Many migrants are violent criminals.

 

As “critical thinking therapy” Chad could try swapping in one of his groups and see if his logic still holds.

 

Premise 1: Some white men have committed violent crimes in America.

“Premise” 2: I (Chad) am a white man.

Conclusion: Many white men are violent criminals.

 

Chad would agree that each argument starts with a true first premise, but Chad would presumably reject the conclusion of the second argument. If pressed on why this is the case, Chad would presumably point out that the statistical data does not support the conclusion. At this point, a rational Chad would realize that the same applies to the first argument as well. If this does not work, one could keep swapping in groups that Chad belongs to or likes until Chad is able to see the bias caused by his fear or one gets exhausted by Chad.

This method is not guaranteed to work (it probably will not), but it does provide a useful method for those who want to check their fears. Self-application involves the same basic process: swapping in your groups or groups you like in place of what you fear to see if your reasoning is good or bad.

In July of 2002 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study on arthroscopic surgery.

The experimental group members underwent surgery while the control group received placebo surgeries.  Somewhat surprisingly, those receiving the placebo reported feeling better and performed better at walking and stair climbing than those in the experimental group. After reading this study, I wrote “Lies…the Best Medicine?” and it appeared in my What Don’t You Know? While working through my massive backlog of magazines, I came across an update on placebo surgeries in Scientific America in which Claudia Wallis argued in favor of fake operations. Reminded of my ancient essay, I am revisiting thoughts on the ethics of placebo surgeries.

As in my old essay, I think that there is a good argument against placebo surgery. Treating a patient with a placebo requires deception. If the effect requires the patient to believe they have received surgery, then the patient must be convinced of an untruth. If the medical personnel are honest and tell the patient the the surgery was fake, then they would, presumably, not benefit from it. If it is wrong to lie, then this deceit would be wrong. What would make it even worse is that medical personnel should be honest with patients.  Thus, even if placebo surgery is effective or even more effective than real surgery, then it should not be used.

One counter to this argument is that even when patients know they are receiving a placebo, it can still be effective. Medical personnel could be honest with patients about a placebo surgery and, perhaps, still maintain the effectiveness of the non-treatment. This would allow the use of placebo surgery while avoiding the moral problem. However, this does not solve the problem for cases in which patients must not know whether they are receiving surgery or the placebo. Placebo surgery is often used to test the effectiveness of surgeries in a rigorous manner. If the surgery is no better (or even worse) than a placebo, then there would be no medical reason to use the surgery over a placebo or no surgery at all.

It can be argued that deception in such situations is acceptable. One approach is to use examples of acceptable, beneficial deception. Obvious examples include the benign deceits about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. As another illustration, there are lies people tell to avoid causing others suffering. If this sort of benign deceit is acceptable, then so is the use of deceit to produce the placebo effect or to conduct a study for the greater good.

A second approach is to focus on the purpose of the medical profession. While philosophers and scientists are supposed to seek the truth, the end of medicine is to relieve pain and prevent or cure illnesses. If deception, in the form of a placebo, can achieve the end of medicine, then it is one more tool, like a scalpel or drug. In fact, it could be argued that effective placebos are even better than drugs or surgery. Surgery always involves some risk, and most drugs have side effects. Placebos would, presumably, involve little or no risk. That said, it is worth considering that there could also be mental side-effects with placebos.

Since placebo treatment is usually not free, it could be objected that it is still wrong: patients are charged, and nothing has been done for them. If medical personnel were using placebos to cover up illnesses and injuries while pocketing profits from fake treatment, then that would be unethical. However, if the treatment is honest and works then it would be as legitimate as any other form of treatment. So, if a patient needs to see a doctor to get the placebo effect working properly and it works as well or better than the “real” treatment, then it is as reasonable to bill for the placebo treatment as it is a real treatment—although the price should be adjusted accordingly. If the placebo effect could be created without involving medical personnel, then charging patients for it would be unethical.

In the case of studies in which the subjects are not paying, then there would be no special moral concern for the use of the placebo. Its use would, in fact, be required for a proper experiment. This does raise the usual moral concerns about conducting experiments, but that is a subject worthy of consideration on its own.