Author: Michael LaBossiere

Taking a moral position comes with a price. Or, more accurately, prices.  The cost of holding a position and the cost of acting upon it are usually different prices.  There is also the cost of professing a moral position because one might hold a moral view in secret or lie and profess a moral view that one rejects.

This assumes someone can hold a moral position while not acting upon it, which raises questions about what it is to hold a moral position. Intuitively, it does seem that people can do this.  For example, a person might believe they should help others in need yet drive past someone in need because it is raining a bit too hard. It might be objected that a person who does not act upon a moral position does not hold that position, so the driver in question thinks they believe in this principle but are lying to themselves.  But we could see morality as analogous to law: a law that is not enforced is still a law. Or maybe it isn’t really.  

The price of holding a moral position usually varies between people. For example, the cost of holding and acting on a belief in free speech is usually low in the United States and higher in China. While the notion of cost in this context could be discussed at length, I now turn to discussing the cost of the anti-abortion position.

The cost of holding and acting upon an anti-abortion moral position obviously varies. In some cases, the cost could be very high. For example, imagine a young girl living in poverty impregnated by rape who is morally against abortion. For her, the cost of acting on her moral position will be very high. After all, the “pro-life” Republican party and the “pro-choice” Democratic party have done little to help single mothers. But, to be fair and balanced, Republicans are often actively hostile to helping mothers in need while Democrat tend to be merely indifferent.

In other cases, the cost could be absurdly low. For example, an elderly wealthy man who has no children could be anti-abortion at no meaningful cost to himself. But it must be said that the cost of a moral position can be inflicted on others. For example, an elderly wealthy man who is a politician could see to it that his view became law and thus his moral position would impose a high cost on women and girls while costing him nothing.  

In the United States, most Americans have consistently supported legal abortion. But in the United States of Oligarchy and MAGA, the majority does not rule. As would be expected, while 55% of men claim abortion should be legal, 64% of women hold that view. As would also be expected, most of the politicians who are anti-abortion are men, although there are female politicians who also have that view.  But women are still in the minority when it comes to holding office or being a national pundit.

It is also interesting, but hardly surprising, that those who take the anti-abortion view tend to be social conservatives or religious (or both). For people in these categories, the cost of their position varies.

For example, the Catholic Church takes a strong stance against abortion. However, the Catholic Church pays a tiny price for this position in that Catholic charities do provide aid and support to girls and women who seek help from them. As such, the church has been willing to bear at least a tiny fraction of the cost of holding and acting on their anti-abortion moral position. Obviously, the Catholic Church can still be criticized for its position.

Many of those who hold to the anti-abortion position are social conservatives. They also profess to be fiscal conservatives, at least when it comes to social programs aimed at helping those in poverty or need—such as infants, pregnant women and girls.

While some women can afford to have children without undue hardship, there are many women and girls who cannot. For example, girls in the lower economic classes will struggle with cost of pregnancy and raising a child. There is also the matter of the cost of an unwanted pregnancy in terms of a person’s life. For example, an unwanted pregnancy can put an end to hopes of an education or career. There is, of course, also the matter of pregnancy inflicted by rape and the potential costs to the victim. While even most conservatives will allow abortion in the case of rape an incest, not all will.

When the anti-abortion politicians prevent, cut or eliminate funding for programs aimed to help pregnant women and girls, this imposes the costs of the anti-abortion position of these politicians onto the women and girls. That is, the females are paying the price of the politician’s “moral” positions. I am, of course, being charitable here and assuming these politicians are anti-abortion as a moral position and not just anti-abortion because they are misogynists.

The anti-abortion view is generally cheap for conservative politicians. After all, they are unlikely to be in a situation in which they or someone they care about is experiencing an unwanted pregnancy and lacking financial support (or to be cynical, lacking access to abortion).  As such, they can hold their view with little chance of having to pay a significant price. It is effectively a free moral stance for them. However, for the women and girls who experience an unwanted pregnancy and lack adequate means of support, the cost is high when the anti-abortion and anti-social support views became instantiated in law.

One interesting (and ironic) way to characterize the approach of conservatives who are anti-abortion and anti-social support is that they are engaging in ethical parasitism: they are holding to moral positions they expect others to pay for. A milder characterization is that they are living on ethical subsidies: the costs of their moral views are subsidized by those who pay the actual cost. Since I am opposed to such freeloading, I am morally opposed to these moral welfare kings (and queens) who are unwilling to pay for their own ethics.

 

 

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Alternative reality fiction involves, as would be suspected,  a fictional world like the actual world except for some key differences. In the case of alternative history fiction, the key differences arise due to some change in historical events—thus creating an alternative fictional timeline. One popular example of this is changing the outcome of WWII.

The idea the world could have been different is not just something for science fiction, but is also of interest in philosophy and science. Philosophers have long written about possible worlds and scientists got into the game relatively recently. From a philosophical standpoint, writers who create alternative histories are using counterfactuals in that they are describing a world that is counter to fact.  For example, an author might explore what might have happened if the American Civil war ended with a Southern victory and a permanently divided United States and Confederacy.  As another popular example, an author might change WWII.  One example of this sort of counterfactual alternative history is the movie Inglourious Basterds.  This is a clever piece of science fiction in which Jewish soldiers assassinate Hitler. There are, of course, also more extreme versions that are in the fantasy genre, such as the tale in which Lincoln hunts vampires. But counterfactual alternative realities are not just limited to entertainment; they are now a fundamental component of American politics.

While political narratives often distort reality by including straw men, modest lies and partial truths, some narratives present entire counter factual worlds. In some cases, the extent to which a politician or propagandist crafts an alternative reality would seem to make them a science fiction author. After all, they are describing a world somewhat like our own that does not exist, except in the imagination of the creator and those that share the creator’s vision.

While critics of Trump often present him as a departure from traditional Republicans because of his relentless untruths, this was an established well before Trump. One example of a Republican alternative reality is their narrative about the Obama administration.  Paul Ryan’s 2012 speech is an excellent example of this sort of pre-Trump narrative. The world he describes is somewhat like our own and there is someone called “Obama” who was president of that America. However, the world of Ryan’s speech differs from the actual world in many important ways, as presented by Sally Kohn over at Fox. Another callback is when Clint Eastwood blamed Obama (or rather a chair standing in for Obama) for the invasion of Afghanistan—which happened long before he was president. Reagan was also skilled at presenting an alternative reality, one in which welfare queens drove the streets in Cadillacs. But these all seem quaint and restrained when compared to the alternative realities being presented by Trump and his Republicans today. In the Trump Continuum, leftists are attacking the reflecting pool with knifes, grocery prices are low and he keeps winning the Iran war. While I could list examples almost without end, to keep up with the latest truths, lies and distortions from politicians and pundits of all stripes, PolitiFact is a good place to visit.

While I suspect that Trump supporters do not read my blog, they would agree with me that politicians spin alternative realities. However, they would claim that Trump is describing the real world and everyone else is writing science fiction about an America that does not exist.

In the case of science fiction, the authors are aware they are creating fiction and, in general, the audience gets that the works are fictional. Of course, there can be some notable exceptions when fans lose the ability to properly distinguish counterfactuals and alternative histories from truth and history. One of William Gibson’s stories provides a fictional example of reality failure in which a photographer assigned to take pictures of surviving 1930s futuristic architecture begins to slide into an alternative reality, the Gernsback Continuum. This is a continuum in which the world of 1930s pulp science fiction became real. This story can now serve as a metaphor for what is happening now in American politics: there are people who seem to believe they are living in an alternative America. If you are critical of MAGA, they are the ones who think they are living in the Trump Continuum. MAGA folks presumably think everyone else is living in the Woke Continuum. But someone must be living in fictional political worlds that are populated by fictional political characters. The fight is over who and one key question is why they are doing this.

One obvious explanation is that people who do not know better and are not inclined towards critical thinking can be deceived by such fiction and accept it as reality. These people will, in turn, attempt to convince others of the reality of these fictions and will also make decisions, such as who to vote for, based on these fictions. As might be imagined, fiction-based decision making is unlikely to result in wise choices. Even when a belief is shown to be an error, people who believe because of their ideology will usually double down in the face of this disproof. This can make true believers almost immune to corrections. While this is a problem for those who are concerned about facts and logic, it gives the tellers of counterfactual narratives perfect audiences: believers who will reject challenges to the narrative in which they live and thus are willful participants in their own political continuum, be that the Trump Continuum, the Woke Continuum or whatever. For these people, art does not imitate life, nor does life imitate art. Life, at least is art—albeit bad science fiction.

 

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Way back in August of 2012 Ted Akin, a Republican representative from Missouri, created a stir when he said, “First of all, from what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy from rape) is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.” While such ignorance was striking then, it is the order of the day in today’s political reality.

Such ignorance raises concerns both ethics and epistemology. Akin’s claim that the female body can “shut down” a pregnancy in cases of “legitimate rape” raises the question as to whether a member of congress who gets to make decisions about women’s health is morally obligated to make the effort to know what he is talking about. This also raises a general question about officials and knowledge.

On the face of it, someone who is in a position to create and pass laws regarding rape and abortion seems obligated to know the facts about rape and pregnancy. After all, passing such laws from a position of ignorance will usually do more harm than good (and any good done would seem to be a matter of chance) since they would not be based on reality. In the case of rape and pregnancy, anyone who has taken a high school level class in anatomy and physiology (which I did) or a competent sex education class would know the female body lacks these “shut down” mechanisms. It hardly seems unreasonable for a congressman to have at least a high school level knowledge regarding the human reproductive system.  Interestingly, the right now asks everyone “what is a woman?”; if only this was a good faith quest for knowledge.  

Of course, it could be argued that such classes do not typically explicitly state that the female body lacks these mechanisms, and someone might claim that pregnancy from “legitimate rape” is very low. However, this claim would be at odds with facts. Way back in 1996 the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston conducted a large (4008 women) study over three years and found that there is a national average of a 5% rate of pregnancy among rape victims. This resulted in an estimated 32,101 cases of pregnancy per year in the United States. As such, Akin was wrong about the facts.

While having one congressman being wrong is a matter of concern, there is also the general concern about the extent to which views about abortion are based on false beliefs.  After all, to the degree that opposition to abortion in cases of rape is based on the mistaken belief that women are all but immune to being impregnated by “legitimate” rape this opposition is unjustified. Naturally, there can be other justifications presented, but clearly Akin’s “shut down” view failed to justify his view that abortion should not be allowed even in cases of rape.

Akin did allow that the “shut down” mechanism might fail, thus allowing for a slight possibility that a woman could be impregnated by “legitimate” rape. However, he asserted that even in such cases abortion should not be permitted. As he saw it, “there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

I, not surprisingly, agree that rapists should be punished. I am reasonably sure that this is a non-controversial position. However, the matter of not “attacking the child” is more controversial.

As Akin presented the matter, a woman who has an abortion after being “legitimately” raped is “attacking” and presumably punishing the child (Akin seems to be saying that the rapist should be punished and not the child). While the idea of punishing a child seems horrible, there is the question of whether this occurring.

One key point is whether the entity in question (which might be just a fertilized egg) is a child. This, of course, is a matter that is disputed during the larger debate over abortion and addressing it would expand the essay far beyond its intended scope. As such, let it be assumed for the sake of this argument that the entity is a child. Let it also be assumed, obviously enough, that abortion kills this entity.

As might be suspected, casting abortion as punishing the child is a clever rhetorical move since it is terrible to punish a child for the crimes of someone else. It also allows those who oppose abortion rights to cast abortion in the case of rape as a woman punishing a child rather than a woman deciding not to bear the child imposed on her against her will by a rapist. While this has some rhetorical punch, it falls apart under examination.

While the entity (or child, if one prefers) is killed by the abortion, it is not being punished. Punishment entails a response to wrongdoing and requires that the entity in question be capable of being punished (and not merely harmed). In the case of the entity, it has done no wrong—mainly because it lacks the attributes needed to be wrong doer. To use an analogy, a kitten who accidently scratches a person and infects him with cat scratch fever is not a wrongdoer—it has no understanding of what it is doing nor intent to cause harm. To use another analogy, cancer cells might cause a person harm, but they are not doing wrong—they have no moral agency. Naturally, a person can inflict harm on the kitten or destroy the cancer, but neither the kitten nor the cancer is being punished. They lack the attributes needed to understand that they are being punished and hence cannot be punished, although they can be harmed or killed. This can be disputed, perhaps by arguing that punishment is in the hand of the punisher, so to speak.

Likewise, a zygote and even a fetus lack the agency and understanding to be wrongdoers. They can, of course, be harmed but they cannot be punished. After all, they lack the attributes needed to understand that what is being done is punishment and hence they can be harmed but not punished.

Naturally, it can be countered that although the claim that the entity is being punished because of the crime of the rapist is a rhetorical point, what matters is that the entity is being harmed. That is, a woman who is raped should not be allowed to have an abortion because doing so would harm the entity (or child, if you prefer). It must be assumed the fact that the woman was raped is morally irrelevant, which is an extreme position. However, it is worth considering because people like Akin and Paul Ryan held that view.

Roughly put, the principle that Akin and Ryan seemed to be operating on is that it does not matter how the woman was impregnated, what matters is that she is pregnant and that the abortion would kill the entity. More generally, it does not matter how an innocent life got there, the right to life of that entity overrides the rights of the host. One interesting way to look at this matter is to look at illegal immigration in the United States.

Suppose that the United States is analogous to a woman. The children that migrants bring with them or give birth to in the United States are, obviously enough, analogous to the child in a pregnancy. Given the principle that Akin and Ryan seemed to be operating on, children that end up in the United States cannot be deported if doing so would harm them. After all, this would be comparable to aborting a child in a woman’s body

The obvious counter is, of course, that the migrant children have parents that can take care of them and hence the abortion analogy breaks down because the United States cannot be expected to take care of children when there are parents who can do that. After all, to expect Americans to bear the cost of raising someone else’s children would be wrong.

Of course, Akin and Ryan were expecting women impregnated by rape to do just that—that is, to bear the cost of taking care of children they did not choose and that were forced upon them. Naturally, it could be morally commendable for a woman to elect to raise the child—but it hardly seems reasonable to say that a woman is obligated to do so. Yes, I do see that this analogy could be turned against people who are pro-migrant and anti-abortion.

To use another analogy, the principle that Akin and Ryan seemed to accept would seem to oblige people to raise any child that someone was able to get onto their property. So, if someone managed to sneak into Ryan’s house and leave behind babies, then Ryan would be obligated to raise them. After all, while the trespasser broke it, the rights of the babies trump the rights of the property owner. It would not do, of course, to attack the babies because of the crime of the trespasser.

 

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Will is a useful thing to have as it allows a person to overcome factors that would make their decisions for them, such as pain, fear, anger, fatigue, lust or weakness. I would, of course, be remiss to not mention that the will can be used to overcome compassion, love and mercy as well. The will, as Kant noted, can select good or evil with equal resolve. However, I will set aside the concern regarding the good and bad wills and focus on training the will.

Based on my own experience, the will is like physical stamina—while people vary in what they get by nature, it can be improved by proper training. This, of course, matches Aristotle’s view of the virtues.

While there are many self-help books discussing how to train the will with elaborate and strange methods, the process is straightforward and like training any attribute. To steal from Aristotle, it is mainly a matter of exercising the capacity but not doing so to excess (and thus burning out) or deficiency (and thus getting no gain). For example, one way of developing the will to serve temperance is to practice refraining from pleasures to the proper degree (the mean) and this will help train the will. As another example, one can build will via athletic activities by continuing when pain and fatigue are pushing one to stop. Naturally, one should not do this to excess (because of the possibility of injury) nor be deficient in it (because there will be no gain).

As far as simple and easy ways to train the will, meditation and repetitive mental exercises (such as repeating prayers or simply repeated counting) seem to help in developing this attribute. It might also help by giving the mind (whatever that is) a chance to relax and recover some will.

One advantage of indirect training of the will, such as with running, is that can develop other resources usable in place of the will. For example, when a person tries to get into shape to run, sticking with running will initially take a lot of will because the pain and fatigue will start quickly. However, as the person gets into shape it will take longer for them to hurt and feel fatigued. As such, the person will not need to use as much will when running (and if the person becomes a crazy runner like me, then they will need to use will to take a rest day from running). To borrow a bit from Aristotle, once a person becomes properly habituated to an activity, then the will cost of that activity becomes less, making it easier to engage in that activity.  For example, a person who initially must struggle to eat healthy food rather than junk food will find that resisting not only builds their will but also makes it easier to resist the temptations of junk.

There are also what could be called will surrogates. A will surrogate functions much like the will by allowing a person to resist factors that would otherwise “take control” of them. However, what makes the will surrogate a surrogate is that it is something that is not the will—but merely serves a similar function. Having these would seem to “build the will” by providing a surrogate that can be called upon when the person’s own will is failing—sort of a mental tag team situation.

For example, a religious person could use their belief in God as a will surrogate to resist temptations forbidden by their faith, such as adultery. That is, they can do what they will rather than what lust is pushing them to do. As another example, a person might use pride or honor as will surrogates—she, for example, might push through the pain and fatigue of a 10K race because of her pride. Other emotions (such as love) and other factors could also serve as will surrogates by enabling a person to do what they will rather than what they are being pushed to do. Or not do.

One obvious concern  about will surrogates is that they could be seen not as allowing the person to do as they would will when they lack their own will but as merely being other factors that “make the decision” for the person. For example, if a person resists having an affair with a coworker because of his religious beliefs, then it could be contended that he has not chosen to not have the affair. Rather, his religious belief (and perhaps fear of God) was stronger than his lust. If so, those who gain what appears to be willpower from such sources are not really gaining will. Rather they merely have other factors that make them do or not do things in a way that resembles the actions of the will. But such will surrogates can be useful, like training wheels on a bike that allow one to learn.

 

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Traditionally, drawing is seen as an imitative art in that artists create images based on real things. Naturally, this imitation can range from copying entire scenes to creating an original assembly from bits and pieces of real things. Descartes, in the painter analogy in his Meditations, makes note of this interesting nature of painting (which also applies to drawing). He considers that dreams are assembled like paintings from bits of real things. At the very least, he argues (before moving on to even greater skepticism), the colors used are real.

Moving away from metaphysics and epistemology back to aesthetics, imitating real things does not disqualify a drawing from being art. In fact, artists are often praised for their ability to accurately imitate reality. For example, my friends mistakenly claimed that I am an artist because they could recognize who I was drawing.  Interestingly, though this realism is often praised, there might be a point at which a drawing is too real to be considered art.

One argument for this is easy enough. When I taught an aesthetics class, I demonstrated my lack of artistic ability and asked my students why my badly drawn capybara was not art. They pointed out the obvious—it did not look much a capybara because it was so badly drawn. I then ask them if it would be art if I could draw better and they tend to agree. I then asked about photocopying or scanning the picture I drew my capybara from. They pointed out the obvious—that would not be art, just a copy.

Obviously, part of the reason the photocopy or scan would not be art is that it is just a mechanical reproduction. Things become considerably more interesting when a photorealistic image is created not by a technological means of duplication, but by hand. For example, Samuel Silva recreated the image of a red haired girl from a photo by Kristina Taraina as well as other photorealistic images. While Silva works with color Bic pens (seriously), Paul Cadden creates his photorealistic works by drawing and with paints. He, however, uses the term “hyperrealism” rather than “photorealism.”

Clearly, the creation of such realism in imitation requires great technical skill. For example, Silva can create photorealistic colors using Bic pens and this demonstrates an impressive mastery of color. There is also the obvious technical skill required to imitate a photograph with such incredible accuracy.

However, technical skill alone does not make something art. After all, this technical skill can be exceeded by a decent color photocopier or a smartphone camera.

It might be objected that technical skills do make it art, even though a machine can do it better. To use an analogy, the fact that a scooter could beat a champion runner does not prove that the runner is not an athlete. Likewise, the fact that a machine can imitate better than Silva or Cadden does not mean that they are not artists. This leads to a second point about art and imitation.

The problem, it can be argued, is not that a machine can imitate better than Silva or Cadden. Rather, it is that there seems to be a point at which the exactitude of the imitation ceases to be a contribution to artistry and begins to detract from it. While it seems unlikely that an exact tipping point can be specified, it does certainly seem that this is the case. Why this is so can be shown by returning to the reason why a mechanical copy is not art: there is nothing in the copy that is not in the original (laying aside duplication defects). As such, the more exact the copy of the original, the less room there is for whatever it is that makes a work art. As such, to argue that Silva or Cadden is an artist requires showing that they do more than merely copy. That is, they must add something aesthetically significant to their work that is not in the original. Otherwise, they could be seen as organic photocopiers—somewhat like how computers were once humans who did math.

One way to approach this matter is  an analogy to photography. By its very nature, an unaltered photograph merely captures an image of what is there (photons bouncing of surfaces and all that).  What the photographer adds is her perspective—that is, she selects what she will capture and thus what makes the work art is not that it duplicates reality (which it must by the laws of physics) but that the photographer has added that something extra (which, to steal from Locke’s Indian, I must say is “something I know not what”).

As such, someone who creates photorealistic images of photos could be adding that something extra in a way comparable to what photographers do when they create their art (assuming that a photograph can be art).

The obvious reply is that a person who is creating a photorealistic re-creation of a photograph does not seem to be adding that something extra. Cadden does, however, claim that he is not engaging in photorealism, but rather in what he calls hyperrealism. He says that

“Hyperreal paintings and sculptures are not strict interpretations of photographs, nor are they literal illustrations of a particular scene or subject. Instead, they utilise additional, often subtle, pictorial elements to create the illusion of a reality which in fact either does not exist or cannot be seen by the human eye” and he adds that “Furthermore, they may incorporate emotional, social, cultural and political thematic elements as an extension of the painted visual illusion; a distinct departure from the older and considerably more literal school of Photorealism.”

From a theoretical standpoint, Cadden is certainly on solid ground. After all, he makes an argument analogous to the one used above, namely that he adds that “aesthetic extra” that makes his work more than a technical achievement in manual duplication. There is, however, the question of whether that “aesthetic extra” is present in his works. Since he works from photographs, it seems easy enough to put the matter to an empirical test by comparing his works to the original and giving due consideration to the difference. As such, if his work differs in aesthetically significant ways from the original image, then it would be safe enough to consider it art and him an artist.  In any case, both Silva and Cadden are remarkably talented and do amazing work. While my drawing skill has increased dramatically from my capybara days, I am not an artist—I merely apply graphite to paper in the form of recognizable shapes. After all, my indisputable theory of art is that if I can do it, it ain’t art.

 

 

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While the exact figures vary from study to study and estimate to estimate, about 30% of adult Americans are only overweight and about 43% are obese. Obesity is also a problem worldwide, but obviously not in places where there are food shortages. There is the question of why the United States faces this problem while also facing a crisis of nutrition.

One causal factor is American food tends to be calorie dense while being nutrient low. Americans are getting more calories per bite than in the past, which can contribute to weight gain. This creates situations in which people can be obese and malnourished. We are often told to make better food choices: select high nutrient and lower calorie foods over those that are high calorie and low nutrient. While this is good advice, good food is more expensive than the inferior alternatives.

A second factor is that food portions have scaled upward. People often think that getting more is good-even when it is more than one needs. ‘”Super-size” nicely sums up this volume problem. One of my friends has started ordering the children’s meals at fast food places, which is one solution. Another is to save food for later—although I was told as a kid to clean my plate, a habit that is hard to break.

A third factor is technology. We spend too much time in front of screens and many screen activities, like gaming, encourage idle snacking. Experts tell us, correctly, that we should reduce screen time and idle snacking; although this puts us up against technology designed to capture our attention and snacks engineered to keep us snacking.

A fourth factor is the dominance of fast food and convenience stores. While they make it easy to get food…well…fast, they mostly provide high calorie and low nutrient foods. While there have been some efforts to get these places to improve food quality, it is usually best to avoid these places—the obvious problem is that they are fast and everywhere. While I do make my own meals, I have the luxury of time and income that being an old professor affords. While meal prep can help, this also requires having the time and resources to do so regularly—something that is a challenge in the economy the billionaires and our elected “leaders” have inflicted on us. Speaking of politics, this is also a factor.

Certain high calorie foods (like corn) are heavily subsidized with our money, and this is why such foods (or foods containing them) tend to be cheaper than more nutritious fare.  As most Americans are struggling financially and our “leaders” are mostly focused on enriching themselves and the other wealthy elites, these cheaper options are all too often the only choice. One way to address this problem is to shift the farm socialism we have now so that it supports healthier foods. A better way is for businesses to pay employees better wages so they can buy better food. True, there is always the concern that higher wages can increase food prices, but this argument is often made in bad faith as a lazy defense of the status quo.  

As would be excepted economic class (which is strongly tied with race in America) is a factor. Poorer areas of the United States tend to have fast food places and convenience stores rather than grocery stores. It can, of course, be argued that grocery stores avoid such areas because the people living there cannot afford to shop at a grocery store. But this is a condemnation of the United States class system rather than a good argument in favor of food deserts.

While people can take extra time and effort to travel to the grocery store, this is not always a practical option. When I was in graduate school, I did not own a car and walked a few miles to the nearest grocery store, carrying my food. It was a challenge, even though I was running 2:45 marathons at the time. So, I can attest how difficult it is to deal with a food desert if you don’t have a vehicle. I also had a grad student’s income, so I had to buy cheap, low-quality food.

A reasonable solution would be for businesses to pay better wages and for better benefits from social programs. While some will complain about building a culture of dependency or about people being takers rather than makers, helping people get adequate food is a morally superior option relative to funneling taxpayer money to corporations and billionaires like Musk. As has been often said, spending money to feed hungry Americans is morally superior to dropping that money in the form of bombs and missiles in stupid wars of choice.

A final factor is that people seem less inclined to be active, although there are some notable exceptions. Part of this is, obviously enough, the impact of technology. Social changes are also probably a factor, such as the tendency to drive even when something is within reasonable walking distance. But driving has been made into a rational response to the design of our cities and vehicles. Our cities are often designed to be actively hostile to biking and walking while the giant American vehicle seems almost designed to kill everyone outside of that vehicle. Anecdotally, I’ve had countless near-death experiences while running, walking and biking. After a SUV crushed my bike, I gave up on biking and when I run, I remain hypervigilant—I have even encountered cars and motorcycles driving the forest trails of parks.

While some American cities are trying to become walkable, the right has made this another stupid fight in their eternal manufactured culture wars. It reached a peak of craziness when Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy vowed to end support for “DEI bike lanes” and oversaw the removal of bike-related safety materials form the Federal Highway Administration’s website. As the Trump regime is devoted to the fossil fuel industry, this can be seen as making ideological sense—if people cannot bike, they will need to use gas.

In closing, while there is individual responsibility for making good food choices, these choices are high constrained by social, economic and technological factors—as well as by the interests of America’s ruling class. But I will give Trump due credit for his love of McDonalds—he shows his solidarity by eating like he is trapped in a food desert.

 

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In his famous quote about standing on the shoulders of giants, Sir Isaac Newton credited at least some of his success to others. While most of us will not see as far as Newton, we also stand upon shoulders. We are born into human civilization and have access to centuries of human accomplishments such as language, technology and society itself. As such, the success of any individual is just an addition to a vast structure of human achievement (and failure) and is built upon well-established foundations. For example, the language I am using to write this was developed long before my time. The computer I am using to write this was made possible by past achievements in theory and technology, including philosophy. As such, any success I acquire from this work involves a debt to all those folks who made it possible for me to sit in front of a screen and type out words in English.

Of course, the contributors to our successes (and failures) do not just include people who are long dead. Obviously enough, a person’s existence and survival depend on other people who are (or recently were) alive. Much of a person’s education depends on others and there are many other debts (for good or for ill) owed to others. Naturally, I am making a distinction between the state (which is just people) and other people in this context. For this essay, the other people would be people who are not acting in their capacity as state officials or agents.

For example, I would not be able to write this if it were not for the education I received from my parents and the teachers at Lewis Stairs Elementary school. I would not be a philosopher without the education provided by the professors at Marietta College and The Ohio State University. Naturally, some of the failures I have experienced can also be attributed in part to others who have impeded me (intentionally or not).

It seems clear that some of a person’s success (and failure) is due to the contributions of other people. The interesting question is thus not “do people owe others for their success (or failure)”, but “to what extent do people owe others for their success (or failure)?”

It seems easy to show that at least some of a person’s success is due to her own efforts. After all, if a person’s success had to depend entirely on the contributions of others, then an infinite regress would seem to arise, thus making success impossible. So, it seems reasonable to infer that people can contribute to their own success (unless, of course, all success and failure is ultimately attributed to God, the un-helped success).

As might be suspected, the degree to which other people contribute to an individual’s success (or failure) will vary deal. For example, a businessman who was born to wealthy family in the United States, was provided with the best education money can buy, and was then helped throughout life by family connections shares most of his success with other people. As another example, a great poet who was born into poverty, was abandoned as a young child, and taught herself poetry from scavenged books would owe far less of her success to others. Interestingly, the wealthy businessman would probably be more inclined than the poet to claim that his success was mostly of his own doing.

One area in which the division of success (and failure) is of special interest to me is in education. Obviously, teachers have a role to play in the success or failure of a student. It seems equally obvious that the student also has an important role to play. As I have mentioned before, students often tend to blame teachers for their failures (“she failed me”) and accept credit for their successes (“I earned an A”). While this is natural, sorting out the contributions of each is a important. After all, there is a growing tendency in the United States (and probably elsewhere) to place most of the accountability on the shoulders of educators. One practical reason for this is, of course, that teachers can be fired or replaced while public schools tend to be stuck with their students, making changing teachers an easier approach to the problem. This does not, however, show how the responsibility is divided between teacher and student. There are also the endless culture war politics of the right against education which has long demonized education and educators.

My experience as a college professor suggests that exceptionally good and exceptionally bad students are affected less by professors. After all, the very good students take an active role in their education (and will often compensate for bad teachers) and very bad students generally do not pay attention on the rare occasions they attend class (and hence largely negate the impact of teaching). As such, an educator probably cannot take a great deal of credit (or blame) for the success of the best and the failure of the worst students. There can, of course, be exceptions.

Not surprisingly, educators have the most impact on those who are not exceptionally good or bad as students. Of course, even then there is a question of how much the teacher is accountable for their success or failure. Also not surprisingly, education policy (especially such things as firing and merit) is usually made without understanding of how the responsibility for success and failure should be divided. This is but one example of why the division of responsibility between people matters.

 

 

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In the previous essay, I addressed the matter of the state’s contribution to an individual’s success (and failure). Naturally, no discussion of success would be complete without a discussion of genetics.

While the role of genetics in human behavior is complicated, it seems reasonable to accept that genetics play at least some role in success (and failure). Interestingly, these genes might not all be human—there are some interesting findings about the roles of the bacteria that live in us.

Thanks to years spent in athletics, I have had access to an informal laboratory in which I could observe various factors at play when it comes to success. As might be imagined, genetics probably plays a  significant role in athletic success (and failure). Being a runner, I will limit myself to running, but the same points can be applied to other aspects of life as well.

One rather obvious role of genetics is body type. As people who run or at least watch competitive running know, top runners tend to have a specific body type. While much of this results from training, there are genetic factors and it helps to be born to run. After all, no amount of running will give a person longer legs. There are also the factors that one cannot see, such as the efficiency of the cells in handling the energy requirements of competitive running. While training can influence these factors, natural ability (which is probably largely based in genetics) does have a significant impact and this is supported by my own years of competitive running.

Having run in high school and college, I was able to observe runners who were in the same training programs, had similar backgrounds and lived in similar conditions. However, performance obviously varied quite even among people who followed the exact same training. In my own case, I was lucky—while I lacked the easy high school success of “natural athletes”, I found that training really paid off for me. In contrast, some other runners worked as hard (or harder) than me yet did not meet with the same level of success. Of course, there were also runners who trained as hard as I did (or less) who did much better. After graduation, I was no longer on a team but still trained with other runners. Obviously, some people I trained with and ran with step-for-step were better than me and some were worse. I also found out the obvious—no matter how hard or smart I trained; I would never be able to make the Olympics.  It makes sense to attribute some of this failure to genetics—my body simply cannot match what the Olympic marathoners can do, despite all that training. Of course, it also makes sense to attribute some of my success to genetics—while I do not have Olympian genes, I have brought home many trophies. Plus, as we old runners say, running is itself a victory.

Naturally, these results were impacted by many variables, but the fact that genes influence performance seems to be well established. The more interesting question is, then, “how much do genes influence success (and failure)?”

Not surprisingly, people often turn to the study of twins to attempt to sort out what is genetic and what is not. After all, twins are supposed to be genetically identical and hence any differences between them would be non-genetic in nature. Interestingly, it has turned out that twins are not actually identical, thus entailing that some differences might be genetic. There has also been some recent interesting work regarding the bacteria that inhabit the human body and their influence on such factors as health. Oddly enough, it might be the case that some of a person’s success is due to their bacteria.

While the physiological aspects of running and other activities at which one might fail or succeed seem to be strongly influenced by genetics, there is an open question as to how much genetics impacts the mental aspects of success and failure. Going back to running, training and competition have mental elements. For example, there is the matter of having the will to train as needed. As any runner will tell you, training is suffering. Of course, racing hurts more—a big part of being a competitive runner is having what Hobbes called the will to hurt. Only in this case is it is the will to hurt yourself rather than others.

As might be imagined, if the “mental” aspects are as influenced by genetics as the physical aspects, then much of a person’s success or failure rests in these genes. For example, if the ability to finish a race despite the pain of an injury is not a matter of the “will” of the athlete, but a matter of the structure of their brain that resulted from the genes that constructed it, then they did not succeed any more than a car would succeed by being able to keep running despite damage. Likewise, if a runner is “broken” in the final sprint by a tougher runner because of the genetics of their nervous systems, then he has not failed, anymore than a car has failed if it runs out of gas.

Shockingly enough, the essay ends as it began, with the question unanswered. After all, we do not know how much the genes influence our success (and failures). But I got to write about running and that is a success.

 

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In the previous essay I discussed the question “to what extent do people owe their success (and failures) to others?” In this essay I will focus on how much of a person’s success (or failure) is owed to the state. Obviously, the exact debt will vary, and this examination will be, of necessity, somewhat abstract.

One way to begin the discussion is to use the state of nature. This philosophical device was used by such thinkers as Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau in their examination of rights and the justification of political power. I am, however, going to use the device to see what the state contributes to success (or failure).

While this oversimplifies things two lassic approaches to the state of nature are the Hobbesian state and the Lockean state. In general terms, the state of nature is a state in which there is no governmental authority. It is often presented as a hypothetical predecessor to the rise of political states. In any case, the state of nature is marked by the lack of any artificial authority.

 For Hobbes, the state of nature is a state of war “and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Because of the conditions of this state, none of the following are possible: “Industry, culture of the earth, navigation, use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, commodious building; instruments of moving and removing, such things as require much force, knowledge of the face of the earth, account of time, arts, letters, society.” As Hobbes sees it, the establishment of the sovereign (the state) is necessary for the establishment of order, and this allows the possibility of industry and the other things that are required for “commodious living.” Given Hobbes assumptions about the state of nature being a state of war of all against all, the idea that these things would not be possible makes sense. One has but to look at what happens in real cases where civil authority utterly collapses to see the plausibility of Hobbes’ view.

On the Hobbesian model, an individual who succeeded in industry or other endeavors would owe a great deal to the state (that is, the collective of everyone forming the great leviathan that is the state). After all, without the order provided by the state, success in these areas would not be possible. Naturally, this does not include any other contributions made by the state, such as providing infrastructure or support for research. These contributions would, obviously enough, add to the debt owed by the individual to the collective society.

The Lockean model is much nicer than the Hobbesian, most likely because Locke includes divinely based rights to life, liberty and property even in the state of nature. On Locke’s model, life in the state if nature is not a state of war (although war can occur) and there is the possibility of success within this state. For example, the right to property allows for the accumulation of goods and this could be seen as success.

While the Lockean state of nature is more appealing than Hobbes’ state of war, Locke does argue that it is not preferable to the state of civil society. While there are, according to Locke, rights in the state of nature, these rights are enforced only by vigilante justice in which individuals act (or not) to prevent and take revenge for misdeeds. As such, wrongs are not reliably prevented or corrected. If, for example, someone stole the goods a person had accumulated, it would be up to her (and any allies) to recover her goods and punish the malefactors.

To solve this and other problems, civil society is created and vigilante justice is (mostly) replaced with a legal system. Once the state is established, then the state has the responsibility of protecting the citizens and dealing with criminals. Assuming the state is doing its job, the state of civil society provides a stable system in which success is more possible and more secure.

If Locke’s view is correct, a successful individual owes less to the state (that is, the collective agreements and actions of the people) than she would if Hobbes were right. After all, the difference between Locke’s state of nature and civil society is not as extreme as the difference in Hobbes’ view. However, the successful individual would still owe much to the collective efforts of civil society, not the least of which would be a debt for the existence of laws enabling and protecting the fruits of her success. If additional contributions of civil society, such as infrastructure, public education and so on are included, then the successful individual would owe a great deal to the state.

Of course, not everyone sees the state in such a positive way. For example, the philosophical communists contend that while the state is necessary for capitalism and socialism, it will wither away as true communism is achieved. Before then it will be an instrument of oppression, either serving the capitalists or the socialists. Obviously, once communism is achieved, then people will not owe any of their success (or failure) to the state because there will be no state. Or so the communists claim. However, a debt would still be owed to the states—without them, humanity would not have been able to achieve communism.

As another example, the anarchists have a negative view of the state—although the degree of negativity varies. Some, like Thoreau, are willing to co-exist with benign states. Others, like Goldman, advocate the destruction of the state because of its role in oppression and how it prevents true human flourishing.

Thoreau claims “that government is best which governs least” and even goes so far as to say, “that government is best which governs not at all.” As Thoreau sees it, government interferes with success in two main ways. The first is that people use it to impose on each other for their advantage (see, for example, how businesses use regulations against their competition). While this aids the success of those who control the state, it impedes the success of those who are imposed upon. Second, he claims that the state gets in the way of success, noting that “trade and commerce continuously face obstacles placed by legislators.” As he sees it government has only one role in success, namely doing nothing and “government never furthered any enterprise except by getting out of its way.”

On Thoreau’s system of government non-involvement, an individual’s success (and failures) would depend more on them than it does in the United States and similar countries. After all, the state is routinely used by some to their considerable advantage over others (subsidies, favorable laws and so on) and it also imposes restrictions on what people can do. As such, the state does contribute to success (and failure) via these impositions and restrictions.

Thoreau advocates evolution rather than destruction of the state, but other anarchists (such as Goldman) advocate complete elimination of the state. This would take the discussion full circle by returning to the state of nature—a situation without political authority. Naturally, if there was no state, then there would be no state to contribute to or prevent an individual’s success. There is, however, the question of whether such a state would be desirable. There is also the question of whether success would even be possible without a state, unless success is merely a matter of staying alive.

 

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As an undergraduate I participated in a faculty-student debate about artificial intelligence. While the details of the debate have faded from my non-artificial mind, I vividly recall one exchange. The professor on the opposing side claimed I believed in free will because I wanted to take credit for my successes. Filled with the pride of youth, I replied with something to the effect of “of course, they are my successes.” I also recall showing some small wisdom by adding “my failures are also mine.” This was probably my first attempt at reflecting on the extent to which I was responsible for my successes and failures. This got me thinking about success and failure in general and not just the specifics of my own victories and defeats.

Not surprisingly, I have thought about this over the years, often in the context of teaching. For example, students who do well say things like “I earned an A” while students who do poorly typically say things like “the professor failed me.” At the start of each semester, at least one student will ask me if I fail students. My reply, which I make with a smile, is always “No. People fail themselves. I merely record their failure.” I follow that by saying that students have every chance to succeed and that I will do my best to ensure that they get the grade they earn. As might be imagined, being a teacher does tend to get a person thinking about who is responsible for the success and failures of students.

The matter of responsibility for success (and failure) extends far beyond the classroom. Way back in July 2012 a speech by President Obama set off a battle between Democrats and Republicans. The key part of Obama’s speech  is as follows:  “…Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.… If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

Some Republicans claimed Obama believed business owners owe all their success to others (especially the state) but the most plausible interpretation is that he claimed people who are successful in business owe some of their success to others, including the state.

Mitt Romney (he was famous once), criticized Obama at the time but had presented a similar view about success back in 2002: “You Olympians, however, know you didn’t get here solely on your own power. For most of you, loving parents, sisters or brothers encouraged your hopes. Coaches guided, communities built venues in order to organize competitions. All Olympians stand on the shoulders of those who lifted them. We’ve already cheered the Olympians, let’s also cheer the parents, coaches and communities.”

As with Obama, the most plausible interpretation of Romney’s remarks is that he claimed athletes who made it to the Olympics owe some of their success to others not that they owed all their success to others.

These claims made by Obama and Romney about success in business and sports are intuitively plausible. Obviously, people do not appear as grown, educated adults ex nihilo via the power of their own will. Less obviously, but still rather obviously, business owners do not create their business out of nothing. To use a silly example, a business owner obviously does not invent commerce. In the case of Olympic athletes, they obviously do not just appear  at the games with no support or assistance from others.

The interesting question  here is not “do people owe some of their success (and failures) to others?” but “to what extent do people owe their success (and failures) to others?” Making this discussion manageable does require making assumptions that can (and should) be challenged. I will be assuming that people can have meaningful agency and that the universe is not strictly deterministic or entirely random. As an illustration, consider a prize drawing after a 5K race. For those not familiar with such events, some races feature the usual earned awards (what the runners get for running well) and a random prize drawing. Interestingly, people often applaud as loudly when people win a random prize as they do for people who earn a trophy.

 In a deterministic universe it makes little sense to speak of meaningful success or failure. Such a universe can be seen as a rigged prize drawing.  If I “win” a prize because it is determined that I will win (that is, it is rigged) then I have not really succeeded and the others have not really failed—there is no victory, there is no defeat.

The same holds true for a completely random universe. If I “win” a prize because my number is pulled by chance, I have not succeeded and the others have not failed. Things have just happened by chance.

Success and failure, then, would thus seem to assume that the agent has a meaningful role in the outcome. Going back to the prize drawing, while I would not have succeeded by “winning” either a fixed or random drawing, I could succeed by winning a trophy in the 5K by my efforts. Naturally, the nature of this agency in even something as apparently straightforward as a 5K race is a mystery. However, for the sake of the discussion that will follow in additional essays, I must assume this mysterious agency. After all, I want to think I earned all those trophies, and I am obligated to accept the disgrace of my failures.

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