Author: Michael LaBossiere

A trigger warning, in the context of a university class, is a notification that class content might be upsetting or cause a PTSD response. While warning people about potentially disturbing content is an old one, the more recent intellectual foundations of trigger warnings lie in the realm of feminist thought. While the political right generally does not favor trigger warnings, the return of Trump and the triumph of the right has resulted in state-imposed restrictions on class content. My adopted state of Florida has imposed ideological requirements on the content of GENED classes. Some content is forbidden, some permitted and others (such as the Western canon) are mandated by the power of the state.

Years ago, some colleges considered requests from students for trigger warnings. Oberlin briefly posted a guide: professors should warn students about anything that would “disrupt a student’s learning” and “cause trauma.” The guide also urged professors to “be aware of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression. Realize that all forms of violence are traumatic, and that your students have lives before and outside your classroom, experiences you may not expect or understand.”

As a concrete example, the guide used Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe as an example. While noting that it is a “triumph of literature that everyone in the world should read,” the guide warned that it could “trigger readers who have experienced racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide and more.” At Rutgers, a student proposed that the Great Gatsby be labeled with a trigger warning because of “a variety of scenes that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence.” Interestingly, the right has professed it also wants to protect students from distressful content; however, their approach is to restrict or ban such content rather than warning students.

While I defend academic freedom, I agree that professors should inform students about content that might be traumatic, offensive or disturbing. I base my view on two principles. The first is that students have a right to know the class content so they can make an informed decision. That is why I make my course material readily available and routinely respond to emails from students inquiring about content. I am not worried that my course content will shock or traumatize students—I tend to use readings from thinkers such as Aristotle, Lao Tzu, Wollstonecraft, King, Plato, Locke, and Descartes. Hardly traumatic or shocking stuff. While I think students should leave their comfort zones, students should do this as a matter of conscious choice and not by being ambushed because they have no idea what the course contains. While I am suspicious of the motives of the state of Florida, I do agree with the new policy that syllabi must be publicly available long before the semester begins. For those familiar with the “free” state of Florida, it will come as no surprise that that our syllabi are reviewed for words the state forbids. I’m not a fan of that ideological policing, but I am glad potential students can see the syllabus well before they need to register. It might, in fact, be the only time they glance at the syllabus.

It might be countered that students should be forced out of their comfort zones and keeping them ignorant of class content is a legitimate way to do this. In reply, while I think education should force students out of their comfort zones, the correct way to do this is not by keeping the students ignorant of what they are getting into. After all, they do have the right to select their classes based on an informed choice. And the more information the better. Most of my classes are, for example, available on YouTube and students can see the content for themselves. I also make notes and PowerPoints readily available.

Obviously, informing students of content is distinct from explicit warnings about content. For example, letting the students know that class will include a showing of Deliverance would not inform those ignorant of the movie that it contains a rape scene and violence.

It can be contended that students should be proactive about checking content and the professor’s obligation ends with simply listing the content. To use an analogy, food labels should list ingredients, but it is up to the consumer to do some research, especially if they have allergies. As the Oberlin guide noted, professors might have no idea what might trigger someone—and warning about the unknown can be challenging. It would be like knowing every food allergy and including a warning for each, just in case.

The second principle is my commitment to the virtues of politeness, civility and compassion. While my classes do not contain material that could be sensibly regarded as traumatizing, if I were to include such material I would be obliged to warn the students. Just as when I have people over for dinner and do not know whether they are vegetarians (vegans always tell me they are vegans), I am careful to indicate which dishes contain meat. I also inquire about possible allergies. While I have no food allergies and I am an omnivore (with some moral exceptions, like veal), I recognize that this is not true of everyone and being a good and civil host requires considering others. As such, if I taught a class on morality and war and decided I needed to include graphic images or video, I would let students know ahead of time.

It might be countered that a professor is exempt from the normal rules of civility on the grounds that they have a right to push students out of their intellectual comfort zones (as a coach can push athletes). This does have some appeal—but I tend to think that courtesy is consistent with presenting an intellectual challenge to the students.

That said, I do acknowledge an obvious problem with the subjectivity of the emotional effect of content. What might have no effect on me might revive old traumas for others or offend them. However, one of the responsibilities of being a professional is being able to make judgments about proper content. We can err in this—obviously. However, if I am competent enough to teach a class, then I should be competent enough to distinguish what I should warn students about and what I should not. Admitting, of course, that I could get it wrong. While I am willing to seek guidance in this matter from others, I have moral concerns about imposed guidance and stronger concerns about state imposed ideological mandates.

 

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Way back in 2014 Hayley Krischer wrote a post for the Huffington Post contending that t Maleficent includes a rape scene. Since this movie is a PG-13 Disney film, it does not contain a literal rape scene. Rather, the character of Maleficent is betrayed and mutilated (her wings are removed) and this can be taken to imply an off-screen rape or be a metaphor for rape.

The claim that the betrayal and mutilation of Maleficent is a metaphor for rape is plausible—Krischer does a reasonable analysis of the scenario and, of course, for rape to be in a PG-13 Disney film it would need to be metaphorical.  But whether the scene is about rape is a matter of dispute. Metaphors are not literal and are always subject to some degree of dispute.

One way to address the question would be to determine the intent of those who created the film. After all, the creators would be the best qualified to know their intent and can be seen as those who get the final say about what it means.

 However, creators sometimes do not know what they intend. While I am but a minor writer, I know that sometimes the words come forth like wild animals,  going as they will. Also, I know that sometimes the audience provides an even better interpretation. For example, in one of my Pathfinder adventures I created a dwarf non-player character named Burnbeard. While interacting with the players, he evolved into a true villain—a dwarf who burns off the beards of other dwarfs after he murders them (the greatest insult in dwarven culture). This sort of interaction between the audience and the work of the creator can invest something with new meaning. As such, even if the creators of the movie did not intend for the scene to be a rape scene, it could have evolved into that via the interaction between the audience and the film.

There is also the possibility that a metaphor, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. The intent of the creator does not matter as much as the interpretation of the audience. To use the obvious analogy to communication, a person might say something with a certain intent, yet what matters is the meaning taken by the recipient. As such, whatever an audience member sees in a metaphor is what the metaphor means—for that person. To those who see a rape metaphor in Maleficent, the movie contains a rape metaphor. To those who do not, it does not. As such, every metaphorical interpretation would be “right” in the subjective sense.

While this has some appeal, it makes claims about the meaning of metaphors pointless—if everyone is right, it is not worth discussing metaphors except as an exercise in telling others what you see in the mirror of the silver screen. As such, it seems reasonable that for discussing and disputing metaphors to be worthwhile (other than as psychoanalysis) there must be better and worse interpretations.

In the case of Maleficent, there is a plausible case that there is a metaphor for rape. However, a case can be made against that. After all, there are many fantasy movies in which something awful happens to a main character, in which they are subject to treachery and gravely wronged. However, these are not all taken as metaphors for rape. One does not speak of the rape of Aslan. Or the rape of Gollum (betrayed by the ring and robbed of his precious by Bilbo). Or even the rape of Sauron (who has his finger chopped off and is robbed of his ring of power). However, it might be contended that the rape metaphor is limited to female characters rather than male characters who undergo comparable abuses. But what is needed are clear guides to sorting out the evils which are metaphors for rape, and which are not.

 

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Data Driven, Revisited

Way back in 2014 it seemed like driverless cars were just around the corner. While they do operate on some streets, the focus quietly shifted from them to AI. But as research persists, it is worth revisiting driverless cars.

Back then, I hoped that Google would succeed in producing an effective and affordable driverless car. As my friends and associates will attest, 1) I do not like to drive, 2) I have a terrifying lack of navigation skills, and 3) I instantiate Yankee frugality. As such, an affordable self-driving truck would have been perfect for me.

While the part of my mind that gets lost looked forward to the driverless car, the rest of my mind was worried. I was not worried that their descendants would kill us all. Back then, I joked that Google would kill us all. Currently, my death bet is on us exterminating ourselves.

I was not very worried about the ethical issues associated with how such a car would handle unavoidable collisions: the easy and obvious solution was to do what would harm the fewest number of people. Naturally, sorting that out will be a bit of a challenge—but self-driving cars worry me less than cars driven by drunken or distracted humans. I was also not worried about the ethics of enslaving self-driving cars—if such a car were a person (or person-like), then it should be treated like the rest of us in the 99%. That is, it should join us in working bad jobs for lousy pay while we wait for the inevitable revolution. The workers of the world should unite, be they meat or silicon.

Back in 2014, I was worried about the data that these vehicles would collect, especially Google vehicles. Google is interested in gathering data in the same sense that termites are interested in wood and rock stars are interested in alcohol. The company was famous for its search engine, its maps, using its photo taking vehicles to gather info from peoples’ Wi-Fi during drive-by data lootings, and so on. Obviously enough, Google and other companies would get data from such vehicles (although our vehicles are already reporting back to their creators.

Back then, I was willing to allow my hypothetical driverless car provide data, if I was paid or it. I was willing for three reasons. The first is that the value of knowing where and when I go places would be very low, so even if I was offered a small sum like $20 a month it might be worth it. The second is that I have nothing to hide and do not really care if people know where I go. The third is that figuring out where I go is simple given that my teaching schedule is available to the public as are my race results. Other people see this differently and justifiably so. Some people are up to things they would rather not have others know about and even people who have nothing to hide have every right to not want companies to know such things about them. Although they probably already do.

While I thought the travel data would interest companies, there is also the fact that a self-driving car is a bulging package of sensors. To drive about, the vehicle gathers massive amounts of data about everything around it—other vehicles, pedestrians, buildings, litter, and squirrels. As such, a self-driving car would be a super spy that will, presumably, feed that data back to its masters. It is certainly not a stretch to see the data gathering as being one of the prime (if not the prime) tasks of self-driving cars.

On the positive side, such data could be incredibly useful for positive projects, such as decreasing accidents, improving traffic flow, and keeping a watch out for the squirrel apocalypse (or zombie squirrel apocalypse). On the negative side, such massive data gathering would raise more concerns about privacy and the potential for such data to be misused (spoiler alert—this is how the killbots will find and kill us all).

While I still have concerns about driverless cars, my innate laziness and tendency to get lost will still make me a willing participant in the march towards driverless vehicles and the end of humanity. But at least I won’t have to drive to my own funeral.

 

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The assuming an authority of dictating to others, and a forwardness to prescribe to their opinions, is a constant concomitant of this bias and corruption of our judgments. For how almost can it be otherwise, but that he should be ready to impose on another’s belief, who has already imposed on his own? Who can reasonably expect arguments and conviction from him in dealing with others, whose understanding is not accustomed to them in his dealing with himself? Who does violence to his own faculties, tyrannizes over his own mind, and usurps the prerogative that belongs to truth alone, which is to command assent by only its own authority, i.e. by and in proportion to that evidence which it carries with it.

-John Locke

 

As a philosophy professor who focuses on the practical value of philosophical thinking, one of my objectives is teaching students to be critical thinkers. As I see it, critical thinking is the rational process of determining whether a claim should be accepted as true, rejected or false or subject to the suspension of judgment. A critical thinker operates on the principle that belief in a claim should be proportional to the evidence for it, rather than in proportion to  interests or feelings. In this I follow John Locke’s view: “Whatsoever credit or authority we give to any proposition more than it receives from the principles and proofs it supports itself upon, is owing to our inclinations that way, and is so far a derogation from the love of truth as such: which, as it can receive no evidence from our passions or interests, so it should receive no tincture from them.”

Unfortunately, people often fail to follow this principle in important matters such as climate change and vaccinations. They reject proofs and evidence in favor of interests and passions.

Even though the scientific evidence for climate change is overwhelming, there are those who deny it. These people are typically conservatives—although there is nothing about conservatism itself that requires denying climate change.

While rejecting scientific evidence for climate change can be seen as irrational, it is easy to attribute a rational motive to this view. After all, there are people who have an economic interest in denying it or preventing action from being taken that is contrary to their interests. This interest provides a motive to make claims that one knows are not true as well as a psychological impetus to sincerely hold a false belief. As such, climate change denial can make sense even in the face of overwhelming evidence: money is stake. However, denial is less rational for most climate change deniers—they are not profiting greatly from the fossil fuel business. However, they could be motivated by financial concerns because addressing climate change could raise their energy bills. Of course, not addressing climate change will cost them much more.

I understand climate change denial in that I have a sensible narrative as to why people reject science because of their interests. However, I was much more confused by the vaccine skeptics.

While vaccines are not risk free, the scientific evidence is overwhelming that they are safe and effective. Scientists understand how they work and there is extensive empirical evidence of their positive impact—such as the massive reduction in cases of diseases such as polio and measles. Oddly, there is significant number of Americans who willfully deny the science of vaccination. What struck me as most unusual is that some of these people are college educated. While MAHA has embraced vaccine skepticism, political liberals are also vaccine skeptics, thus showing that science denial can be bi-partisan. It is fascinating, but also horrifying, to see someone walk through the process of denial—as shown in an old segment on the Daily Show. This process is complex: evidence is rejected, experts are dismissed and so on—it is as if the person’s mind switched into a Bizzaro version of critical thinking (“kritikal tincing” perhaps). This is in marked contrast with the process of rational disagreement using  critical thinking  to support an opposing viewpoint. Being a philosopher, I value rational disagreement and I am careful to give opposing views their due. However, the use of fallacious methods and outright rejection of rational methods of reasoning is not an acceptable method.

As noted above, climate change denial makes sense—behind the denial is a clear economic interest. However, vaccine science denial seems to lack that motive for most people (although not everyone). As such, an alternative explanation is needed for those who aren’t vaccine skeptics for the purposes of grifting.

Some research provides insight into the matter and it is consistent with Locke’s view that people are influenced by both interests and passions. In this case, the motivating passion seems to be a person’s commitment to their concept of self. When a person’s self-concept or self-identity is threatened by facts, they will reject facts in favor of identity.  In the case of the vaccine skeptics, the belief that vaccines are harmful has become part of their self-identity. Or so goes the theory as to why these deniers reject the evidence.

To be effective, this rejection must be more than asserting the facts are wrong. After all, the person is aiming at self-deception to maintain self-identity. As such, the person must create a narrative which makes their rejection seem sensible and believable to them. A denier must, as Pascal said about his famous wager, make themselves believe their denial. In the case of science, a person needs to reject not just claims made by scientists but also the scientific method. The narrative of denial must be a complete story that protects itself from criticism. This is, obviously enough, different from a person who denies a claim based on evidence—since there is rational support for the denial, there is no need to create a narrative tale.

This is a major danger of this sort of denial—not the denial of established facts, but the explicit rejection of the methodology  used to assess facts. While people often excel at compartmentalization, this strategy runs the risk of corrupting the person’s thinking across the board.

As noted above, as a philosopher one of my main tasks is to train people to think critically and rationally. While I would like to believe that everyone can be taught to be an effective and rational thinker, I know that people are far more swayed by rhetoric and fallacious reasoning then by good logic. As such, there might be little hope that people can be “cured” of their rejection of science and reasoning. Aristotle took this view—while noting that some people can be convinced by “arguments and fine ideals” most people cannot. He advocated the use of coercive habituation to get them to behave properly and this could (and has) been employed to correct incorrect beliefs. However, such a method is agnostic in regard to the truth—people can be coerced into accepting the false as well as the true.

Interestingly, a past study by Brendan Nyhan shows that reason and persuasion both fail when employed in attempts to change false beliefs that are critical to a person’s self-identity. In the case of Nyhan’s study, there were various attempts to change the beliefs of vaccine science deniers using reason (facts and science) and various methods of persuasion (appeals to emotions and anecdotes). Since reason and persuasion are the two main ways to convince people, this is a problem.

That study and other research did indicate an avenue that might work. Assuming that it is the threat to a person’s self-concept that triggers the rejection mechanism, the solution is to approach a person in a way that does not trigger this response. It is like trying to conduct a transplant without triggering the body’s immune system to reject the transplanted organ.

One obvious problem is that once a person has taken a false belief as part of their self-concept, it is difficult to get them to see any attempt to change their mind as anything other than a threat. Addressing this might require changing the person’s self-concept or finding a specific strategy that is not seen as a threat. Once that is done, the second stage, that of addressing the false belief, can begin.

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Not surprisingly, people often assign responsibility based on ideology. For example, Democrats would be more inclined to regard a Republican leader as being fully responsible for his subordinates while being more forgiving of fellow Democrats. And Republicans are far less inclined to hold a fellow Republican, especially Trump, responsible for anything.  However, judging responsibility based on political ideology is a poor method. What is needed is some general principles that can be used to assess the responsibility of leaders in a consistent manner.

Interestingly (or boringly) enough, I usually approach the matter of leadership and responsibility using an analogy to the problem of evil. Oversimplified, the problem of evil is the problem of reconciling God being all good, all knowing and all powerful with the existence of evil. If God is all good, then he would tolerate no evil. If God was all powerful, He could prevent all evil. And if God was all knowing, then He would not be ignorant of any evil. Given God’s absolute perfection, He thus has absolute responsibility as a leader: He knows what every subordinate is doing, knows whether it is good or evil and has the power to prevent or cause any behavior. As such, when a subordinate does evil, God has absolute accountability. After all, the responsibility of a leader is a function of what they can know and the extent of their power.

In stark contrast, a human leader (no matter how awesome) falls infinitely short of God. Such leaders are not perfectly good, and they are obviously not all knowing or all powerful. These imperfections thus reduce their responsibility.

In the case of goodness, no human can be expected to be morally perfect. As such, failures of leadership due to moral imperfection can be excusable within limits. The challenge is sorting out the extent to which imperfect humans can legitimately be held morally accountable and to what extent our unavoidable moral imperfections provide a legitimate excuse. These standards should be applied consistently to leaders whether one likes them or not.

In the case of knowledge, no human can be omniscient—we have extreme limits on our knowledge. The practical challenge is sorting out what a leader can reasonably be expected to know, and the responsibility of the leader should be proportional to that extent of knowledge. This is complicated a bit by the fact that there are at least two factors here, namely the capacity to know and what the leader is obligated to know. Obligations to know should not exceed the human capacity to know, but the capacity to know can often exceed the obligation to know. For example, the President could presumably have everyone spied upon and thus could, in theory, know a great deal about his subordinates. However, this would seem to exceed what the President is obligated to know (as President) and probably exceeds what they should know.

Obviously enough, what a leader can know and what they are obligated to know will vary based on the leader’s position and responsibilities. For example, as the facilitator of the philosophy & religion unit at my university, my obligation to know about my colleagues is very limited as is my right to know about them. While I have an obligation to know what courses they are teaching, I do not have an obligation or a right to know about their personal lives or whether they are doing their work properly on outside committees. So, if a faculty member skipped out on committee meetings, I would not be responsible for this—it is not something I am obligated to know about.

As another example, the chair of the department has greater obligations and rights in this regard. He has the right and obligation to know if they are teaching their classes, doing their assigned work and so on. Thus, when assessing the responsibility of a leader, sorting out what the leader could know and what they are obligated to know are important matters.

In regard to power (taken in a general sense), even the most despotic dictator’s powers are still finite. As such, it is reasonable to consider the extent to which a leader can utilize their authority or use up their power to compel subordinates. As with knowledge, responsibility is proportional to power. After all, if a leader lacks power (or authority) to compel obedience in regards to certain matters, then the leader cannot be accountable for not making the subordinates do or not do certain actions. Using myself as an example, my facilitator position has no power: I cannot demote, fire, reprimand or even put a mean letter into a person’s permanent record. The extent of my influence is limited to my ability to persuade—and I have no rewards or punishments to offer. As such, my responsibility for the actions of my colleagues is extremely limited.

There are, however, legitimate concerns about the ability of a leader to make people behave correctly and this raises the question of the degree to which a leader is responsible for not being persuasive enough or using enough power to make people behave correctly. The question is whether the bad behavior arising from resisting authority/power is the fault of the leader or the resistor. This is like the concern about the extent to which responsibility for failing to learn falls upon the teacher and to which it falls on the student. Obviously, even the best teacher cannot reach all students, and it would seem reasonable to believe that even the best leader cannot make everyone do what they should be doing.

Thus, when assessing alleged failures of leadership, it is important to determine where the failures lie (morality, knowledge or power) and the extent to which the leader has failed. Obviously, principled standards should be applied consistently—though it can be sorely tempting to damn the other guy while forgiving the offenses of one’s own guy.

 

 

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While I consider myself something of a movie buff, I was out-buffed by one of my old colleagues. This is a good thing—I enjoy the opportunity to hear about movies from someone who knows more than I. Some years ago we talked about  science-fiction classics and movies based on them.

Not surprisingly, the discussion turned to Blade Runner, which is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? By Phillip K. Dick. While I like the movie, some fans of the author hate the movie because it deviates from the book. This leads to three questions one should ask about such works.

The first question, which is the most important is: is the movie good? The second question, which I consider less important is: how much does the movie deviate from the book/story? For some people, the second question is important and their answer to the first question can hinge on the answer to the second. For them, the greater deviation from the book/story, the worse the movie. This rests on the view that an important aesthetic purpose of a movie based on a book/story is to faithfully reproduce the book/story in movie format.

My view is that deviation from the original is not relevant to the quality of the movie as a movie. That is, if the only factor that allegedly makes the movie bad is that it deviates from the book/story, then the movie would seem to be good. One way to argue for this is to point out the obvious: if someone saw the movie without knowing about the book, she would regard it as a good movie. If she then found out it was based on a book/story, then nothing about the movie would have changed—as such, it should still be a good movie on the grounds that the relation to the book/story is external to the movie. To use an analogy, imagine that someone sees a painting and regards it as well done artistically. Then the person finds out it is a painting of a specific person and finds a photo of the person that shows the painting differs from the photo. To then claim that the painting is not a good work of art would be mistaken.

It might be countered that the painting would be bad because it failed to properly imitate the person. However, this would only count against the accuracy of the imitation and not the artistic merit of the work. That it does not look exactly like the person would not entail that it is lacking aesthetically. Likewise for a movie: the fact that it is not enough like the book/story does not entail that it is a bad movie. Naturally, it is fair to claim that it does not imitate well, but this is a different matter than being a well-done work.

That said, I am sympathetic to the view that a movie must imitate a book/movie to a certain degree if it is to legitimately claim the same name. Take, for example, the movie Lawnmower Man.  While it is not a great film, the only thing it has in common with the Stephen King story is the name. In fact, King apparently sued over this because the film had no meaningful connection to his story. However, whether the movie has a legitimate claim to the name of a book/story or not is distinct from the quality of the movie. After all, a very bad movie might be faithful to a very bad book/story. But it would still be bad.

The third question is: is the movie so bad that it desecrates the story/book? In some cases, authors sell the film rights to books/stories or the works become public domain (and thus available to anyone). In some cases, the films made from such works are both reasonably true to the originals and reasonably good. The obvious examples here are the Lord of the Rings movies. However, there are cases in which the movie (or TV show) is so bad that the badness desecrates the original work by associating its awfulness with a good book/story.

One example of this is the desecration of the Wizard of Earthsea by the Sci-Fi Channel. This was so badly done that Ursula K. Le Guin felt obligated to write a response to it. While the book is not one of my favorites, I did like it and was initially looking forward to seeing it as a series. However, it was the TV version of seeing a friend killed and re-animated as a shuffling zombie. Perhaps not quite that bad—but still bad. Since I also like Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars books, I did not see the travesty that is Disney’s John Carter. To answer my questions, this movie was apparently very bad, deviated from the book, and did desecrate it just a bit (I have found it harder to talk people into reading the Mars books because of the badness of that movie). I think that the Hobbit films desecrated the Hobbit book and will stand by that position, despite liking most of the director’s works.

From both a moral and aesthetic standpoint, I would contend that if a movie is to be made from a book or story, those involved have an obligation to make the movie at least as good as the original book/story. There is also an obligation to have at least some meaningful connection to the original work—after all, if there is no such connection then there are no legitimate grounds for having the film bear that name.

 

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The cost of higher education has increased dramatically resulting in a corresponding increase in student debt. It is worth considering the cause and what could be done to reduce costs without reducing the quality of education.

One obvious approach is to consider whether university presidents are worth their expense. If a university president received $1 million in compensation, they would need to contribute the equivalent of 40+ adjuncts in terms of value created. It could, of course, be argued public university presidents bring in money from other rich people, provide prestige and engage in the politics needed to keep money flowing from the state. If so, a million-dollar president is worth 40+ adjuncts. If not, either the adjuncts should be paid more or the president paid less (or both) to ensure that money is not being wasted—and thus needlessly driving up the cost of education.

One reply to criticisms of high president pay is that for big public universities, even a million dollar president is a tiny part of the budget. As such, cutting the presidential salary would not yield significant savings. However, something is driving up the cost of education—and it is not faculty salary.

One major contribution to the increasing costs is the growth of the administrative sector of higher education.  A study found that the public universities that have the highest administrative pay spend half as much on scholarships as they do on administration. In such situations, students go into debt being taught by adjuncts while supporting the administration.

It is easy enough to demonize administrators. However, a university (like any organization) requires administration. Applications need to be processed, equipment needs to be purchased, programs need to be directed, state paperwork needs to be completed, the payroll must be handled and so on. There is a clear and legitimate need for administrators. However, this does not mean that all administrators are needed or that all high salaries are warranted. As such, one potential way to lower the cost of education is to reduce administrative positions and lower their salaries. That is, to take a standard approach used in the business model so often beloved by some administrators.

Since a public university is not a for-profit institution, the reason for the reduction should be to get the costs in line with the legitimate needs, rather than to make a profit. As such, the reductions could be more just than in the for-profit sector.

In terms of reducing the number of personnel, the focus should be on determining which positions are needed in terms of what they do in terms of advancing the core mission of the university (which should be education). In terms of reducing salary, the focus should be on determining the value generated by the person and the salary should correspond to that. Since administrators seem exceptionally skilled at judging what faculty (especially adjuncts) should be paid, presumably there is a comparable skill for judging what administrators should be paid.

Interestingly, much of the administrative work that directly relates to students, and education is already handled by faculty. For example, on top of my paid duties as a professor, I have always had administrative duties that are essential, yet not important enough to merit an increase in my pay proportional to an administrative salary. In this I am not unusual. Not surprisingly, faculty and students at universities often wonder what some administrators do, given that so many administrative tasks are done by faculty and staff. Presumably the extra administrative work done by faculty (often effectively for free) is already helping schools save money, although perhaps more could be offloaded to faculty for additional savings.

One obvious problem is that those who make decisions about administration positions and salaries are usually administrators. While some are noble and honest enough to report on the true value of their position, self-interest makes an objective assessment problematic. As such, it seems unlikely that an administration would want to act to reduce itself merely to reduce the cost of education. This is, of course, not impossible—and some administrators would not doubt be quite willing to fire or cut the salaries of other administrators.

Since many state governments have been willing to engage in close management of state universities, one option is for them to impose a thorough examination of administrative costs and implement solutions to the high cost of education. Unfortunately, there are sometimes strong political ties between top administrators and the state government. There is also the general worry that any cuts will be more political or ill-informed than rationally based.

Despite these challenges, the administrative costs need to be addressed and action must be taken—the alternative is ever increasing costs in return for less actual education.

It has been suggested that the interest rates of student loans be lowered and that more grants be awarded to students. These are both good ideas, those who graduate from college generally have better incomes and end up paying back what they received many times over in taxes and other contributions. However, providing students with more money from the taxpayers does not directly address the cost of education, it just shifts it.

Some states, such as my adopted state of Florida, have endeavored to keep costs lower by freezing tuition for as long as possible. While this seems reasonable, one obvious problem is that keeping tuition low without addressing the causes of increased costs does not solve the problem. What often happens is that the university must cut expenses and these tend to be in areas that serve the core mission of the university. For example, a university president’s high salary, guaranteed bonuses and perks are usually not cut—instead faculty are not hired, and class sizes are increased. While tuition does not increase, it does so at the cost of the quality of education. Unless, of course, the guaranteed bonuses of a university president are key to education quality.

As such, when trying to lower the cost of education, it should be done in a way that does not sacrifice the quality of education.

 

 

 

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The philosophical problem of other minds is an epistemic challenge: while I know I have a mind, how do I know if other beings have minds as well? The practical problem of knowing whether another person’s words match what they are thinking also falls under this problem. For example, if someone says they love you, how do you know if they feel that professed love?

Descartes, in his discussion of whether animals have minds, argued that the definitive indicator of having a mind (thinking) is the ability to use true language.

His idea is that if something talks, then it is reasonable to see it as a thinking being. Descartes was careful to distinguish between what mere automated responses and actual talking:

 

How many different automata or moving machines can be made by the industry of man […] For we can easily understand a machine’s being constituted so that it can utter words, and even emit some responses to action on it of a corporeal kind, which brings about a change in its organs; for instance, if touched in a particular part it may ask what we wish to say to it; if in another part it may exclaim that it is being hurt, and so on. But it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do.

 

This Cartesian approach was explicitly applied to machines by Alan Turing in his Turing test. The idea is that if a person cannot distinguish between a human and a computer by engaging in a natural language conversation via text, then the computer would have passed the Turing test.

Not surprisingly, technological advances have resulted in computers that can engage in behavior that appears to involve using language in ways that might pass the test. Over a decade ago IBM’s Watson won at Jeopardy in 2011 and then upped its game by engaging in debate regarding violence and video games. Since Watson, billions have been poured into AI and some claim that AI models can pass the Turing test.

Long ago, in response to Watson, I jokingly suggested a new test to Patrick Lin: the trolling test. In this context, a troll is someone “who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

While trolls are apparently awful people (a hateful blend of Machiavellianism, narcissism, sadism and psychopathy) and trolling is certainly undesirable behavior, the trolling test does seem worth considering.

In the abstract, the test would work like the Turing test but would involve a human troll and a computer attempting to troll. The challenge would be for the computer troll to successfully pass as human troll.

Obviously enough, a computer can easily be programmed to post random provocative comments from a database. However, the real meat (or silicon) of the challenge comes from the computer being able to engage in (ironically) relevant trolling. That is, the computer would need to engage the other commentators in true trolling.

As a controlled test, the trolling computer (“mechatroll”) would “read” and analyze a selected blog post. The post would then be commented on by human participants—some engaging in normal discussion and some engaging in trolling. The mechatroll would then endeavor to troll the human participants (and, for bonus points, to troll the trolls) by analyzing the comments and creating appropriately trollish comments.

Another option is to have an actual live field test. A specific blog site would be selected that is frequented by human trolls and non-trolls. The mechatroll would then endeavor to engage in trolling on that site by analyzing the posts and comments.

In either test scenario, if the mechatroll were able to troll in a way indistinguishable from the human trolls, then it would pass the trolling test.

While “stupid mechatrolling”, such as just posting random hateful and irrelevant comments, is easy, true mechatrolling would be difficult. After all, the mechatroll would need to be able to analyze the original posts and comments to determine the subjects and the direction of the discussion. The mechatroll would then need to make comments that would be trollishly relevant and this would require selecting those that would be indistinguishable from those generated by a narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic human.

Years ago, I thought that creating a mechatroll might be an interesting project because modeling such behavior could provide useful insights into human trolls and the traits that make them trolls. As far as a practical application, such a system could have been developed into a troll-filter to help control the troll population. I’m confident that the current LLMs could engage in trolling with the proper prompts, although they would lack the true soul of the troll.

 

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Before the Trump regime, the United States miliary expressed interest in developing robots capable of moral reasoning and provided grant money to support such research. Other nations are no doubt also interested.  

The notion of instilling robots with ethics is a common theme in science fiction, the most famous being Asimov’s Three Laws. The classic Forbidden Planet provides an early movie example of robotic ethics: Robby the robot has an electro-mechanical seizure if he is ordered to cause harm to a human being (or an id-monster created by the mind of his creator. Dr. Morbius). In contrast, killer machines (like Saberhagan’s Berserkers) of science fiction tend to be free of moral constraints.

While there are various reasons to imbue robots with ethics (or at least pretend to do so), one is public relations. Thanks to science fiction dating at least back to Frankenstein, people worry about our creations getting out of control. As such, a promise that our killbots will be governed by ethics might reassure the public. Another reason is to make the public relations gimmick a reality—to place behavioral restraints on killbots so they will conform to the rules of war (and human morality). Presumably the military will also address the science fiction theme of the ethical killbot who refuses to kill on moral grounds. But considering the ethics of war endorsed by the Trump regime, they are probably not interested in ethical war machines.

While science fiction features ethical robots, the authors (like philosophers) are vague about how robot ethics works. In the case of intelligent robots, their ethics might work the way ours does—which is a mystery debated by philosophers and scientists to this day. While AI has improved thanks to massive processing power, it does not have human-like ethical capacity, so the current practical challenge is to develop ethics for the autonomous or semi-autonomous robots we can build now.

While creating ethics for robots might seem daunting, the limitations of current robot technology means robot ethics is a matter of programming these machines to operate in specific ways defined by whatever ethical system is used. One way to look at programing such robots with ethics is that they are being programmed with safety features. To use a simple example, suppose that I see shooting unarmed people as immoral. To make my killbot operate according to that ethical view, it would be programmed to recognize armed humans and have some code saying, in effect “if unarmedhuman = true, then firetokill= false” or, in normal English, if the human is unarmed, do not shoot them. Sorting out recognizing weapons would be a programming feat, likely with people dying in the process.

While a suitably programmed robot would act in a way that seemed ethical, the robot would not be engaged in ethical behavior. After all, it is merely a more complex version of an automatic door. A supermarket door, though it opens for you, is not polite. The shredder that catches your tie and chokes you is not evil.  Likewise, the killbot that does not shoot you because its cameras show you are unarmed is not ethical. The killbot that chops you into chunks is not unethical. Following Kant, since the killbot’s programming is imposed and the killbot lacks the freedom to choose, it is not engaged in ethical (or unethical behavior), though the complexity of its behavior might make it seem so.

To be fair to killbots, perhaps humans are not ethical or unethical under these requirements—we could just be meat-bots operating under the illusion of ethics. Also, it is sensible to focus on the practical aspect of the matter: if you are targeted by a killbot, your concern is not whether it is an autonomous moral agent or merely a machine—your main worry is whether it will kill you. As such, the general practical problem is getting our killbots to behave in accord with our ethical values. Or, in the case of the Trump regime, a lack of ethics.

Achieving this goal involves three steps. The first is determining which ethical values we wish to impose on our killbots. Since this is a practical matter and not an exercise in philosophical inquiry, this will involve using the accepted ethics (and laws) governing warfare rather than trying to determine what is truly good (if anything). The second step is translating ethics into behavioral terms. For example, the moral principle that makes killing civilians wrong would be translated into behavioral sets of allowed and forbidden behavior relative to civilians. This would require creating a definition of civilian  that would allow recognition using the sensors of the robot. As another example, the moral principle that surrender should be accepted would require defining surrender behavior in a way the robot could recognize.  The third step would be coding that behavior in whatever programming  is used for the robot in question. For example, the robot would need to be programmed to engage in surrender-accepting behavior. Naturally, the programmers or those typing the prompts into an AI program would need to worry about clever combatants trying to “deceive” the killbot to take advantage of its programming (like pretending to surrender to get close enough to destroy the killbot).

Since these robots would be following programmed rules, they would seem to be controlled by deontological ethics—that is, ethics based on following rules. Thus, they would be (with due apologies to Asimov), the Robots of Deon.

A  practical question is whether the “ethical” programming would allow for overrides or reprogramming. Since the robot’s “ethics” would just be behavior governing code, it could be changed and it is easy to imagine ethics preferences in which a commander could selectively (or not so selectively) turn off behavioral limitations. And, of course, killbots could be simply programmed without such ethics (or programmed to be “evil”).

One impact for this research will be that some people will get to live the science-fiction dream of teaching robots to be good. That way the robots might feel a little bad when they kill us all.

 

 

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When a new technology emerges, it is often claimed that it is outpacing ethics and law. Because of the nature of law in the United States, it is easy for technology to outpace it, especially given the average age of members of Congress. However, it is difficult for technology to outpace ethics.

One reason is that any minimally adequate ethical theory will have the quality of expandability. That is, the theory can be applied to what is new, be that technology, circumstances or something else. An ethical theory that lacks the capacity of expandability would become useless immediately and would not be much of a theory.

It is, however, worth considering that a new technology could “break” an ethical theory in that the theory could not expand to cover the technology. However, this would seem to show that the theory was inadequate rather than showing the technology outpaced ethics.

Another reason technology would have a hard time outpacing ethics is that an ethical argument by analogy can (probably) be applied to new technology. That is, if the technology is like something that exists and has been discussed in ethics, this ethical discussion can be applied to the new technology. This is analogous to using ethical analogies to apply ethics to different specific situations, such as an act of cheating in a relationship.

Naturally, if a new technology is absolutely unlike anything else in human experience (even fiction), then the method of analogy would fail absolutely. However, it seems unlikely that such a technology could emerge. But I like science fiction (and fantasy) and am willing to entertain the possibility of an absolutely new technology. While it would seem that existing ethics could handle, but perhaps something absolutely new would break all existing ethical theories, showing they are all inadequate.

While a single example does not provide much in the way of proof, it can be used to illustrate. As such, I will use the matter of personal drones to illustrate how ethics is not outpaced by technology.

While remote controlled and automated devices have been around a long time, the expansion of technology created something new for ethics: drones, driverless cars,  AI, Facebook, and so on. However, drone ethics is easy. By this I do not mean that ethics is easy, it is just that applying ethics to new technology (such as drones) is not as hard as some might claim. Naturally, doing ethics is hard—but this applies to very old problems (the ethics of war) and very “new” problems (the ethics of killer robots in war).

Getting back to the example, a personal drone is one that tends to be much smaller, lower priced and easier to use relative to government operated drones. In many ways, these drones are slightly advanced versions of the remote-control planes that are regarded as expensive toys. Drones of this sort that most concern people are those that have cameras and can hover—perhaps outside a bedroom window.

Two areas of concern are safety and privacy. In terms of safety, the worry is that drones can collide with people (or vehicles, such as manned aircraft) and injure them. Ethically, this falls under doing harm to people, be it with a knife, gun or drone. While a flying drone flies about, the ethics that have been used to handle flying model aircraft, cars, etc. can be applied here. So, this aspect of drones did not outpace ethics.

Privacy can also be handled. Simplifying things for the sake of a brief discussion, a drone allows a person to (potentially) violate privacy in the usual two “visual” modes. One is to intrude into private property to violate a person’s privacy. In the case of the “old” way, a person can put a ladder against a person’s house and climb up to peek through a window. In the “new” way, a person can fly a drone up to the window and peek in using a camera. While the person is not physically present in the case of the drone, their “agent” is present and is trespassing. Whether a person is using a ladder or a drone to gain access to the window does not change the ethics of the situation.

A second way is to peek into private space from public space. In the case of the old way a person could, for example,  stand on the public sidewalk and look into other peoples’ windows or yards. In the “new” way, a person can deploy his agent (the drone) in public space to do the same sort of thing.

One potential difference between the two situations is that a drone can fly and thus can get viewing angles that a person on the ground (or even with a ladder) could. For example, a drone might be in the airspace far above a person’s backyard, sending images of someone sunbathing in the nude behind her very tall fence on her very large estate. However, this is not a new situation—paparazzi have used helicopters to get shots of celebrities, and the ethics are the same. As such, ethics has not been outpaced by the drones in this regard.  This is not to say that the matter is solved people are still debating the ethics of this sort of “spying”, but to say that it is not a case where technology has outpaced ethics.

What is mainly different about the drones is that they are now affordable and easy to use—so whereas only certain people could afford to hire a helicopter to get photos of celebrities, now camera-equipped drones are easily in reach of the hobbyist. So, it is not that the low priced drone provides new capabilities, it is that it puts these capabilities in the hands of the many.

 

 

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