Author: Michael LaBossiere

This essay continues the discussion of the logic of conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists use the same logical tools as everyone else, but they use them in different ways. In the previous essay I discussed how conspiracy theorists use the argument from authority.  I will now look at the analogical argument.

In an analogical argument you conclude that two things are alike in a certain respect because they are alike in other respects. An analogical argument usually has three premises and a conclusion. The first two premises establish the analogy by showing that the things (X and Y) being compared are similar in certain respects (properties P, Q, R, etc.).  The third premise establishes that X has an additional property, Z. The conclusion asserts that Y has property Z as well. The form looks like this:

 

           Premise 1: X has properties P,Q, and R.

           Premise 2: Y has properties P,Q, and R.

           Premise 3: X has property Z.

           Conclusion: Y has property Z.

 

While one might wonder how reasoning by analogy could lead to accepting a conspiracy theory, it works very well in this role. If property Z is a feature of a conspiracy theory, such as the government harming citizens, then all that is needed to make the argument is something else with that property. Then it is easy to draw the analogy. 

For example, consider an anti-vaxxer who thinks there is a conspiracy to convince people that the unsafe vaccines are safe. They could make an analogical argument comparing vaccines to what happened during the opioid epidemic. This epidemic was caused by pharmaceutical companies lying about the danger of opioids, doctors being bribed to prescribe them, pharmacies going along with the prescriptions, and the state allowing it all to happen. Looked at this way, concluding that what was true of opioids is also true of vaccines can seem reasonable. Yet, the conspiracy theory about vaccines is mistaken. So, how does one sort assess this reasoning and what mistakes do conspiracy theorists make? The answer is that there are three standards for assessing the analogical argument and conspiracy theorists don’t apply them correctly.

First, the more properties X and Y have in common, the better the argument. The more two things are alike in other ways, the more likely it is that they will be alike in a specific way. In the case of vaccines and opioids, there are many shared similarities; for example, both involve companies, doctors, pharmacies and the state.

Second, the more relevant the shared properties are to property Z, the stronger the argument. A specific property, for example P, is relevant to property Z if the presence or absence of P affects the likelihood that Z will be present.  Third, it must be determined whether X and Y have relevant dissimilarities as well as similarities. The more dissimilarities and the more relevant they are, the weaker the argument.

In the case of inferring an unreal conspiracy to sell dangerous vaccines from the very real opioid conspiracy one must weigh the similarities and differences. While there are clearly relevant similarities, there are some crucial differences. Most importantly, vaccines have been extensively tested and are known to be safe. In contrast, all the scientific evidence supports common sense: opioids are addictive and potentially dangerous. While people want to make money off both, this does not entail that vaccines are not safe, even though opioids are dangerous.  While the analogy between the opioid conspiracy and the vaccine conspiracy breaks down; there is nothing wrong with reasoning by analogy. If the standards are applied and relevant differences are considered, this method of reasoning is quite useful.

It is rational for conspiracy theorists to consider real cases of wrongdoing. For example, we know that governments do engage in false flag operations or lie to “justify” wars and violence. But this fact does not prove, by itself, that any specific event is a false flag or a lie. As such, the mistake make by conspiracy theorists is not arguing by analogy, but in not being careful enough in applying the standards. So they commit the fallacy of false analogy.

While details of each conspiracy theory vary, they often attribute great power and influence to a small group engaging in nefarious activities. A classic example is the idea that NASA faked the moon landings. There are also numerous “false flag” conspiracy theories ranging from the idea that the Bush administration was behind 9/11 to the idea that school shootings are faked by anti-gun Democrats. There are also various medical conspiracy theories, such as those fueling the anti-vaccination movement.

There has been considerable research into why people believe in conspiracy theories. A plausible explanation is that anxiety and feeling a loss of control lead to accepting such theories. Ironically, people who embrace conspiracy theories seem less inclined to act against the conspiracy, perhaps because they feel helpless in the face of such imagined power. But there are some exceptions, such as when the conspiracy theory about Hillary Clinton running a slavery operation in a pizzeria led to a concerned citizen shooting up the place.

It is tempting to embrace a stereotype of the conspiracy theorist: someone immune to logic, oblivious to opposing evidence and perhaps suffering from mental illness. To broadly dismiss conspiracy theorists using this stereotype would be an error, though it does apply in some cases. Interestingly, some conspiracy theorists use  the same tools of logic and reasoning employed by critical thinkers and I will endeavor to illustrate this in a series of essays.

Since the world is a complicated place and is beyond the understanding of any one person, we often turn to experts. For example, most of us lack the time and resources to investigate immigration, so we must rely on experts. Accepting such claims based on the (alleged) expertise of the person making the claim is to use an argument from authority. This argument has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.

Premise 2: Person A makes claim C about subject S.

Conclusion: Therefore, C is true.

 

This reasoning is inductive (the premises provide a degree of support for the conclusion that is less than complete) and its strength depends on the quality of the authority making the claim. If the authority is qualified to make reliable claims in the subject area, then the argument would be a good one. For example, believing that this is what an argument from authority is because of my expertise as a philosophy professor who has taught critical thinking since 1989 would be good reasoning.  If the alleged authority is not qualified to make reliable claims in the subject area, then the argument would be a fallacious appeal to authority because the premises would not adequately support the conclusion. For example, if you believed what I said about quantum theory because of my alleged expertise, then you would fall victim to this fallacy because my expertise in philosophy does not confer expertise in quantum theory.

Most people who rationally believe any theory believe it based on an argument from authority, the exceptions are those who are the experts. For example, most of us believe in the theory of relativity because of Einstein, not because we have done scientific research.  In the case of conspiracy theories, believers often use an argument from authority: they believe the theory because an (alleged) expert told them it is true. For example, those who accept the anti-vaccination theory often refer to the debunked paper claiming a causal link between vaccines and autism or they believe because a celebrity tells them vaccines are dangerous. As such, for almost everyone the reasoned belief in a theory is the result of an argument from authority. So, then, what is the difference between the conspiracy theorist who believes that vaccines are dangerous because of what a celebrity says and a person who accepts relativity because of what Einstein said?

The difference, in general, is that conspiracy theorists fall for fallacious arguments from authority as opposed to accepting good arguments from authority. For example, believing that vaccines cause autism because of a debunked paper or because of what an actor says would be to fall for this fallacy. After all, unless the actor is also a medical expert on vaccines what they say about vaccines has no logical weight.

Resisting fallacious arguments from authority can be challenging, especially when the alleged authority is appealing, or the view being presented is what one wants to believe. However, there are standards by which to assess an argument from authority. To be a good argument, it must be such that:

 

  1. The person has sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question.
  2. The claim being made by the person is within her area(s) of expertise.
  3. There is an adequate degree of agreement among the other experts in the subject in question.
  4. The person in question is not significantly biased.
  5. The area of expertise is a legitimate area or discipline.
  6. The authority in question must be identified.

 

If all these conditions are met, then the conclusion is probably true. However, since the argument from authority is inductive it suffers from the classic problem of induction: even if all the premises are true, the conclusion could still turn out to be false. So, conspiracy theorists who believe “experts” are using the same argument as good reasoners, they are just using the fallacious version.

Most Americans see overt racism as offensive and as are as likely to swallow it as they are to eat a shit cookie. But like parasites the alt right aims to reproduce by infecting healthy hosts. One way it does this is by tricking the unwary into consuming their infected shit. So how is this done?

The alt right uses many effective strategies, but my focus here is on what I am calling “chocolate chipping” because I am going to use the shit cookie analogy. Let us begin with the anatomy of the shit cookie.

The alt right relies on lies (the shit) and morally awful ideas (the infection) to reproduce. Since normal people will not eat a shit cookie, the alt right needs to find a way to get them to eat shit and eventually get infected. One way they do this is by the rhetorical strategy of chocolate chipping.

Most people like chocolate chips and it is easy to get them to eat chocolate chip cookies. So, continuing the analogy, if the alt right can convince normal people that their cookie is a chocolate chip cookie, they can often get people to eat it. But if they hand them a shit cookie right away, they will taste the shit and spit it out. So, they need to get a normal person accustomed to the taste of shit. So, the tactic is to gradually blend a little more shit into the chocolate chips and serve up chocolate chip cookies.

For example, if an alt right tried to win over a normal person by immediately saying “the inferior races are swarming across our border to rape away the purity of the white race”, then few would eat that shit cookie. But if the shit is blended into the chocolate in the form of a claim about migrants coming here to commit crimes, steal jobs, and take away housing, then normal people are more likely to bite that cookie and get used to a little bit of shit. Some people will taste even a small amount of shit and spit out the cookie. Others will not notice it or even think that the chocolate chip has some extra zest. Some of them will start baking their own shit cookies and serve them to others, perhaps unaware that the secret ingredient is shit. These chocolate chip and shit cookies provide cover for the alt right: they can claim that they are just giving away cookies and not distributing shit. Those that eat them can become the most ardent public defenders of shit cookies, insisting the chips are all chocolate and no shit.

The alt right then offers cookies that have ever increasing amounts of shit, leading those who find they like the taste of shit to chips that are almost all shit. Once the former normal person is willing to eat shit cookies, then the alt right can start really infecting them with the ideology of the alt right. This infection consumes the person’s moral decency, replacing it with racism. The person can then become a true baker of shit cookies, thus propagating the alt right. So, do not eat the shit cookies.

The fact that college admission is for sale is an open secret. As with other forms of institutionalized unfairness, there are norms and laws governing the legal and acceptable ways of buying admission. For example, donating large sums of money or funding a building to buy admission are within the norms and laws. But there was admission scandal in which celebrities and other elites broke the rules to get their children into elite colleges. On the face of it, there is no need to argue that what they did was morally wrong. What is more interesting is considering the matter in the context of fairness.

On the surface, the actions of the accused are clearly unfair. While the tactics varied, they included altering admission test results, bribing coaches to accept non-athletes as recruited athletes, and the classic direct bribe. Interestingly, most comments on these misdeeds noted the elites could have used traditional legal and accepted methods of purchasing admission. These methods are unfair because admission was not based on the students’ merits, thus they might have unjustly taken the places of students who merited admission. While the parents did act unfairly, it is worth considering this unfairness within the broader context of our society.

As many others have pointed out over the years, even the normal admission system is unfair. Poor children will almost always attend inferior schools and have far less opportunity to engage in the application enhancing activities available to the well-off. Poor children will also usually not be able to afford tutors, test preparation training, personal statement coaches and so on. They will also usually lack connections that influence admission. In contrast, wealthy children will enjoy a cornucopia of admission advantages. While there were programs and other efforts to provide some microscopic mitigation of disparity, the Trump administration is intent on defunding and dismantling most of these. As such, the disparities in admissions will grow.

It might be countered that some people rose from poverty to attend elite institutions and go on to great success, while some born into wealth have been failures. The obvious reply is that while these stories are interesting, they are just anecdotes and what matters is the general statistics. While some people succeed despite incredible odds, these few examples only show getting out of poverty and into an elite school is extremely unlikely. If people regularly arose from poverty, such success stories would be unremarkable.

In general, college admissions are like a race in which some people must run on foot, some get bikes, some get cars, and some get rocket ships. While one can talk about the merits of people in this race, the competition is fundamentally unfair in intentional ways. I do, obviously, recognize that people vary greatly in abilities. My point is, to stick to the analogy, that even the most talented runner is not going to win against someone who gets to race with a car.

While the elites cheated, they cheated in an already unfair race. To continue the analogy, their children were already driving fast cars in competition with people forced to run. These parents did things analogous to cutting the course and using illegal modifications on their cars. While this certainly matters, it does not matter that much from the perspective of those who were already competing by running. Again, I am not denying that people do vary in ability or that no one ever wins this race on foot or that no one crashes their metaphorical car. My point is that if fairness truly matters, then we should not just be outraged when the elites cheat in an already unfair system, we should be outraged by the unfair system.

During Trump’s first term, a New Jersey teacher was accused of bringing politics into the classroom in the form of an anti-Trump t-shirt.  In his second term, Trump’s administration has aggressively targeted education and this includes the threat to eliminate the Department of Education. As such, it makes sense that educators feel threatened and might be tempted to respond within their classrooms. As a professor at a state university, I am both an educator and a public employee and these two roles can conflict because of the distinct duties of each.

An educator at a state institution is a public employee. While being a state employee does not rob a person of their right to free expression, it does impose limitations on this right above and beyond the usual moral limits. As an example of the usual moral limits, there is a popular example about not having the right to yell about a non-existent fire in a crowded theatre.

As public employees are paid by the taxpayers to do a job, it is reasonable that they do not have the right to express political views to the public while working. As an analogy, I do not have the right to sell my books to students during class. Likewise, I do not have the right to try to sell my politics to students during class. There is also the matter of professionalism: while I am on the clock, I am representing my institution and not myself. As such, I am morally obligated to distinguish between my own views and those of the institution.

It might be objected that elected public officials, such as Governor DeSantis of my adopted state of Florida, use their offices for political activities that benefit themselves and their party. As such, it is morally unfair to deny the same opportunity to other public employees. One counter is that elected public officials are politicians, so politics is their job. That said, there are moral concerns about politicians using public resources for their re-election or to campaign against a ballot initiative; but this is more a matter of the use of public funds than a free-speech issue. As such, it seems morally acceptable to insist that public employees refrain from political activities while on the clock. But perhaps being an educator is a relevant difference.

On the one hand, it could be argued that even in political science classes the educator does not have the right to preach their politics. After all, the function of the educator is to teach rather than preach. If a teacher takes a clear stance on a political issue, then students might feel pressured to accept it. There is also the concern that expressing political views will alienate students and harm their education. For example, a teacher who expresses anti-Trump views can create a hostile learning environment for MAGA students.

On the other hand, it can be argued that educators do not surrender their right of free expression in the classroom.  If they use it responsibly in the classroom, they have the right to express their political views. This view is appealing at the college level. Professors are supposed to have positions on intellectual and academic issues, and these include political issues.  That is, they should be able to profess. But the proper role of a professor is a matter of debate. One classic ideal is the professor as one who professes by advancing their positions on the academic issues and inviting students to engage them. This does raise the usual concerns about the power disparity and, of course, the matter of grades. Another classic ideal is the professor neutrally presenting theories and ideas by laying out the ideas and letting students decide which they like best. The problem with this approach is it does not help students determine which ones are better and this would be a problem in engineering, math and science classes in which there are better and worse answers.

My practical solution to the problem has been to stick to the general issues of politics when they are relevant to the course.  Since I do not want my students to just repeat what I think on paper and tests, I am careful to present the positions fairly. If pressed for my opinion in class, I will refer to any writings I have done and warn them to never uncritically accept what I have written. I also make it clear that paper grades are not based on whether I like their view but on how well they argue for their view. When I use examples of politicians (usually for fallacies and rhetoric) I do try to include examples across the spectrum. However, the party in power does tend to be the subject of more examples than the party out of power for the obvious reason that they provide more examples.

While there are safe ways to enter the United States, there are also areas of deadly desert that have claimed the lives of many migrants. Americans have left water and other supplies in these areas, for example the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson organized No More Deaths to provide support and reduce the number of deaths.

 This group seems to be on solid theological footing, following the guidance of Deuteronomy 10:18-19: “For the Lord your God…loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing.  You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” However, this kindness has resulted in arrests. Four women from the group were sentenced for leaving water for migrants. They were not charged with providing humanitarian aid; rather they were charged with abandoning personal property and entering the area without a permit. While they were released with a fine and probation, Scott Warren was arrested and charged with a felony for harboring migrants—in this case, harboring was giving the migrants food and water.  While one cannot know what is in the hearts of others, No More Deaths seems dedicated to reducing deaths as opposed to having a nefarious intent to smuggle in criminals. However, their actions are illegal as they are abandoning personal property (or littering) and rendering aid to people try to illegally cross the border. to cross the border. But what is illegal need not be immoral, so the question remains as to whether they are acting wrongly.

One reasonable approach is to see this as a religious group exercising their freedom of religion. Conservatives have been supportive of companies that do not want to accept the birth control mandate of the Affordable Care Act and of business owners who do not want to provide goods and services to same sex couples getting married. If it is morally acceptable to grant exceptions to laws on religious grounds to allow for discrimination, then it would be odd to deny exceptions to laws on religious grounds for rendering humanitarian aid (as commanded by God). However, conservative support for religious liberty aimed at kindness rather than discrimination is lacking. While there is a conservative narrative that Christians are being persecuted, being prosecuted for acting on kind religious beliefs is apparently not persecution.

One reply is to contend that religious exceptions are not universal and that while allowing people to refuse service to same sex couples is a matter of religious freedom, allowing people to aid those dying in the desert is not. In any case, my main concern as a philosopher is with the ethics of the matter rather than the religious aspects.

One approach to this issue is utilitarian in which the ethics of an action depends on its consequences. On the face of it, providing water in the desert is morally right. After all, the water can prevent suffering and death, and this is good. One could also use the golden rule: if I was dying in the desert, I would want the aid of others. As such, it would be immoral of me to deny aid to others. Another approach is to embrace deontological ethics, that there is an obligation to aid others who are in need. All these approaches show providing water would be the right thing to do. They can, however, be countered.

The utilitarian argument can be countered by contending that providing water does more harm than good. One possible argument would involve trying to show that providing water encourages migrants to try to cross the border in dangerous areas, thus increasing their chance of dying. Another approach would be to argue that providing such aid encourages migrants to cross the border illegally, perhaps because they think Americans are generous and welcoming. The obvious counter is that migrants try to cross the border even without the hope that Americans will provide water and without being tricked into thinking Americans are generous and welcoming. As such, targeting people providing water would not deter migration; it would only result in more suffering and death. Some claim that this is the intended consequence. Given that conservatives focus mostly on a religious freedom to discriminate, this makes sense.

In reply to the golden rule, it could be pointed out that if I was a criminal, I would want others to aid me in my criminal endeavors but it would not be right to do so. A reasonable counter to this is to contend that the people providing water are not aiming to aid criminal activity but trying to prevent deaths. To use an analogy, a doctor who treats a wounded criminal to save their life is not aiding in their crime.

Deontology does provide a counter: one could argue that there is a duty to obey the law. The problem is, of course, that there are many wicked laws and one cannot have a moral duty to do evil. But it could be argued that the laws used to prevent aid to migrants are just and righteous laws and should be obeyed, even in the face of death. After all, the migrants are breaking the law willingly, they are not compelled to enter the desert.

But providing water in the desert is morally acceptable because doing so will reduce human suffering and death. Since migrants cross the desert even without such aid, arresting people for providing humanitarian aid would not impact migration (except by increasing migrant deaths). While the United States does have the right to control its borders, it does not have the right to use the desert to kill migrants trying to enter the country and it does not have the right to use such a threat to deter migration. As the bible notes, there are moral obligations binding us together across national borders. But religious liberty exemptions for laws seem to be only for cruelty and not for kindness.

While conservatives are usually not overly concerned with racism and have been willing to tolerate the racism of their fellows, they delight in accusing Democrats of racism. If this Democrat is a woman and Muslim, so much the better.

This sort of allegation is probably satisfying. First, there is the value in scoring political points against Democrats. Second, it is no doubt pleasant to turn the tables on Democrats. Third, such attacks provide cover for the racism of certain conservatives: how dare the Democrats attack, for example, Trump for being a racist when they have racists among them? While it is ironic to attack Democrats for alleged racism to protect racists, it seems a popular strategy on the right. This is not to say that racist Democrats should get a pass, but this tactic is based on a fallacy.

A favorite target of conservatives is  Democrat Ilhan Omar. Omar has been critical of Israel and its influence over American politics. Unfortunately for the Democrats, but fortunately for the Republicans, she has used terms like “hypnotize” and “allegiance” that can be interpreted as linking to anti-Semitic tropes. Her words were not overtly anti-Semitic as one must interpret them through the lens of these tropes. If she had said the same words about another country, they would seem innocuous. For example, her use of “allegiance” was taken as referring to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. However, if she had accused Trump of having an allegiance to Russia, this would obviously not appear anti-Semitic to anyone.

An obvious concern, which has been raised by others, is that criticism of Israel can easily be cast as anti-Semitism by analyzing every word of the criticism to find some connection to anti-Semitism. Even if a critic is scrupulous in their word choices, it would be easy to make an accusation of anti-Semitism. For example, any criticism of the influence of Israel lobbying congress using money can easily be cast as an anti-Semitic attack based on antisemitic stereotypes of Jews, money and conspiracies.

Interestingly, critics of Israel find themselves in a situation that conservatives often claim to face, that their non-racist words and actions are wrongly interpreted as racist. More generally, this is the complaint about political correctness and not being able to “say things” anymore. Oddly enough, conservatives did not rush to defend Omar from political correctness. As an example, when a conservative makes a monkey reference involving a black person, their defenders will profess ignorance of the racist monkey trope and assert that the person was using the reference in a perfectly non-racist manner.

While the lamentations of conservatives about political correctness are often veiled defenses of racism and sexism, their concerns do contain some merit. A person’s words can be wrongly taken as racist, especially when people are hypersensitive and are actively trying to interpret the words as racist. And almost any criticism can be seen as racist. For example, criticism of Obama was sometimes cast as racist, even when it seemed to be limited to his policies and actions. As such, there is a real problem here: if criticizing a black person must be racist and criticizing Israel must be anti-Semitic, then there would be no way to offer legitimate criticism of a black President or Israel. It is obviously absurd to think that Obama or Israel should be exempt from criticism because such criticism must be racist or anti-Semitic. There are many legitimate criticisms of both that have nothing to do with racism. As such, it would be absurd to dismiss such criticism as automatically racist. So, criticizing Israel is no more automatically anti-Semitic than criticizing Obama is automatically racist or criticizing Elizabeth Warren is sexist.

There is, however, the problem of the opposite extreme: that having grounds for legitimate criticism entails that the criticism is not racist. For example, while there are legitimate grounds to criticize Israeli influence over congress, couching this criticism in terms of an international Jewish conspiracy and remarking that Jews are the secret bankers controlling America would be antisemitic. As such, while criticizing Israel can be antisemitic it need not be.

The question “why lie if the truth would suffice” can be interpreted in at least three ways. One is as an inquiry about the motivation and asks for an explanation. A second is as an inquiry about weighing the advantages and disadvantages of lying. The third way is as a rhetorical question that states, under the guise of inquiry, that one should not lie if the truth would suffice.

Since a general discussion of this question would be rather abstract, I will focus on a specific example and use it as the basis for the discussion. Readers should, of course, construct their own examples using their favorite lie from those they disagree with. I will use Trump’s response to the Democrats’ Green New Deal as my example. While this is something of a flashback to his first term, Trump recently signed an executive order targeting the old Green New Deal.

In 2019 the Democrats proposed a Green New Deal aimed at addressing climate change and economic issues. As with any proposal, rational criticisms can be raised against it. In his first term, Trump claimed the Democrats intend “to permanently eliminate all Planes, Cars, Cows, Oil, Gas & the Military – even if no other country would do the same.”  While there are some Democrats who would do these things, the Democratic Party favors none of that. Looked at rationally, it seems to make no sense to lie about the Green New Deal. If it is bad enough to reject on its own defects, lies would not be needed. If one must lie to attack it, this suggests a lack of arguments against it. To use an analogy, if a prosecutor lies to convict a person, this suggests they have no case—otherwise they would rely on evidence. So, why would Trump lie if the truth would suffice to show the Green New Deal is a terrible plan?

The question of why Trump (or anyone else) lies when the truth would suffice is a matter for psychology, not philosophy. So, I will leave that question to others. This leaves me with the question about the advantages and disadvantages of lying along with the rhetorical question.

The lie about the Green New Deal is a good example of hyperbole and a straw man. Trump himself claims to use the tactic of “truthful hyperbole”. Hyperbole is a rhetorical device in which one makes use of extravagant overstatement, such as claiming that the Democrats plan to eliminate cows. The reason hyperbole is not just called lying is because it is a specific type of untruth and must have a foundation in truth. Hyperbole involves inflating or exaggerating something true rather than a complete fiction. The Green New Deal is aimed at making America carbon neutral and this would impact cars, cows, planes, oil, gas and the military. The extravagant exaggeration is that the proposal would eliminate all of them permanently. This would be as if someone proposed cutting back on dessert at family dinners and they were accused of wanting to eliminate meals permanently. Since hyperbole is rhetoric without logic, it has no logical force and does not prove (or disprove) anything. But it can have considerable psychological force in influencing people to believe a claim.

Hyperbole is often used in conjunction with the Straw Man fallacy. This fallacy is committed when a person’s actual position is ignored and a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position is criticized in its place. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

 

Premise 1: Person A has position X.

Premise 2: Person B presents position Y (a distorted version of X).

Premise 3: Person B attacks position Y.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is false or bad.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position is not a criticism of the actual position. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Like hyperbole, the Straw Man fallacy is not based on a simple lie: it involves an exaggeration or distortion of something true. In the case of Trump and the Green New Deal, his “reasoning” is that the Green New Deal should be rejected because his hyperbolic straw man version of it is terrible. Since this is a fallacy, his “reasons” do not support his claim. It is, as always, important to note that Trump could be right about the Green New Deal being a bad idea, but not for the “reasons” he gives. To infer that a fallacy must have a false conclusion is itself a fallacy (the fallacy fallacy).

While hyperbole has no logical force and a straw man is a fallacy, there are advantages to using them. One advantage is that they are much easier than coming up with good reasons. Criticizing the Green New Deal for what it is requires knowing what it is and considering possible defects which take time and effort. Tweeting out a straw man takes seconds.

The second advantage is that hyperbole and straw men often work, often much better than the truth. In the case of complex matters, people rarely do their homework and do not know that a straw man is a straw man. I have interacted with people who honestly think Democrats plan to eliminate planes and cars. Since this is a bad idea, they reject it, not realizing that is not the Green New Deal. An obvious defense against hyperbole and straw man is to know the truth. While this can take time and effort, someone who has the time to post on Facebook or Twitter, has the time to do basic fact checking. If not, their ignorance should command them to remain silent, though they have the right to express their unsupported views.

As far as working better than the truth, hyperbole or straw man appeals to the target’s fears, anger or hope. They are thus motivated to believe in ways that truth cannot match. People generally find rational argumentation dull and unmoving, especially about complicated issues.  If Trump honestly presented real problems with the Green New Deal, complete with supporting data and graphs, he would bore most and lose his audience. By using a straw man, he better achieves his goal. This does allow for a pragmatic argument for lying because the truth will not suffice.

If telling the truth would not suffice to convince people, then there is the pragmatic argument that if lying would do the job, then it should be used. For example, if going into an honest assessment of the  Green New Deal would bore people and lying would get the job done, then Trump should lie if he wants to achieve his goal. This does, however, raise  moral concerns.

If the reason the truth would not suffice is because it does not logically support the claim, then it would be immoral to lie. To use a non-political example, if you would not invest in my new fake company iScam if you knew it was a scam, getting you to invest in it by lying would be wrong. So, if the New Green Deal would not be refuted by the truth, Trump’s lies about it would be immoral.

But, what about cases in which the truth would logically support a claim, but the truth would not persuade people to accept that claim? Going back to the Green New Deal example, suppose it is terrible but explaining its defects would bore people and they would remain unpersuaded. But a straw man version of the Green New Deal would persuade many people to reject this hypothetically terrible plan? From a utilitarian standpoint, the lie could be morally justified; if the good of lying outweighed the harm, then it would be the right thing to do. To use an analogy, suppose you were trying to convince a friend to not start a dangerous diet. You have scientific data and good arguments, but you know your friend is bored by data and is largely immune to logic. So, telling them the truth would mean that they would go on the diet and harm themself. But, if you exaggerate the harm dramatically, your friend will abandon the diet. In such a case, the straw man argument would seem to be morally justified as you are using it to protect your friend.

While this might seem to justify the general use of hyperbole and the straw man, it only justifies their use when the truth does suffice logically but does not suffice in terms of persuasive power. That is, the fallacy is only justified as a persuasive device when there are non-fallacious arguments that would properly establish the same conclusion.

Several years ago, Singer R. Kelly was jailed and accused of sexually abusing teenagers and attempting to force his hairdresser into performing oral sex. His lawyer, Steve Greenberg, employed the “rock star rape defense”: “He did not force anyone to have sex. He’s a rock star. He doesn’t have to.” This tactic has been employed by others and is worth examining.

Presented more formally, the Rock Star Defense has the following form:

 

Premise 1: If someone is a “rock star”, they do not have to force anyone to have sex.

Premise 2: X is a rock star.

Conclusion: Therefore, X did not force anyone to have sex.

 

On the face of it, this might seem to be a good argument.  This is because it looks like modus ponens, a valid deductive argument better known as affirming the antecedent. However, it only resembles this argument. To be  modus ponens, it would need to look like this:

 

Premise 1: If someone is a rock star, they do not have to force anyone to have sex.

Premise 2: X is a rock star.

Conclusion: Therefore, X did not have to force anyone to have sex.

 

The problem is that even if it were true that “rock stars” do not have to force anyone to have sex it does not follow that a “rockstar” did not force someone to have sex. After all, people do things they do not have to do. To use a non-criminal example, a person who owns a working vehicle does not have to walk, but they can choose to do so.  But the “rockstar” defense could be developed as an extended argument:

 

Argument 1

Premise 1: If someone is a rock star, they do not have to force anyone to have sex.

Premise 2: X is a rock star.

Conclusion: Therefore, X does not have to force anyone to have sex.

 

Argument 2

Premise 1: If someone does not have to force anyone to have sex, then they will not force anyone to have sex.

Premise 2 (conclusion of Argument 1): X does not have to force anyone to have sex.

Conclusion: Therefore, X did not force anyone to have sex.

 

Since both arguments are example of modus ponens, they are valid deductive arguments and the logic is unassailable. However, there is the question of whether the premises are true. While it could be debated whether a person is a “rockstar”, the general issues are whether rock stars do not have to force anyone to have sex and whether not having to force anyone to have sex entails that one would not force anyone to have sex.

The claim that rock stars do not have to force anyone to have sex is probably based on the assumption that anyone would willingly have sex with them because of their fame or fortune. As such, they would not need to force anyone to have sex because they would do so willingly.

While it is true that a rock star can probably find someone willing to have sex with them because they are a rockstar, it is not true that anyone (in the sense of everyone) would be willing to have sex with them. Even people who are fans of a celebrity might not want to have sex with them. As such, while a rock star can find at least one person to have sex with them willingly and thus do not need to use force to have sex, it does not follow that everyone they had sex with did so willingly.

The rockstar rape defense can also be undercut by comparing it to a rockstar shoplifting defense. A celebrity accused of shoplifting could argue that they did not steal because they are celebrities and do not need to shoplift. However, celebrities obviously do shoplift—the fact they do not need to shoplift does not entail that they did not shoplift . Likewise, even if a celebrity could have consensual sex with somebody, it does not follow that they did not assault or rape somebody else.

In light of the above, the rock star defense has no merit. This does not, of course, entail that someone is guilty because they use the defense. However, any jury should dismiss the rock star defense as absurd.

 

While the United States is experiencing a backlash from when Black Lives Mattered, there are still social expectations that set the allowed forms of racism. While racism is the foundation of United States immigration policy, blatantly attacking migrants for their color is considered impolite, at least for now. While there are various rhetorical approaches to attacking migrants, the focus of this essay is on the well-worn claim that migration needs to be restricted because migrants bring disease.

Ironically, migrants to the United States make up 16% of healthcare workers, including 29% of physicians and 24% of dentists.  It is more likely that a migrant will prevent or treat a disease than cause one. If the goal is to improve health outcomes, restrictions on migration would have a negative effect. While some might worry about migration and disease in sincere ignorance, it is primarily a tool of fear and racism. But is it true that migrants present no health risks?

If the standard is that migrants must present zero health risk, then this cannot be met: there is a non-zero chance a migrant pass on an illness to an American. And it is true that migration increases the number of cases of illness: more than zero Americans will catch some illness from migrants. However, this does not warrant regarding migrants as health threat. After all, there are non-zero cases in which a migrant saves a life or does something else heroic. But it would be odd to speak of the great promise of a wave of migrant heroism—except in the economic sense. Likewise, speaking of the threat of a wave of migrant disease would is unfounded. It is also worth noting that Americans having more babies or travelling between states also increase the spreading of disease, but this is not seen as a good reason to prevent people from reproducing or travelling.

When I point out that migrants do not present a  meaningful health threat, a common response is that must mean I support  open borders  and allowing people to  flood the United States without regulation and without any concerns about their health. My reply is that this entails nothing about my view of immigration policy, except that I do not think that fears of diseased migrants should shape border policy. While I am not terrified of diseased hordes invading America, I do still have health concerns about the movement of people.

The fear that migrants can bring devastating diseases to the Americas is based on historical fact. When Europeans arrived in what they called the New World they brought with them Old World diseases that proved devastating to the native populations. Smallpox decimated the native people, thus greatly European conquest of these lands. If the natives had been able to enforce strong borders and keep the Europeans out, history would be radically different. As would be suspected, modern opponents of migration to the United States do not use this example when making their disease argument. In part this is because it would make clear that most Americans are migrants or descendants of recent migrants. There is also the fact that the situation now is different.

Back in the 1500s the native people had little or no resistance to European diseases and there was no modern medicine. The situation is different today. Migrants coming to the United States will generally not be bringing in unknown diseases that will be devastating because there is no health care. That said, we should very worried about the impact of the Trump administration on America’s fragile and overpriced health care system.

While we will be having another pandemic soon, it is unlikely to arise from migrants coming into the United States. As such, legitimate worries about pandemics do not warrant restricting general migration. After all, what generally occurs is vaccinated people migrating from countries with health care systems to the United States.

A legitimate concern is that other countries might suffer from health care failures.  For example, Venezuela’s health care system was undercut due to the corruption and mismanagement of its government. One consequence was an outbreak of measles. Health care professionals have left Venezuela and its citizens have also attempted to flee. As such, we might see people fleeing a failing country with a broken health care system, thus making the spread of disease a real concern.

Normally, this sort of thing would not be a serious problem. In the case of measles, vaccination is safe and effective. It was also widespread. However, some Americans have decided to forgo vaccinating their children. America has thus intentionally made itself vulnerable to measles. While measles and other diseases will spread internally, we also need to worry about other countries failing at public health and allowing these diseases to spread. As this occurs, we might see a return to diseases spreading among unprotected populations. However, this time the lack of protection will be intentional as people will have chosen to condemn their children to illness, perhaps with the best intentions.

While proponents of the disease argument against migration will want to take advantage of these self-inflicted failures, even this scenario does not warrant the migration restrictions they favor. After all, measles is already here and does not need to be brought across the border. Rather than showing that the United States needs to tighten up the borders, this situation shows that the United States must tighten up the vaccination requirements for citizens to ensure that they are protected from diseases that are already here. Vaccines and health care, not a wall, will keep us safe from disease. While it might seem odd for the same people to push an anti-vax and “immigrants cause disease” view, this does make sense. They are both ideological movements built on fear and ignorance seemingly designed to maximize harm.