Author: Michael LaBossiere

The classic problem of the external world presents an epistemic challenge forged by the skeptics: how do I know that what I seem to be experiencing as the external world is really real for real? Early skeptics claimed that what seems real might be a dream. Descartes upgraded the problem through his evil demon which used its powers to befuddle its victim. As technology progressed, philosophers presented the brain-in-a-vat scenarios and then moved on to more impressive virtual reality scenarios. One recent variation on this problem was made famous by Elon Musk: we are characters in a video game. This is a variation of the idea that this apparent reality is just a simulation. There is a strong inductive argument for the claim that this is a virtual world.

One stock argument for the simulation world  uses the form of statistical syllogism. It is statistical because it deals with statistics. It is a syllogism by definition: it has two premises and one conclusion. Generically, a statistical syllogism looks like this:

 

Premise 1: X% of As are Bs.

Premise 2: This is an A.

Conclusion: This is a B.

 

The strength of this argument depends on the percentage of As that are B. The higher the percentage, the stronger the argument. This makes sense: the more As that are Bs, the more reasonable it is that a specific A is a B.  Now, to the simulation argument.

 

Premise 1: Most worlds are simulated worlds.

Premise 2: This is a world.

Conclusion: This is a simulated world.

 

While “most” is vague, the argument is such that if its premises are true, then the conclusion is more likely to be true than not. Before embracing your virtuality, it is worth considering a similar argument:

 

Premise 1: Most organisms are bacteria.

Premise 2: You are an organism.

Conclusion: You are a bacterium.

 

Like the previous argument, the truth of the premises makes the conclusion more likely to be true than false. However, you are not a bacterium. This does not show that the argument itself is flawed. The reasoning is good, and any randomly selected  organism would most likely be a bacterium. Rather, it indicates that when considering the truth of a conclusion, one must consider the total evidence. That is, information about the specific A must be considered when deciding whether it is a B. In the bacteria example, there are facts about you that would count against the claim that you are a bacterium, such as the fact that you are a multicellular organism.

Turning back to the simulation argument, the same consideration applies. If it is true that most worlds are simulations, then any random world is more likely to be a simulation than not. However, the claim that this specific world is a simulation would require consideration of the total evidence: what evidence is there that this world is a simulation? This reverses the usual challenge of proving that the world is real by requiring evidence it is not real. At this point, there is little evidence that this is a simulation. Using the usual fiction examples, we do not seem to find glitches that would be best explained as programming bugs, we do not seem to encounter outsiders from reality, and we do not run into some sort of exit system (like the Star Trek holodeck). That said, all this is still consistent with the world being a simulation: it might be well programmed, the outsider might never be spotted (or never go into the system) and there might be no way out. At this point, the most reasonable position is that the simulation claim is at best on par with the claim that the world is real since all evidence is consistent with both views. There is, however, still the matter of the truth of the premises in the simulation argument.

The second premise seems true, whatever this is, it seems to be a world. As such, the first premise is the key. While the logic of the argument is good, if the premise is not plausible then it is not a good argument overall.

The first premise is usually supported by a now standard argument. The reasoning includes the claims that the real universe contains large numbers of civilizations, that many of these civilizations are advanced and that enough of these advanced civilizations create incredibly complex simulations of worlds. Alternatively, it could be claimed that there are only a few (or just one) advanced civilizations but that they create vast numbers of complex simulated worlds.

The easy and obvious problem with this sort of reasoning is that it involves making claims about an external real world to try to prove that this world is not real. If this world is claimed to not be real, there is no reason to think that what seems true of this world (that we are developing simulations) would be true of the real world (that they developed super simulations, one of which is our world).  Drawing inferences from what we think is a simulation to a greater reality would be like the intelligent inhabitants of a Pac Man world trying to draw inferences from their game to our world.

There is also the fact that it is simpler to accept that this world is real rather than making claims about a real world beyond this one. After all, the simulation hypothesis requires accepting a real world on top of our simulated world. Why not just have this be the real world?

Politics has always been a nasty business, but the fact that examples of historic awfulness can be easily found does not excuse the current viciousness. After all, appealing to tradition (reasoning that something is acceptable because it has been done a long time) and appealing to common practice (reasoning that something being commonly done makes it acceptable) are both fallacies.

One manifestation of the nastiness of politics is when it does not suffice to merely regard an opponent as wrong, they must be torn down and cast as morally wicked. To be fair, there are cases in which people really are both wrong and morally wicked. As such, my concern is with cases in which the tearing down is not warranted.

I certainly understand the psychological appeal of this approach. It is natural to regard opponents as holding on to their views because they are bad people, in contrast to the moral purity that grounds one’s own important beliefs. In some cases, there is a real conflict between good and evil. For example, those who oppose slavery are morally better than those who inflict it. However, most political disputes are disagreements in which all sides are a blend of right and wrong, both factually and morally. For example, views about the proper size of government tend to be blended in this way. Unfortunately, political ideology can become part of a person’s core identity, thus making any differing view appear as a vicious assault on the person themselves. A challenge to their very identity that could only come from the vilest of knaves. Politicians and pundits also intentionally stoke these fires, hoping to exploit irrationality and ungrounded righteous rage to ensure their election and to get their way.

While academic philosophy is not a bastion of pure objective rationality, one of the most important lessons I learned in my career is that a person can disagree with me about an important issue yet still be a fine human being. Or, at the very least, not a bad person. In some cases, this is easy to do because I do not have a strong commitment to my position. For example, while I do not buy into Plato’s theory of forms, I have no real emotional investment in opposing it. In other cases, such as moral disputes, it is more difficult. Even in cases in which I have very strong commitments, I have learned to pause and consider the merits of my opponent’s position while also taking care to distinguish the philosophical position taken from the person who takes it. I also take care to regard their criticisms of my view as being against my view and not against me as a person. This allows me to debate the issue without it becoming a personal matter. It also helps that I know that simply attacking the person making a claim is just a form of an ad hominem fallacy.

It might be objected that this sort of approach to disputes is bloodless and unmanly. That one should engage with passion and perhaps, as Trump would say, want to hit someone. The easy reply is that while there is a time and a place for punching, the point of a dispute over an issue is to resolve it in a rational manner. A person can also be passionate without being uncivil and vicious. Unfortunately, vicious attacks are useful political tools.

A classic and reprehensible example involves the attacks on Ghazala and Khizr Khan, the parents of Captain Humayun Khan (who was killed in Iraq in 2004). Khizr Khan spoke out against Donald Trump’s anti Muslim rhetoric and asserted that Trump did not understand the Constitution. While Trump had every right to address the criticisms raised against him, he took his usual approach of trying to tear down a critic. Trump’s engagement with the family led to bipartisan responses, including an extensive response from John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner during the Vietnam War. Trump, against the rules of basic decency, continued to launch attacks on Khan. It is easy to forget there was once a time when a few Republicans had the moral courage to criticize Trump.

Since I have a diverse group of friends, I was not surprised when I saw posts appearing on Facebook attacking Khan. One set of posts linked to Shoebat.com’s claim that Khan “is a Muslim brotherhood agent who wants to advance sharia law and bring Muslims into the United States.” As should come as no surprise, Snopes quickly debunked this claim.

Breitbart.com also leaped into the fray asserting that Khan “financially benefits from unfettered pay-to-play Muslim migration into America.” The site also claimed that Khan had deleted his law firm’s website. On the one hand, it is legitimate journalism to investigate. After all, undue bias damages credibility and it is certainly good to know about any relevant misdeeds lurking in a person’s past. On the other hand, endeavoring to tear a person down and thus “refute” their criticism is an exercise in the ad hominem fallacy. This is bad reasoning in which an attack on a person is taken to thus refute their claims. Even if Khan ran a “pay to play” system and even if he backed Sharia law, his criticisms of Donald Trump stood or fell on their own merits, and they clearly had merit.  There is also the moral awfulness in trying to tear down a Gold Star family. As many have pointed out, such an attack would have once beyond the pale. We are now so far beyond the pale that the light from it would take a million years to reach us.  The Trump of 2025 does not even face token pushback from Republicans and, as I predicted in 2o16, he has changed the boundaries of acceptable behavior.

It might be objected that a politician must reply to critics, otherwise the attacks will stand. While this is a reasonable point, the reply made matters. It is one thing to respond to the criticisms by countering their content, quite another to do something like launch a personal attack against a Gold Star family.

It could also be objected that engaging in a rational discussion of the actual issues is too difficult and would not be understood by the public. They can only handle emotional appeals and simplistic notions. Moral distinctions are irrelevant, and decency is obsolete. Hence, the public discourse must be conducted at a low level. Trump gets this and is acting accordingly. Back in 2016 I hoped this would not be the case, but Trump has triumphed twice and MAGA now owns the Republican party, and they serve his whim and will.

 

Though the United States prides itself as being a nation of immigrants and the home of the brave, appeals to the fear of immigrants and refugees is a dependable political tool. The use of this tool is, of course, neither new nor limited to the United States.

To be fair, there is some legitimacy to the fear of allowing in immigrants and refugees. This is because a large enough group of people will contain a percentage of potential wrongdoers. As such, allowing large numbers of people into a country will result in some increase in misdeeds just as a matter of statistics. Thus, it is not untrue to say that allowing in immigrants and refugees would increase the dangers faced by the citizens of a country. But this is analogous to saying that allowing anyone in your house increases your chance of being harmed. While true, it would be absurd to barricade yourself alone in your house out of fear that someone might present some danger.

While demagogues and pundits generally do not operate on consistently applied principles, restricting immigrants and refugees can be justified in a principled way. In this case, the principle would be that people should be banned from entering a country if their arrival would result in an increase in the dangers faced by the current citizens of that country. Since allowing a significant number of refugees and immigrants would allow in at least some who would do harm, then this principle justifies such restrictions. While this does allow for a principled basis for restriction, it runs into a major problem if it is applied consistently. This consistency problem is common, which is why demagogues and pundits generally loath and avoid consistency. This specific consistency problem is as follows.

Every country faces waves of immigrants that arrive unregulated and unchecked. While most of them are not a threat, a percentage of them will engage in harmful acts ranging from minor thefts to mass shootings to bilking investors. Oddly enough, no politician has the courage to propose restrictions on these invaders, and many encourage the arrival of more of these potential threats. I am, of course, speaking of immigrants from the womb. Each new generation includes a certain percentage of potential murderers, rapists, thieves and terrorists and thus presents a clear and present danger to the current citizens. Using the same reasoning that justifies keeping out immigrants and refugees (that a certain percentage could present a threat), these invaders should be kept out of the country.

This suggestion should, of course, be greeted with derision and mockery: it would be absurd to impose a ban on reproduction merely because some small percentage of people will become dangerous to the current citizens. The challenge is to reject restrictions on births while accepting restrictions on immigration while using the danger argument.

The most obvious approach is to point out that the potential rapists and terrorists who are born here are children of existing citizens and thus different from refugees and immigrants from other countries. But this seems unfair as where a person is born is entirely a matter of chance and is completely unearned. We do not, after all, earn or select our parents. Thus, restricting immigrants and refugees because some small percentage will present a threat while allowing unrestricted reproduction that will produce people that will present a threat seems to be grounded only in the vagaries of chance. If there is great concern about the threat presented by incoming people, then that threat must be addressed using the same standards on the pain of inconsistency.

It could be countered that immigrants and refugees present a greater threat: the percentage of murders, rapists and terrorists is higher among the vetted and reviewed immigrants than among Americans who are born here. However, this is clearly not the case. This should come as no surprise, given that the immigrants and refugees are vetted and checked very thoroughly by the United States while kids are born with no vetting or review.  

I might, at this point, be accused of wanting to impose restrictions on reproduction. This is not the case. My point is, rather, to show that the idea of putting harsh restrictions or imposing complete bans on immigrants and refugees because some tiny percentage might turn out to cause harm is as absurd as restricting or banning reproduction becomes some children will certainly grow up to be criminals or terrorists. This is not to say that there should not be screening of immigrants and refugees; there should be. After all, we generate so many domestic criminals and terrorists that it is sensible to try to avoid needlessly and carelessly importing more.

Thanks to people such as Teddy Roosevelt, the United States has vast areas of public lands, including the famous national parks. While most Americans have a positive view of public lands, there has long been a push to privatize them. While the very few who would benefit from privatization have a compelling interest in ending public lands, I will show that most citizens should strongly support keeping public lands public.

A somewhat abstract argument in favor of public lands is that they provide the basis for common ownership of the country even for those who do not own private land. As citizens, they have a stake and a share in the public lands. While people might not feel this ownership, it seems to be an important part of being a citizen of a democratic state. In monarchies and dictatorships, the common folk do not own the lands because they belong to the monarch or tyrant. In contrast, public lands are an important part of a democratic state.

It could be countered that a democracy does not require public lands. After all, they have existed without them and there is no necessary link between democracy and public lands. This is a reasonable point: a democratic United States could exist without public lands. There would just be private lands and government property such as military bases, schools and courthouses. There might even be no real change in the attitudes of most people. As such, I must concede that this argument, though appealing, is perhaps too abstract to have significant strength.

A second, stronger argument, is that public lands are needed to preserve nature. While individuals live but a short while and easily change their minds, land that is protected by enduring law can be persevered for as long as the state stands. This preservation of nature has value in many ways. One is that people have a psychological need for nature. For those who favor evolution, we evolved to be a part of this world. For those who accept the divine, it can be contended that we need to look upon the handiwork of the creator and preserving His work is to show respect for God.

I can also point to the fact that the natural areas of the world serve as life support for our planet. Using the obvious analogy, to allow some passengers of a spaceship to rip apart and sell the life support systems would be stupid and wrong. While they would make a short-term profit, they would do so at the expense of everyone. There is also the matter of future generations: to ruin the land for decades or centuries for short-term profits would be a crime against the future.

I noted above that there are a very few people who would benefit from privatizing public lands. They and their supporters typically argue that privatization would take the land back from the government and thus restore freedom and put the decision making back into the hands of the people.

While this sort of rhetoric sounds good, it is a lie. This is because the transition from public ownership to private ownership would mean that the rich owners would control the land with no input from the rest of us.  It would also mean that access to the formerly public land would be at the discretion of the owner. In the case of public land, the citizens have a role in the control of the land through voting and the political process. If you do not like how public land is being used or the restrictions placed on its use, you can take action to get the laws and rules changed. However, if the land is privately owned, then you no longer have any real influence or control (unless you own it). While it is true that the very few would have greater control and freedom because of their private ownership, the vast majority would have no control or influence under this system of private ownership. So, when people use the freedom argument, they mean to give freedom to the very, very few and take it away from the vast majority. After all, when the right talks about privatizing public lands, they are not talking about the land being sold to average citizens but about it being acquired by the rich.

There is also the argument that privatizing public lands would result in profits and economic growth, so they should be privatized. This argument is certainly compelling, at least for the tiny fraction of people who would profit from privatization. While some of the wealth would “trickle down”, most people would gain nothing and would lose access to those lands. Privatization would mean that the least who have the most would get even more, while the most who have the least would have even less. This would be great for the privileged few, but awful for the rest of us.

While the classic werewolf is a human with the ability to shift into the shape of a wolf, movies usually show a transformation into a wolf-human hybrid. The standard werewolf has a taste for human flesh, a vulnerability to silver and a serious shedding problem. Some werewolves have impressive basketball skills, but that is not a standard werewolf ability.

There have been various efforts to explain werewolf myths and legends. Some of the scientific (or at least pseudo-scientific) theories include mental illness or disease. On these accounts, the werewolf does not transform into a wolf-like creature; they are afflicted people. These non-magical werewolves are possible but are more tragic than horrific.

There are also supernatural accounts of werewolves, many involving vague references to curses. In many tales, the condition can be transmitted, perhaps by a bite or even by texting. These magical beasts are not possible unless, of course, this is a magical world.

There has even been some speculation about technology-based shifters, perhaps nanotechnology that can rapidly re-structure a living creature without killing it. But these would be werewolves of science fiction.

Interestingly enough, there could also be philosophical werewolves (which, to steal from Adventure Time, could be called “whywolves”) that have a solid metaphysical foundation. Well, as solid as metaphysics gets.

Our good dead friend Plato (who was probably not a werewolf) laid out a theory of Forms. According to Plato, the Forms are supposed to be eternal, perfect entities that exist outside of space and time. As such, they are even weirder than werewolves. However, they neither shed nor consume human flesh, so they have some positive qualities relative to werewolves.

For Plato, all the particular entities in this imperfect realm are what they are in virtue of their instantiation of Forms. This is sometimes called “participation”, perhaps to make the particulars sound like they have civic virtue. To illustrate this with an example, my husky Isis was a husky because she participated in the form of Husky. This is, no doubt, among the noblest and best of dog forms. Likewise, Isis was furry because she instantiated the form of Fur (and shared this instantiation with all things she contacted, such was the depth of her generosity).

While there is some nice stuff here in the world, it is evident that all the particulars lack perfection. For example, while Donald Trump’s buildings are clearly quality structures, they are not perfect buildings. Likewise, while he does have a somewhat orange color, he does not possess perfect Orange (John Boehner is closer to the Form of Orange yet still lacks perfection).

Plato’s account of the imperfection of particulars, like Donald Trump, involves the claim that particulars instantiate or participate in the Forms in varying degrees. When explaining this to my students, I usually use the example of photocopies of various quality. The original is analogous to the Form while the copies of varying quality are analogous to the particulars.  Another example could be selfies taken of a person using cameras of various qualities. I find that the youth relate more to selfies than to photocopies.

Plato also asserts that particulars can instantiate or participate in “contrasting” Forms. He uses the example of how things here in the earthly realm have both Beauty and Ugliness, thus they lack perfect Beauty. For example, even the most attractive supermodel still has flaws. As such, a person’s beauty (or ugliness) is a blend of Beauty and Ugliness. Since people can look more or less beautiful over time (time and gravity are both very mean), this mix can shift and the degree of participation or instantiation can change. This mixing and shifting of instantiation can be used to provide a Platonic account of werewolves (which is not the same as having a Platonic relation with a werewolf).

If the huge assumptions are made that a particular is what it is because it instantiates various Forms and that the instantiations of Forms can be mixed or blended in a particular, then werewolves can easily be given a metaphysical explanation in the context of Forms.

For Plato, a werewolf would be a particular that instantiated the Form of Man but also the Form of Wolf. As such, the being would be part man and part wolf. When the person is participating most in the Form of Man, then he would appear (and act) human. However, when the Form of Wolf became dominant, her form and behavior would shift towards that of the wolf.

Plato mentions the Sun in the Allegory of the Cave as well as the light of the moon. So, it seems appropriate that the moon (which reflects the light of the sun) is credited in many tales with triggering the transformation from human to wolf. Perhaps since, as Aristotle claimed, humans are rational animals, the direct light of the sun means that the human Form is dominant. The reflected light of the full moon would, at least in accord with something I just made up, result in a distortion of reason and thus allow the animal Form of Wolf to dominate. There can also be a nice connection here to Plato’s account of the three-part soul: when the Wolf is in charge, reason is mostly asleep.

While it is the wolf that usually takes the blame for the evil of the werewolf, it seems more plausible that this comes from the form of Man. After all, research on wolves shows that they have been given a bad rap. So, whatever evil is in the werewolf comes from the human part. The howling, though, is all wolf.

Back in 2016 Martin Shkreli became the villain of drug pricing when he increased the price of a $13.50 pill to $750. While buying up smaller drug companies and increasing prices products is a standard profit-making venture, the scale of the increase and Shkreli’s attitude drew attention to this incident. Unfortunately, while the Shkreli episode briefly caught the public’s attention, drug pricing is an ongoing problem.

For consumer, the main problem is that drugs are priced extremely high, sometimes high enough to bankrupt patients. In the face of public criticism, drug companies attempt to justify the high prices. One reason they give is that they need to charge these prices to pay the R&D costs of the drugs. While a company does have the right to pass on the cost of drug development, the facts tell another story about the pricing of drugs.

First, about 38% of the basic research science was funded by taxpayer money.  Thus, the public was paying twice: once in taxes and again for the drugs. This, of course, leaves a significant legitimate area of expenses for companies, but hardly enough to warrant absurdly high prices. As the federal budget for this research is cut, companies will be able to make a better argument based on the cost of research as they will need to spend more of their profits for research.

Second, most large drug companies spend almost twice as much on promotion and marketing as they do on R&D. While these are legitimate business expenses, this undercut using R&D expenses to justify excessive drug prices. Saying that pills are expensive because of the cost of marketing pills would not be a very effective strategy. There is also the issue of the ethics of advertising drugs, which is another matter entirely.

Third, many “new” drugs are just slightly modified old drugs. Common examples including combining two older drugs to create a “new” drug, changing the delivery method (from an injectable to a pill, for example) or altering the release time. In many cases, the government will grant a new patent for these minor tweaks, and this will grant the company up to a 20-year monopoly on the product, preventing competition. This practice, though obviously legal, is sketchy. To use an analogy, imagine a company holding the patents on a wheel and on an axle. Then, when those patents expired, they patented wheel + axle as a “new” invention. That would be absurd.

Companies also try other approaches to justify the high cost, such as arguing that the drugs treat serious conditions or can save money by avoiding a more expensive treatment. While these arguments do have some appeal, it is morally problematic to argue that the price of a drug should be based on the seriousness of the condition it treats. This seems like a protection scheme or coercion amounting to “pay what we want, or you die.” The money-saving argument is less odious but is still problematic. By this logic, car companies should be able to much more for safety features since they protect people from expensive injuries. It is, of course, reasonable to make a profit on products that provide significant benefits, but there need to be moral limits to the profits.

The obvious counter to my approach is to argue that drug prices should be set by the free market: if people are willing to pay large sums for drugs, then the drug companies should be free to charge those prices. After all, companies like Apple and Porsche sell expensive products without (generally) being demonized for making profits.

The easy response is that luxury cars and Macbooks are optional luxuries that a person can easily do without and there are many cheaper (and better) alternatives. However, drug companies sell drugs that are necessary for a person’s health and even survival. They are usually not optional products. There is also the fact that drug companies enjoy patent protection that precludes effective competition. While Apple does hold patents on its devices, there are many competitors. For example, if you don’t want to pay a premium for an Apple computer, you have your pick of thousands of options. But, if you need certain medications, your options can be much more limited.  

While defenders of drug prices laud the free market and decry “government interference”, their ability to charge high prices depends on the “interference” of the state. As noted above, the United States and other governments issue patents to drug companies that grant them exclusive ownership. Without this protection, a company that wanted to charge $750 for a $13.50 pill would find competitors rushing to sell the pill for far less. After all, it would be easy enough for a competitor to analyze a drug and produce it. By accepting the patent system, the drug companies accept that the state has a right to engage in legal regulation in the drug industry, to replace the invisible hand with a very visible hand of the state. Once this is accepted, the door is opened to allowing additional regulation on the grounds that the state will provide protection for the company’s property using taxpayer money in return for the company agreeing not to engage in harmful pricing of drugs. Roughly put, if the drug companies expect people to obey the social contract with the state, they also need to operate within the social contract. Companies could, of course, push for a truly free market: they would be free to charge whatever they want for drugs without state interference, but there would be no state interference into the free market activities of their competitors when they duplicate the high price drugs and start undercutting the prices. But, as always, companies want a free market when freedom benefits them and a nanny state when it benefits them.

In closing, if the drug companies want to keep the patent protection they need for high drug prices, they must be willing to operate within the social contract. After all, citizens should not be imposed upon to fund the protection of the people who are, some might claim, robbing them.

In his first term Trump talked about pardoning himself, his family and others which led to interest in the scope of the pardon power. LegalEagle has an excellent video that walks through key questions about the pardon based on precedent and legal scholarship. My interest, though, is with a seemingly crazy question: could Trump (or any president) pardon everyone for everything forever?

While this question might seem stupid, it is worth considering because it is an invitation to explore the limits of the pardon power of the president. Here is the law as written in the Constitution: “…he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Since this is but a single sentence, I will also need to rely on legal precedents and informed speculation on the part of Constitutional scholars to answer my question. I will begin with the matter of pardoning everyone.

While there is the question of whether the President can pardon himself, the President can clearly pardon anyone else. The President can also issue mass pardons, as Carter did in the case of the draft dodgers. Since the Constitution does not specify a numerical limit, then Trump does have the power to pardon everybody. If he can pardon anyone and issue mass pardons, then there would seem to be no line that can be drawn forbidding him from extending pardons to everyone. As such, Trump can pardon everyone. But can he pardon everyone for everything?

There are two limits specified on the pardon power. The first is that the pardon only applies to “offenses against the United States.” This has been established to mean federal crimes and so Trump cannot pardon people for state crimes. There have been some attempts to argue that “offenses against the United States” includes all crimes because the states are parts of the United States; but this argument has yet to gain traction. But this could change with a court ruling and the Supreme Court has been, with few exceptions, very cooperative with Trump. The second is that the President cannot pardon in cases of impeachment (Presidential or other). These are the only two limits. As such, the President could pardon anyone for any (or all) federal offense except for impeachment. The final question is whether Trump could pardon forever.

 Thanks to Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon, the pardon power has been shown to apply preemptively to crimes for which a person has not been convicted and even those for which a person has not been charged. Ford was acting according to well established law; the Supreme Court ruled that the power to pardon applies  “to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” As such, the President could pardon anyone for everything (except state crimes and impeachment) after the commission of the offense. This does raise the question of how far back in time an offense can be and still be pardonable. The obvious answer is that since the offense must be committed against the United States, the oldest offense that could be pardoned would be set by the beginning of the United States. But what about future crimes?

Talk of pre-emptive pardons can be a bit confusing since this could be taken as pardoning someone for an offense they have yet to commit. But, as noted above, the ruling is that the pardon must come after the offense has been committed. As long as this ruling stands, then Trump cannot pardon people for offenses they have yet to commit. As such, Trump cannot issue a pro-active pardon for an offense that has yet to be committed. So, he cannot pardon everyone for everything forever. While not directly related to time, there is also the question of whether the President can pardon someone for an offense they did not commit.

On the face of it, there would seem to be no reason to pardon a person for an offense they did not commit, they would have no need for it. But a person who has committed no offense might as well accept a pardon. However, this could be a problem for them since the Supreme Court has also ruled that accepting a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance carries a confession.” As such, anyone who accepts a pardon from Trump is admitting guilt and confessing to the offense. While they would avoid the legal consequences for the federal offense, this could impact their reputation (assuming they have any left) and could be used against them. For example, a case can be made that a person pardoned for an offense can no longer plead the Fifth on that offense. They cannot incriminate because they have already admitted guilt by accepting the pardon. But there could be cases in which a person who had committed no offense might want a pardon. But if someone is likely to be charged with an offense they did not commit, then it would be wise to accept a pardon.

As an authoritarian Trump sees Justice Department as his and as a tool to use against his enemies. This is consistent with his being a “law and order” President, since “law and order” is commonly used as a racist code for repression of minority communities. While Trump is perhaps not serious, he still calls for critics and former opponents to be locked up. It is likely that Trump believes that a future Democrat president will see the law as he sees it, as a weapon to be wielded and a tool to be exploited. As such, it makes sense for him to think that the Democrats might go after his family and associates without concern for the facts, since this is what he would do if he could get away with it. Trump could thus try to pardon people for crimes he claims they did not commit to protect them from vengeful prosecution. There are a few problems with this approach.

One problem is that the Democrats will probably not make up fake offenses to charge Trump’s family and associates with. Laying aside any claims about Democrats being committed to the rule of law, Democrats do not need to make up offenses. 

A second problem is that this line of reasoning falls apart. While Trump could issue pardons for any and all federal offenses said to have been committed prior to the pardon, he will lose his power to pardon when he is no longer President. If the Democrats were willing to just make up crimes, then they could just say the made-up crimes occurred after Trump’s pardon. They could also just make up state crimes. As such, Trump’s pardons only make sense if those pardoned committed the crimes and Trump believes that the Democrats will not just make up crimes.

A third problem is that the ruling is specific that the pardon must occur after the offense. If no offense was committed, then it cannot be pardoned. As such, Trump cannot claim that his family and associates committed no crimes while also pardoning them. Circling back, his family and associates would admit guilt by accepting the pardons and Trump could only pardon them if they committed the offenses. If they insist they committed no offenses, then they cannot accept the pardons, and Trump cannot grant them a pardon for an offense that did not occur.

If Trump states that they did not commit any offenses and issues pardons to pre-empt allegedly unjust investigations, then this could result in Supreme Court case. Trump being Trump, he might very well insist that those he pardons have committed no offenses, but he is pardoning them for these offenses.

 On the one hand, pardoning someone for an offense they did not commit would seem to be something the President cannot do: they can only pardon an offense after the offense has occurred. On the other hand, a ruling might allow this on the grounds that if the pardon does not hold, then the person could be convicted of the offense that they were pardoned for (even though they denied they committed it)—which would be an obvious problem. At the heart of this matter is whether the President can pardon something for an offense they did not commit—while the obvious answer would seem to be “no”, the law can be a strange thing.

Given that there are few restrictions on the pardon power, Trump could direct people to commit federal crimes with the promise of a pardon and then pardon them for those crimes. Given that the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are immune to criminal prosecution for criminal acts committed while in office and that the Republicans control congress, Trump is free to engage in federal crimes as he wishes and have others do so as well, without fear of any meaningful consequences.

To close, Trump could pardon everyone for every federal offense committed prior to his pardon. But he cannot pardon everyone for everything forever.

While I was required to take Epistemology in graduate school, I was not interested in the study of knowledge until I started teaching it. While remaining professionally neutral in the classroom, I now include a section on the ethics of belief in my epistemology class and discuss, in general terms, such things as tribal epistemology. Outside of the classroom I am free to discuss my own views on epistemology in the context of politics, and it is a fascinating subject. My younger self from graduate school would be surprised at the words “epistemology” and “fascinating” used together.

While COVID-19 was a nightmare for the world, the professed beliefs of Trump supporters about the pandemic provides an excellent case study in belief. As anyone familiar with these beliefs knows, they form a strange set of inconsistent and even contradictory claims. I am not claiming that every Trump supporter believes all these claims and I am not claiming that only Trump supporters believe them; but these are all claims professed by those who support Trump.

At the start of the pandemic Trump placed the blame on China and referred to the “the China virus.” His supporters generally accepted this view. The role of China varies depending on which explanation is offered. Some make the true claim that it originated in China. Others make the unsupported claim that it escaped (or was released intentionally) from a lab. On this view, the virus is generally presented as something bad. After all, it makes no sense to blame China unless the virus is a real problem.

There are also other conspiracy theories about the pandemic. One infamous theory is that the pandemic was real but caused by 5G. This would be inconsistent with the China virus theory; but one could preserve the China link by claiming that 5G technology is made in China

Trump also advanced the idea that the pandemic did not exist, that it was a hoax. This was echoed by his supporters—although some also advanced the theory that the Democrats infected Trump with the virus. The hoax idea was presented in various ways. For example, on some accounts the virus does exist but is no worse than the flu. This view led to an active anti-mask movement and death threats against public health experts. The anti-mask views make sense if one thinks the virus was a hoax but makes less sense if one thinks that the virus was bad enough to warrant making China pay. If it was a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats, then it makes no sense to hold China accountable. And if the virus did real damage and China should pay, then it makes no sense to claim it is a hoax. To be fair, these could be combined into the claim that China and the Democrats ran a worldwide hoax with the cooperation of all governments to harm Trump. Reconciling the 5G theory with the hoax theory would be challenging: if 5G was the cause of the pandemic, then it was not a hoax. And if it was a hoax, there was no pandemic for 5G to cause.

While Trump supporters profess to believe the pandemic was a hoax, over 80% of Republicans claimed to believe that Trump has done a great job with the pandemic.  His supporters claimed that he took rapid action (he did not) and that his response was very effective (it was not). Trump has also attempted to take credit for the forthcoming vaccines and has claimed, without evidence, that the FDA and Democrats stalled the vaccines. If the pandemic was a hoax, then it makes no sense to claim that Trump acted rapidly and effectively to counter the pandemic.  This is because there would be no pandemic to counter. It could be claimed that Trump acted to counter the hoax, but this would be hard to reconcile with Trump’s claims about the vaccine. If the pandemic was a hoax, then there was no need for a vaccine and taking credit for a useless vaccine would be silly. A Trump supporter could take the view that the pandemic was no worse than the flu and then credit Trump with addressing something no worse than the flu and developing the equivalent of a flu vaccine. But to the degree that Trump downplayed (lied about) the pandemic, this would undercut claims of how significant his alleged success should be considered.

As I noted earlier, I am not claiming that every Trump supporter believes all these claims. For example, the 5G pandemic theory was not universally embraced by Trump supporters (and is surely held by some who do not support him). However, Trump supporters generally seem to profess belief in many of these claims even though they are not consistent, and some would seem to lead to contradictions.

In logic, two claims are inconsistent when both could be false, but both cannot be true. To use my usual example, the claim that my water bottle contains only vodka and the claim that it contains only water are inconsistent with each other. If the bottle contains only vodka, then it does not contain only water and vice versa. But both could be false: the bottle could be empty. Or it could contain tequila. Many of the claims Trump supporters profess to believe about the pandemic seem inconsistent. For example, the claim that the pandemic was caused by 5G is not consistent with the claim that it is a hoax.

In logic, two claims contradict one another when one of them must be false and the other must be true. A contradiction is a claim that must be false and is false because of its logical structure. The stock example in logic is the conjunction P & -P. Since a conjunction is true when the two claims being conjoined are true and false otherwise, this claim is always false, at least on the assumption that any claim is true or false (but not both). So, if P is true, then -P must be false (and vice versa). Some of the claims Trump supporters profess to believe would seem to entail contradictory claims. For example, if it is claimed that the pandemic was caused by 5G, then this would entail that the pandemic is not a hoax which would contradict the claim that it is a hoax. Naturally, one could argue that the pandemic was caused by 5G and is also a hoax provided that the nature of the hoax is defined in a way that allows it to be caused by 5G.  As another example, the conspiracy theory that the pandemic was caused by a bioweapon released (intentionally or not) by China (or someone else) would entail that it was not a hoax. This would contradict the claim that it is a hoax. Again, one could try to craft the hoax claims in a way that the pandemic is both a hoax and caused by a bioweapon. Claiming that it is a hoax about a bioweapon would not do this, since a hoax about a bioweapon is not a bioweapon it is just a hoax.

From the standpoint of truth-functional logic (a logic in which the truth of a claim depends on the truth of the parts), the claims made by Trump supporters about the pandemic cannot all be true. In science-fiction, a robot or computer that attempted to accept all these claims would suffer some sci-fi logic failure, perhaps exploding. In reality, mapping out the logical relations between these claims would show that they cannot all be true and there would be no explosions (one hopes). But there is the interesting question of how people can hold to beliefs that cannot all be true and some of which lead to contradictions.

In philosophy, epistemologists (and others) often speak of beliefs as having intentionality. That is, beliefs have aboutness. When a person believes something about their world, they take their belief to correspond to reality. But while a belief has aboutness it need not be about reality. As an example, if Ted believes in unicorns, his belief is about unicorns (although philosophers disagree about beliefs about things that are not real) but not about real unicorns. Because there are no unicorns. People can also believe that all the claims in a set are true, even though it is not possible for them all to be true. That is, that set contains beliefs that are inconsistent with each other (or even contradictory). A person can even believe that a contradiction is true. Unlike truth functional logic, the truth of the claim “Person A believes claim C” does not depend on the truth of the parts; only on the truth of the claim about A believing C. A crude way to look at the matter is to see belief as like a Word file in which one can type any sentence rather than being like a computer program or circuit design that would fail if it contained logical inconsistencies or contradictions. So, saying that a person believes something is like saying it is in their Word file. Humans are clearly able to believe sets of inconsistent claims and even act on those beliefs which raises many interesting questions about belief formation and how belief impacts actions. As a closing point, people can certainly reconcile apparently inconsistent beliefs by not really believing in some or all of them professing that a claim is true when one believes it is not. That is, lying.

I, along with some other philosophers, was interviewed in 2016 about voting for an article by Olivia Goldhill of Quartz. While I still stand by what I said, interviews do have inherent problems. One common thing is the lack of depth. In some cases, this is due to the interview being short. For the Quartz piece, I spoke to the author for about five minutes. In other cases, the interview might be longer, but the content must be slashed down to fit in a limited amount of time or space. An interview I did about D&D and the real world was about thirty minutes long; but only about a minute was used in the broadcast. Another problem is that complex material aimed at the public must be simplified because most people are not experts. As such, I need to expand on my quote in the article.

After briefly discussing the difference between deontological and utilitarian approaches to voting, I presented my soundbite view of the issue:

 

 “As a citizen, I have a duty to others because it’s not just me and my principles, but everybody. I have to consider how what I do will impact other people. For example, if I was a die-hard Bernie supporter, I might say my principles tell me to vote for Bernie. But I’m not going to let my principles condemn other people to suffering.”

 

My position can be taken as either a deontological approach or a utilitarian approach. For the deontologist, an action is right or wrong in and of itself—the consequences are not what matter morally. For the utilitarian, the morality of an action is determined by its consequences. Looked at from a deontological perspective, acting on a duty to the general good would be the right thing to do. The fact that doing so would have good consequences is not what makes the action good. From the utilitarian perspective, the foundation of my duty would be utility: I should do what brings about the greatest good for the greatest number.

In 2016 I followed my principles. While I voted for Sanders in the primary and preferred him over Hillary, I thought that a Trump presidency would be much worse for the country than another Clinton presidency.  I saw her as competent business as usual politician. I predicted, correctly, that Trump would be bad for most Americans. I had the view in 2020 and 2024. When Trump runs in 2028, I’ll probably vote against him.  As such, I take the classic approach of choosing the lesser evil and the devil I know. If I was voting for the greater evil, Cthulhu would have my vote.

It might be objected that my approach is flawed. After all, if someone votes based on a rational assessment of the impact of an election on everyone, then she might vote against her own self-interest. What a person should do, it could be argued, is consider the matter selfishly and vote based on what is in her interest regardless of the general good.

This approach has considerable appeal and is based on an established moral philosophy which is ethical egoism. This is the view that a person should always take the action that maximizes her self-interest. Roughly put, for the ethical egoist, she is the only one with moral value. The opposing moral view is altruism; the view that other people count morally (to at least some degree). Ayn Rand is probably the best-known proponent of ethical egoism and the virtue of selfishness. This ideology was embraced by Paul Ryan and she was beloved by the American Tea Party before it was assimilated by MAGA.

While supporters of selfishness claim that the collective result of individual selfishness will be the general good (a view attributed to Adam Smith), history and reason show the opposite. Everyone being selfish has exactly the result one would suspect, and most people would be worse off than if people were more altruistic. To use an analogy, everyone being cruel does not make the world a kinder place. More people being kind makes kinder.

This is not to say that people should not consider their interests, just that they should also consider the interests of others. This is, after all, what makes civilization possible. Pure selfishness without regulation, as Hobbes argued, is the state of nature and the state of war and is not in anyone’s interest.

It can also be objected that my approach is flawed because it perpetuates the two-party lockdown of the American political system. While most people didn’t know this, there were many third party candidates running in 2016. Perhaps the best known was libertarian Gary Johnson. He received 1% of the popular vote in 2012 and managed to reach double digits in some polls. As he did not win, a vote for Johnson helped either Trump or Hillary get elected (depending on whether the person would have otherwise voted for one of them). Many claim that Nader’s ill-fated bid for president enabled Bush to win the election. While voting for a third-party candidate can be seen as, at best, throwing away one’s vote a case can be made for voting this way.

Like the approach I took in the interview, the argument for voting third party can be based on utilitarian considerations (one can also make a deontological argument based on the notion of a duty to vote one’s conscience). The difference is that the vote for the third party would be justified by the hope of long-term consequences. To be specific, the justification would be that voting for a third-party candidate could allow the greater evil to win this election. And the next election. And probably several more elections after that. But, eventually, the lockdown on politics by Democrats and Republicans could be broken by a viable third party. If the third party is likely to be better than the Democrats or Republicans, then this could be a good utilitarian argument.  It could also be a good argument if having a viable third party merely improved things for the population. The deciding factor would be whether the positive consequences of eventually getting a viable third party would be worth the cost of getting there. Naturally, the likelihood of viability is also a factor.

I am still split on this issue, though Trump’s two victories have pushed me towards favoring voting for the lesser evil. On the one hand, there seems to be a good reason to stick with voting for the lesser evil, namely the fact that third party viability is a gamble. There is also concern about whether any third-party candidate is better than the lesser evil. On the other hand, voting for the lesser evil does lock us in a two-party system and this could prove more damaging than allowing the greater evil to win numerous times on the way towards having a viable third party.

The student loan crisis occasionally gets attention in the media, but the coverage is often quick and shallow. Back in 2016 James B. Steele and Lance Williams of Reveal from the The Center for Investigative Reporting presented a more in-depth examination of the student loan industry. As a former student and current professor, I am concerned about student loans.

The original intention of student loans, broadly construed, was to provide lower income students with an affordable means of paying for college. Like most students, I had to take out loans to pay for school. This was back in the 1980s, when college costs were more reasonable and just as student loans were being transformed into a massive for-profit industry. As such, my loans were modest (about $8,000) and I was able to pay them off even on the pitiful salary I was earning as an adjunct professor. Times have, however, changed for the worse. And it just keeps getting worse under Republican rule for the rich, by the rich and against the poor.

Making a long story short, the federal government enabled banks and private equity companies to monetize the federal student loan program, allowing them to profit from the loans and fees. Because many state governments embraced an ideology of selfishness and opposition to the public good, they significantly cut their support for state colleges and universities, thus increasing the cost of tuition. At the same time, university administrations were growing both in terms of number of administrators and the size of salaries, thus increasing costs as well. There was also an increase in infrastructure costs due to new technology as well as a desire to market campuses as having amenities such as rock-climbing gyms. The result was $1.3 trillion in debt for 42 million Americans and this just keeps increasing. On the “positive” side, the government makes about 20% on its 2013 loans and the industry was humming along at $140 billion a year.

While the government held about 93% of the total debt, the debt collection was contracted to private companies and these were scooped up by the likes of JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. As expected, these contractors make large profits (about $2 billion per year back in 2016). The collection process is often very aggressive, and the industry has used its control over congress to ensure favorable laws. For example, student loan debt is one of the very few debts that are not discharged by bankruptcy.

While student loans were originally intended to benefit students, they now benefit the government and the private contractors to the detriment of students. As such, there is a moral concern here in addition to the practical concerns about loans.

If the primary purpose of student loans is to address economic inequality by assisting lower income students attend college, then its current state goes against this purpose. This is because the system is creates massive debt for students while creating massive profits for the state and private contractors. That is, students are being exploited by both the state and the private sector. The collusion of the state makes seeking redress rather difficult. After all, the people need to turn to the state for redress, yet the state is an interested party and under the influence of industry. This problem is, of course, not unique to student loans and it is one more example of how privatization is great for the private sector rich but often awful for citizens.

It could be argued that the proper function of the state is to serve the interest of the financial elites at the expense of the citizens. If so, then the student loan program should continue as it is; it is great for the state and the financial class while crushing citizens under mountains of debt. If, however, the state should serve the good of the citizens in general, then the status quo is a disaster. My view is, not surprisingly, that of John Locke: the state is to serve the good of the people. As such,  the student loan industry needs to be changed.

One change that would help is for states to return to supporting public higher education. While there are legitimate concerns about budgets, education is a great investment in both the private good of the students and the public good. After all, civilization needs educated people to function and people with college degrees end up with higher incomes and thus pay more taxes (paying back the investment many times over). While there are professed ideological reasons for opposing this, there are also financial motivations: dismantling public education would push more students into the awful for-profit schools that devour money and excrete un(der)employed people burdened by massive debt. While this is great for the owners of these schools, it is awful for the students and society.

Another change, which has been proposed by others, is to change or end the privatized aspects of the system. While there is the myth that the private sector is vastly superior to the inefficient and incompetent state, the fact is that the efficiency of the private sector seems to mostly lie in making a profit for itself rather than running the student loan system in accord with its intended purpose. This is not to say that the state must be great in what it does, just that cutting out the large profits of the collection agencies would reduce the burden on students. This is, of course, a moral question about whether it is right or not to profit on the backs of students.

There has also been talk about reducing the interest rates of student loans and even proposals for free college. I do favor lower interest rates; if the purpose of the loans is to assist students rather than make money, then lower interest rates would be the right thing to do. As far as free college goes, there is the obvious problem that “free” college must be paid for by someone and it is a matter of shifting the burden from students to someone else. The ethics of such a shift depends on who is picking up the tab.

As a closing point, there is also the matter of student responsibility. My loans went entirely to paying education expenses, which is one reason my debt was low even for the time. While many students do use loans wisely, my experiences as a student and a professor have shown that some students use loan money unwisely and put themselves into debt for things that have no connection to education. For example, faculty sometimes joke that while administrators drive the most expensive cars, students drive the second most expensive and most faculty drive the worst. Students that overburden themselves with loans they use irresponsibly have only themselves to blame. However, the fact that a few students do this does not invalidate the claim that much of the debt burden inflicted on students is unjust.  We should, as always, be wary of attempts to demonize people based on anecdotal evidence and straw person attacks.