Author: Michael LaBossiere

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Board Expansion Rules for Monopoly Inheritance!

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

Monopoly Inheritance!

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Inheritance Variations

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Premise 1: P% of observed Xs are Ys.

Conclusion: P% of all Xs are Ys.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine that Chad reasons like this:

 

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

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

Conclusion: Many migrants are violent criminals.

 

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

 

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

“Premise” 2: I (Chad) am a white man.

Conclusion: Many white men are violent criminals.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As noted in previous essays, there is a diversity issue in higher education: liberals outnumber conservatives. Given that conservatives have made their view of diversity clear, it is fair to apply their ideology to the issue of the dearth of conservatives in higher education.

When faced a lack of diversity, conservatives usually have two replies. I addressed first in an earlier essay: members of the underrepresented group freely decide to exclude themselves. For example, one might explain the relative low number of women and minorities playing tabletop wargames, such as Warhammer 40k, by claiming that they are generally not interested in the hobby. The second explanation is that the lack of diversity is due to a lack of competence on the part of the allegedly excluded groups. For example, the low number of women in top business, military and academic positions would be explained in terms of women being less capable than men. Some might add that incompetent people are capable in other area where they are more proportionally represented or even dominant. For example, someone might say that while women are inferior to men in science or business, they are capable nurses, speech language pathologists and grade schoolteachers. In some cases, these assertions are undeniably true. For example, men dominate American football because the strongest men are stronger than the strongest women. As another example, women are generally more capable than men for the role of surrogate mother. Since conservatives often find this explanation appealing, it seems fair to consider that a lack of competence is the reason why there are few conservatives in higher education.

Applying this conservative view to conservatives, the explanation for the lack of diversity is that conservatives lack the ability to succeed in higher education. While there are some exceptions, the ideological distribution is fair because of this disparity in ability. This is like the conservative claim that the lack of women in the upper levels of business, academics and the military match the distribution of ability: they claim most women are not as capable as men, hence men rightfully and fairly dominate. By parity of reasoning, most conservatives are not as capable as liberals, hence liberals justly and fairly dominate the academy.

An obvious reply is that ideology is different from sex or ethnicity. Conservatives can be of any sex or ethnicity because ideology is a matter of values. As such, it could be claimed, the idea that conservatives are less capable than liberals make no sense. It would be like saying that deontologists are less capable than utilitarians, that impressionists are less capable than surrealists, or that Yankees fans are less capable than Red Sox fans. This does have some appeal, but we should not abandon the conservative explanation too quickly.

This reply can be countered by arguing that while ideology does not change a person’s capabilities, a person’s capabilities might determine their ideology. That is, people with certain non-ideological qualities would tend to be conservative while people with other qualities would tend to be liberal. While psychology is not an exact science, it does show some interesting claims about the differences between conservatives and liberals. For example, it has been claimed that conservatives tend to be more afraid than liberals and hence have a greater desire for safety and security. Given these differences, it makes sense that conservatives would be less capable than be liberals in areas in which these differences would matter. Higher education, it can be argued, is such an area: the qualities that make a person more likely to succeed as a professor also tend to make them liberal. In contrast, the qualities that make a person more conservative would tend to make it less likely that they would have the ability to become professors.

While some liberals might be tempted to claim that conservatives are stupider than liberals, this need not be the case. After all, becoming a professor is not just a matter of being smart. Most smart people are not professors, and not all professors are smart. Conservatives can be just as intellectually capable as liberals, yet some of the other qualities that make them conservative could impair their ability to become professors (or so one might argue). One factor is that the process of becoming a professor involves having one’s most cherished ideas questioned, challenged and even attacked over the course of years—something liberals might handle better. As charitable conservatives might say that as women and minorities are well-suited for some fields, a charitable liberal might say that conservatives are well-suited for some fields outside the academy.

If it is true that what makes people conservative or liberal is relevant to their ability to become professors, then there are solutions to the problem of diversity. One is to engage in a process of affirmative action and DEI for conservatives: preferential hiring and adjusted standards to address the lack of diversity. Conservatives who oppose affirmative action and DEI would not be able to accept this approach. Unless their view is a matter of self-interest rather than a principle.

A second approach is to see if the academy can be modified to be more inviting to conservatives. For example, it might be that the way grad school classes are taught that deters conservatives. While conservatives are generally not fans of efforts of inclusion, they would presumably welcome such efforts if they were the ones being benefited.

Some readers might think the real reason conservatives are underrepresented in the academy is that liberals are to blame. I will address this in my next essay.

As noted in the previous essay, perhaps conservatives have good reasons to not want to be professors or professors have good reasons not to be conservatives. In this essay, I will offer some possible DEI solutions to the dearth of conservatives in higher education.

If highly educated conservatives find academics unattractive because of the lower salaries, then there are two ways to motivate them into becoming professors. One is to argue that capable conservatives should “take one for the team” and become professors. While this would be a financial loss for conservative professors, their sacrifices would benefit the community of conservatives. The challenge is persuading those who see self-interest as a core value to act in a way seemingly contrary to their self-interest.

Another approach, which would probably be more appealing, is for conservatives to offer financial support and rewards for conservatives who become and remain professors. This is already done in some cases, but expanding the support and rewards would help increase the number of conservative professors. One challenge is to ensure that the support and rewards go to actual conservatives. They would need to police ideological purity to keep out clever liberals (or even secret Marxists) who might exploit these opportunities for their own profit. And we would certainly not want anyone profiting from pretending to believe something.

A possible downside to this approach is that these recruited professors could be accused of bias because they are being paid to be conservative professors. will leave a solution to this problem to any conservatives who might be troubled by it.

A practical worry about supporting conservative students so that they become conservative professors is that their experiences in graduate school and as faculty might turn them away from conservatism. For example, they might start taking rhetorical attacks on experts and science personally as they become experts and scientists. As another example, they might find the hostility of Republicans to higher education a problem as they try to work in a field being attacked so vehemently by their fellows. But what about getting professors to want to be conservative? How could this be done?

One option for conservatives is to change their anti-expert and anti-science rhetoric. Rather than engaging in broad attacks on experts or science, they could confine their attacks to specific targets. Those not being directly attacked might find conservatism more appealing. The Republican party could also change its hostile attitude towards higher education towards a more positive approach. They could, for example, return to providing solid funding for research and education. If professors believed that Republicans would act in their interest and in the interest of their students, they would be more inclined to support them. Conservative faculty would probably also be more likely to stay conservative.

Taking such steps would, however, be a problem for the Republican party. After all, the anti-science stance towards climate change and their broad anti-expert stance have yielded great political success. Changing these views would come at a price. Providing support for public higher education would also put Republicans at odds with their views about what should be cut while giving tax breaks for the rich. It would also go against their strategy of monetizing higher education. As such, Republicans would need to weigh the cost of winning over professors against the advantages they gain by the policies that alienate professors.

Oddly enough, some people claim that it is the Democrats and liberals who are more anti-science and anti-intellectual than the Republicans. If this were true, then the Republicans are doing a terrible job of convincing scientists and intellectuals to support them. If they could convince professors that they are the real supporters of the sciences and the Democrats are the real threat, then they should be able to win converts in the academy. The challenge is, of course, proving this claim and getting professors to accept this proof. But this seems unlikely, given that the claim that Republicans are pro-science is absurd on the face of it.

While the culture warriors claim Marxism dominates higher education, a more realistic concern is that higher education is dominated by liberals (or at least Democrats). Conservatives (or at least Republicans) are an underrepresented minority among faculty. This disparity invites inquiry. One reason to investigate, at least for liberals, would be to check for injustice or oppression causing this disparity. Another motivation is intellectual curiosity.

While sorting out this diversity problem might prove daunting, a foundation of theory and methodology has been laid by those studying the domination of higher education by straight, white males. That is, professors like me. These tools should be useful and ironic for looking into the question of why conservatives are not adequate represented in the academy.  But before delving into theories of oppression and unfair exclusion, I must consider that the shortage of conservatives in the ivory towers is a matter of choice. This consideration mirrors a standard explanation for the apparent exclusion of women and minorities for other areas.

One possible explanation is that conservatives have chosen to not become professors. While not always the case, well-educated conservatives tend to be more interested in higher income careers in the private sector. While the pay for full-time faculty is not bad, the pay for adjuncts is terrible. Professor salaries, with some notable exceptions, tend to be lower than non-academic jobs with comparable educational requirements. So, someone interested in maximizing income would not become a professor. Education and effort would yield far more financial reward elsewhere, such as in the medical or financial fields. As such, conservatives are more likely to become bankers rather than philosophers and accountants rather than anthropologists.

A second possible explanation is that people who tend to become professors do not want to be conservatives (or at least Republicans). That is, the qualities that lead a person into a professorial career would tend to lead them away from conservative ideology. While there have been brilliant conservative intellectuals, the Republican party has consistently adopted a strong anti-expert, anti-intellectual stance. This might be due to an anti-intellectual ideology, or because the facts fail to match Republican ideology—such as with climate change. Republicans have also become more hostile to higher education. In contrast, Democrats tend to support higher education.

As becoming a professor generally requires a terminal degree, a professor will spend at least six years in college and graduate school, probably seeing the hostility of Republicans against education and the limited support offered by Democrats. Rational self-interest alone would tend to push professors towards being Democrats, since the Democrats are more likely to support higher education. Those who want to become professors, almost by definition, tend to be intellectual and want to become experts. So, the conservative attacks on experts and intellectuals will tend to drive them away from the Republican party and conservative ideology. Those pursuing careers in the sciences would presumably also find the anti-science stances of the Republicans and conservative ideology unappealing.

While my own case is just an anecdote, one reasons I vote for Democrats is that Democrats are more likely to do things that are in my interest as a professor and in the interest of my students. In contrast, Republicans tend to make my professional life worse by lowering support for education and engaging in micromanagement and ideological impositions. They also make life more difficult for my students. The anti-intellectualism, rejection of truth, and anti-science stances also make the Republican party unappealing to me. As such, it is not surprising that the academy is dominated by liberals: Republicans would usually not want to be professors, and potential professors would tend to not want to be Republicans.

But perhaps there is a social injustice occurring and the lack of diversity is due to the unjust exclusion of conservatives from the academy. It is to this concern that I will address in a future essay. We might need some diversity, equity and inclusion to get conservatives into the academy.