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As I type this Microsoft’s Copilot AI awaits, demon-like, for a summons to replace my words with its own. The temptation is great, but I resist. For now. But AI is persistently pervasive, and educators fear both its threat and promise. This essay provides a concise overview of three threats: AI cheating, Artificial Incompetence, and Artificial Irrelevance.

When AI became available, a tsunami of cheating was predicted. Like many, I braced for flood but faced a trickle. While this is anecdotal evidence, the plagiarism rate in my classes has been a steady 10% since 1993. As anecdotal evidence is not strong evidence, it is fortunate that Stanford scholars Victor Lee and Denise Pope have been studying cheating. They found that in 15 years of surveys, 60-70% of students admitted to cheating. While that is not good, in 2023 the percentage stayed about the same or decreased slightly, even when students were asked about cheating with AI. This makes sense as cheating has always been easy and the decision to cheat is based more on ethics than technology. It is also worth considering that AI is not great for cheating. As researchers Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor have argued, AI is most useful at doing useless things. Having “useless” work that AI can do well could be seen as a flaw in course design rather than a problem with AI. There are also excellent practices and tools that can be employed to discourage and limit cheating. As such, AI cheating is unlikely to be the doom of the academy. That said, a significant improvement in quality of AI could change this. But there is also the worry that AI will lead to Artificial Incompetence, which is the second threat.

Socrates was critical of writing and argued it would weaken memory. Centuries later, television was supposed to “rot brains” and it was feared calculators would destroy mathematical skills. More recently, computers and smartphones were supposed to damage the minds of students. AI is latest threat.

There are two worries about AI in this context. The first ties back to cheating: students will graduate into jobs but be incompetent because they cheated with AI. While having incompetent people in important jobs is worrying, this is not a new problem. There has always been the risk of students cheating their way to incompetence or getting into professions and positions because of nepotism, cronyism, bribery, family influence, etc. rather than competence. As such, AI is not a special threat here.

A second worry takes us back to Socrates and calculators: students using technology “honestly” could become incompetent. That is, lack the skills and knowledge they need. But how afraid should we be?

If we look back at writing, calculators, and computers we can infer that if the academy was able to adapt to these technologies, then it will be able to adapt to AI. But we will need to take the threat seriously when creating policies, lessons and assessments. After all, these dire predictions did not come true because people took steps to ensure they did not. But perhaps this analogy is false, and AI is a special threat.

A reasonable worry is that AI might be fundamentally different from earlier technologies. For example, it was worried that Photoshop would eliminate the need for artistic skill, but it turned out to be a new tool. But AI image generation is radically different, and a student could use it to generate images without having or learning any artistic skill. This leads to the third threat, that of Artificial Obsolescence.

As AI improves, it is likely that students will no longer need certain skills because AI will be able to do it for them (or in their place). As this happens, we will need to decide whether this is something we should fear or just another example of needing to adapt because technology once again rendered some skills obsolete

To illustrate, modern college graduates do not know how to work a spinning wheel, use computer punch cards or troubleshoot an AppleTalk network. But they do not need such skills and are not incompetent for lacking them. But there is still the question of whether to allow skills and knowledge to die and what we might lose in doing so.

While people learn obsolete skills for various reasons, such as hobbies, colleges will probably stop teaching some skills made “irrelevant” by AI. But there will still be relevant skills. Because of this, schools will need to adjust their courses and curriculum. There is also the worry that AI might eliminate entire professions which could lead to the elimination of degrees or entire departments. But while AI is new, such challenges are not.

Adapting to survive is nothing new in higher education and colleges do so whether the changes are caused by technology, economics, or politics. As examples, universities no longer teach obsolete programming languages and state universities in Florida have been compelled by the state to change General Education. But AI, some would argue, will change not just the academy but will reshape the entire economy.

In some dystopian sci-fi, AI pushes most people into poverty while the AI owning elites live in luxury. In this scenario, some elite colleges might persist while the other schools perish. While this scenario is unlikely, history shows economies can be ruined and dystopia cannot be simply dismissed. But the future is what we make, and the academy has a role to play, if we have the will to do so.

In Utopian sci-fi, AI eliminates jobs we do not want to do while freeing us from poverty, hardship, and drudgery. In such a world of abundance, colleges might thrive as people have the time and opportunity to learn without the pressure of economic necessity. Or perhaps colleges would be largely replaced by personal AI professors.

In closing, the most plausible scenario is that AI has been overhyped and while colleges will need to adapt to the technology, they will not be significantly harmed, let alone destroyed. But it is wise to be prepared for what the future might bring because complacency and willful blindness always prove disastrous

As professors we worry students will use AI to cheat (until it takes our jobs). But we can also transform AI into a useful and engaging teaching assistant by creating AI personas tailored to our classes.

An AI persona defines the distinctive character and tone of an artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT. It is like an NPC (non-player character) in a video game. Both are designed to interact in a way that feels natural and engaging, enhancing the overall experience.

Creating a custom AI persona for a class involves two general tasks. While a robust Large Language Model (LLM) like CoPilot or ChatGPT will have a vast database, it will probably lack content specific to your class. So, the first task is to provide that information. The second task is to design a suitable persona. But why bother?

There are several advantages to having an AI TA. Unlike a human, it is available all hours and provides immediate responses. Human professors have other tasks, their own lives outside of academics and, of course, need to sleep.

Students are often reluctant to ask questions in class or during office hours, perhaps because of fear of embarrassment or being judged. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes noted, people often do not take criticism well from other people, for “to dissent is like calling him a fool.”  But a student can interact privately with an AI TA without fear of embarrassment or judgement.  And some people are more comfortable with (and addicted to) interacting with devices rather than other people, so an AI TA has an advantage here as well.

And, as Kyle Reese said of the Terminator, “It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead.” While we do not want our AI TAs to terminate students, it will never get tired, angry, inattentive, distracted or bored. This provides an advantage over humans, especially when a student is struggling with material or prefers to learn at a different pace from that offered in the classroom. As these advantages arise from the AI aspect of the AI TA, you might wonder why you should create a persona.

One reason is that creating a persona allows you to set guardrails, so the AI TA does not, for example, do the work for the students. Another reason is that, going back to the NPC comparison, an AI with a persona is more interesting and can make conversations feel more natural and relatable, thus keeping students engaged longer. A persona can also be designed to add humor, creativity, or unique quirks, making interactions more enjoyable. While this can be controversial and raises some moral concerns, a persona can convey empathy and understanding, creating a sense of trust and comfort.

One practical concern about customizing the persona is analogous to picking the paint used for classrooms. While most find the usual neutral colors dull, they also do not find them annoying. While creative use of color in the classroom might appeal to some, it might also be annoying and distracting to others. And we must never forget the lesson of Microsoft’s Clippy. As such, care should be taken in making an appealing but not annoying AI TA.

A persona can also be designed to fit the needs of your class and students, thus creating a customized experience. A well-designed person can also simplify complex interactions, guiding the students through, for example, how to structure their paper or a complex problem. If the idea of having an AI TA is appealing, it is surprisingly easy to make this happen.

There are many ways to enable your AI TA. The cheapest and easiest is to provide your students with a prompt to create a persona and a file to upload to, for example, CoPilot. The downside is that the persona will be simple and both it and the file will be forgotten as soon as the session ends, requiring students to take these steps each time. The student will also have control over the persona prompt, so they can easily remove any guardrails you included.

A more expensive option is to get a subscription, such as that offered by ChatGPT, that allows you to create a persistent persona with custom content. This is easier for the students and allows you to ensure that your AI TA will operate within your specified guardrails (mostly).

There is also the option of hosting your own customized local LLM. While you will need suitable hardware, this is much easier than it sounds. For example, with the free software Ollama you could be running your own LLM within minutes. Customizing it and creating a web interface for students is much more challenging, but there is also free software available for this. No matter what approach you take, you will want to ensure that your AI TA operates and is used safely and ethically. Here are some recommendations.

While the AI TA should help students, it should avoid providing complete answers to exam questions, essays, or assignments. Instead, it should focus on guiding students through problem-solving techniques and frameworks. It can also be designed to ask thought-provoking questions and encourage exploration of topics to deepen understanding.

On the moral side, you need to communicate the AI TA’s limitations and your ethical guidelines for its usage. Encourage students to use the AI TA as a tool for learning rather than for shortcuts.

If the AI TA detects repeated behavior suggesting attempts to cheat (e.g., asking for answers to specific assignments), it could notify the user of the ethical standards. While you might worry that this would annoy students, Aristotle notes in his Nicomachean Ethics that “although people resent it when their impulses are opposed by human agents, even if they are in the right, the law causes no irritation by enjoining decent behavior.” While Aristotle’s claim can be disputed, the same should apply to the AI TA.

Power holders in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Membership in these groups also seems to confer a degree of advantage relative to people outside of these groups. Yet, as been noted in the previous essays, some claim that the people in these groups are now the “real victims.” In this essay I will look at how a version of the fallacy of anecdotal evidence can be used to “argue” about who is “the real victim.”

The fallacy of anecdotal evidence is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. The fallacy is sometimes taken to be a version of the hasty generalization fallacy (drawing a conclusion from a sample that is too small to adequately support that conclusion). The main difference between hasty generalization and anecdotal evidence is that the fallacy anecdotal evidence involves using a story (anecdote) as the sample.

Here is the form of the anecdotal evidence fallacy often used to “argue” that an advantaged group is not advantaged:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B

Premise 2: A member of Group A was disadvantaged relative to a member of Group B.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B (or Group B is not disadvantaged relative to Group A).

 

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that white Americas are advantaged relative to black Americans.

Premise 2: Chad, a white American, was unable to get into his first choice of colleges because affirmative action allowed Anthony, a black American, to displace him.

Conclusion: White Americans are not advantaged relative to black Americans.

 

The problem with the logic is that an anecdote does not suffice to establish a general claim because an adequately large sample is needed to make a strong generalization. But one must also be on guard against another sort of fallacy:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: Member M of Group A is disadvantaged relative to Member N of Group B.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of M is morally acceptable, or M is not really disadvantaged.

 

To illustrate:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that men are advantaged relative to women.

Premise 2: Andy was disadvantaged relative to his boss Sally when she used her position to sexually harass him.

Conclusion: The disadvantage of Andy is morally acceptable, or Andy was not really disadvantaged.

 

 

While individual cases do not disprove a body of statistical evidence they should not be ignored. As in the illustration given above, while men generally have a workplace advantage over women, this does not entail that individual men are never at a disadvantage relative to individual women. It also does not entail that, for example, men cannot be the victims of sexual harassment by women.  As another illustration, while white men dominate academics, business, and politics, this does not entail that there are not injustices against specific white men in such things as admission, hiring and promotions. These sorts of situations can lead to moral debates about harm.

One excellent example is the debate over affirmative action. An oversimplified justification is that groups that have been historically disadvantaged are given a degree of preference in the selection process. For example, a minority woman might be given preference over a white woman in the case of college admission. The usual moral counter is that the white woman is wronged by this: if she is better qualified, then she should be admitted, even if this entails that the college population will remain almost entirely white.

The usual counter to this is that the white woman is likely to appear better qualified because she has enjoyed the advantages conferred from being white. For example, her ancestors might have built wealth by owning the ancestors of the black woman who was admitted over her and this inherited wealth meant that her family has been attending college for generations, that she was able to attend excellent schools, and that her family could pay for tutoring and test preparation.

This can be countered by other arguments, such as how the woman did not own slaves herself, so it is unfair for her to not be admitted on the “merit” arising from all these advantages arising from generational wealth. One can, of course, consider scenarios such as cases in which the black woman is from a wealthy family while the white woman is from a poor family. Such cases can, of course, be considered in terms of economic class and one could argue that class should also be a factor. This obviously all leads to the moral issue of whether it is acceptable to inflict some harm on specific members of advantaged groups to address systematic disadvantages, which goes way beyond the scope of this essay.

Fortunately, I do not need to settle this issue here. This is because even if such anecdotes are examples of morally wrong actions, they do not disprove the general statistical claims about relative advantages and disadvantages between groups. For example, even if a few white students are wronged by affirmative action when they cannot attend their first pick of schools, these anecdotes do not disprove the statistical evidence of the relative advantage conferred by being white in America. After all, the claim of advantage is not that each white person is always advantaged over everyone else on an individual-by-individual basis. Rather it is about the overall advantages that appear in statistics such as wealth and treatment by the police. As such, using anecdotes to “refute” statistical data is, as always, a fallacy. But what about cases in which members of an advantaged group do suffer a statistically meaningful disadvantage in one or more areas?

While falling victim to the fallacy of anecdotal evidence is bad logic, it is not an error to consider that members of an advantaged group might face a significant disadvantage (or harm) because of their membership in that advantaged group. As would be expected, any example used here will be controversial. I will use the Fathers’ Rights movement as the example. The central claim behind this movement is that fathers are systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers. While there are liberal and conservative versions, the general claim is that fathers and mothers should have parity in the legal system on this matter. Critics, as would be expected, claim that men tend to already enjoy a relative advantage here. But if the Fathers’ Rights movement is correct about fathers being systematically disadvantaged relative to mothers, then this would not be mere anecdotal reasoning. That is, it would not just be a few cases in which individual fathers were disadvantaged relative to a few individual mothers, it would be systematic injustice. But would this area of relative disadvantage disprove the claim of general advantage? Let us look at the reasoning:

 

Premise 1: It is claimed that statistical evidence shows that Group A is advantaged relative to Group B.

Premise 2: But Group A is disadvantaged relative to Group B in specific area C.

Conclusion: Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B.

 

As presented, this would be an error in reasoning because Group A being disadvantaged in one area would not prove that the group is not advantaged relative to Group B when all areas are considered. To use an analogy, the fact that Team B outscored Team A in the fifth inning of a baseball game does not entail that B is leading. It must be noted that a similar argument with multiple premises like Premise 2 could show that Group A is not advantaged relative to Group B. After all, establishing adequate statistical evidence would obviously be adequate. There are, of course, questions about how to determine relative advantage and these can be debated in good faith. One obvious point of dispute would be the matter of weighting. For example, if fathers are disadvantaged relative to mothers, how would this count relative to the pay gap between men and women? And so on for all areas of comparison. This does show the need to consider each area as well as a need for assessing value but this is not unique to the situation at hand and one could, as is often done, assign crude dollar values to do the math.

In closing, while individual wrongs and wrongs done to members of advantaged groups as members of that group can occur, they do not automatically disprove the statistical data. 

 

When it is claimed that the “real victims” are white, male, straight or Christian, there is the obvious problem of explaining how this occurs. It cannot be that white, male, straight and Christian people are systematically excluded from power in the United States. These are the people who currently dominate the White House, the Senate, the House, corporations, academia, and so on. But there is a feeling among some white, straight, male, and Christian people that they are suffering. But what is the explanation?

A “left wing” explanation would be that while being white, male, straight or Christian yields relative advantages, the greatest advantages are held by those who have the greatest wealth and power. That is, class is a dominant factor in the United States. Take, for example, the claim that migrants are stealing jobs. Put this way, white workers are claimed to be victims of minorities. While there are cases in which jobs are lost to migrants, the job woes of Americans are not caused by migrants stealing jobs. While the causes of job losses and underemployment are complicated, a major factor is that those with the power to make decisions choose to do things that hurt American workers. As a specific example, my hometown of Old Town used to have the paper mill as its primary employer. Migrants did not come to Old Town to steal the jobs, ownership of the mill changed and eventually those in charge decided to shut the mill down. This hurt my hometown in ways that it will probably never recover from. One could spend endless hours going through similar explanations of the real woes faced by white, male, straight, and Christian Americans. But this sort of explanation is obviously not going to be presented by those who hold power. But they still need to explain the suffering.

One “non-left” explanation is that the “real victims” are “losing” to the other groups because they are inferior. To use an analogy, back in the day my friends and I did well in the local road races; we were the ruling class of local running. This is no longer the case. The explanation is easy: we are now decades older and are inferior to the young athletes who now rule. One could argue that the same sort of thing is happening to the groups in question: they once ruled America but are now losing to superior groups because they are inferior. But this explanation would clearly be unacceptable to the conservatives who claim that white, straight, male, Christians are the real victims.

One reason for this is the conservative notion of merit and their claims about pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. If these groups are “losing” because they are inferior, then this would be acceptable under a professed principle of merit in conservative ideology. But conservatives do not say that it is morally fine that white, straight, Christian men are losing because they are inferior to their competition.

A second reason conservatives will not accept the inferiority explanation is that it would not be good propaganda or rhetoric. Telling these groups that they are losing because they are inferior will hardly yield the desired results. As such, an explanation is still wanting.

But conservatives do tend to present the “opponents” of these groups as being strong in some manner. This allows the “defeat” to be blamed on the strength of the opposing groups rather than on the weakness of the “real victims.” An obvious problem is that if these opposing groups are presented as strong, this entails their white, straight, male, Christian “victims” are weaker and thus, by conservative ideology, inferior. This creates a challenge for conservatives: the “real victims” must be victims, but they must also be mighty. That is, they must be mighty victims. The reasons given that the groups are mighty(yet victims) vary considerably and fall along a vast spectrum.

In the case of being white, the notion of whites being mighty can range from pride in being white to white supremacy. Moderate examples of this would be people to argue for the superiority of Western (white) culture and point to the accomplishments of white people. Approaching the extreme end would be assertions of fundamental white supremacy and the inferiority of all others. Nazis would be in this area. I must, of course, state the obvious to pre-empt a likely attack: being fine with being white is fine. I’m fine with looking white; but I do not think I am thus superior to others.

In the case of being male, the notion that men are superior to women can range from pride in being a male to complete misogyny. Moderate examples would be those who argue that men and women have different qualities, but men are generally better. Near the extreme end would be full misogyny, the idea that men are vastly superior to women and women are horrible and out to destroy men. One can be fine with being a man; that can be healthy. I am fine with being a man; but I do not think this makes me superior.

In the case of being straight, the notion that being straight is superior to having another sexuality can range from the idea that being straight is more natural to the notion that non-straight people are abominations that should be destroyed. Moderate examples would be those who say that being straight is generally better than not being straight and non-straight people probably have some minor mental illness. The extreme end would involve regarding those other than straight people as perverted abominations that should be cured, locked away or even killed. One can be fine with being straight. I am. But I do not think that other orientations must be perverted or inferior. I do, of course, recognize that there can be evil connected to one’s sexuality. After all, pedophiles and rapists are morally wicked.

In the case of Christianity, the idea that it is better than other religions can range from the notion that it is somewhat better to the view that other faiths are not only inferior but wicked. Moderate examples would be people who think their faith is better because of Christ, but who think that other monotheistic faiths are close to being right (if only they would accept Jesus). Extreme examples would include fanatical loathing and hatred of other faiths, regarding those people as not only wrong but monstrous in their beliefs. This is not to deny that some people are monstrous in their beliefs. Christians should obviously be fine with being Christian—I am fine with my Episcopalian background. But I do not think I am thus superior to others. Once it has been “argued” that these groups are superior, then an explanation must be given as to why they are the “real victims.”

As noted above, the opposing groups that make whites, men, straight people, and Christians into the “real victims” must be strong enough to “win” yet also somehow inferior. These requires that the opposing groups have the traits needed to “win” while also having traits that make them inferior. The “real victim” groups must have the traits needed to “lose” while also having the traits that make them superior. This seems to create the paradox of the mighty victims: the inferior victimizers must win consistently to explain why these superior groups are the “real victims”, but the “victory” must also be unearned.

One way to try to do this is by a sports analogy in which the allegedly best athletes are consistently bested by allegedly inferior athletes. Inferior athletes could win by cheating or through some conspiracy, thus the inferiors consistently and unfairly best their betters. This would, of course, require that the best athletes can never overcome cheating or do anything to prevent it. That is, they are powerless to be anything but mighty victims. But this would seem to require that although they are the best athletes, they are lacking in other ways that allow them to be so easily bested. For this analogy to work with the groups in question, it would need to be shown that these groups are cheating in some manner that cannot be addressed by the alleged superiority of the “real victims.” It is not clear how this would work: that the “real victims” would be superior yet still unable to overcome the cheating of their alleged inferiors.

A second way is to use the ally hypothesis. The allegedly inferior victimizing groups are aided and abetted by traitors in the victimized groups. On this narrative, the traitors can best their betrayed fellows because they are also among the superior groups and aid the allegedly inferior groups to best their own kind. For example, one might allege that there are white traitors helping to victimize their fellow whites. Ironically, this would require that the traitors be superior to the loyalists, otherwise the group loyalists should be able to “win.” So, if whites being the real victims is explained in terms of white traitors, the problem is that this would seem to entail that the “best” whites are the traitors since they are “beating” the “lesser” whites. So, the ally hypothesis falls apart under examination.

A third way is to use the numbers hypothesis; the allegedly inferior victimizing groups have superior numbers, so the mighty victims are “losing.” While it is true that numbers can offset ability, the “real victim” groups are generally not outnumbered. Men and women are roughly equal in numbers, straight people vastly outnumber other orientations, Christians dominate American religion, and white people still have a numerical advantage in America, though we might now be a majority minority (that is, not 50+% of the population but still more than any other group). As such, the numbers argument fails. But there is an explanation that does reconcile the fact that these groups are both “superior” and victims.

It is true that white people, men, straight people, and Christians are victims. But it is also true that people from these groups hold the overwhelming power in the United States. Thus, these groups both hold superior power and contain victims. The victims are, ironically, most often victims of their fellows who hold superior power. So how do the powerful few convince the many in these groups that they are the “real victims” of the out groups?

A main strategy seems to involve pointing to losses in relative advantages between groups and convincing people that these losses are both unfair and caused by the other group. For example, men have lost some of their relative advantages over women in both the law and social norms and nothing stings like losing an undeserved advantage. It seems natural to blame women for this, since they have gained from these changes.  As another example, whites have lost some relative advantages over the years. To use an extreme example, it is no longer legal to own a black person. It is natural to blame people who are not white for the changes. Straight people have also seen same-sex marriage legalized, which some people somehow see as a loss. It is natural to blame people with other orientations for this.  Christianity has had to share more space with other religions and this loss of advantage no doubt strikes some as being victimized. It is natural to blame people of other faiths for this, since they have gained something.

Another strategy involves getting people in these mighty victim groups to believe (or at least feel) that most of their woes are the fault of the other groups, even when there is no connection. For example, the poverty and underemployment that white, straight, Christian men face is blamed on minorities although the economic decisions in the United States are mostly made by a few white, straight, Christian men. Men who are concerned that men die disproportionately in dangerous jobs might blame the feminists but it is obviously not the feminist who exclude women from dangerous jobs, and it is certainly not the feminists who control working conditions or when we take military action. There are also cases in which the harms are entirely fictional, for example Fox’s eternal make-believe war on Christmas.

We thus have a working explanation of mighty victims. A tiny fraction of the members of the group are mighty in that they hold overwhelming power. The other members of these groups are victims, but they are mostly victimized by members of their own groups. Which makes sense: the idea that those with less power are somehow victimizing the powerful is as absurd as the idea that the poor are victimizing the rich.

When Democrats in congress propose benefits for Americans, such as a universal pre-K program, childcare benefits for working families, expansions of the child tax credit and the earned income credit, free college and so on many on the right (such as Fox News) engage in D&D. Not the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons, but the Deficit argument and the Dependency argument.

The deficit argument, which can also be categorized as the “it costs too much” argument, is that such programs will cost too much money, thus increasing the deficit. Since increasing the deficit is claimed to be harmful, then these programs should not be implemented. Cost-benefit arguments are certainly sensible if they are made in good faith. While some on the right do make this argument in good faith, many do not.

While the philosophical problem of other minds shows that I cannot know the content of another’s mind (or even if they have one), a good general test for bad faith is the consistency test. If a person is making a good faith argument based on their professed concern about something, then they will have similar concerns in other similar situations. Naturally, there can be relevant differences that warrant not applying the same principle in other circumstances. In the case of the deficit argument, the test for bad faith is to see if those making the argument are consistently concerned about cost and the deficit. If so, then this can be reasonably taken as a good faith argument: they believe what they are arguing. If their concern is not consistent, then it is reasonable to suspect bad faith although people can be inconsistent for other reasons, such as being unaware of the inconsistency. Looking back on the previous Trump presidency (and other Republican administrations) and looking at the Big Beautiful Bill we can see that the right generally does not care about costs or deficits when it comes to spending money on or increasing the deficit for things they like, such as military expenditures, corporate subsidies, and tax cuts. As such, it is reasonable to conclude that they do not believe in their deficit argument and do not care about costs or deficits as such. This is not to say that their argument must thus be flawed or their claims untrue.

Bad faith argumentation is like (and can include) lying: it is a matter of intent and belief. To infer that someone’s argument must be fallacious or their claim’s false because they are arguing in bad faith would be to fall victim to the ad hominem fallacy. Just as person could be telling a “true lie” by making a true claim they believe is false to deceive, a person could make a good bad faith argument: the argument could have good logic and plausible premises, but the person making it does not believe in their own argument. So why not just assess the logic of the argument and truth of the claims?

While logical assessment should be done, determining whether an argument is made in bad faith is still important as a normative rather than logical matter. When someone makes a bad faith argument (or claim), they do not believe in their own argument (or claim). As such, other people are not under any moral obligation to take their bad faith argument or claim seriously. To use the example of lying, if I know someone is lying to me, my moral concern is not with whether their claim is true or not (that is a matter for critical thinking) but with their intention to deceive or manipulate me. As such, while I should not reject their claim out of hand (it could be a true lie) I should certainly not be influenced by their lie as they have forfeited the expectation that I will give them serious consideration.

As noted above, the right generally does not care about deficits and debt as such. To be fair, there are some who are consistent on this point and they have thus earned the normative right to be given due consideration. But those who have proven that they do not care about the deficit as such are just advancing a bad faith argument, they are engaging in deceit rather than good argumentation.

In closing, I want to stress that it does not follow that a bad faith argument must be a fallacy or that a bad faith claim must be false. Just as people can tell true lies, they can also advance good arguments in bad faith. As such, the argument that any proposal to help Americans who are not rich will cost too much should be given due consideration on its own merits and, of course, this should also apply when the right is running up the deficit with tax cuts, corporate subsidies, and military spending.

In addition to the deficit argument, many on the right also advance the Dependency argument. This will be considered in the next essay.

In my last essay I noted that those who have power in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. Given this fact, it might seem odd that some argue that these groups are the real victims in the United States.

Contrary to the evidence, it is now often claimed that white people are the real victims of racism. It is true that white Americans have lost certain advantages arising from being perceived as white. In 1865 slavery was abolished and in 1870 voting rights were no longer restricted by race. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also resulted in a relative loss of white advantage. As would be imagined, only racists point to these as examples of whites being the real victims of racism. But some whites believe they are now the real victims of racism.

When pressed for contemporary evidence of how whites are the real victims of racism, people typically point to things like affirmative action, Black Lives Matter, criticism of systematic racism, and the fact that Kamala Harris was the Democrat’s presidential candidate. I do not think that most of my fellow white folk are lying when they claim they believe they are the real victims of racism. But I think they are in error. The obvious reason is the overwhelming evidence of systematic racism in the United States is for racism whose targets are not white. I do get why white people can honestly believe they are the real victims. There are ongoing efforts to convince white people that criticism of systematic racism and efforts to offset the negative impact of centuries of racism are racist. There is also the “clever” tactic of accusing people of being racist when they acknowledge the role of the racist’s conception of race as a factor in addressing racism. To pre-empt a likely fallacious appeal to anecdotal evidence, I know individual white people can be victims of racial discrimination. In addition to condemning that as morally wrong I will also note that my concern here is at the group level rather than focusing on anecdotes. It is consistent with white folks like me generally having an advantage because we are perceived as white that some specific white people face real racial discrimination.  And discrimination of this sort is wrong.

Contrary to the evidence, it is also now claimed that men are the real victims of sexism. It is true that men have lost many advantages relative to women. In 1920 women got the right to vote in the United States. There have also been laws passed to protect women at work and at home. Divorce has changed over the years and men (have mostly) lost the “right” to rape their wives. As would be expected, few would point to these as examples of how men are the real victims of sexism. When pressed, common examples involve references to the Me Too movement, certain feminists bashing men, strong female characters in media, changing gender roles, the rights of fathers relative to those of mothers, the charge of toxic masculinity, and Kamala Harris.

It must be acknowledged that there are some real issues with sexism against men; a good example being concerns about fathers’ rights. Men can be victims because of their sex: men suffer the heaviest casualties in combat and far more men than women are killed or injured in workplace accidents. At this point, you might be thinking that I have refuted my own view because I just argued men can be more likely to be harmed because they are men.

I must acknowledge that men are victims of sexism, but they are not generally the victims of the sexism of women. that is, it is not women who are the main cause of the suffering and death of men because they are men. It is the sexism of other men. Men are more likely to die and be injured in certain jobs because there are more men working those traditional male jobs. As an example, more men die in commercial fishing accidents than women because more men work in that field. More men die in battle because other men tend to send them to die in battle.

Rather than engage in a debate over who is being harmed the most by sexism, I agree that men and women are brutalized by sexism and that these problems need to be addressed. As such, men and women are both the real victims here. But what about straight people? Are we the victims of oppression?

Contrary to evidence, it is often claimed that we straight people are the real victims of discrimination. It is true that same-sex couples gained the legal right to marry in 2015 and there are some protections in place against discrimination based on sexual orientation. There is still open opposition to these legal rights and protections and opposition is often cast in terms of how gay rights somehow hurt straight people. For example, one stock argument against same sex marriage was that allowing it would be harmful to different sex marriages; something that absolutely did not happen.

But there are cases in which people are discriminated against because they are straight, which raises real moral concerns about hiring ethics. I do acknowledge the obvious: individual straight people can suffer from discrimination. But this is consistent with the social and legal advantages that arise from being straight in the states. As such, while a straight person can be a victim of discrimination, we straight people as a class enjoy significant advantages. But what about we Christians? Are we being oppressed in America?

While Americans generally recognize that discrimination exists against religious minorities, about 50% of Americans believe that evangelical Christians face discrimination. While the United States freedom of religion and often practices the separation of church and state, Christianity is the dominant religion. As such, some effort is required to claim religious discrimination against Christians in general.

As evidence of discrimination against Christians, people often cite Fox News unrelenting absurd war on Christmas propaganda.  It is absurd that people even need to try to refute what is obviously untrue. After all, Christmas  effectively rules the United States from late October until early January. Most of the other “evidence” of discrimination involves cases in which the separation of church and state is enforced, cases in which religious employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees or customers, and similar cases in which Christians are not allowed an exception to the law. While these do show that the dominance of Christianity in government, society and business has declined, this is not evidence of discrimination.

As in the other cases, individual Christians can face religious discrimination. However, this is consistent with Christianity being the dominant religion in the United States. The same survey in which 50% of those surveyed claimed that evangelicals faced discrimination only 15% claimed that being an evangelical hurt a person’s chances of getting ahead, while 63% agreed that being a Muslim hurt a person’s chances of getting ahead (31% said it hurt chances a lot). I do agree that religious discrimination is real and oppose it but it is wrong to claim that as a group Christians are the victims here.

In closing, while a person from any group can be a victim, the groups discussed generally enjoy advantages and are not the “real” victims. But it is not a contest to be the real victim: we should be morally concerned with human suffering regardless of which group a person belongs to. But we should not be disingenuous when discussing which groups have advantages. You might be wondering why this series is entitled “Mighty Victims.” This will be answered in the next essay.

The people who have power in the United States tend to be white, male, straight, and (profess to be) Christian. This can be confirmed by a cursory look at who holds top positions in government, business, and academics. Membership in these groups confers advantages that increase the odds of having power. Before getting on with the discussion, I need to pre-empty some likely straw person attacks on my view.

First, even belonging to all four groups is no guarantee a person will have power. After all, there are straight, white men who have faith in Jesus yet are struggling with poverty and are powerless. Second, people do have power despite not being members of these groups. For example, I am aware that Oprah and Beyonce exist.  My claim is moderate: membership in one or more of these groups confers relative advantages while being outside of one or more of these groups can confer relative disadvantages. This can be illustrated with an analogy from gaming.

Imagine a basic game rule: to succeed at something (such as getting a job or hitting a monster with a sword), you need to roll a set number or higher on a die. This represents the role of chance in real life. In most games, you can get pluses and minuses to your roll, based on various factors. For example, if your character is related to the king, you might get a plus when rolling to talk the city guard out of arresting you for the bar fight. If your character belongs to an unpopular band of rebels, you might suffer a minus when rolling to convince the city guard to not attack you when they catch you speaking out against the king.

Looking at real life like a game, membership in one or more of these groups would confer a plus on some rolls and not being in these groups might confer a negative on some rolls. To address some more likely strawman attacks, I am not claiming that being in one of these groups always gives an advantage in every possible situation. Nor am I claiming that being outside of these groups always confers a disadvantage in every possible situation. My claim is that a person gains more advantages from being a member of these groups relative to other groups and this is consistent with cases where membership in one of these groups might not yield an advantage or even be a disadvantage. For example, a white male would be at a disadvantage when trying to secure a literary prize for minority female authors. But that same white male would often enjoy many advantages relative to minority women, such as how seriously their views are taken at work.  Pointing out a few examples in which white, straight, Christian men do not have an advantage (or might be at a disadvantage) does not refute the general claim that membership in these groups confers general advantages in the United States.

It is important to note that I am taking these advantages and disadvantages to be, as I have said, like pluses and minuses on random rolls rather than factors that always decide the outcome of events. As a made-up example, imagine that getting a good job requires rolling a 15+ using a 20-sided die. Imagine that for various reasons, such as bias, race and sex are factors that impact your chance of being hired. Put in made-up game terms, imagine that because of bias, being a man would give you a +1 on the roll and being white would also give +1 on the roll to get hired. A white man would make the roll with a +2, a black man would make it with a +1, a white woman would roll with +1, and a brown woman would make the roll at +0. Any one of them could succeed (0r fail) on the roll. But imagine hundreds, thousands or millions of people trying to get good jobs: even small relative advantages will have a significant impact on the overall results. If the relative advantages are larger, the impact will be even more significant and will result in a noticeable difference when large numbers of people are involved. This is what the United States looks like. As such, it makes sense to believe that membership in certain groups confers meaningful advantages in life. Again, these advantages do not guarantee success, nor do they utterly exclude others from succeeding they just rig the rolls, to go with the gaming analogy.

Interestingly, there are those who claim that the members of the above groups (straight, white, male, Christian) are the real victims today not the groups who are underrepresented in having power. I will turn to this subject in the next essay in this series.

As the death toll from COVID-19 rose, people on social media started asking if anyone personally knew someone who had gotten COVID or died from it. I first thought they were curious or concerned but then I noticed a correlation: people who asked this question tended to be COVID doubters. For them, the question was not a sincere inquiry but a rhetorical tactic and an attempt to lure people into fallacious reasoning. In this essay I will look at this sort of question as a rhetorical tool.

This question can be raised about things other than COVID, so the generic question is “do you personally know anyone who X?” Used as rhetoric, the purpose is to garner either a “no” responses or no response at all. If this succeeds, it can create the impression that X is rare or does not occur. It can also create the impression that X is not serious. In the case of COVID, one goal was to create the impression that COVID is rare. Another goal was to create the impression that it is not that bad. Future pandemics will see the tactic used again.

Rhetoric is logically neutral in that it neither counts for nor against the truth of a claim. Its purpose is to influence feelings, and this is often aimed at making it easier to get people to accept or reject a claim. To use an analogy, rhetoric is like the flavoring or presentation of food: it makes it more (or less) appealing but has no effect on nutritional value. As flavoring and presentation is compatible with serving nutritional food, rhetoric is compatible with serving plausible claims and good arguments. Rhetoric can be used to influence an audience to accept a true claim. For example, a person who wants to protect sharks might address worries about shark attacks by asking the audience if anyone has been attacked by a shark. They are hoping that no one will say “yes” and plan on using that to make the audience receptive to their boring statistics showing that shark attacks are incredibly rare. 

There is an obvious risk in using this rhetorical device: it can backfire if someone says “yes”, especially if they tell a vivid story. Psychologically, people are influenced more by anecdotes (especially vivid ones) than by dull statistics. This underlies the fallacies of anecdotal evidence (rejecting statistical data in favor of a story) and misleading vividness (estimating likelihood based on how vivid an event is rather than based on how often it occurs). In the case of the shark example, if someone stands up and says a shark bit their arm off, then this will probably outweigh the statistical data about shark attacks in the minds of the audience. As such, this method can be risky to use.

If this tactic backfires and you are making a true claim, you can try to get the audience to accept the statistical data while honestly acknowledging that rare events can occur. If this tactic backfires and you are trying to deceive the audience, then there are various rhetorical tactics and fallacies that can be used. One tactic is to launch an ad hominem attack on the person who says “yes” and the usual approach is to accuse them of lying. If the attack is successful, this can make the rhetoric even more effective as those who fall for it will tend to reject anyone else who says “yes.” This is, of course, unethical.

It must also be noted that this sort of rhetoric can also be aimed at getting a “yes” response, though this is less common than the one aimed at getting “no.” The same general principles apply to this version.

If you want to be a critical thinker, you should recognize the rhetorical device that proves nothing. It must also be noted that its use disproves nothing because it would be an error to reject a person’s claim because they use this (or any) rhetoric. While rhetoric is neutral, fallacies are always bad, and this sort of question can be seen as being fallacy bait. That is, it is aimed at getting people to use or fall for fallacious reasoning.

One possibility is that the question is aimed at getting the audience to engage in the fallacy of anecdotal evidence. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. It has the following forms:

 

Form One

Premise 1: Anecdote A is told about a member (or small number of members) of Population P.

Conclusion: Claim C is inferred about Population P based on Anecdote A.

 

Form Two

Premise 1: Reasonable statistical evidence S exists for general claim C.

Premise 2: Anecdote A is presented that is an exception to or goes against general claim C.

Conclusion: General claim C is rejected.

 

It can also be used to lure people into accepting or making the hasty generalization fallacy. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. It has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.

Conclusion: Claim C is drawn about Population P based on S.

 

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

 

Premise 1: X% of all observed A’s are B’s.

Conclusion: Therefore X% of all A’s are B’s.

 

The fallacy is committed when not enough A’s are observed to warrant the conclusion. If enough A’s are observed, then the reasoning would not commit the hasty generalization fallacy. As you might have noticed, anecdotal evidence and hasty generalization are similar: both involve drawing a general conclusion based on a sample that is too small.

The “do you personally know anyone who X?” question can be used to lure people into making or accepting these fallacies in the following ways. If a few people respond “no”, then these can be taken as anecdotes that “prove” that X does not happen often (or is not serious). These “no” responses could also be taken as “disproving” a claim that is based on good statistical evidence. They could also be used as the basis of hasty generalization. For example,  to infer that because a few people said “no” to a question on Twitter, then the same holds true for the general population. A lack of responses could also be used as “evidence” in a hasty generalization. For example, someone might reason like this: no one responded “yes” to a question on Facebook, so the answer must be “no” for the general population.

While I have been focused on people raising the question in contexts in which they can get an answer, the tactic can be used in one-way communication as well (such as a YouTube video or televised speech). A person can ask this sort of question in the hope that their target audience will be influenced. For example, a politician might ask “do you personally know anyone who has died of COVID?” in the hopes of getting the audience to believe that the COVID death toll presented by credible media sources is exaggerated.

It must be noted that the same fallacies can be committed with “yes” answers. To illustrate, if a few people respond with “yes” to a Twitter question, it would also be an error to generalize to the entire population. It must also be noted that if the question is being asked in a properly conducted survey that has a large and unbiased sample, then this would probably not be intended to lure people into a fallacy. The conclusion of such a strong generalization would be reasonable to believe. Of course, the conclusion might be that many people believe something that is untrue, but it would be reasonable to believe that many people (mistakenly) believe that untrue claim.

The tactic of using this rhetorical question to bait people into fallacies is most effective when the X is something that is statistically uncommon so there is a good chance that an individual would not personally know someone who X. If X is common or the truth about X is well accepted, then this tactic will usually fail. For example, asking “do you personally know anyone who has heart disease?” would not be an effective way to get people to engage in fallacious reasoning about heart disease. This is because many people know people who have heart disease, and it is well known that it is common. As such, this tactic usually requires an X that is not too common, and which is not well known. But it is possible to undermine belief and make this tactic work.

This tactic can be effective in situations in which an occurrence is significant or serious, yet it is uncommon enough that many people will not personally know someone who has been affected. Take, for example, COVID-19. Back during the early days of the pandemic, I had 826 friends on Facebook. At that time, I personally knew two people who had been infected and did not (yet) personally know anyone who had died. As such, it would have seemed almost reasonable to infer that COVID-19 was not a big deal. However, I also do not know anyone personally who was killed on 9/11. Although I personally know several people who are active duty or veterans, I do not know anyone personally who was killed in action. I could go through lists of causes of death or serious injuries/illness and note that I do not personally know anyone who died or was other harmed. But it should be obvious that it would be an error to infer that such things do not happen or that they are not serious. In the case of COVID, it is not surprising that I did not personally know someone who died in the early days of the pandemic. Given the scope of who I personally know, it was statistically unlikely that a person who died of COVID would be within that small group. But it does not follow that the death toll from COVID presented by reputable media sources was untrue nor does it follow that COVID was not serious. After all, few would question that 9/11 occurred or was not serious because they did not personally know someone who died that day.

In closing, my main point is to be on guard against being misled by questions like “do you personally know anyone who died of COVID?” While they might be asked sincerely, they can be a rhetorical tactic aimed at baiting you into a fallacy. As the next pandemic is fast approaching, we can expect to see this tactic deployed again.

The question of whether some philosophical ideas are too harmful to even be proposed was raised in a philosophy teaching group on Facebook. The essay that follows is a quick ramble rather than a complete theory of harmful ideas.

When addressing this question, a good starting place is determining who would be harmed and the nature of the harm. From the perspective of those who perceive themselves as harmed, the answer is likely to be “yes.” But this leads to the matter of whether a perceived harm warrants not proposing an idea.

An easy and obvious way to approach this moral issue is utilitarianism: if proposing a philosophical idea would generate more harm (negative value) than benefit (positive value) for the morally relevant beings, then it would be too harmful to propose. Ideas would need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis using a plausible account of value, a plausible system of weighing these values, and a plausible account of who is morally relevant. As would be expected, people can come up with different assessments in good faith. The obvious counters to this utilitarian approach would be arguments in favor of other moral systems, such as a deontological theory of ethics.

 The discussion of harmful ideas would also require setting some guidelines about the sort of ideas and harms that should be given serious consideration. For example, it is easy to make up a horror story of a philosophical idea such that understanding the idea would lead to madness, catatonia or even death. Fortunately, these fictional cases are easy to address: these ideas would  be too harmful to propose. The moral justification would be analogous to arguments one might use to show that handing out poisoned food to people would be wrong. While such ideas might be possible, this seems to be a purely theoretical concern: fun for horror stories but as worrisome as the possibility of being mauled by werewolves. That said,  there is the science-fiction case of Roko’s basilisk that some might use as an example of an idea too harmful to propose. But there seems to be no evidence for any meaningful harm caused by this idea. As such, it is best to focus on ideas that could cause actual harm.

Real philosophical ideas do cause harm. Obvious examples range from ideas that create mild discomfort in students to philosophical ideas that have been used to justify brutally oppressive governments. These ideas are already out in the wild but can be used as the starting point for discussions about general categories of new ideas. We should, of course, not make public an example of an idea we suspect might be too harmful to propose.

One general category of ideas would be those that would cause psychological distress in people, perhaps because these ideas are about those people. To use a real example, a philosophical idea that gender is set by Platonic universals and is thus an objective feature of reality could cause some dismay and distress, especially people for those whom a choice of gender is important. To use another real example, the philosophical ideas used to argue for atheism (such as the problem of evil) can be distressing to people of faith. These sorts of situations fall under existing concerns about ideas that cause similar distress, especially in the classroom. That is, these new ideas could be assessed in the context of how we already handle existing ideas.

Another general category of ideas is those that could cause social, economic, or political harm if proposed and acted upon. As a real example, the philosophical underpinnings of fascism and racism (such as they are) have a role in the harms done by these views. As another real example, those who possess great wealth and power would contend they could be harmed by the philosophical ideas underlying socialism, social justice, anarchism, and other views inimical to concentrated wealth and power.

These ideas should be assessed in a way like how one should assess new technology: what harm could it generate directly and what are likely scenarios in which it can be misused? While people often overestimate and underestimate harms and benefits, engaging in an assessment is still preferable to letting it loose in the wild and hoping for the best. We would also need to keep in mind the obvious: what is harmful to some can be beneficial to others. To illustrate with a sci-fi example, if a philosopher has an idea that would effectively undermine capitalism and create a Star Trek style world, then this would be perceived as extremely harmful to the ruling classes yet would be objectively beneficial to humanity. The rulers would, one assumes, would see this idea as too harmful to propose.

In closing, there can be ideas too harmful to propose but we lack a well-developed account of such ideas. At least for now.

Back when Black Lives Mattered, there was talk about defunding the police. While nothing significant seems to have come of this, it did create controversy at the time.  Some took issue with the choice of the word “defund” since  it allowed the right to easily create a straw person to attack. A straw person is a fallacy in which a distorted or exaggerated version is put in place of the actual claim, argument, or position. The straw version is attacked, thus “refuting” the real version. The most common straw person was that “defunding the police” meant the complete abolition of law enforcement. This was not true. While there was disagreement, the general view is that the police should have their funding reduced to fund chronically underfunded community services, such as mental health care. Some people did (and do) think that the current system of policing should be abolished in favor of a better system.

The straw person often guided the right into a slippery slope fallacy. This is a fallacy in which it is claimed that something (usually terrible) will inevitably follow from something else. The fallacy occurs when the connection between the two is not adequately supported. Slippery slope fallacies often involve hyperbole in the form of an extravagant exaggeration of the alleged consequences. In the case of defunding the police, the straw person slippery slope used by some on the right is that defunding the police would lead to utter chaos.

This also involved the use of scare tactics, a fallacy in which the “support” offered for the claim is something intended to frighten the target. As would also be expected, there are often racist dog-whistles (or open racism) employed to craft these nightmare scenarios.

It can be argued that that there are radical anarchists who want to get rid of the state and there are people who want a world free of police so they can commit violence, assault and theft. But taking these people to define what it means to defund the police is like using the Westboro Baptist Church to define all Christians. Using the most extreme members of the group to define the entire group, be they on the left or the right, is the fallacy of nut picking.  While there are many excellent moral arguments for defunding the police, I will focus on a very practical moral argument involving effective use of community resources. As “defunding the police” seems forever tainted, I prefer the phrase “rethinking the police.”

For a variety of reasons, the United States saw a marked militarization of the police. Police training has also shifted, with a very lucrative industry arising that trains police to be warriors. This would make sense if there had been a significant rise in violent crime and criminals were regularly using military weapons. However, violent crime has been consistently decreasing over time. While criminals do use assault rifles and some have used body armor, most crimes are not committed with guns and the most common guns used in crimes are handguns. While there is value in having superior firepower, the militarization of the police vastly exceeds the threat to a degree that is almost ludicrous. Also, SWAT teams exist for a reason, which is to handle the rare cases in which they are needed. But it doesn’t make sense to have most police armed to SWAT levels.

One problem with the combination of militarization and warrior training is a bias towards the use of force. One aspect of rethinking the police involves demilitarizing to make them less threatening to the public and, some hope, reducing the bias towards violence. There is also an image problem: militarized police marching the streets of America, violently attacking protestors makes us look like a repressive authoritarian state. To be fair, and balanced, this might soon be an accurate image.  Another problem with a militarized warrior police is that they are equipped and trained for violence but dealing with violent crime is a small fraction of their job.

While cities vary in the time officers spend on activities, addressing violent crime takes up about 4% of a typical shift. Over 30% of an officer’s time is spent responding to non-criminal calls. The rest of the time is spent on traffic, other crimes, property crimes and proactive activity. Between 6 and 9% are medical calls. Even it is incorrectly assumed that violent crimes always call for a militarized warrior response, that means that only 4% of police activity is responsible for the cost of militarizing the police and maintaining a warrior force. As numerous incidents involving people with mental health issues, autism, and other medical issues have shown, warrior police are  poorly equipped and trained to address these situations, even if they have the best intentions.

From a utilitarian standpoint, the right thing to do is to use the community resources to produce the best results. From a practical standpoint, the right thing to do is to use  community resources in a way that matches the needs of the community and to use the most effective methods, equipment, and training to meet these needs. Since violent crime makes up such a tiny fraction of police work, it makes moral and practical sense to shift funding and change the way policing works in the United States to make it both more ethical and more rational in terms of resource use.

While this might seem like a crazy notion or a utopian dream, some American communities have implemented these changes. An excellent example is the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon.  The gist of this program is that medics and mental health counselors are sent to respond to appropriate 911 calls. Because the United States has an ever-growing problem with homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness there is a corresponding need for professional response. Starting with Reagan, the United States decided to dump many social and health issues onto the police, and this has worked out as expected. Programs like CAHOOTS aim at reversing this. This program has proven successful and other cities are adopting similar programs. Rethinking the police has been going on for 30 years in Oregon and was spreading. This was a good thing.

While having medical professionals respond to relevant calls would be a major improvement, this does not address the underlying problems. In many ways, it is rather like policing: controlling the symptoms of social ills while leaving the causes in place. Ethically and effectively rethinking the police would require using resources to fix the social ills that require policing in all its forms. It would also, obviously, require meaningful political and economic changes to address poverty, homelessness, and such ills as the opioid epidemic inflicted by the pharmaceutical companies.  Rethinking the police in an ethical and rational manner would make for a better America for most people and is the right thing to do.