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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_Singh

Science fiction is replete with tales of genetic augmentation making people more human than human. One classic example is Khan, who is introduced in Star Trek’s “Space Seed” episode. In the Star Trek timeline, scientists used genetic engineering and selective breeding to create augmented humans in the hope of creating a better world. Instead, it led to the eugenics wars between normal humans and the augmented. While ordinary humanity won, there are other stories in which humanity is replaced by its creations. While these are fictional tales, genetic modification is real and human augmentation seems inevitable.

In  science-fiction genetic engineering is used to create super humans but there is the question of what the technology could do within the limits of biology. To avoid contaminating the discussion with hyperbole and impossible scenarios, we need to consider likely rather than fantastical scenarios. That said, genetic augmentation could provide meaningful advantages that are not the stuff of comic books. For example, immunity to some diseases would be very advantageous and even modest improvements in mental and physical abilities would be useful. These modest improvements still raise moral concerns.

As would be expected, people do advance the “playing God” and “unnatural” arguments against augmentation. However, given that modern medicine is also “playing God” and “unnatural”, these objections have little merit.  A better approach is to consider what we should be doing, without the dramatic rhetoric of “playing God” or it being “unnatural.”

Since early augmentations will probably be modest, they are of the most immediate moral concern. One major concern is with the fairness of such augmentation. The rich will be able to afford to augment their children, thus giving them even more advantages over other people and this is a frequent subject of science fiction. While this does raise some new concerns because of the augmentation aspect, the core moral problems are ancient as they are all about determining how opportunities should be distributed in society and determining moral rules for competition within a society.

As it stands, American society allows the wealthy to enjoy a multitude of advantages over the lower classes and the Trump administration is unleashing a chaotic storm aimed at increasing this disparity. However, there are moral limits to what people will tolerate and a good example of this was the college admissions scandal. While it is socially acceptable for the wealthy to make donations and use legacy admissions to get their kids into college, outright bribes were condemned. Genetic augmentation should be looked at as just one more factor in the competition between the economic classes and the same basic ethical concerns apply, albeit with the addition of the ethics of genetic modification.

From the standpoint of what we collectively accept, the question is whether augmentation is more like the accepted advantages of the rich, such as buying tutoring and better education for their children or more like the advantages that are condemned, such as outright bribery.

On the face of it, genetic augmentation is like methods already used to improve the children of the upper classes. They get better medical care, better nutrition, better housing, better education, better tutoring, better counseling and so on. In a real sense, they are already augmented relative to the lower classes. While these advantages are not earned by the children, they do improve their abilities and enable them to have a better chance to succeed because of their enhanced abilities. Genetic augmentation is the same: while they do not earn their augmentation, it would make them objectively better than they would be otherwise, and it would provide another edge over the lower economic classes. The augmented people would, in most cases, get the best opportunities. As such, if the current system is morally acceptable, then genetic augmentation would be acceptable as well.

As would be expected, those who see the current system as immoral because of its unfairness would also think that genetic augmentation would be unfair. One approach to addressing the unfairness of augmentation would be banning the technology, which was the solution in the Star Trek universe. A moral concern with this approach is that it would deny humanity a chance to improve and could be seen as like banning parents from hiring tutors for their kids. Another approach would be to require that all children have the opportunity for enhancement. This would be analogous to ensuring that public resources are distributed equitably for K-12 education, so that everyone is better off.

If one takes the professed American values of fair competition and equality of opportunity seriously (which we obviously should not), then such augments should be treated like public education and available to all citizens. If one seeks to perpetuate the advantages of the upper classes, then one would insist that such augmentations should be available to those who can pay. That is, the upper classes.

The above discussion does, I hasten to note, set aside concerns specific to augmentation itself as my focus has been on the moral question of fairness and distribution of opportunities.

As noted in previous essays, competition over opportunities is usually unavoidable and can be desirable. However, this competition can do more harm than good. One example of this is opportunity hoarding.  Opportunity hoarding occurs when parents try to seek advantages for their children in ways that are harmful to others. As would be suspected, opportunity hoarding typically occurs when parents use morally questionable methods to secure advantages for their children at the expense of other children. An excellent example of this is the 2019 college admissions scandal and I will use this to set the stage for the discussion.

As many writing about the scandal pointed out, the rich have many legal means of tipping the admission scales in favor of their children. These include methods that have nothing to do with the merit of the applicant, such as the use of legacy admissions and making financial contributions to the institutions. Other methods aim at improving the quality of the applicant (or at least the application). These methods include paid test preparation courses, paid counselors, paid tutors, and paid essay coaches. Because the rich have so many advantages already, the admission scandal seemed especially egregious and even perplexing. After all, given the vast advantages the wealthy already enjoy, why would they risk any consequences by using illegal or socially unacceptable methods?   From a philosophical perspective, the scandal raises an interesting general moral question about what methods are acceptable in the competition for opportunities.

Some might consider a Hobbesian state of nature approach to this competition, a war of all against all with no limits, as a good idea. But this would violate the moral intuitions of most people. After all, while we might disagree on specific limits, we almost certainly agree that there are limits. To illustrate, murdering, blinding or maiming children is obviously unacceptable even to give one’s own children an advantage. But once the blatantly horrific is out of the way, there remains a large area of dispute.

One approach is to use the law to define limits. On this view, parents may use any legal means to restrict opportunities in favor of their children. While this might have some appeal, it suffers from an obvious defect: the law is whatever those in power make it, so the evil and unfair are often legal. The usual extreme, but legitimate, example is the legality of slavery. As such, while it is often right to obey the law, it does not follow that what is legal is ethical.  So, if a parent justifies their actions by pointing to their legality, they merely prove they acted legally and have not shown they have acted rightly. So, something is needed beyond legality to determine what the limits of the competition should be.

Since this is a question of ethics on a national scale, an appeal to utilitarianism seems sensible: the limits should be set in terms of what will be most likely to create the greatest benefit and least harm. This leads to the usual problem of sorting out what it means to create the greatest positive value and least negative value. It also requires sorting out the measure of worth.  For example, certain limits on competition might make the children of the wealthy even wealthier while the less wealthy become worse off. But this could create more total wealth than a more equitable system in which even the poor were well off. If what matters, as it does to some, is the overall wealth then these would be the right limits. However, if maximizing value is more about the impact on each person, then the more equitable division would be the moral choice.  It would create more positive value for more people but would fail to create the most total positive value.

Since a utilitarian approach recognizes only the utilitarian calculation of value, some might find this approach problematic. Instead, they might favor a rights-based approach, or one based on a principle of fair competition. To illustrate, Americans profess to value competition, merit and fairness: the best competitors are supposed to win in a fair competition. This, obviously enough, just returns to the problem of fairness: what means are fair to use in the competition for opportunity?

One possible approach is to use a principle of relevance: a fair competition is one in which victory depends on the skills and abilities that are relevant to the nature of the competition. For example, if the competition is based on academic ability, then that should be the deciding factor and donating money should not influence the outcome. This will, of course, lead to a debate about what should be considered relevant. For example, if it is argued that donating money is not relevant to determining college admissions because it is not relevant to academic ability, one might then argue that race or sex are also not relevant and should not be used. So, if relevance is used, it must be properly and consistently defined and applied.

While relevance, in general, is a reasonable consideration, there are also concerns about the preparation for the competitions. To illustrate, the children of the wealthy get a competitive edge in college admissions because their parents can get them into good K-12 schools, pay for tutoring, pay for test preparation, pay for counseling, pay for help on essays and so on. That is, they can buy many advantages that are relevant to the competition for college admissions and careers. On the one hand, these seem to be unfair advantages because they are not available to the children of the poor simply because they are poor. On the other hand, they are relevant to the competition because they do improve the skills and abilities of the children. One possible solution, for those who value fair competition, would be balancing things out by providing the same support to all children, thus making the competition fair. But those who push for “merit” based competition usually want to ensure that the competition is as unfair as possible in their favor. This leads into the question of how far the quest for fairness should go.

At this point, some might be wondering if I will advocate forcing parents to be no better at preparing their children than the worst parents, to even things out. After all, a parent who can spend time engaging in activities with their kids, such as reading to them and helping with homework, confers an advantage to their children. Since making parents do a worse job would make things worse, this would be wrong to do. As such, I obviously support parents being good parents. I only bring this up, because of the usual straw man attacks against advocating for fairness. However, many parents face the challenges of lacking time, resources and education to be better parents and these should be addressed. As such, I would advocate lifting parents up and reject any notion to bring them down.

The above is only a sketch and much more needs to be said about what the rules of competition for opportunity should be in our society. This is, obviously enough, a matter of values: are we just making empty noises when we speak of “fairness”, “opportunity for all” and “merit-based competition” while embracing the practice of unfairly buying success? Or do we really believe these things? The Trump administration and its ideological allies seem intent on ensuring that “merit” based competition is built on an unfair foundation. That is, the “merit” is based on the  advantages conferred by one’s economic class.

Competition, by its very nature, yields winners and losers and the outcome can be positive, neutral or negative. For example, a parent who leaks information about rival children to college admissions officers might get a positive outcome (her child is admitted) and the other children might get a negative outcome (they are not admitted). While assessing from the perspective of an individual or group is a way to approach assessing the consequences of competition, it is also worth assessing competitions in terms of their consequences for everyone. This is important when competition is within a society. The competition for educational opportunities in the United States is an excellent example of this.

A positive competition yields positive value for all involved. In an ideal positive competition, everyone in the competition is better off than they would be without the competition. This would include being better off than if the distribution of benefits was done equally without competition.

Friendly sports and games provide a paradigm example of positive competition. For example, while only one person wins a game of Risk, all the players can have fun and gain from the competition. As another example, a 5K race will have winners and non-winners, but everyone can have an enjoyable run. As a final example, some claim that an Adam Smith style economy can be a positive competition: while some businesses will succeed and others fail, we will all be winners because of better goods and services at lower costs.

A neutral competition has winners who gain from the competition and non-winners who gain nothing but suffer no harm from losing. While not everyone is better off from the competition, no one is worse off for competing. One example would be a random drawing for prizes. While some will win and others will not, not winning just means not getting a prize. It does not result in harm.

A negative competition has winners who gain from the competition and losers who suffer harm from their loss. In extreme cases, there might only be degrees of harm and winning only means suffering less harm. For example, a liability lawsuit can be a negative competition in which the winner gains and the loser suffers a detrimental effect, such as being forced to pay a settlement.

In many cases a society can control whether competition will be positive, neutral or negative. It should never be forgotten that the nature of such competitions is a matter of choice based on values For example, a society can decide to make competition for educational resources a positive competition: everyone gains, some are better off, but no one is harmed. A society could also make it a negative competition: the winners do very well while the losers end up at a great disadvantage and suffer harm. This segues into opportunity hoarding.

While a society will always have a finite number of opportunities for children and there will be competition for them, the nature of these competitions can be shaped by the collective choices of that society. This includes deciding whether each competition will be positive, neutral or negative. In general, making competitions positive will cost more resources, while neutral and negative competitions will cost less. To illustrate, making the competition for educational opportunities positive would cost more resources than leaving it negative, since the “losers” would still get the resources needed for a good education. As a specific example, the current model for K-12 public education is a negative competition: parents who can afford to live in wealthy neighborhoods give their children the advantage of better schools, while the children of the less wealthy often end up in poorly funded schools that hurt their opportunities. The poor are usually trapped in poverty and suffer the harm that entails. Shifting this to a positive competition in which every child gets at least an adequate education would require expending more resources on the poorer schools, thus incurring greater cost. This would also mean that the better off would have less advantage over the poor in terms of education. The upper classes would still retain the advantage of better schools, but the gap would be smaller and thus the competition they face later life could increase as they will be up against better educated poor people. This is one obvious reason for opportunity hoarding: the less able the competition, the easier victory is. The current education is designed in this manner, to provide the upper classes with an advantage and to burden the lower classes with disadvantages. This all but guarantees that the upper classes will win in a competitive “merit” based system

This example could, of course, be challenged. One could argue that the education system in the United States is already a positive competition: even the poorest Americans are supposed to get free K-12 education and even the worst public education is better than nothing. While this does have some appeal, the same sort of reasoning would seem to lead to obviously absurd consequences. For example, imagine the “competition” between a person intent on committing date rape and their intended victim. It could be argued that the competition is positive: the victim could get a free dinner and drinks, although they are raped. While they did get some “benefit”, the harm is greater, and they would have been better off without that “competition.” I do not deny there can be grounds for dispute over whether to cast a competition as positive or negative, such debates are likely.

As such, if someone wants to characterize the current education system as a positive competition, they can try to make that case. As noted above, the students in the worst school in America do get more than nothing. In this case, one would need to recast the discussion in terms of degrees of positiveness in the competition, how the winners and losers fare relative to each other.

While each competition for opportunity would need to be assessed morally, I would suggest a general guiding principle. When our society is shaping the competition between our children for opportunities, the morally right thing to do is to make them at least neutral and there should be every reasonable effort to make them positive. After all, members of a society should strive to avoid harming each other and this is especially true when it comes to the children. We are, one would hope, friends and not enemies. But many politicians seem intent on ensuring that we see each other as enemies and our real enemies as our friends.

Opportunity hoarding, a concept developed by Richard Reeves,  occurs when parents give their children advantages in ways harmful to other children. In the previous essay I examined income mobility in the context of opportunity hoarding and I now turn to the ethics of competition.

Before getting into this, I will try to pre-empt likely strawman attacks. I will not argue that parents should be forbidden from doing the best they can for their children. As a specific example, I will not be arguing for things like a ban on parents helping their children with homework. I will also not argue that the state should use its compulsive power to force, Harrison Bergeron style,  the equality of children. Nor will I argue for the elimination of competition. Now, on to the discussion, one that will afford plenty of opportunity for criticism.

Opportunity hoarding raises two important moral concerns. The first is the moral issue of what opportunities should be competitive. The second is the issue of what means are morally acceptable in competitions. This essay focuses on the first issue.

While some might argue there should be no competition for opportunities, this position suffers from two obvious defects. The first, and most obvious, is that opportunity is always limited. As such, if there are more people than opportunities, there must be competition of some kind. These limits need not arise from any evil intent. For example, many runners will want to be trained by a legendary running coach, but she cannot coach everyone. As another example, many people might wish to take a writing class with a legendary professor, but they can only grade so many papers. While there obviously are other coaches and other professors, there will always be those who prefer one over the others—even if they are equally good. There is, of course, the legitimate moral concern that opportunities are limited for unethical reasons. I am not suggesting that all limits on opportunity are warranted just because there will always be some unavoidable limits. To illustrate, it is morally fine for a coach to limit the number of people she coaches because she can only do a good job with a limited number of athletes. It would not be morally fine for a coach to refuse runners because they were, for example, Christian or Moslem.

The second defect is that competition for limited opportunities is morally right. The easy and obvious argument is that if opportunities are limited (and the limit is ethical), then they should be distributed on a competitive basis. As is often argued, opportunity should be earned. The obvious analogy is to sports: the awards in a 5K should be earned by those who run the fastest. To hand out the awards randomly or based on some standard other than performance would be unfair and wrong.

Even if the notion of competition for opportunity is accepted, there arises the moral and practical problem of deciding how the competition will be resolved. In some cases, this will be obvious. For example, it makes sense that the best athletes be the ones who are on an Olympics team. In other cases, deciding who wins is more complicated, such as determining who should be admitted to a university. As would be expected, volumes can be written about the ethics of resolving competitions.

While there is debate about resolving competitions ethically, there is the question of what opportunities should be competitive. While there are always finite opportunities, there is also always a finite number of people seeking opportunities. In many cases we can decide how many people can have these opportunities by deciding how we allocate resources. For example, Americans could decide that we want all our public schools to be well-funded so all children can attend a good school. This would not eliminate competition for schools. Even if all schools were well funded and supported, there would still be better schools. But people would not need to compete to buy houses in wealthy neighborhoods to get their children into good schools, they could live anywhere and still get into a good school. This would come at a cost as the well-off parents would need to contribute to the general education of children rather than just supporting only their children’s schools. But if we value equality of opportunity for all children, then this would be a price worth paying.

This essay cannot, obviously, provide details about each opportunity. A reasonable starting point for broad moral choices is, of course, the utilitarian approach: looking at the cost and benefits for all, what would generate the most good and the least evil? This series continues in the next essay.

Way back during the college admissions scandal of 2019 the media briefly focused on how the wealthy can secure admission to the best schools. The discussion included talking about opportunity hoarding, a concept developed by Richard Reeves in his Dream Hoarders. Opportunity hoarding occurs when parents seek advantages for their children in ways harmful to others. One example is parents disparaging the children of other people who are competing with their own for school admission. The practice of opportunity hoarding raises moral issues I will address in a short series of essays. I will begin by discussing economic mobility.

Americans want to believe in economic mobility, that by hard work, people will be better off than their parents. While people just talk about economic mobility, it is important to distinguish between two types: relative mobility and absolute mobility. In both, mobility is moving up or down relative to one’s parents. Relative mobility is measured by comparing the economic ranking of current adults relative to their parents’ ranking. This can be illustrated by an analogy to racing 5Ks. When comparing two 5Ks, your relative performance is a measure of your place in the second race relative to how you placed in the first race. If you placed better in the second race than in the first one, then your relative performance was upward. If you placed worse, then your relative performance would be downward. In this analogy, the race is a generation: the first race would correspond to the economic ranking of the parents and the second would be analogous to the current adult’s ranking.

Absolute mobility is a measure of whether the current adults have a higher adjusted (for inflation, etc.) income at the same age as their parents. Going back to the running analogy, your absolute performance would be a measure of whether you were faster in the second race relative to the first race. As before, the first race is analogous to the parents’ income and the second is analogous to the current adults’ income. While both measure improvement (or decline) there are important differences.

A critical difference is that relative mobility is a zero-sum game: if someone moves up, someone else must move down. To illustrate, the top 1% can only be 1% of the population. If Sally moves into the 1%, then she pushes someone else down. The analogy to the race illustrates this as well: if you move into first place, then you push someone else into second place. In contrast, absolute mobility need not be zero-sum: you having more income does not entail that other people get less. Going back to the running analogy, if you get faster between races, it does not make anyone else slower, and everyone could get faster. Because of this, a country could have little or no relative mobility, but great absolute mobility.  Using the running analogy, the same people could place in the top 10 in race after race while everyone is also getting faster. Because of this, distinguishing between the two types of mobility is critical, especially when it comes to opportunity hoarding.

If relative mobility is low, then children usually stay in the same economic class as their parents. For example, if Sally is born to parents in the top 20%, then she will probably stay there. If relatively mobility is high, then people are likely to move up (or down) relative to their parents. While it is tempting to think that low relative mobility would always be bad, this is where absolute mobility is important. If relative mobility is low but absolute mobility is high and widely distributed, then most people will be better off than their parents, though they will still be in the same relative place. Going back to the running analogy, everybody is running faster, but people keep getting the same places in the races. One could imagine a desirable society that has very low relative mobility but exceptional absolute mobility. Imagine, if you will, a nation in which Bartholomew Billionaire’s family has always been in the top 1% and owns dozens of houses, several yachts, three private jets and 100 luxury cars. Living in the same country is Paula Poor whose family has always been in the lowest 1% of income earners. But her family now owns a modest house, her children are attending state college, and she and her husband can easily afford health insurance, good food and the occasional vacation.

 This seems to be better than a society with high relative mobility but poor absolute mobility. People readily moving up (and down) from generation to generation might seem good, but if income does not improve (or worsens) from generation to generation, then moving around more freely would be worse than being “stuck” in a good situation. Going back to the running analogy, this would be like races in which people did not get better (or got worse), but different people made it into the top 10 each race.

A society in which both types of mobility are low would be bad: those stuck in the lower income classes would not move up relatively or absolutely. While those in the upper classes would be secure, their lot would also not improve much relative to their parents. This would be a rather stagnant society. But what about real countries, such as the United States?

Currently, the United States has low relative mobility: contrary to American mythology, people usually  stay within the class they were born into. Absolute mobility used to be good, but income has stagnated and now the United States has lower absolute mobility. As such, many Americans are worse off than their parents and are also stuck in their economic class. In this situation, we are experiencing downward mobility.

Those in the upper classes (the top 20%) are aware of what downward mobility entails and they try to prevent this by giving their children advantages over other children. While doing the best one can for their children is usually the right thing to do, it can become morally problematic when this harms the opportunities of others, perhaps by locking them out of moving upward. Richard Reeves and Kimberly Howard have discussed the phenomena of the glass floor—a metaphor for the various factors that keep the children of the well off from sinking into the lower classes. This floor is a ceiling for others. Even if there is no malicious intent, to the degree that it keeps the children of the upper classes from descending it also keeps the children of the lower classes from ascending. This is for the obvious reason that relative mobility, like the places in a race, is zero-sum. My victory is your loss, and your victory is my loss. But it should not be simply assumed that this is immoral, hence the need for additional essays on this subject.

Because of income inequality and a lack of compassionate leaders, America has a serious homeless problem. One growing segment consists of people who live in their cars and many of them  are homeless despite being employed. They are usually not homeless not by choice, but because they cannot afford housing near their work.

Such people lack political power and are often the subject of negative stereotypes, it is not surprising that municipalities have tried to “solve” the problem by laws that crack down on living in cars. As would be expected, these laws have not been effective. Churches, charity groups and some communities have attempted to address the problem in a more positive way by establishing safe parking areas for the homeless. In some cases, there is access to showers and bathrooms. This situation raises moral concerns about what, if anything, should be done to help the homeless. This is, obviously enough, part of the broader moral question of what we owe other people.

One approach, as noted above, is to try to solve the problem by banning people from sleeping in their vehicles in public areas. This gives people the choice between trouble with the law or leaving. If these laws are widespread, then leaving becomes a problem, as there will be fewer places to go. Also, those with employment are tied to their jobs and moving would only make things worse. If they stay, they can end up losing their car to fines and impoundment, which will leave them without shelter and transportation. This solution is also cruel as it punishes people for being poor and unable to find affordable housing. It could be objected that these people could easily drive somewhere, find a new job and get affordable housing. However, if it were so easy for them to do this, then they would have done so already.

Another approach, as mentioned above, is for charity, churches and communities to create safe parking for the homeless. While this is preferable to using the police against the poor and the powerless, it does have some problems. One concern is the cost of the lots and resources used to pay for them could pay for housing. Another concern is that the lots used by the homeless are not usable by others, reducing available parking. But this could be addressed by improving public transportation, which we should be doing anyway.

 Perhaps the greatest concern is that while the homeless need not fear the police and have some safety, they are still living in their cars in a parking lot, which is stressful, unpleasant and difficult. The fact that they do not have a permanent residence also creates other problems, such as where the children can attend school. As such, while such safe lots are a step up from parking illegally or “in the wild”, they are hardly ideal and do not address the underlying problems.

Obviously enough, the main reason that the working homeless live in their cars is that they cannot afford housing. This can be explained in terms of either their pay being too low or the cost of housing being too high. As such, the underlying problem is financial, and this suggests two obvious solutions.

The first is to increase wages so that the working homeless can afford at least basic, safe housing. The obvious problem is determining how this should be done. While some employers do provide sufficient wages, it would be foolish to think that most will willingly pay a living wage. Another option is to use the coercive power of the state, not against the homeless, but to compel employers to pay more. This raises the usual objections about the state interfering with the “free” market.

The second solution is to provide more affordable housing. As with better pay, this could be done by the private sector (landlords voluntarily making less money) or by the state (compelling more affordable housing). As always, this raises the usual objections about the state interfering with the “free” market.

As noted above, one could argue that the working homeless should find better jobs or move someplace with lower housing costs. While this has some appeal, the working homeless driving away would be a problem for the welathy: if the people who clean their houses, make them lattes, teach their kids, put out their fires, police their streets, and work in their startups are forced to move too far away, then the rich will be left without these services. Perhaps this is why Silicon Valley is working so hard on robots. As such, even the rich have a reason to support better pay, affordable housing, or better public transportation (until the robots arrive). However, expecting rational self-interest or moral concerns about the well-being of others to solve the problem within the private sector is irrational. Also, solving social problems is not really the job of the private sector. Dealing with social issues is one reason we have governments. So, if the problem is to be addressed effectively, then the power of the state would be needed.

As noted above, using the coercive power of the state against the homeless is not an effective solution and is not ethical. As such, the state should use our resources to address wages or housing costs. As noted above, many would object to the state interfering in the market (except, obviously, when the state’s interference is to their advantage) by compelling change in wages or the cost of housing. However, the Lockean view of the state is that it exists for the good of the people and using it to slightly reduce the wealth of the wealthy so the less well-off do not have to live in their cars is morally justified. At least for those who subscribe to the Lockean view of the state. But not everyone subscribes to this view of the purpose of the state and even Lockeans might see this as unjustified.

Another option that does not involve increasing wages or increasing affordable housing is for the state (and perhaps some in the private sector) to invest in affordable, reliable and fast public transportation that would allow workers to live where housing is affordable and commute into the upper-class zones for work. This approach would have the negative effect of enhancing the growing division between the classes in America: the rich will dwell within their enclaves, while those who teach their children, make their lattes, clean their houses, fight their fires, and police their streets will be transported in to do their work, then shipped out when they are done. But at least they won’t be living in their cars. Life in America is a choice between dystopias, at least under the current system.

 

In the previous essay in this series, I presented the argument by elimination and ended with a promise to address how to assess the competition between explanations. The overall method of elimination in this context can be presented in the following form:

 

Premise 1: There are X (some number) explanations for Y (some phenomenon).

Premise 2: E (an explanation) is the best of the X explanations.

Conclusion: E is (probably) correct.

 

Sorting out the second premise involves “scoring” each explanation and then comparing these scores to see which one does the best. As noted in the previous essay, to the degree that there are reasonable doubts that all plausible explanations have been considered, there are reasonable doubts that the correct explanation has been found. But the focus of this essay is on the competition.

While the scoring metaphor is useful, scoring explanations is not exact and admits of some subjectivity. As such, reasonable people can reasonably disagree about the relative ranking of explanations. That said, there are objective standards used in assessing explanations.

Conspiracy theorists often use this method and argue their theory best explains the facts. However, problems often arise when all the standards for assessing explanations are applied.

There are obvious defects that any explanation needs to avoid to be a good explanation. At a minimum, an explanation needs to avoid being too vague (lacking adequate precision), ambiguous (having two or more meanings when it is not clear what is intended), and circularity (merely restating what is to be explained). These are minimal standards because an explanation that cannot meet them is not worth considering. For example, if an explanation is too vague, one does not even know what it is saying. There are other standards as well.

One standard is that an explanation needs to be consistent with established fact and theory. As would be imagined, conspiracy theories will almost by definition fail to meet this standard. For example, the conspiracy theory that NASA faked the moon landing goes against established fact. As another example, the view that the earth is flat goes against established fact and theory.

When faced with this standard, conspiracy theorists will often point out that some now established facts and theories were once inconsistent with the facts and theories of an earlier time. On the one hand, they are right to point out that old facts and theories have been overturned and thus this standard is not decisive. On the other hand, the fact that it has occurred in other cases does not prove that a specific conspiracy theory is thus proven. To use an analogy, while it is true that some criminal convictions have been overturned, this does not entail that a specific person is thus innocent. Overturning established fact and theory requires showing that they have defects serious enough to warrant their overthrow—merely pointing out that it has happened does not show that it will happen in any particular case. When explanations compete, the explanation that better matches established fact and theory is better—unless compelling reasons can be given to overturn them.

A second standard is that an explanation needs to keep it simple. This involves avoiding unnecessary assumptions and needless complexities. The famous Occam’s Razor falls under this standard, with the enjoinder to not multiply entities beyond necessity. For example, explaining the phenomenon of night terrors in physiological terms as opposed to invoking demons or witches is simpler and hence better. As another example, those who favor evolution over creation contend that the theory of evolution explains everything that the creation explanation explains but has the advantage of not postulating God. As a third example, faking the moon landing in the 1960s would have required far more advanced technology than was available at the time as well as a global conspiracy between competing nations. The simpler explanation is that the landings took place. As the examples illustrate, explanations compete in terms of simplicity: all other things being equal, the simpler explanation is better.

Explanations can become more complicated as they deal with problems or objections. This need not be a fatal problem if the increased complication is warranted. In other cases, the increased complexity is ad hoc and serves primarily to try to save the explanation from criticism in an unprincipled way. This typically involves presenting more explanations to account for the problems that arise for the original explanation. For example, when experiments  show that the earth is not flat, flat-earthers try to explain these failures by using some new factor(s) such as a previously unknown type of energy that affects gyroscopes. When challenged, they can say that this is an accepted method in science: almost all explanations are modified as complications arise. The challenge, then, is sorting out what is a legitimate modification in the face of a complication and what is an ad hoc attempt to save the explanation by bringing in new entities or complexities. This leads to what might be the most important standard, that of testability.

If an explanation gets it right, then it should yield predictions that turn out to be true. These predictions need to be testable, otherwise there is no way to know whether the explanation is correct. As such, if an explanation produces predictions that cannot be tested, then that is a problem for establishing its correctness: it might be correct, but we cannot know. If an explanation yields predictions that are tested and turn out to be false, then that is a problem for the theory—but this need not be fatal. As noted above, an explanation can be modified in the face of failure to account for that failure. This should yield a new prediction that can be tested. If the prediction turns out to be true, that is a plus for the explanation. As would be suspected, explanations compete in terms of explanatory power: all other things being equal, the explanation that yields better predictions is better. If the new prediction turns out to be false, then the explanation can be modified again to yield another prediction for testing. For example, if a new type of energy is postulated to explain how gyroscopes work, then predictions need to be made and tested for this energy. If it is claimed that the prediction is that gyroscopes would work the way they do and thus the energy has been shown to be real, then this would seem to be reasoning in a circle. As would be suspected, this is where conspiracy theories often hit the rocks: they advance explanations that yield false predictions and then modify the explanations, which then yield false predictions. They then modify then explanations, which yield more false predictions and so on. The problem does not lie with the basic method: as noted above, modifying explanations in a principled way in the face of findings is a legitimate method. The problem is that the proponent of the explanation simply refuses to accept testability—nothing can refute their explanation because they will simply modify it to respond to every failure. 

It might be objected that such persistence is a good thing—that if the great thinkers of the past gave up at the first failure of their predictions, we would not be where we are today. While there is much to be said of persistence, there is a point at which the proponent is simply refusing to accept testability—nothing can ever refute their explanation. But this makes the theory meaningless as it becomes useless as an explanation. To use a silly analogy, consider the invisible unicorn.

When I was in grade school, a kid told us they had a unicorn. Being kids, we doubted this but really wanted to see it. The unicorn kid claimed that we could not see it because it was invisible. A smart kid pointed out that we should be able to hear it. But unicorn kid said their unicorn was silent. Then someone said that we should be able to touch it or see its prints on the ground. To which unicorn kid said it was too quick and was flying. And so on, for every test that would prove (or disprove) the unicorn. While we might not be able to draw an exact line at which an explanation starts becoming an invisible unicorn, once it reaches that zone the game is over.  As would be guessed, conspiracy theories often end up in the land of invisible unicorns.

Photo by ubahnverleih

As discussed in the previous essays on this subject, conspiracy theorists often use the methods of critical thinking to support and defend their theories. One method, which is a core component of scientific reasoning, is the inference to the best explanation. As the name suggests, this reasoning aims at finding the best explanation and this typically involves pitting competing explanations against each other until the best emerges.

This reasoning can be seen as a version of the argument by elimination. This argument has two basic forms. One version is the extermination method in which the goal is to show that something cannot be the case. The idea is to present all possible options, refute all of them and then conclude a total elimination. As an example, Kant used this method to argue that the existence of God cannot be proven (and that it could not be disproven). His reasoning was as follows:

 

Premise 1: There are only three possible ways to prove the existence of God: the teleological argument, the ontological argument and the cosmological argument.

Premise 2: None of these arguments can succeed in proving the existence of God.

Conclusion: There is no way to prove the existence of God.

 

While this is a valid deductive argument (if all the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true), showing that it is also sound (valid plus all true premises) is the real challenge. Doing so requires showing that there are only three ways to prove God’s existence and that they all must fail.

Since this method aims at total elimination, it is only useful in this context when trying to argue that no explanation is possible.

The second version is like a marathon: the competition runs until one victor emerges from the pack. In its simplest form (which has but two options), it can be presented as a disjunctive syllogism:

 

Premise 1:  P or Q

Premise 2: Not Q

Conclusion: P

 

It can also be expanded to include potentially infinite options:

 

Premise 1: P or Q or R or …

Premise 2: Not Q and Not R and Not…

Conclusion: P

 

This sort of reasoning is often used in mystery/crime stories: if there are only five possible suspects and one of them did it, then elimination four of them will reveal the culprit.  This presentation can be misleading, however. While the logic is valid, to avoid committing the fallacy of false dilemma it must be the case that the two (or more) options that are presented are the only viable options. To the degree that other options remain a possibility, the truth of the first premises remains in doubt.

Conspiracy theorists (and many others) sometimes make the mistake of falling into a false dilemma when they claim that their refutation of their main competitor(s) proves their theory. For example, a flat-earther might reason like this:

 

Premise 1: The earth is flat or the earth is a sphere.

Premise 2: The earth is not a sphere.

Conclusion: The earth is flat.

 

The obvious problem is that while the best-known earth shapes are spherical and flat, this does not entail that those are the only options. There are, after all, many other shapes in geometry and the flat option only wins by elimination when all those shapes have also been eliminated.

It is at this point that a skeptic can argue that one can never be sure that all the options have been considered, so one can never know that the right explanation has been found. After all, the skeptic can say, the right explanation might not even be in the competition. This fact is sometimes used by conspiracy theorists to cast doubts on an accepted explanation. This explanation might be the best among the known explanations but is not the true explanation. Unfortunately for the conspiracy theorist, this same doubt also applies to their conspiracy theory, so they need more than skepticism to support their own explanation.

While the skeptic might be right about the impossibility of certainty, it is still possible to hold the competition between the known explanations while keeping in mind that alternatives have been missed. But the mere fact that there could be missed alternatives does not itself show that a good explanation has not been found. To use an analogy, think of a career. While there might be a better match for a person out there, this does not entail that their current career is not a good one (or even the best). After all, the career can be assessed by various standards and against the known alternatives. The same holds for explanations. So, while the possibility of unknown explanations should be kept in mind, their mere possibility should not be taken as refuting an explanation.

 The second challenge is that of establishing the second premise—eliminating the competition.

To the degree that the elimination of the other explanations is in doubt, the truth of the second premise remains in doubt. This leads to the matter of how explanations compete, which is the subject of the next essay in this series.

 

As noted in the previous essays in the series, people who believe in conspiracy theories can use good methods of argumentation to establish their claims. As such, it would be an error to simply dismiss such folks as automatically being irrational or illogical. In this essay I will briefly look at how the argument by example can be used to support a conspiracy theory and how to assess such reasoning to avoid accepting fallacies.

An argument by example is, obviously enough, when one tries to support a conclusion by presenting examples. It has the following form, although people generally present it informally:

 

           Premise 1: Example 1 is an example that supports claim P.

           Premise n: Example n is an example that supports claim P.

           Conclusion: Claim P is true.

 

In this case n is a variable standing for the number of the premise in question and P is a variable standing for the claim under consideration. To use a non-conspiracy example, a politician might argue that they are competent in foreign policy by giving examples of their success in this area.

There are many ways this argument can be used in conspiracy theories. One is to argue for the existence of conspiracies in general by providing examples that purport to show that conspiracies do occur. For example, a Flat Earther might try to prove that it is reasonable to believe that supposedly proven science can be a hoax or conspiracy by giving examples of such occurrences (such as the Piltdown Man hoax).

While this approach is a legitimate use of the argument, to conclude from establishing the general claim that there have been conspiracies to a specific conspiracy theory being true is bad logic. To use an analogy, consider counterfeit art. It is easy to find many examples of counterfeit art, and this supports the conclusion that art has been counterfeited. But it would not follow that a specific work of art, such as the Mona Lisa, was a counterfeit.

 The second method is to argue for a specific conspiracy theory by presenting examples that support the theory. For example, someone who believes the Illuminati run the world could present examples of what they think is the Illuminati in action and conclude their theory is correct. The question is whether the examples adequately support the conclusion, and this concern leads to the standards used to assess this argument.

First, the more examples, the stronger the argument. Second, the more relevant the examples, the stronger the argument. Using the Illuminati example as an illustration, the question would be whether the examples provide evidence of the Illuminati. As should be suspected, this is where the main dispute would occur. The person arguing that the Illuminati is real would be seen by their critics as seeing things that are not there, while the proponent of the theory would think their critics blind.

Third, the examples must be specific and clearly identified. Vague and unidentified examples provide little. Conspiracy theories are often supported by vague and unidentified examples, but sometimes they are precise and clearly identified. For example, the Illuminati theorist might point to a detailed and documented account of UN activities they see as example of the Illuminati influence.

 Fourth, counterexamples must be considered. A counterexample is an example that counts against the claim. One way to look at a counter example is that it is an example that supports the denial of the conclusion being argued for. The more counterexamples and the more relevant they are, the weaker the argument. In the case of the Illuminati example, counterexamples could be cases that would tell against Illuminati control. One common failing of conspiracy theories is that counterexamples are ignored or downplayed. As would be imagined, this can lead to a battle over whether the supposed counterexample is really a counterexample. For example, if someone claims the world is ruled by a super-competent Illuminati, counterexamples would include all the things that arise from poor decision making and ignorance. But, of course, a clever theorist can try to explain away these supposed counterexamples. For example, chaos, wars and economic disasters are not evidence against a global Illuminati, but proof it exists because they are brilliantly causing people to make bad decisions that cause wars and economic disasters.

As such, conspiracy theorists who use the argument by example are not being irrational or illogical. They are using a basic inductive tool. The problem is with how they assess their examples and their failure to give due weight to counterexamples. That said, the battles over the relevance of examples, whether a counterexample is really a counterexample, and the weight given to examples is one that can become very complicated. As such, theorists who are willing to apply the standards and consider criticism should not be simply dismissed. As with the other types of reasoning, conspiracy theorists are using good tools badly

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

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

 

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

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

           Premise 3: X has property Z.

           Conclusion: Y has property Z.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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