Category: Critical Thinking

For my personal ethics, as opposed to the ethics I use for large scale moral judgments, I rely heavily on virtue theory. As would be expected, I have been influenced by thinkers such as Aristotle, Confucius and Wollstonecraft.

Being moral, in this context, is a matter of developing and acting on virtues. These virtues are defined in terms of human excellence and virtues might very well differ among species. For example, if true artificial intelligence is developed, it might have its own virtues that differ from those of humans. Like Aristotle, I see ethics as analogous to the sciences of health and medicine: while they are objective, they depend heavily on contextual factors. For example, cancer and cancer treatment are not subjective matters, but the nature of cancer and its most effective treatment can vary between individuals. Likewise, the virtue of courage is not a matter of mere subjective opinion, but each person’s courage varies and what counts as courageous depends on circumstances.

When I teach about virtue theory in my Ethics class, I use an analogy to Goldilocks and the three bears. As per the story, she rejects the porridge that is too hot and that which is too cold in favor of the one which is just right. Oversimplifying things, virtue theory enjoins us to reject the extremes (excess and deficiency) in favor of the mean. While excess and deficiency are bad by definition, the challenge is working out what is just right. Fortunately, this is something we can do, albeit with an often annoying margin of error. This is best done by being as specific as possible. To set a general context, I will focus on the moral (rather than legal) justification for violence in self-defense based on a person being afraid for their life. This takes us to the virtue of courage, which is how we deal with fear. Or fail to do so.

For most virtue theorists, including myself, acting virtuously (or failing to do so) involves two general aspects. The first is understanding and the second is emotional regulation. Depending on what you think of emotions, this could be broadened to include psychological regulation. As you might have guessed, this seems to involve accepting a distinction between thought and feeling. If one is Platonically inclined, one could also have a three-part division of reason, spirit and desire. But, to keep things simple, I will stick with understanding and emotional regulation.

Understanding is having correct judgment about the facts. While this can be debated and requires a full theory of its own, this can be seen as getting things right. In the context of self-defense based on being afraid for one’s life, proper understanding means that you have made an accurate threat assessment in terms of how afraid you should be.  Being able to make good judgements about threats is essential to acting in a virtuous manner: you need to know what would be just right as a response. Being good at this requires critical thinking skills as well as expertise in violence as this allows you to judge how afraid you should be.

Emotional regulation is the ability to control your emotions rather than allowing them to rule you in inappropriate and harmful ways. This ties into understanding because it is what enables you to adjust your emotions based on the facts. As Aristotle argued, emotional regulation is developed by training until it becomes a habit. Obviously enough, there are two general ways you can be in error about being afraid for your life.

The first is an error of understanding; you misjudge the perceived threat and overestimate or underestimate how afraid you should be. Interestingly, you could have the right degree of courage based on a misjudgment of the threat and there are many ways such judgments can go wrong. As an example, when I “saw” the machete I had an initial surge of considerable fear that seemed proportional to the perceived threat. Fortunately, I had made a perceptual error and was able to correct my judgment and adjust my emotions accordingly. As someone who teaches critical thinking, I know that a degree of error is unavoidable, and this should be taking into consideration when making judgements. And judging people’s judgements.

The second error is a failure of regulation and occurs when your emotional response is excessive or deficient. This could also, in some cases, involve feeling the “wrong” emotion. As would be suspected, most people tend to err on the side of excess fear, being more afraid than they should be. Failures of regulation can lead to failures of judgement, especially in the case of fear and anger. As I experienced myself, fear can easily cause a person to honestly “see” a weapon clearly and distinctly. As I have noted before, the stick looked like a machete: I could see the sharp metal blade, although it really was just a stick. A frightened person can also see another person as a threat, even when this is not true. This can lead to terrible consequences. These errors can also be combined, with a person making an error in judgment and failing to regulate their emotions in accord with that erroneous judgment. Acting in a virtuous manner requires having good judgment and good regulation.

As Aristotle said, “To feel these feelings at the right time, on the right occasion, towards the right people, for the right purpose and in the right manner, is to feel the best amount of them, which is the mean amount – and the best amount is of course the mark of virtue.” Understanding is required to sort out the right time, occasion, people, purpose and manner. Emotional regulation is needed to handle the feeling aspect. In the context of violence and self-defense, developing the right understanding and right regulation requires training and experience in both good judgment and in violence. Going back to the machete that wasn’t incident, my being a philosopher with a “history of violence” prepared me well for acting rightly. And such ethical behavior depends on past training and habituation. This is why people should develop both good judgment and good regulation, in addition to making them more adept at self-defense it also makes them more adept at acting rightly when they are afraid for their lives.

This training and habituation are important for professions that deal in violence, such as soldiers and the police. It is especially important for the police, assuming their function is to protect and serve rather than intimidate and extort. Police, if they are acting virtuously, should strive to avoid harming citizens and should be trained so that they are not ruled by fear.

Anyone who goes armed, be they a citizen or a police officer, would be morally negligent if they failed to properly train their understanding and emotions. By making themselves a danger to others, they obligate themselves to have proper control over that danger and the moral price of being armed is a willingness to endure fear for the sake of others. Otherwise, one would be like a gun without a safety that could discharge at any moment, striking someone dead. If a person is incapable of such judgment and regulation, they should not be armed. If a person is too easily ruled by fear, they should not be in law enforcement. To be clear, I am speaking about morality—I leave the law to the lawyers.

The murder of nine people in the Emanuel AME Church in South Carolina in 2015 ignited an intense discussion of race and violence. While there was near-universal condemnation of the murders, some argue it was part of a broader problem of racism in America. This claim is supported by reference to the well-known history of systematic violence against blacks in America as well as consideration of contemporary data. Interestingly, some people respond to this approach by asserting that more blacks are killed by blacks than by whites. Some even seem obligated to claim that more whites are killed by blacks than blacks are killed by whites.

While these points are often “thrown out there” without being forged into a coherent argument, presumably the intent of such claims is to disprove or at least diminish the significance of claims about violence against blacks by whites. To be fair, there might be other reasons for bringing up such claims. Perhaps someone wants to broaden the discussion to all violence out of a genuine concern for the well-being of all people.

In cases in which the claims about the number of blacks killed by blacks are brought forth in response to incidents such as the church shooting, this tactic appears to be a specific form of a red herring. This occurs when an irrelevant topic is presented to divert attention from the original issue. The idea is to “win” an argument by leading attention to another topic.

This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

  1. Topic A is under discussion.
  2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when it is not).
  3. Topic A is abandoned.

 

In the case of the church shooting, the pattern would be as follows:

 

  1. The topic of racist violence against blacks is being discussed, specifically the church shooting.
  2. The topic of blacks killing other blacks is brought up.
  3. The topic of racist violence against blacks is abandoned in favor of focusing on blacks killing other blacks.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is flawed because changing the topic of discussion is not an argument against a claim. In the specific case at hand, switching the topic to black-on-black violence does nothing to address the topic of racist violence against blacks.

While the red herring label would certainly suffice for these cases, it is certainly appealing to craft a more specific version for cases in which something bad is “countered” by bringing up another bad. The obvious name for this fallacy is the “two bads fallacy.” This is a fallacy in which a second bad thing is presented in response to a bad thing with the intent of distracting attention from the first bad thing (or with the intent of diminishing the badness of the first bad thing).

This reasoning has the following pattern:

 

  1. Bad thing A is under discussion.
  2. Bad thing B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to A (when it is not).
  3. Bad thing A is ignored, or the badness of A is claimed to be diminished or refuted.

 

In the case of the church shooting, the pattern would be as follows:

 

  1. The murder of nine people in the AME church, which is bad, is being discussed.
  2. The claim that blacks killing other blacks, which is bad, is brought up.
  3. The badness of the murder of the nine people is ignored, or its badness is claimed to be diminished or refuted.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the fact that something else is bad does not entail that another bad thing has its badness lessened or refuted. After all, even if there are worse things than something, this does not entail that it is not bad. In cases in which there is not an emotional or ideological factor, the poorness of this reasoning is usually evident:

 

Sam: “I broke my arm, which is bad.”

Bill: “Well, some people have two broken arms and two broken legs.”

Joe: “Yeah, so much for your broken arm being bad. You are just fine. Get back to work.”

 

What seems to lend this sort of “reasoning” some legitimacy is that comparing two things that are bad is relevant to determining relative badness. If a person is arguing about how bad something is, it is certainly reasonable to consider it in the context of other bad things. For example, the following would not be fallacious reasoning:

 

Sam: “I broke my arm, which is bad.”

Bill: “Some people have two broken arms and two broken legs.”

Joe: “That is worse than one broken arm.”

Sam: “Indeed it is.”

Joe: “But having a broken arm must still suck.”

Sam: “Indeed it does.”

 

Because of this, it is important to distinguish between cases of the fallacy (X is bad, but Y is also bad, so X is not bad) and cases in which a legitimate comparison is being made (X is bad, but Y is worse, so X is less bad than Y, but still bad).

My critical thinking class covers credibility, experiments and studies. As critical thinking is often seen as dull, I use real-world examples that might be marginally interesting to students. One is John Bohannon’s detailed account of how he “fooled millions into thinking chocolate helps weight loss.”

Bohannon’s con provides an excellent cautionary tale for critical thinkers. First, he shows how easy it is to rig an experiment to get “significant” results. As I point out to my students, a small experiment or study can easily generate results that seem significant. This is why it is important to have an adequate sample size. What is also needed is proper control, proper selection of the groups, and so on.

Second, he provides a clear example of a blight on academic publishing, namely “pay to publish” journals that lack peer review. While bad science does slip through peer review, these journals seem to publish almost anything, provided payment is made. Since the journals have reputable sounding names and most people do not know which journals are credible, it is easy to create a journal publication that seems credible. This is why I cover the importance of checking sources in my class.

Third, he detailed how news outlets published or posted the story without even perfunctory efforts to check its credibility. I cover the media in my class both from the standpoint of being a good journalist and being a critical consumer of news. I stress the importance of confirming credibility before accepting claims, especially when doing so is (supposed to be) one’s job.

While Bohannon’s con is evidence of problems with corrupt journals, uncritical reporting and consumer credulity, it raises other points worth considering. One is that while he might have “fooled millions” of people, he seems to have fooled relative few journalists (13 out of about 5,000 reporters who subscribe to the Newswise feed Bohannon used) and these seem to be more of the likes of the Huffington Post and Cosmopolitan as opposed to what might be seen as more serious health news sources. While I do not know why the other reporters did not run the story, it is worth considering that some did look at it critically. In any case, the fact that a few reporters fell for a dubious story is hardly shocking. It is, in fact, just what would be expected given the history of journalism.

Another point of concern is the ethics of engaging in such a con. It can be argued that Bohannon acted ethically. One way to do this is to note that using deceit to expose a problem can be justified on utilitarian grounds. For example, it seems morally acceptable for a journalist or police officer to use deceit and go undercover to expose harmful criminal activity. As such, Bohannon could contend that his con was effectively an undercover operation. He and his fellows pretended to be the bad guys to expose a problem and thus his deceit was morally justified.

One obvious objection is that Bohannon’s deceit did not just expose corrupt journals and incautious reporters. It also misinformed people. To be fair, any harm would be minimal. At worst, people who believed the story would consume dark chocolate and this is not a health hazard. Interestingly, as I am writing this, the view is that dark chocolate is beneficial. However, intentionally spreading such misinformation is morally problematic, especially since story retractions or corrections get far less attention than the original story.

One way to counter this objection is to draw an analogy to the exposure of flaws by “white hat” hackers. These hackers reveal vulnerabilities in software with the professed intent of forcing companies to address them. Exposing vulnerabilities can do some harm by informing the bad guys, but the usual argument is that this is outweighed by the good done when the vulnerability is fixed. Assuming it gets fixed.

While this does have some appeal, there is the concern that the harm might not outweigh the good. In Bohannon’s case it could be argued that he did more harm than good. After all, it was well-established that the “pay to publish” journals are corrupt, that there are incautious journalists and credulous consumers. As such, Bohannon did not expose anything new and merely added more misinformation to the pile.

It could be countered that although these problems are well known, it does help to continue to bring them to the attention of the public. Going back to the analogy of software vulnerabilities, it could be argued that if a vulnerability is exposed, but nothing is done to patch it, then the problem should be brought up until it is fixed, “for it is the doom of men that they forget.” Bohannon brought these problems into the spotlight and this might do more good than harm. If so, then this con would be morally acceptable—at least on utilitarian grounds.

 

If you have made a mistake, do not be afraid of admitting the fact and amending your ways.

-Confucius

 

I never make the same mistake twice. This is because there are an infinite number of mistakes, and I keep making new ones. Fortunately, philosophy helps minimize the impact of mistakes by teaching a crucial aspect of wisdom: not committing the same error repeatedly.

One way to avoid repeating errors is skill in critical thinking. While critical thinking is now something of a buzzword bloated fad, the core remains as important as ever. The core is the methods of rationally deciding whether a claim should be accepted as true, rejected as false or if judgment about the claim should be suspended. Learning the basic mechanisms of critical thinking (which include argument assessment, fallacy recognition, credibility evaluation, and causal reasoning) is relatively easy. Reading through the readily available texts will provide the basic tools. But, as with carpentry or plumbing, merely having a well-stocked tool kit is not enough. A person must also have knowledge of when to use a tool and the skill with which to use it properly. Gaining knowledge and skill is usually difficult and, at the very least, takes time and practice. This is why people who merely click through a class on critical thinking or flip through a book on fallacies do not suddenly become good at thinking. After all, no one would expect a person to become a skilled carpenter merely by skimming a DIY book or watching a few videos on YouTube.

Another factor in avoiding repeating mistakes is the ability to admit that one has made a mistake. There are many “pragmatic” reasons to avoid admitting mistakes. Public admission to a mistake can result in liability, criticism, damage to one’s reputation and other such harms. While we have sayings that promise praise for those who admit errors, the usual practice is to punish such admissions and people are quick to learn from such punishments. While admitting the error only to yourself will avoid the public consequences, people are often reluctant to do even this. After all, such admission can damage a person’s pride and self-image. Denying errors and blaming others is easier on the ego.

The obvious problem with refusing to admit errors is that this will keep a person from learning from their mistakes. If a person recognizes an error, they can try to figure out why they made that mistake and consider ways to avoid making the same sort of error in the future. While new errors are inevitable, repeating the same errors repeatedly due to a willful ignorance is either stupidity or madness. There is also the ethical aspect of the matter since being accountable for one’s actions is a key part of being a moral agent. Saying “mistakes were made” is a denial of agency, to cast oneself as an object swept along by the river of fate rather than an agent rowing the river of life.

In some cases, a person cannot avoid the consequences of his mistakes. Those that strike, perhaps literally, like a pile of bricks, are difficult to ignore. Feeling the impact of these errors, a person might be forced to learn or face ruin. The classic example is the hot stove in that a person learns from one touch because the lesson is so clear and painful. However, more complicated matters, such as a failed relationship, allow a person room to deny their errors.

If the negative consequences of one’s mistakes fall entirely on others and one is never called to task for these mistakes, a person can keep making the same mistakes. After all, they do not get the teaching sting of pain trying to drive the lesson home. One good example of this is the political pundit, since pundits can be endlessly wrong and still keep on expressing their “expert” opinions. Another good example is in politics. Political parties can also embrace “solutions” that have never worked and relentless apply them whenever they get into power. Other people suffer the consequences while the politicians generally do not directly reap consequences from bad policies. They do, however, routinely get in trouble for mistakes in their personal lives (such as affairs) but the consequences vary based not on the misdeed so much as the person.

While admitting to an error is an important first step, it is not the end of the process. After all, merely admitting I made a mistake will not do much to help me avoid that mistake in the future. What is needed is an honest examination of the mistake in terms of why and how it occurred. This needs to be followed by an honest consideration of what can be changed to avoid that mistake in the future. For example, a person might realize that his relationships ended badly because he made the mistake of rushing into it too quickly, by getting seriously involved without developing a real friendship.

To steal from Aristotle, merely knowing the cause of the error and how to avoid it in the future is not enough. A person must have the will and ability to act on that knowledge, and this requires the development of character. Fortunately, Aristotle presented a guide to developing character in his Nicomachean Ethics. Put simply, a person must do what it is they wish to be and stick with this until it becomes a matter of habit (and thus character). That is, a person must, as Aristotle argued, become a philosopher. Or be ruled by another who can compel correct behavior, such as the state.

 

Shortly after Renee Good was killed, officials of the Trump administration and their allies began a propaganda campaign to cast her death as the justified elimination of a dangerous domestic terrorist. From the start, their narrative included deliberate factual errors and made extensive use of rhetorical techniques. In this essay, I’ll discuss this campaign from the standpoint of critical thinking.

As others have noted, officials of the Trump administration presented their interpretation of the event almost immediately, without waiting for an investigation. This was likely to pre-emptively capture the narrative, as the side that defines the narrative first usually enjoys a rhetorical advantage. Logically, of course, this is irrelevant to the truth of the narrative, and a rushed narrative is likely to be less accurate than one based on an investigation.

Given that the video evidence obviously contradicts some of the administration’s claims, it might be wondered why they would make such false claims. They are probably not trying to convince people that their obviously false claims are true, but flooding the zone with falsehoods can be an effective tactic for bogging down critics. For example, the administration claimed that Good menaced agents while they were trying to free their vehicle from the snow. As the video shows, this is entirely untrue. Rather concede this, it makes more rhetorical sense to continue to lie and fight about that point, thus wearing down the opposition on an issue that is less important than the main issue of whether the killing was justified.

As is standard practice, the Trump administration and the right-wing media have tried to demonize the victim and angelize the officer who killed her. By calling her a terrorist, the event is also cast as a matter of national security rather than a possible case of ICE misconduct.

Jesse Watters provides an excellent example of this. He (and others) focused on her use of pronouns and her being a lesbian, thus distracting people from the actual issue and signaling to the “in-group” that Good is not one of them to make it seem that her death is at least not tragic or perhaps even justified on this basis. In contrast, the right-wing narrative about the ICE agent is that he is a Christian, a husband and a parent. Ironically, these claims make his actions even worse. As a Christian, he should have considered the use of violence more carefully and should have shown the compassion of Christ to Good. As a spouse and a parent, he should have considered that she was also a spouse and a parent before killing her. Or, if he did not know this, considered she might be a spouse and a parent as well.  But getting back to the untruths.

As noted above, officials in the Trump administration made claims that are objectively not true and persisted in these claims. While it is reasonable to attribute errors to these officials based on incompetence, ignorance and laziness, there are other “good” reasons for them to advance untruths.

One reason is that these untruths provide a clear loyalty test. When the Trump administration makes an obviously untrue claim, they can then observe who loyally embraces the untruth and who chooses truth. Given that most Trump officials and supporters profess to be Christians, this is an interesting test of their faith: is their ultimately loyalty to God (who condemns lying and is the God of truth) or Trump? By choosing the lie over the truth, a professed Christian is making a profound statement of loyalty, for they are explicitly abandoning Christ for Trump. Roughly put, they are saying they will accept the risk of Hell to express their loyalty to Trump. Assuming, of course, that they are not lying when they profess to be Christians. Laying aside religion, the person who sincerely embraces such a lie is signaling that they trust Trump and his officials more than their own eyes.

To be fair, people can also be psychologically pressured into sticking with an untruth because it would cost them to reject a claim they publicly accepted or defended. So, while they now know it is not true, they are unwilling to risk the embarrassment of admitting error. They then double down on the untruth and can double down so hard that they convince themselves the untruth they are doubling down for is therefore true.

In addition to a loyalty test, the obvious lie is also useful as a corrosive tool of corruption. If a person reluctantly goes along with a lie as a show of loyalty (or as an opportunist), this can have a corrupting effect on their character. This means they are more likely to embrace lies in the future and this can progress to the point where they have little ethics remaining.

Finally, people can embrace untruths because of their values: if success is more important than truth, then lying is a means justified by this end. An extreme version of this is how people who know the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a fabrication, yet they see them as expressing a deeper truth. On this view, a supporter of Trump and ICE might “reason” that although the administration is lying in this case, the goals of the administration justify lying about killing innocent people. They might also think even if Good was innocent of any wrongdoing in this incident, she deserved to die because of who she was and her opposition to Trump. That is, her execution was warranted not as a case of self-defense against a dangerous driver but because she opposed the will of Trump.

In closing, the way the Trump administration and the right address incidents like these is the reason I am not overly worried about AI fakes in the context of “deeper truths.” For AI fakes to influence people, people would need to be influenced primarily by evidence rather than other factors. As this incident and others, such as the infamous claims about migrants eating cats and dogs, people see what they believe more than they believe what they see—that is, the evidence or lack of evidence is largely irrelevant and people, especially on the right, stick with their “deeper truth” or wish to show loyalty.

What I think AI fakes will be most “useful” for is giving people images and videos that match what they already believe. For example, people who think Good was a terrorist who hit the agent with her car would presumably believe AI generated fakes “showing” that. But they obviously believe that she hit him with her vehicle even when the video evidence does not support this. This is not to say that AI fakes will not be a problem, but I think they will be a problem for claims that people are willing to accept or reject based on evidence rather than on their ideology. Fortunately, the people most likely to be swayed by evidence also tend to be those with better critical thinking skills. Crudely put, people who believe (or profess their belief) based on their ideology are unlikely to have their views changed by AI fakes. People who are critical thinkers and believe based on careful consideration of evidence are also unlikely to have their views changed by AI fakes.

A Philosopher’s Blog 2025 brings together a year of sharp, accessible, and often provocative reflections on the moral, political, cultural, and technological challenges of contemporary life. Written by philosopher Michael LaBossiere, these essays move fluidly from the ethics of AI to the culture wars, from conspiracy theories to Dungeons & Dragons, from public policy to personal agency — always with clarity, humor, and a commitment to critical thinking.

Across hundreds of entries, LaBossiere examines the issues shaping our world:

  • AI, technology, and the future of humanity — from mind‑uploading to exoskeletons, deepfakes, and the fate of higher education
  • Politics, power, and public life — including voting rights, inequality, propaganda, and the shifting landscape of American democracy
  • Ethics in everyday life — guns, healthcare, charity, masculinity, inheritance, and the moral puzzles hidden in ordinary choices
  • Culture, identity, and conflict — racism, gender, religion, free speech, and the strange logic of modern outrage
  • Philosophy in unexpected places — video games, D&D, superheroes, time travel, and the metaphysics of fictional worlds

Whether he is dissecting the rhetoric of conspiracy theories, exploring the ethics of space mining, or reflecting on the death of a beloved dog, LaBossiere invites readers into a conversation that is rigorous without being rigid, principled without being preachy, and always grounded in the belief that philosophy is for everyone.

This collection is for readers who want more than hot takes — who want to understand how arguments work, why beliefs matter, and how to think more clearly in a world that rewards confusion.

Thoughtful, wide‑ranging, and often darkly funny, A Philosopher’s Blog 2025 is a companion for anyone trying to make sense of the twenty‑first century.

 

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Terrorism, like assassination, is violence with a political purpose. An assassination might also be intended to create terror, but the main objective is to eliminate a specific target. In contrast, terrorism is not aimed at elimination of a specific target; the goal is to create fear and almost any victims will suffice.

An individual terrorist might have any number of motives ranging from the ideological to the personal. Perhaps the terrorist sincerely believes that God loves the murder of innocents. Perhaps the terrorist was rejected by someone they were infatuated with and is lashing out in rage. While speculation into the motives of such people is interesting and important, behind all true terrorism lies a political motivation, although this motivation might be on the part of those other than the person conducting the act.

While a terrorist attack can create fear on the local level by itself, terrorists need the media and social media to spread their terror on a large scale. The media is always happy to oblige. While this coverage can be defended on the grounds that people have a right to know the facts, the coverage does have some important and (hopefully) unintended consequences.

One effect of extensive media coverage is to serve as an impact multiplier. The whole world is informed of the terrorist act and the group that claims credit gains terrorist credibility and status. This improves the influence of the group and enhances its ability to recruit as the group is getting free advertising. Assuming that aiding terrorists is morally wrong, this coverage is morally problematic.

A second effect of the coverage is that it fuels the spotlight fallacy. This is a fallacy in which a person estimates the chances that something will happen based on how often they hear about it rather than based on how often it occurs. Terrorist attacks in the West are very rare and what Americans should really be worried about, based on statistics, is poor lifestyle choices that are encouraged by businesses. These include the use of tobacco, over consumption of alcohol, misuse of pain killers, eating unhealthy food and driving automobiles. Since terrorist attacks are covered relentlessly in the news and the leading causes of premature death are not, it is easy for people to overestimate the danger posed by terrorism. And underestimate what will probably kill them.

A third effect of coverage is that it can make people victims of the fallacy of misleading vividness. This fallacy occurs when a person overestimates the chances that something will occur based on how vivid or extreme the event is. While the media typically exercises some restraint in coverage, terrorism is obviously scary to most and this can cause people to psychologically overestimate the threat.

Whether a person falls victim to the spotlight fallacy or misleading vividness, the result is the same: the person overestimates the danger and is thus more afraid then they should be. This has beneficial effects for those who wish to exploit this fear.

Obviously enough, the terrorists aim to exploit the fear they create. They want people to believe that they are in terrible danger and face an existential threat. Lacking the capacity to engage in actual war, they must make use of the strategy of terror. These two fallacies are critical weapons in their war and people who fall victim to them have allowed the terrorists to win.

One of the ironies of terrorism is that there are American politicians who exploit the fear created by terrorists and use it to influence people for their political ends. While they do not deploy the terrorists, they benefit from the attacks as much as the masters of the terrorists do.

Not surprisingly, they make use of some classic fallacies: appeal to fear and appeal to anger. An appeal to fear occurs when something that is supposed to create fear is offered in place of actual evidence. In the case of an appeal to anger, the same sort of thing is done, only with anger. This is not to say that something that might make a person afraid or angry cannot serve as actual evidence; it is that these fallacies offer no reason to support the claim in question and only appeal to emotions.

Interestingly, terrorists like ISIS and the American politicians that exploit them have very similar objectives. Both want to present the fight as a clash of cultures, the West (and Christianity) against Islam. They both want this for similar reasons: to increase the number of their followers and to keep the conflict going so it can be exploited to fuel their political ambitions. If Muslims are accepted by the Western countries, then the terrorist groups lose influence and propaganda tools and thus lose recruits. If Muslims accept the West, then the Western political groups exploiting fear of Islam also lose influence and propaganda tools and thus lose recruits.

Both the terrorists and their Western exploiters want to encourage Westerners to be afraid of refugees coming from conflict areas in the Middle East. After all, if the West takes in refugees and treats them well, this is a loss of recruits and a propaganda loss for the terrorists.  It is also a loss for those who try to build political power on fear and hatred of refugees. 

If refugees have no way to escape conflict, they will be forced to be either victims or participants. Children who grow up without education, stability and opportunity will also be much easier to recruit into terrorist groups.  This is all in the interest of the terrorists; but also, the Western political groups who want to exploit terrorism. After all, these groups are founded on identity politics and need a scary “them” to contrast with “us.”

This is not to say that the West should not be on guard against possible attacks or that the West should not vet refugees. My main point is that overreacting to terrorism only serves the ends of the wicked, be they actual terrorists or those in the West who would exploit this terror to gain power.

One challenge in combatting fake news is developing a principled distinction between the fake and the real. One reason defense is to defend against the misuse of the term “fake news” to attack news on ideological or other irrelevant grounds. I make no pretense of being able to present a necessary and sufficient definition of fake news, but I will endeavor to provide a rough sketch. My approach is built around three attributes: intention, factuality, and methodology. I will consider each in turn.

While determining intent can be challenging, it has a role in distinguishing fake news from real news. An obvious comparison is to lying. A lie is not simply making an untrue claim but making it with an intent (typically malicious) to deceive. There are, of course, benign deceits, such as those of the arts.

There are some forms of “fake” news, namely those aimed at being humorous, that are benign. The Onion, for example, aims to entertain as does Duffel Blog and Andy Borowitz. Being comedic in nature, they fall under the protective umbrella of art: they say untrue things to make people laugh. Though they are technically fake news, they are benign in their fakery and hence should not be treated as malicious fake news.

Other fake news operators, such as those behind the stories about Comet Ping Pong Pizza, have different intentions. Some claim to create fake news with a benign intent, professing they want people to be more critical of the news. If this is their real intent, it has not worked out as they hoped. It is also worth considering that this is, at least in some cases, also a deceit that is like the “I was only joking” response when someone is called out for saying something awful.  As such, this sort of fake news is to be condemned.

Fake news is often created to make a profit. Since legitimate news agencies also intend to make a profit, this does not differentiate the fake from the real. However, those engaged in real news do not intend to deceive for profit, whereas the fake news operators use deceit as a tool in their money-making endeavors. This is to be condemned.

Others engage in fake news for ideological reasons or to achieve political goals; their intent is to advance their agenda with intentional deceits. The classic defense of this approach is utilitarian: the good done by the lies outweighs their harm (for the morally relevant beings). While truly noble lies might be morally justified, the usual lies of fake news do not aim at the general good, but the advancement of a specific agenda that will create more harm than good for most people. As this matter is so complicated, it is fortunate that the matter of fake news is much simpler: deceit presented as real news is fake news, even if it could be justified on utilitarian grounds.

In the case of real news, the intent is to present claims that are believed to be true. This might be with the goal of profit, but it is the intent to provide truth that makes the difference. Naturally, working out intent can be challenging, but there is a fact of the matter as to why people do what they do. Real news might also be presented with the desire to advance an agenda, but if the intent is also to provide truth, then the news would remain real.

In regard to factuality, an important difference between fake and real news is that the real news endeavors to offer facts and the fake news does not. A fact is a claim that has been established as true (to the requisite degree) and this is a matter of methodology, which will be discussed below.

Factual claims are claims that are objective. This means that they are true or false regardless of how people think, feel or believe about them. For example, the claim that the universe contains dark matter is a factual claim. Factual claims can, at least in theory, be verified or disproven. In contrast, non-factual claims are not objective and cannot be verified or disproven. As such, there can be no “fake” non-factual claims.

It might be tempting to protect the expression of values (moral, political, aesthetic and so on) in the news from accusations of being fake news by arguing that they are non-factual claims and thus cannot be fake news. The problem is that while many uncritically believe value judgments are not objective, this is a matter of philosophical dispute. To assume that value claims are not factual claims would be to beg the question. But, to assume they are would also beg the question. Since I cannot hope to solve this problem, I will instead endeavor to sketch a practical guide to the difference.

In terms of non-value factual claims of the sort that appear in the news, there are established methods for testing them. As such, the way to distinguish the fake from the real is by consideration of the methodology used (and applying the relevant method).

In the case of value claims, such as the claim that reducing the size of government is the morally right thing to do, there are not such established methods to determine the truth (and there might be no truth in this context). As such, while such claims and any arguments supporting them can be criticized, they should not be regarded as news as such. Thus, they could not be fake news.

As a final point, it is also worth considering the matter of legitimate controversy. There are some factual matters that are legitimately in dispute. While not all the claims can be right (and all could be wrong), this does not entail that the claims are fake news. Because of this, to brand one side or the other as being fake news simple because one disagrees with that side would be unjustified. For example, whether imposing a specific tariff would help the economy is a factual matter, but one that could be honestly debated. I now turn to methodology.

It might be wondered why the difference between fake and real news is not presented entirely in terms of one making fake claims and the other making true claims. The reason for this is that a real news could turn out to be untrue and fake news could turn out to be correct. In terms of real news errors, reporters do make mistakes, sources are not always accurate, and so on. By pure chance, a fake news story could get the facts right, but it would not be thus real news. The critical difference between fake and real news is thus the methodology. This can be supported by drawing an analogy to science.

What differentiates real science from fake science is not that one gets it right and the other gets it wrong. Rather, it is a matter of methodology. This can be illustrated by using the dispute over dark matter in physics. If it turns out that dark matter does not exist, this will not show that the scientists were doing fake science. It would just show that they were wrong. Suppose that instead of dark matter, what is really going on is that normal matter in a parallel universe is interacting with our universe. Since I just made this up, I would not be doing real science just because I happened to get it right.

Another analogy can be made to math. As any math teacher will tell you, it is not a matter of just getting the right answer, it is a matter of getting the right answer the right way. Hence the requirement of showing one’s work. A person could guess the answer and get it right; but they are not doing real math because they are not even doing math. Naturally, a person can be doing real math and still get the answer wrong.

Assuming these analogies hold, real news is a matter of methodology, a methodology that might fail. Many of the methods of real news are, not surprisingly, like the methods of critical thinking in philosophy. For example, there is the proper use of the argument from authority as the basis for claims. As another example, there are the methods of assessing unsupported claims against one’s own observations, one’s background information and against credible claims.

The real news uses this methodology and evidence of it is present in the news, such as identified sources, verifiable data, and so on. While a fake news story can also contain fakery about methodology, this is a key matter of distinction. Because of this, news that is based on the proper methodology would be real news, even if some might disagree with its content.

While fake news is often bizarre, one of the stranger fake claims was that the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria was part of a child sex ring led by Hillary Clinton. This fake story made the real news when Edgar M. Welch allegedly armed himself and went to the pizzeria to investigate the story. This  investigation led to gunfire, although no one was injured. Mr. Welch surrendered peacefully to the police after finding no evidence of the sex ring.

Given that the story had been debunked by the New York Times, Snopes, and the Washington Post, it might be wondered why someone would believe such a claim. Laying aside the debunking, it might also be wondered why anyone would believe such a seemingly absurd claim.

Some might be tempted to dismiss people who believe fake news as fools or stupid, most likely while congratulating themselves on their own intellectual prowess. While there is no shortage of fools and everyone is stupid at least some of the time, the “people are stupid” explanation does not suffice. After all, intelligent people of all political stripes are fooled by fake news.

One reason why fake news of this sort convinces people is that it makes use of the influence of repetition. While people tend to be skeptical of odd or implausible claims when they first encounter them, there is a psychological tendency to believe claims that are heard multiple times, especially from multiple sources. While the Nazis did not invent this technique, they did show its effectiveness as a rhetorical tool. The technique of repetition is used more benignly by teachers trying to get people to memorize things. Not surprisingly, politicians and pundits also use this method under the label of “talking points.”

This psychological tendency presumably has some value. When people are honest, things that are repeated and come from multiple sources would generally be true (or at least not deceits). The repetition method also exploits a standard method of reasoning: checking with multiple sources for confirmation. However, such confirmation requires using reliable sources that do not share the same agenda. Getting multiple fake news sites reporting the same fake story creates pseudo-confirmation that creates an illusion of plausibility. The defense against this is, of course, to have diverse sources of news and preferably some with less ideological slant.  It is also useful to ask yourself this question: “although I have heard this many times, is there evidence it is true?”

Another reason fake news can be convincing is that the fake news sites often engage in active defense of their fake news. This includes using other fake sources to “confirm” their stories, attacks on the credibility of real news sources, and direct attacks on articles by real news sources that expose a fake news story. This defense creates the illusion that the fake news stories are real and that the real news stories are fake.

Some of these work through psychology: one might think that such a defense would only be mounted if there was truth worthy of the effort. Some appeal to reason: if the real news story exposing fake news is systematically torn down step by step, this creates the illusion of a reasoned argument disproving the claim that the fake story is fake. Attempts to discredit the sources also misuse legitimate critical assessment methods. The fake news sites accuse the real sources of news of being biased, bought and so on. These are legitimate concerns when assessing a source; the problem is not the method but the fact that the claims are also typically untrue.

Those who do not want to be duped can counter this fake news defense by the usual method of checking multiple, diverse and reliable sources. But this is increasingly difficult as fake news sites proliferate and grow more sophisticated.

A third reason that fake news can seem accurate is that it has supporters who use social media to defend the fake stories and attack the real news. Some of these people are honest in that they believe they are saying true things. Others are aware the news is fake. Some even create fake identities to make themselves appear credible. For example, one defender of Pizzagate identified himself as “Representative Steven Smith of the 15th District of Georgia.” Georgia has only 14 districts; but most people would not know this. All these supporters create the illusion of credibility, making it difficult for people to ferret out the truth. After all, most people expect other people to be honest and get basic facts right most of the time as this is a basic social agreement and a foundation of civilization. Fake news, among its other harms, is eroding this foundation.

The defense against this is to research the sources defending a news story. If the defenders are mostly fake themselves, this would indicate that the news story might be fake. However, fake defenders do not prove the story is fake and it is easy to imagine the tactic of using fake defenders to make people feel that a real news is fake. For example, a made up radical “liberal source” defending a story might be used to try to make conservatives feel that a real news story is fake.

A fourth reason that fake news can seem accurate is that the real news has been subject to sustained attacks, mostly from the political right in the United States. Republicans have made the claim that the media is liberally biased a stock talking point, which has no doubt influenced people. Trump took it even further, accusing the news of being terrible people and liars (ironically for reporting that his lies are lies). Given the sustained attack on news, it is no wonder that many people do not regard the real news as reliable. As such, the stories that debunk the fake news are typically rejected because they are the result of liberal bias. This does, of course, make use of a legitimate method of assessing sources: if a source is biased, then it loses credibility. The problem is that rather than being merely skeptical about the mainstream media, many people reject its claims uncritically because of the alleged bias. This is not a proper application of the method as the doubt needs to be proportional to the evidence of bias.

In regard to people believing in seemingly absurd claims, there are both good and bad reasons for this. One good reason is that there are enough cases of the seemingly absurd turning out to be true. In the case of Pizzagate, people hearing about it probably had stories about Jared Fogle and Bill Cosby in mind. They probably also heard stories about cases of real sex rings. Give this background, the idea that Hillary Clinton was tied to a sex-ring might seem to have some plausibility. However, the use of such background information should also be tempered by other background information, such as information about how unlikely it is that Hillary Clinton was running sex-ring out of the basement of a pizza place. That has no basement.

The bad reason is that people have a psychological tendency to believe what matches their ideology and existing opinions. So, people who already disliked Hillary Clinton would tend to find such stories appealing as they would feel true. Such psychological bias is hard to fight,  people take strong feelings as proof and often double down in the face of facts to the contrary. Defending against bias is probably the hardest method as it requires training and practice in being aware of how feelings are impacting the assessment of a claim and developing the ability to go into a “neutral” assessment mode.

Given that fake news is spreading like a plague, it is wise to develop defenses against it to avoid being duped, perhaps to the point where one is led to commit crimes because of lies.

While analyzing the impact of fake news in  American elections will be an ongoing project, there are excellent reasons to believe it has been a real factor. For example, BuzzFeed’s analysis showed how the fake news stories outperformed real news stories in 2016.  When confronted with the claim that fake news on Facebook influenced the election results, Mark Zuckerberg’s initial reaction was denial. However, as critics have pointed out, to say that Facebook does not influence people is to tell advertisers that they are wasting their money on Facebook. While this might be the case, Zuckerberg cannot consistently pitch the influence of Facebook to his customers while denying that it has such influence. One of these claims must be mistaken.

While my own observations do not constitute a proper study, I routinely observed people on Facebook treating fake news stories as if they were real.  In some cases, these errors were humorous as people had mistaken satire for real news. In other cases, they were not so funny as people were enraged over things that had not actually happened, such as Trump’s lies about migrants. There is also the fact that public figures (such as Trump) and pundits repeat fake news stories acquired from Facebook (and other sources). As such, fake news is a real problem on Facebook. As is AI slop.

As president elect, Trump has continued to spew untruths and the attacks on the mainstream media continue and have even escalated in his second term. The ecosystem is ideal for fake news to thrive. As such, it seems likely that while the fake news will decline to some degree, it will remain a factor as long as it is influential or profitable. This is where Facebook comes in. While fake news sites can always have their own web pages, Facebook serves up the fake news to a huge customer base and thus drives the click-based profits (thanks to things like Google advertising) of these sites. This powerful role of Facebook gives rise to moral concerns about its accountability.

One obvious approach is to claim that Facebook has no moral responsibility in regards to policing fake news. This could be argued by drawing an analogy between Facebook and a delivery company like UPS or FedEx. Rather than delivering physical packages, Facebook is delivering news.

A delivery company is responsible for delivering a package intact and within the specified time. However, it does not have a moral responsibility regarding what is shipped. Suppose, for example, that businesses arose selling “Artisanal Macedonian Pudding” and purport that it is real pudding. But, in fact, it is a blend of sugar and feces  that looks like pudding. Some customers fail to recognize it for what it is and happily shovel it into their pudding port; probably getting sick, but still loving the taste. If the delivery company were criticized for delivering the pudding, they would be right to say that they are not responsible for the “pudding” as they merely deliver packages. The responsibility lies with the “pudding” companies. And the customers for not recognizing sugary feces as feces. If the analogy holds, then Facebook is just delivering fake news like a delivery company delivering “Macedonian Pudding” and is not morally responsible for the contents of the packages.

A possible counter to this is that once Facebook knows that a site is a fake news site, then they are morally responsible for continuing to deliver the fake news. Going with the delivery analogy, once the delivery company is aware that “Artisanal Macedonian Pudding” is sugar and feces, they have a moral obligation to cease their business with those making this dangerous product. This could be countered by arguing that if the customer wants the package of “pudding”, then it is morally fine for the delivery company to provide it. However, this would seem to require that the customer knows they are getting sugar and feces—otherwise the delivery company is knowingly participating in a deceit and the distribution of a harmful product. This would seem to be morally wrong.

Another approach to countering this argument is to use a different analogy: Facebook is not like a delivery company; it is like a restaurant selling the product. Going back to the “pudding”, a restaurant that knowingly purchased and served sugar and feces as pudding would be morally accountable for this misdeed. By this analogy, once Facebook knows they are profiting from selling fake news, they are morally accountable and in the wrong if they fail to address this. A possible response to this is to contend that Facebook is not selling the fake news; but this leads to the question of what Facebook is doing.

One way to look at Facebook is that the fake news is just like advertising in any other media. In this case, the company selling the ad is not morally accountable for the content of the ad of the quality of the product. Going back to the “pudding”, if one company is selling sugar and feces as pudding, the company running the advertising is not morally responsible. The easy counter to this is that once the company selling the ads knows that the “pudding” is sugar and feces, then they would be morally wrong to be a party to this harmful deception. Likewise for Facebook treating fake news as advertising.

Another way to look at Facebook is that it is serving as a news media company and is in the business of providing the news.  Going back to the pudding analogy, Facebook would be in the pudding business as a re-seller, selling sugar and shit as real pudding. This would seem to oblige Facebook to ensure that the news it provides is accurate and to not distribute news it knows is fake. This assumes a view of journalistic ethics that is obviously not universally accepted, but a commitment to the truth seems to be a necessary bedrock to any worthwhile media ethics.