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Blasey & Kavanaugh VIII: Every Man

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One effect of the Kavanaugh hearing has been a wave of fear sweeping through men—or so it would seem from various expressions of terror on social media and in talking points. The gist of the worry is that “If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried. We can all be accused of something.” Trump, while mocking Blasey to the applause of the crowd, stoked the fire of this fear by asserting “it’s a very scary time for young men.” While it is but anecdotal evidence, I have heard fellow men express their fear that they could be falsely accused by someone out to get them. While it cannot be denied that some men have this fear, the question remains as to whether the fear is warranted. Obviously enough, a careful analysis of this matter will have little or no weight on the scale of emotions. From a purely pragmatic standpoint what is wanting to counter the fear is rhetoric, emotional appeals and fallacies—for these sway the heart as the ear remains deaf to reason.

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One key question in addressing this fear is whether false accusations are common enough relative to sexual harassment/assault to provide grounds for a rational fear. Research indicates that false reporting of sexual assaults is between 2% and 10%. As such, it does occur and thus the fear is not utterly unfounded. However, even these false reporting rates seem to be inflated. Thus, while a man could be falsely accused of sexual assault, this does not seem very likely. In comparison, a woman is far more likely to be sexually assaulted; even going with the reported cases. It is also believed that most sexual assaults are not reported, which impacts the ratio of false reports to sexual assaults. Put another way, the odds of a man being falsely accused is far lower than the odds of a woman being sexually assaulted, so women should be far more afraid of being assaulted than men should be afraid of being falsely accused.

It can, obviously, be countered that there are many unknowns at work here. In the case of the number of unreported assaults, this number would need to be an estimate. To use an analogy, it is like estimating the volume of drugs smuggled into the United States illegally by estimating from the amount seized by law enforcement. As such, the estimation could be off—either too low or too high. In the case of false reports, the obvious problem is that only the accusations that are known to be false are known to be false. False accusations that were accepted as true would obviously not be counted, so the percentage of false accusations could be higher. As such, we cannot be certain about the ratio of false accusations to actual sexual assaults. While this might tempt some people to think that this warrants fear on the part of men, there is the obvious fact that this also applies to almost all crimes and threats and consistency would require having the same response across the board.

One cause of the worry on the part of men seems to be the belief that a woman who accuses a man will be seen as more credible than the man, simply because she is a woman and he is a man. Rolled into this also seems to be that there will be a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.

This fear seems to be utterly unfounded since women have been regarded as less credible than men, both collectively and individually. In the case of rape, the legal rules once had a bias against accusers baked into them. This has shifted from codified bias to a bias in practice, but with the same results: woman accusers are presumed to lack credibility. It must be noted that this is not the same thing as the presumption of innocence—a person accused of sexual assault or rape should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. The disbelief of female accusers is a presumption they are lying, which gives the accused a double advantage. One just (presumption of innocence) and the other unjust (a presumption of doubt against the accuser). As such, men would seem to have little to fear in this regard: the presumption of credibility is in their favor.

The obvious counter to this view is to argue that the presumption in favor of men is changing and now women are being regarded as credible, as in the case of Dr. Blasey. As such, men should start being afraid because of what is to come.

It would, of course, be worrisome if there was a shift to a presumption of guilt and if women were presumed to be telling the truth and men were presumed to be lying. After all, this would simply be a role-reversal of the current unjust situation and would thus still be unjust. However, what seems to have happened is that the presumption of doubt of women has been reduced and credible women are now being regarded as credible when making accusations. As such, it is not that men are now at a disadvantage and must fear that they will automatically be doubted. Rather, what they must fear is that (at least for now) women might not automatically be doubted. Roughly put, men have (perhaps briefly) lost some of their advantage against women and this hardly warrants fear on the part of the innocent.

The last thing I will consider is concerns about due process. In the case of Kavanaugh, there have been cries that he did not get his due process. This has been generalized into the claim that this same approach will be applied to other men—that they will not get their due process if accused of sexual assault.

On the face of it, Kavanaugh does seem to be getting due process. As this is written, the FBI is investigating the allegations to see if they have any foundation. He also had his time to defend himself against the accusations. Naturally, whether the process seems due or not is largely a matter of one’s politics. If Kavanaugh was a liberal Democrat being assailed by Republicans, Republicans would tend to think he had gotten his due process. Since the reverse is true, Democrats tend to think he is getting his due process. In fairness, it could be argued that because Blasey’s accusation was made late in the process, there is a problem with the due process. But, this can be countered by pointing out the obvious fact that there is no rush to confirm Kavanaugh—the confirmation hearings can go on and on until the Republicans are satisfied that Kavanaugh has had every opportunity to respond to the accusation and has gotten his due process. After all, the Republicans argued vehemently against even holding hearings when Obama made his nomination to the court and all their arguments about the acceptability of delays can simply be copy-pasted and used against them now.

But, let us suppose that Kavanaugh was denied due process and has been treated unjustly. Does it follow that every man should be afraid that this will happen to him because it happened this one time?

Going from the one example of Kavanaugh to all men by using an inductive generalization would make for a very weak argument. It would look like this.

 

Premise 1: One man, Judge Kavanaugh, did not get due process when accused of sexual assault in his supreme court confirmation hearing.

Conclusion: Every man should fear not getting due process when accused of sexual assault.

 

The strength of a generalization depends on the representativeness and size of the sample. In this case, the sample size is one man who is in very unusual circumstances. As such, the inference is incredibly weak.

It can be countered that there are more examples for the sample than just Judge Kavanaugh. Trump put himself forward as an example and, of course, people will point to all the powerful men brought down recently during the #meetoo movement. The challenge is, of course, showing that in each example the man did not receive due process. If enough examples are found to create a representative sample, then the inductive generalization would be strong and men would be warranted in their fear that they would not receive due process because it would be reasonable to believe that they would not.

Anecdotes about men who did not receive due process would be worth considering since they would be individual cases of injustice. However, making an inference from anecdotal evidence to a general conclusion would obviously be the fallacy of anecdotal evidence.

Since I do believe in justice (in the moral sense of the term), I believe that everyone should get due process. As such, each case in which a person is denied due process would be a case of injustice and if it is shown that the denial is systematic and widespread against one class of person, people in that class would be right to fear injustice. However, there does not seem to be systematic and widespread denial of due process to men accused of sexual assault. But, if evidence is forthcoming for such oppression, I will certainly join with my fellow men and oppose it. After all, what sort of person would tolerate systematic injustice and denial of due process?

 

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Blasey & Kavanaugh VII: Motivations & Credibility

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While attacking a person’s motivations does not, in itself, disprove their claim, there is the question of the impact of motivations on credibility. The discussion begins with a look at an inductive argument in which credibility is used to support a claim. This is, obviously enough, the classic argument from authority:

 

Premise 1: A makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: A is an authority on subject S.

Conclusion: C is true.

 

The strength of this argument depends on the expertise of person A as well as such factors as any bias on the part of A and the consensus of other experts in the field. If the alleged authority’s expertise is sufficiently lacking, then a fallacious appeal to authority is committed. This is because the evidence fails to warrant the conclusion. It should be noted that even a non-fallacious argument of this sort is still relatively weak since the idea is that the claim is probably true because the authority probably has good reasons/evidence for the claim. While people often think this reasoning only applies to experts, such as doctors or scientists, in certain circumstances anyone could be considered a potential expert. Because of this, it might be preferable to have an argument from credibility rather than or in addition to the argument from authority.

One key factor in assessing the expert is their degree of bias in the matter. A person’s motivation to make a claim is relevant to this factor, since motivations can be biasing. For example, if the Democrats in the senate are motivated from vengeance to attack Kavanaugh, then they would be biased and thus lose a proportional degree of credibility. Not all motivations, obviously enough, damage credibility and the key question to ask about a motivation is whether it would unduly influence the person (in a way irrelevant to the truth) to make a claim.

If a person’s motivations are sufficiently biasing, then their credibility would be effectively eliminated. In such a case, an argument from authority based on them would be a fallacy. However, even in this situation it would not follow that their claim is false. To infer that a fallacy must have a false conclusion because it is a fallacy is itself a fallacy: the fallacy fallacy. As such, one way to look at this matter is that a person’s credibility can only drop to zero (no credibility). If such a person asserted a claim, this would provide zero support—leaving the support for or against the claim unchanged.
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It is, however, interesting to consider the possibility of negative credibility: credibility so bad that it serves as evidence against a claim. This would make it, in effect, an anti-authority argument which might have the following form:

 

Premise 1: A makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: A has negative authority/credibility on subject S.

Conclusion: C is false.

 

Back when I was in graduate school, we joked about this sort of thing and called this sort of person “a reliable indicator of the false.” On the face of it, there do seem to be cases in which this would be plausible reasoning. For example, a person who is consistently wrong or dishonest about a subject would seem to provide evidence against claims they make in that area. There is also the idea that if credibility can support a claim, then negative credibility can undercut a claim and help refute it.

Returning to the Democrats, if their motivations are extremely wicked, then it could be argued that they have negative credibility and are thus probably wrong or lying when they make claims about Kavanaugh. While this would certainly be appealing to those who loath the Democrats, there is the question of whether the idea of negative credibility makes sense and whether the proposed argument is good logic.

One obvious concern arises when one considers how the argument from authority works. As noted above, the idea is that one inductive concludes that an expert’s claim is probably true because they have good reasons/evidence for the claim that they make. As such, the idea is that there is a good argument behind the argument from authority. As to why people would use the argument from authority rather than the argument(s) behind it, the obvious answer is that non-experts might not understand the argument. For example, a person who does not understand advanced physics would probably not get the arguments used by experts in physics. In the case of the “anti-authority” argument, while there could be a terrible argument behind the claim that the person is using, this would not serve as evidence against the claim. This would, after all, be just the fallacy fallacy. But what about just focusing on credibility?

If you believe claims I make about my past because you find me credible, this is not a matter of there being an argument behind my claim that you trust I am using to back my claim. Rather, you would believe me because of relevant facts about me—such as my relative honesty, the accuracy of my memory, and so on. Roughly put, you would accept the claim as true because I say so and I am probably right and telling the truth. If you doubt my claims, then you would be doubting my credibility—that I am dishonest, that my memory is flawed, and so on. That is, I am probably either lying or just wrong. Obviously enough, consideration of motivations enters into this assessment.

If you suspected I had a wicked motivation to lie about my past, then you would certainly suspect that what I was saying was thus untrue. After all, if I did not have that motivation, then I would presumably tell the truth. While it would certainly be tempting to consider this good reasoning, there is still an obvious problem—while a wicked motivation would give a person a reason to lie about certain things, this motivation does not indicate whether they are lying about a particular claim (and thus be evidence the claim is false). To illustrate, imagine I am dragged before congress to answer questions and that I am full of wicked motivations.  Lindsay Graham asks me if I orchestrated the accusations against Kavanaugh and I, obviously enough, deny this charge. While Graham would think of me as lacking credibility, my wicked motivations and lack of credibility in no way prove or even support the claim that I orchestrated the accusations. Also, if Graham asked me if I was mind-controlling the late-night comedians to make them mock Kavanaugh, I would deny that as well. No matter how wicked my motivations, they would not serve as evidence for that claim. What would be needed, as always, is positive evidence for the claim. As such, while wicked motivations impact credibility, they do not serve to prove (or disprove) claims.

 

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Blasey & Kavanaugh VI: Motivations

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Some Republican politicians have accused the Democrats of playing politics in the Kavanaugh hearings. This accusation is obviously true. But, it is true in a manner analogous to how an accusation by the Yankees that the Red Sox are playing baseball would be true: it is the game that is being played by both and to pretend otherwise would be absurd.

This does not, however, entail that what the Democrats are doing is not morally wrong. To conclude that the Democrats are not wrong to play politics with a hearing because the Republicans also play politics with hearings would commit a fallacy, possibly two. If the “reasoning” is that the Democrats are not wrong because the Republicans do it as well, then this would be an ad hominem fallacy. Just asserting another person (or group) also did something does not entail that doing it is thus justified. To illustrate, if someone stole my bike and I responded by stealing their laptop, this would not make my stealing any less wrong. Naturally, this could lead far afield into a discussion of the ethics of vengeance, but that is a matter for another time. It suffices that the Democrats cannot get moral cover simply by asserting that the Republicans do bad things.

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If the “reasoning” is that the practice of playing politics is commonly done, then this would be the common practice fallacy. Even if a practice is common, this does not entail that it is good or right. For example, people commonly cheat on their partners, but this does not make it right. But, to accuse the Democrats of playing politics is not much of an accusation. As noted above, playing politics is what politicians do and hence more is needed to claim that the Democrats are being truly wicked.

A more serious criticism of the Democrats is that they have accepted Blasey’s claim that Kavanaugh assaulted her because they have unethical motives. For example, Senator Lindsey Graham launched into a ferocious assault on the Democrats’ wicked ways. Kavanaugh also expressed fury against the Democrats for their alleged misdeeds and endorsed the notion that they have been wickedly conspiring against him. This situation raises a general issue about the relevance of motives to the truth of a claim and a specific issue about whether the Democrats’ motives are relevant to the truth of Blasey’s accusation.

The motives of the Democrats are, obviously enough, relevant to morally assessing them. If they do not care about Blasey or sexual assault and are merely exploiting her for their own political advantage, then these motives would indeed be wicked. Even if they did care, if their main motivation was political gain, then this motive would be morally problematic. However, if they do care about Blasey and sexual assault and are sincerely concerned about the character of the nominee, then their motivations would be morally commendable. Their motivations are, however, irrelevant to the moral assessment of whether their actions and their consequences are morally wrong or not. After all, a person might take a morally good action for wicked reasons or do something that has terrible consequences from laudable motivations. To illustrate, a person might kill a mass shooter and save a crowd of people because they have long wanted to slaughter a person and not from any desire to protect others. To illustrate the second point, horror movies are replete with those who are trying to do good, but who end up creating monsters.

Motives can, of course, be difficult to sort out, in part because rational people try to claim laudable motivations even when they are moved by baser reasons. As such, a proper assessment of motivations requires considering not only a person’s words but also their deeds. For example, those who have quickly exploited the Kavanaugh situation to aid in their fundraising for upcoming campaigns should have their motives questioned.

While it is tempting to see all politicians (Democrats and Republicans) as having nothing but wicked motives, there are presumably at least some of them who have decent motives. And, of course, most people see their side as being good. Fortunately, this essay is not focused on sorting out who is naughty and who is nice, but on the relevance of motives to truth. It is to this that I now turn.

Those who loath the Democrats might be tempted to accept the following argument:

 

Premise 1: The Democrats assert that Kavanaugh assaulted Blasey.

Premise 2: The Democrats’ have immoral motivations to make this claim.

Conclusion: Therefore, the claim is false: Kavanaugh did not assault Blasey.

 

While the content might make this emotionally appealing to some, it needs to be assessed in terms of the quality of the logic. Put in an abstract form, here is the reasoning:

 

Premise 1: Person P makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: Person P’s motivation to assert C is immoral.

Conclusion: Claim C is false.

 

For example:

 

Premise 1: Sally tells Sam that deer ticks carry Lyme disease.

Premise 2: Sally’s motivation in saying this is to torment Sam, a hypochondriac who has found a tick on his skin; this is an immoral motive.

Conclusion: Therefore, deer ticks do not carry Lyme disease.

 

Presented this way, the lack of connection between the premises and the conclusion should be evident: the ethics of a person’s motivation to make a claim have no relevance to the truth of that claim. This sort of “reasoning” can also be seen as an ad hominem: because of an attack on the person’s motivations, the claim they make is rejected. It must be noted that this matter is distinct from making a moral assessment of the person. A person’s motives are relevant to moral assessment and one cam justly suspect that a person who routinely acts from wicked motives is a bad person.

At this point it might be wondered if a person’s motivations are always irrelevant to assessing their claims. On the one hand, they are irrelevant to the truth (or falsity) of their claims. On the other hand, a person’s motivations are relevant to assessing their credibility in making claims. This matter will be addressed in the next essay in the series.

 

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Blasey & Kavanaugh V: Parity of Reasoning, Bias & Politics

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An argument advanced by some defenders of Judge Kavanaugh is that Dr. Blasey’s claim that he assaulted her should be rejected because the Democrats stand to gain from it. In reply, some defenders of Dr. Blasey contend that Kavanaugh’s claim is untrue because the Republicans stand to gain if he is telling the truth. This provides an important real-world context in which to discuss the philosophical method of parity of reasoning as well as the relevance of bias in assessing claims.

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The basic idea between the method of parity of reasoning is that if the structure of logic of one argument is good (or bad), then an argument with the same logical structure will thus (by analogy) be good (or bad). In the case of deductive logic, if an argument is valid (such that if all the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true), then any argument of the same form is also valid. Likewise, if a deductive argument is invalid (such that all the premises could be true while the conclusion is false), then any argument of the same form is also invalid. To illustrate, consider the following valid argument:

 

Premise 1: If today is Thursday, then tomorrow is Friday.

Premise 2: Today is Thursday.

Conclusion: Tomorrow is Friday.

 

Since the argument is valid, any argument using the same reasoning will also be valid—regardless of the content. This argument is, obviously enough, modus ponens (also known as affirming the antecedent). It has the following form:

 

Premise 1: If P, then Q.

Premise 2: P

Conclusion: Q

 

Thus, deductive arguments are ideal for using the method of parity of reasoning—in fact, this method of analogy is a standard tool for assessing whether an argument is valid or invalid. The main downside is that using this method does require already knowing the relevant valid and invalid argument forms.

In the case of inductive logic (arguments in which true premises are supposed to make it likely that the conclusion is true), the matter is more complicated. This is because two inductive arguments could have the same logical form, yet one could be strong and the other weak. This is because the strength of an inductive argument is not just a matter of the logical structure, but also a matter of the specific standards used to assess inductive reasoning. Consider, for example, an argument by analogy:

 

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

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

Premise 3: X has property Z.

Conclusion: Y has property Z.

 

Strong and weak arguments of this sort have the same form; they differ in the strength of the reasoning based on how similar X and Y are in relevant ways. As such, the strength of an inductive argument cannot be assessed just by considering the structure of the reasoning. I now turn to one of the arguments used to argue against the claim made by Dr. Blasey.

One of the arguments being deployed against the Democrats is this one:

 

Premise 1: The Democrats claim that Blasey’s claim (that she was assaulted by Kavanaugh) is true.

Premise 2: The Democrats have a political interest in blocking Kavanaugh.

Conclusion: Blasey’s claim is false.

 

While this reasoning will probably appeal to those who oppose the Democrats, it is important to consider the form of the argument and not just whether the claims are appealing to one’s ideology. Put in the abstract, the argument has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Party P claims C about subject S.

Premise 2: Party P has a political interest in subject S.

Conclusion: Claim C is false.

 

If this logic is good, then the following argument against the Republicans would, by parity of reasoning, also be good logic:

 

Premise 1: The Republicans claim that Blasey’s claim is false.

Premise 2: The Republicans have a political interest in getting Kavanaugh through.

Conclusion: It is false that Blasey’s claim is false (that is, it is true).

 

While those who dislike the Republicans might find this argument appealing, Republicans would certainly reject it. But, if the logic works against Democrats, then it should also work just as well against Republicans. Logic is, after all, without partisan bias.

Fortunately for both parties, this inductive argument is rather weak. Even if a party has an interest in a claim being false it does not follow that it is false.  To conclude that interest in a claim (that is, having a stake in the matter) disproves a person’s claim is a classic ad hominem fallacy. The specific version is often called the circumstantial ad hominin, because the claim is discredited because of the source’s circumstances (in this case, having a stake in the matter). To illustrate, imagine that Sam owns a small bookstore and argues that a tax break for small business owners would be good for the economy. While it is sensible to consider his bias, it does not follow that these tax breaks would not be good for the economy.

Interest (having a stake in a matter) is, however, relevant to assessing the credibility of a source. If a party has an interest in a claim, then they have less credibility in this matter than a similar source that is not impacted by this biasing factor. Disproving a claim requires more than just showing interest or bias in the matter, it requires directly assessing the claim. As such, the fact that the Democrats would benefit from Blasey’s accusation being true does not prove it is not true. Likewise, the fact that the Republicans would benefit from it being true that Kavanaugh is innocent does not prove he assaulted Blasey.

 

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Blasey & Kavanaugh I: Assessing the Claim

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While the Democrats did their feeble best to slow down the process, it looked like Brett Kavanaugh would sail through quickly and smoothly. Then an accusation by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came to light. Blasey claimed that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers. Kavanaugh has denied the accusation. While the incident is alleged to have taken place over thirty years ago, his recent denial makes the event immediately relevant. After all, if it did occur, then Kavanaugh’s denial would be a lie (assuming he remembered the incident; if he did not, then his denial would merely be untrue). As such, the fundamental question is whether the claim is true.

While it is common for such accusations to be met with attacks on the accuser, the Republicans have decided to focus on attacking the Democrats rather than Blasey. This is, of course, after some efforts to attack the alleged victim.  From a pragmatic standpoint, this is a smart approach. After all, the #MeToo movement has (at least temporarily) made it so that attacking purported victims tends to be either ineffective or counterproductive. Once the #MeToo movement fades, this might change, and the old tactics might become the standard once again.

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As would be expected, one of the main responses to the accusation by Blasey is that the Democrats are using her accusation as a political tool to slow down the process. As of this writing, Blasey has stated that she wants the FBI to investigate the matter before she testifies. This could be a reasonable request: Blasey does not want to go before congress in a mere “he said, she said” situation. An FBI investigation would provide much more in the way of facts, thus allowing the accusation to be supported or countered. Blasey’s supporters have claimed that this desire to have the FBI investigate is additional evidence that she is telling the truth. If she were lying, she would not want the FBI to investigate the matter and show that her claim is untrue.

Those who are critical of Blasey can contend that she runs no risk by asking the FBI to investigate the incident even if they find nothing to support her claim (or even evidence against it). They can also point out that this investigation would delay the confirmation process and argue that the Democrats are trying to slow down matters until the upcoming election. While these points are relevant in terms of showing that the Democrats have an interest in the matter (which biases them), they obviously do not prove that Blasey is lying. After all, the accusation can both be true and be used by the Democrats to slow down the process. As such, the fact that the Democrats are benefiting from the accusation does not disprove the claim. What is needed is, of course, evidence for or against the claim.

While Blasey claims that Kavanaugh assaulted her, he denies it. Blasey also alleges that Mark Judge was present at the incident. Both men deny the event occurred and even deny being at the party. Since Blasey claims that only Kavanaugh and Judge were present, the only available evidence at this time is their assertions, thus making this a “he said, she said” scenario. However, since Judge and Kavanaugh deny attending the party, there would be witnesses for that claim. There is, however, the obvious problem that people would be asked to recall who attended a party over thirty years ago (assuming there is no other evidence, such as photos).

Supporters of Blasey do point to 2012 notes from a therapist in which Blasey mentions being attacked and that she told her husband one of the men was Kavanaugh. While this does provide some support for her claim, an objective analysis does reveal some problems. One point of concern is that the 2012 therapist notes are based on what she said—so if her claim is in doubt now, pointing out that she also made it earlier would not address that doubt. A second point of concern is that her husband is, one would infer, biased in her favor. This does not mean that he is not telling the truth, but it does impact his credibility. What the notes do, however, is provide evidence that she did not suddenly make up an incident in 2018 to use against Kavanaugh. However, this does not prove that her claim about Kavanaugh is true.

One point raised against Blasey is the fact that she waited until now to bring this matter to light. This does lend some apparent credence to the claim that the accusation is being made simply to slow down the process until the elections. However, there are some plausible replies to this delay. As has often been noted, women who bring forth such accusations against powerful men (or men in general) tend to be subject to doubt, abuse and attacks. Even when the accusations are credible, it is often the victim who is shamed and blamed. As such, it is not surprising that Blasey would have been reluctant to come forward in the past. In terms of being willing to do so now, her supporters could point to the fact that the #MeToo movement has made coming forward less awful (although Blasey claims she is getting death threats). There is also the fact that there is a great deal at stake, since Kavanaugh is being nominated for the Supreme Court. Naturally, her detractors will focus on the fact that so much is at stake that a person might be willing to lie to achieve a political end. While deceit has always been a political tactic, the Trump administration has made it an everyday tool—so it is natural that the Republicans would suspect deceit.

Unless additional evidence is forthcoming, the assessment of the claim comes down to a matter of assessing the plausibility of the claim itself and the relative credibility of the witnesses. That a drunk young man would assault a young woman at a party has considerable plausibility. However, the plausibility of this general claim does not prove that Kavanaugh engaged in the alleged assault. Assessing this is a matter of assessing the relative credibility of those allegedly involved. Naturally, people will tend to be influenced by their political views and values. Democrats, obviously enough, will tend to believe Blasey and Republicans will tend to favor Kavanaugh.

 

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Tribalism

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The concept of tribalism is often used to explain the current state of American politics, but it is also wielded as a weapon. An expert might note that the unwillingness to compromise is due to tribalism, while a critic might deride the tribalism of the other side. While this short essay is not intended to explore the complexities and formalities of a rigorous definition of the concept, I will endeavor to discuss the matter in a neutral and rational way.

Tribalism is, obviously enough, characterized by loyalty to the tribe. This differs from loyalty to principles or values. After all, a person loyal to a tribe because it is their tribe will typically retain that loyalty even when the tribe shifts values. In contrast, a person who is dedicated to certain principles and values that a tribe happens to have at a certain time will typically cease to be loyal to that tribe if it comes to reject these principles and values. Since the values professed by tribe’s shift, tribalism involves value fluidity: as the tribe changes values, those who embrace tribalism shift their values. For example, the tribe of Republicans endorsed the values of free trade and thus opposed tariffs. They also professed a dislike of deficits and spending. Trump, however, shifted these values and now the Republican tribe largely embraces tariffs, deficits and big government spending. Such is the power of tribalism that it generally trumps professed values.

It might be contended that tribes need values and principles to define them, hence this fluidity is an exaggeration. However, the ease with which tribes shift values shows that such fluidity is real. People even develop the myth that the values they have now, have always been—when a look at history shows that this is not the case. There is also the fact that group identity and hostility to other groups is easy to manufacture. Divide a group of people into two teams, give them different colored

Tribalism certainly has its origin in biology; humans are social animals and tribalism is the human equivalent of unthinking pack loyalty. Animals, after all, generally do not have abstract principles or values. This is one reason that tribalism trumps values—it is unthinking instinct. Tribalism is also, not surprisingly, fuelled by cognitive defects (or biases). The most important is in-group bias, which is the tendency of people to see members of their own group as better that the members of other groups. This bias makes it easy for people to attribute positive qualities to members of their own tribe while easily assigning negative traits to those of other tribes. This probably also helps support value fluidity: whatever changes occur in the values professed by the tribe, they will still generally be seen as better than the values of other tribes. As might be expected, fallacious reasoning also plays a role in tribalism.

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There is a fallacy, often called the “group think fallacy”, in which it is inferred that a claim is true (or something is good) because members of one’s group believe the claim (or hold to the values). This is obviously fallacious but has considerable psychological appeal. This also helps fuel value fluidity, since the truth and values are not based on objective assessment, but by reference to the group. While tribalism seems to be a mental defect, it might be wondered whether it is problematic.

One problem with tribalism is that it tends to render the professed values of the tribe meaningless. This is because loyalty is to the tribe rather than a set of values. This does raise some interesting philosophical questions about the basis of tribal identity and some ship of Theseus style problems about when a tribe changes so much that one might wonder whether it is really the same tribe. There are also some other interesting metaphysical problems about identity here as well in terms of what makes a tribe the same tribe across time and value changes.

A second problem is that tribalism tends to encourage irrational behavior on the part of tribe members. That is, they can act contrary to their own interests and against the general welfare because of the dictates of their tribal leaders. On the positive side, tribal leaders could issue commands that do coincide with the interests of the tribal members and the general welfare. However, this is a matter of chance.

A third problem is that tribalism makes it easy for tyrants to gain ready-made followers who happily serve them, no matter how terrible the tyranny. Because of these problems, it would seem best to find ways to counter tribalism.

One obvious solution is improving critical thinking, so that people can recognize the defects behind and of tribalism. However, mere logic is obviously enough—people also need training in values and commitment to values, as per Aristotle. Of course, this also raises a possible problem: people committed to terrible values can be worse than mere tribes.

 

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