Category: Ethics

Now that the ethics of methods and sources have been addressed, I now turn to the content of opposition research. The objective is to provide some general guidance about what sort of content is morally acceptable to research and use against political opponents.

Since the objective of opposition research is to find damaging or discrediting information about the target, the desired content will always be negative (or perceived as negative). While there is the view that if one has nothing nice to say about someone else, then one should say nothing, the negative nature of the content does not automatically make such research unethical. To support this, consider the obvious analogy to reporters: the fact that they are on the lookout for negative information does not make them unethical. Finding negative things and reporting on them are legitimate parts of their jobs. Likewise for opposition researchers. As such, concerns about the ethics of the content must involve considerations other than the negative nature of the desired content.

One obvious requirement for ethical content is that the information must be true. This does raise an obvious epistemic problem: how can the researchers know it is true? Laying aside the epistemic problems of skepticism, this is a practical question about evidence, reasoning and credibility which go beyond the scope of this essay. However, a general ethical guide can be provided. At a minimum, the claim should only be used if it is more likely to be true than false. Both ethics and critical thinking also require that the evidence for a claim be proportional to the strength of the claim. As such, strong claims require strong support. Ethics also requires considering the harm that could be done by using the claim and the greater the harm, the greater the evidence for that claim needs to be. This moral guide is at odds with the goal of the research, since the more damaging the claim, the better it is as a political weapon. But ethics requires balancing the political value of the weaponized information against the harm that could be done to an innocent person. This is not to say that damaging information should not be used, but that due caution is required.

This approach is analogous to guides on using force. Justifying the use of lethal force against a person requires good reasons to believe that person is a threat and that the use of force is justified. To the degree that there are doubts, the justification is reduced. Likewise, damaging information should be used with caution so that an innocent person is not unjustly harmed. For example, if someone is accused of having committed sexual assault, then there would need to be strong evidence supporting such a claim. Although in the current political climate, such an accusation seems more of a plus than a disqualification.

There is debate about when the use of force is justified, and the perception of the person using the force (such as how scared or threatened they claimed to be) is often considered. The same applies to the use of damaging information, so there will be considerable disagreement (probably along ideological lines) about whether using it is justified. And there will be debates about how people see its plausibility. Despite these issues, the general guide remains: the evidence needs to be adequate to justify the belief the claim is true. The use of information that does not meet even the minimal standard (more likely to be true than not) would be unethical. In other cases, there can be good faith debate about whether a claim is adequately supported or not. In addition to the concern about the truth of the information, there is also the concern about the relevance of the information.

The general principle of relevance is obvious: the content must be relevant to the issue. In the abstract, relevance is easy to define: information is relevant if it bears on the person’s suitability for the position.  For example, if the opposition research is against someone running for senate, then the content must be relevant to the person’s ability to do the job of a senator properly and effectively. What should be considered relevant will vary from situation to situation.

One problem is that people have different notions of relevance. For example, some might consider the high school and college behavior of a candidate for the Supreme Court to be relevant information while others disagree. As another example, some might consider a candidate’s sexual activity relevant while others might see consensual sex of any kind between adults as irrelevant. And, as the current political climate shows, being credibly accused of sexual assault or embracing long discredited claims about the cause of autism might be seen as positive rather than disqualifying.

One way to solve this problem is to use this principle: whatever would influence voters (if true) is acceptable to use. While this seems to be entailed by the citizen’s right to know, it provides a very broad principle. In fact, it might be so broad as to be useless as a guide. After all, voters can be influenced by almost any fact about a person even when it would seem to have no relevance to the office/position/etc. in question.

That said, there is also the problem that many offices and positions have little in the way of requirements. For example, the office of President has only the age and nationality requirements. Because of this, using the requirements of the position to set the limits of information would be too narrow. What is needed is a guide that is not too narrow and not too broad.

One option would be to go with the established norms for the position For example, while the requirements to be President are minimal, there (used to be) expectations about what the person should be like to be fit for office, such as basic competence, respect for the rule of law, and not being a convicted felon.

The problem with using the norms is that this seems to embrace relativism and allows for a potentially unchecked race to the bottom as norms are broken and replaced. As such, there should be some restrictions on what is ethical content that goes beyond the norms of the day. Developing a full moral guide goes beyond the scope of this essay, but a general guide can be offered. The guiding principle is that the content should be relevant to the position, while also considering what would reasonably be relevant to the voters. But norms, like laws, only hold when people are willing to follow or enforce them.

As with any research, opposition research relies on sources. If the goal is to gather true and relevant information, then the credibility of sources matters. There are the usual logical standards for assessing the credibility of sources. In such cases, the argument from authority provides a good guide. After all, to accept a claim from a source as true because of the source is to engage in the argument from authority.  This argument has the following form:

 

Premise 1: A makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: A is an authority on subject S.

Conclusion: C is true.

 

The argument can also be recast as an argument from credibility, if one prefers that to authority.

 

Premise 1: A makes claim C about Subject S.

Premise 2: A is a credible source on subject S.

Conclusion: C is true.

 

Assessing this reasoning involves assessing the credibility of the source. One factor is bias: the more biased the source, the less credible. Other factors include  having the expertise to make claims on the subject, whether the source is identified or not (anonymous sources cannot be properly assessed for credibility), and whether credible sources also agree that the claim is true. It must be noted that a lack of credibility does not prove a claim is false. Rather, a lack of credibility means that there is no reason to accept the claim based on that source. Because people tend to weigh bias very heavily, it is important to remember that biased sources can still make true claims. Proving bias lowers credibility but does not disprove the claim.

If the goal of opposition research is to get true and relevant information, then only credible sources should be used. While there is the question of how credible a source should be, a minimal standard should be that the source is more likely to be truthful than they are to lie. And, to follow the advice of John Locke, the evidence must be proportional to the strength of the claim. So, for example, the claim that a candidate’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination would require considerable support. If the goal is simply to win by any means necessary, then moral concerns are irrelevant. What would matter would be pragmatic concerns about the effectiveness of the information. If the credibility of the source matters to the public (which, as Trump has shown, is often not the case), then credible sources should be used. If the target audience does not care about credulity, then it would not matter, and opposition “researchers” could save time by just making things up. One could also advance the usual sort of utilitarian argument that the end of defeating a bad opponent would justify the means, though this would also require considering the harm caused by setting aside concerns about credibility.

In addition to the credibility concerns about sources, there are also moral concerns, especially about which sources are ethical to use. As was the case with methods, the use of publicly accessible sources usually raises no special moral problems. After all, such information is already available, and the opposition research merely collects it so it can be used against the opposition. As with the ethics of methods, the law can provide a useful starting point for ethical considerations about sources. It can also be argued that the use of illegal sources would be unfair to the opposition if they are staying within the law.  Naturally, it should be kept in mind that the law is distinct from morality, so that the legal is not always ethical and the illegal is not always unethical.

One example that helped bring opposition research into the public eye was the Russian efforts to get information to the Trump campaign in 2016. While Trump claims that they had nothing of value, it is illegal for a candidate to receive anything of value from a foreign source.  In addition to the illegality of accepting foreign assistance in a political campaign, there is also the moral argument that outsiders should not be allowed to interfere in our elections, even if they have true and relevant information. After all, the election is the business of the citizens and foreign involvement subverts democracy. But this could be countered by arguing that any true and relevant information should be available to the voters, no matter its origin.

As another example, someone who violates a non-disclosure agreement to provide information would also be an illegal source. From a moral standpoint, the person who signed the NDA would break their agreement and thus act unethically. Naturally, if the NDA was imposed unjustly then breaking it could be morally acceptable. However, using sources that have freely agreed to remain silent would seem to be wrong. But there is the obvious problem that NDAs can be used to hide awful things that would change the minds of voters and hence they have the right to know.

As was the case with methods, one could advance the argument that winning is all that matters, or a utilitarian argument could be used to justify using morally dubious sources. For example, a utilitarian argument could be made for getting a source to break an NDA that forbids them from talking about the settlement they got from being sexually harassed by a senator. After all, this information would be relevant to deciding whether to vote for the senator.

More broadly, it could be argued that the source should not matter if the information is true and relevant. After all, the right of citizens to know true and relevant information could be taken to override ethical concerns about sources. This is something that likely requires assessment on a case-by-case basis. To illustrate, consider the question of whether political campaigns should accept true and relevant information from foreign powers. On the one hand, there is the argument that the information could help prevent harm by reducing the chance that a bad person would be elected or appointed. However, accepting such aid from foreign powers is to invite the subversion of the election process and could create more harm than what is intended. As such, foreign sources of this type would be unethical to use. In the next and final essay, I will consider the ethics of the content of opposition research, which focuses on the matter of relevance.

To start with the obvious, ethical methods are acceptable, while unethical methods are not. The challenge is developing principles to distinguish between the two. As there are too many possible methods to address, I will focus on commonly used methods.

One ethical method is gathering information using publicly available methods. information One obvious example is acquiring publicly available voting records for politicians. Other examples include gathering information through requests for public documents, searching through public sites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.  As a final example, interviewing people who agree to be interviewed would, in general, be ethical. While there is an overlap between methods and sources, there are important distinctions that require considering them separately. Methods are how you get information. Sources are where it comes from. While methods are used on sources, there can be a difference in their ethics. An ethical method might be used to get information from a morally problematic source, or an unethical method might be used to gather information from a morally unproblematic source.

Research methods become potentially more morally controversial the further one strays from publicly available methods. To use an analogy, looking at what a person is doing in public is (generally) not morally problematic. Peeping into their house from the sidewalk raises some moral concerns and hiding cameras in their bedroom is clearly wrong. As the analogy suggests, the methods become more morally problematic when they involve breaching the wall of privacy. While it might be tempting to regard all such methods as immoral, it will be argued that this is not the case: there are morally acceptable methods that breach this wall. To use an analogy, reporters engaged in legitimate reporting can justly break the walls of privacy.

In some cases, the desired information is not accessible by publicly available means, but the methods are still morally acceptable. For example, it is acceptable to privately interview sources who willingly talk to the researchers but would be unwilling to be interviewed in public view on, for example, the news.

In other cases, the methods used to breach the wall of privacy would be morally unacceptable. Likely examples include hacking, bribery, theft, and using intimidation or deceit. While these examples provide some limited guidance, what is needed is a more general principle. It is natural enough to seek guidance from the law.

While legality is not the same as morality, the use of illegal methods such as hacking, theft, threat and bribery and so on are morally problematic. In many cases of illegal methods, such as theft and hacking, there are independent moral arguments that establish such actions as wrong (over and above their illegality). It is, however, possible for morally acceptable methods of information gathering to be against the law. For example, a repressive state (such as Florida) might pass laws to shield the activities of politicians from the public. As other examples,  there are laws that hide the identity of campaign contributors or impose draconian non-disclosure agreements. As such, the law is not a perfect guide to morality but does provide a useful starting point.

Because most information is now digital, one method of concern is hacking (broadly construed). For the sake of simplicity, this can also be taken to include such things as phishing and other methods that are not, strictly speaking, hacking. This method includes various means of gaining access to digital information without the permission of the owner.

The various methods that breach the wall of privacy could be morally justified on utilitarian grounds. To illustrate, if a candidate had child pornography on his laptop, then it could be argued that hacking into his laptop would be morally justified because doing so could help keep a pedophile out of power. But this could be countered by arguing that this should be left up to law enforcement. The counter to that counter is that law enforcement can be selective about which criminals they decide to pursue.

Another approach is arguing that the citizens’ right to know justifies the use of means that would otherwise seem unethical. To use an analogy, a person’s privacy rights do not (in general) permit them to hide their crimes from the police. There can, of course, be clear exceptions in cases involving tyrannical laws or oppressive policing. Likewise, a political candidate (broadly defined) does not have a right to privacy when it comes to their misdeeds that voters have a right to know. For example, it could be argued that opposition researchers would be acting ethically by stealing documents from a corrupt politician that prove their corruption.

The obvious counter to such reasoning is that opposition researchers are not law enforcement (or moral enforcement). They are members of the public and lack any special moral right to use such methods. If they suspect that something bad is occurring, they should refer the matter to the appropriate authorities. The danger of citizens taking such research into their own hands is illustrated by the case of a concerned citizen who decided to investigate rumors that Hillary Clinton and other Democrats were operating a slavery ring in the basement of a pizza shop. During this “investigation” no one was hurt, but the “investigator” fired shots. As such, if something is bad enough to seem to justify using morally problematic methods, then the matter should be referred to the police (assuming they are not corrupt) and, where appropriate, to the press. But, once again, there can be situations where the authorities are unwilling to do anything even when crimes have been committed.

In the next essay, I will look at the ethics of sources.

Opposition research is gathering information intended to damage or discredit political adversaries. While the intent to find damaging or discrediting information might seem morally problematic, it can be neutral or even laudable. If the intent is to damage adversaries for political advantage, then this is not laudable but could still be ethical. After all, good might come from using opposition research to harm a bad opponent.

 The intent is to provide citizens with relevant and true information so they can make informed decisions, is morally laudable. This information allows for better decision making and can produce better results than making decisions with false or irrelevant information.

 While motives are relevant to assessing ethics, the morality of the motives is distinct from the morality of the research and its results.  This is because bad people with bad motives might do ethical research (for whatever reason) and end up doing good. For example, a selfish and corrupt politician might expose a worse villain. As would be expected, good people with good motives might engage in morally questionable research or end up causing harm, all from the best of intentions. For example, a researcher might use a questionable source and justify this by telling themselves that their good end justifies this means. As a final point about researchers, their ethics are irrelevant to the truth of the information they gather. To think otherwise, would be to fall into an ad hominem or genetic fallacy. In general terms, this is when an irrelevant negative assertion about a source is taken as evidence against their claim(s).  This is distinct from considering the ethics of the researchers when assessing their credibility. After all, bias reduces credibility and is relevant when assessing their likely honesty. Now to the ethics of research.

For this essay and those that follow in this series, it will be assumed that there are at least some moral limits to opposition research. Without this assumption, writing about the ethics of opposition would be limited to “anything goes.” One could refute this assumption by employing the approach of sophists both ancient and modern. The ancient sophists argued in favor of skepticism, relativism and the view that all that matters is success (or winning, if one prefers). On this view, there would be no moral limits on opposition research for two reasons. One is that skepticism and relativism about ethics results in the rejection of the idea of objective ethics. The other is that if success is all that matters, then there are no limits on the means that can be used to achieve it. What matters to the sophist, in terms of opposition research, is acquiring (or fabricating) information that can damage a political adversary and thus increase the chances of success.

In terms of arguments in favor of their being moral limits, one excellent place to start is by considering the consequences of having limits versus not having them. As noted above, good political decisions, such as deciding how to vote, require that citizens have relevant, true information. Opposition research that provides or aims at providing relevant and true information would enable citizens to make better decisions and (probably) produce better results. In contrast, taking the view that all that matters is victory will tend to produce worse results for the general good. There can be exceptions: a well-informed public might make terrible choices, and an utterly selfish person solely focused on their gain might end up somehow doing good. As would be expected, the general debate over whether there should be ethical limits on anything goes far beyond the possible scope of this short essay.

In the essays that follow, I will also make a case for there being ethical limits on opposition research. The gist of this argument is that if the essays are logically appealing, then that provides a reason to accept that there should be at least some limits on opposition research.  The assessment of the ethics of the research involves considering three key factors: the methods used, the sources and the content. There will be an essay on each.

8

Asteroid and lunar mining are the stuff of science fiction, but there are those working to make them a reality.  While the idea of space mining might seem far-fetched, asteroids and the moon contain useful resources. While the idea of space mining probably brings to mind images of belters extracting gold, one of the most valuable resources in space is water. Though cheap and plentiful on earth, it is very expensive to transport it into space. While the most obvious use of space water is for human consumption, it also provides raw material for fuels and many uses in industry. Naturally, miners will also seek minerals, metals and other resources.

My love of science fiction, especially GDW’s classic role playing game Traveller, makes me like the idea of space mining. For me, that is part of the future we were promised. But, as a philosopher, I have ethical concerns.

As with any sort of mining, two moral concerns are the impact on the environment and the impact on humans. Terrestrial mining has been devastating to the environment. This includes the direct damage caused by extracting the resources and the secondary effects, such as lasting chemical contamination. These environmental impacts in turn impact human populations.  These impacts can include directly killing people (a failed retaining wall that causes drowning deaths) and indirectly harming people (such as contamination of the water supply). As such, mining on earth involves serious moral concerns. In contrast, space mining would seem to avoid these problems.

Unlike the heavily populated planet earth, asteroids and the moon are lifeless rocks in space. As such, they do not seem to have any ecosystems to damage. While the asteroids that are mined will often be destroyed in the process, it is difficult to argue that destroying an asteroid would be wrong based on environmental concerns. While destroying the moon would be bad, mining operations there would seem to be morally acceptable because one could argue that there is no environment to worry about.

Since space mining takes place in space, the human population of earth will (probably) be safely away from any side effects of mining. It is worth noting that should humans colonize the moon or asteroids, then space mining could harm these populations. But, for the foreseeable future, there will be no humans living near the mining areas. Because of the lack of harm, space mining would seem to be morally acceptable.

It might be objected that asteroids and the moon be left unmined despite the absence of life and ecosystems. The challenge is making the case why mining lifeless rocks would be wrong. One possible approach is to contend that the asteroids and the moon have rights that would make mining them wrong. However, rocks do not seem to be the sort of thing that can have rights. Another approach is to argue that people who care about asteroids and the moon would be harmed. While I am open to arguments that would grant these rocks protection from mining, the burden of proof is on those who wish to make this claim.

Thus, it would seem there are not any reasonable moral arguments against the mining of the asteroids based on environmental concerns or potential harm to humans. That could, of course, change if ecosystems were found on asteroids or if it turned out that the asteroids performed an important role in the solar system that affected terrestrial ecosystems. While this result favors space mining, the moral concerns are not limited to environmental harms.

There are, as would be suspected, the usual moral concerns about the working conditions and pay of space miners. Of course, these concerns are not specific to space mining and going into labor ethics would take this short essay too far afield. However, the situation in space does make the ethics of ownership relevant.

From a moral standpoint, the ethics of who can rightfully claim ownership of asteroids and the moon is of great concern. From a practical standpoint, it is reasonable to expect that matters will play out as usual: those with guns and money will decide who owns the space rocks. If it follows the usual pattern, corporations will end up owning the rocks and will exploit them. But how things will probably play out does not determine how they should play out. Fortunately, philosophers considered this sort of situation long ago,

While past philosophers probably did not give much thought to space mining, asteroids (and the moon) fit into the state of nature scenarios envisioned by thinkers like Hobbes and Locke.  They are resources in abundance with no effective authority over them. Naturally, the authorities can do things on earth to people involved with activities in space, but it will be quite some time before there are space police (though we have a Space Force).

Since there are no rightful owners (or, alternatively, we are all potentially rightful owners), it is tempting to claim the resources are there for the taking. That is, the resources belong to whoever, in Locke’s terms, mixes their labor with it and makes it their own (or more likely their employer’s own). This does have a certain appeal. After all, if me and my fellows in Mike’s Space Mining construct a robot ship that flies out to asteroid and mines it, we seem to have earned the right to those resources through our efforts. Before our ship mined it for water and metal, these valuable resources were just drifting in space, surrounded by rock. It would thus seem to follow that we would have the right to grab as many asteroids as we can. To be fair, our competitors would have the same right. This would be a rock rush in space.

But Locke also has his proviso: those who take from the common resources must leave as much and as good for others. While this proviso has been grotesquely violated on earth, the asteroids provide us with a new opportunity to consider how to share (or not) these abundant resources.

It can be argued that there is no obligation to leave as much and as good for others in space and that things should be on a strict first grab, first get approach. After all, the people who get their equipment into space would have done the work (or put up the money) and hence (as argued above) be entitled to all they can grab and use or sell. Other people are free to grab what they can, if they have access to the resources needed to reach and mine the asteroids. Naturally, the folks who lack the resources to compete will end up, as they always do, out of luck. 

While this has a certain selfish appeal, a case can be made for sharing. One obvious reason is that the people who reach the asteroids first to mine them did not create the ability to do so out of nothing. After all, reaching the asteroids will be the result of centuries of human civilization that made such technology possible. As such, there would seem to be a general debt owed to humanity and paying this off would involve contributing to the general good of humanity. Naturally, this line of reasoning can be countered by arguing that successful miners will benefit humanity when their profits “trickle down” from space. It could also be argued that the idea of a debt to past generations is absurd as is the notion of the general good of humanity. This is, of course, the view that the selfish and ungrateful would embrace.

Second, there is concern for not only the people who are alive today but also for the people to be. To use an analogy, think of a buffet line at a party. The fact that I am first in line does not give me the right to devour everything I can stuff into my snack port. If I did that at a party, I would be rightly seen as a terrible person. It also does not give me the right to grab whatever I cannot eat so I can sell it to those who have the misfortune to be behind me in line. Again, if I did that, I would be rightly regarded as a horrible person who should be banned from parties. So, these resources should be treated in a similar manner, namely fairly and with some concern for those who are behind the first people in line. As such, the mining of space resources should include limits aimed at benefiting those who do not happen to get there first to grab the goodies. To be fair, behavior that would get a person kicked out of a party is often lauded in the business world, for that realm normalizes and lauds awful behavior.

In closing, it should be noted that space is really big. Because of this, it could be argued that there are plenty of resources out there, so it is morally acceptable for the people who get there first to grab as much as they can. After all, no matter how much they grab, there will be plenty left. While this does have some appeal, there is an obvious problem: it is not just a matter of how much is out there, but how much can be reached at this time. Going back to the buffet analogy, if I stuffed myself with as much as I could grab and started trying to sell the rest to others behind me in line, then yelling “there are other buffets out there” would not get me off the moral hook.

 

Shortly after the #metoo movement began gaining nationwide attention, a female student arrived at my office and started to close the door as she introduced herself. While admitting this is embarrassing, I felt a shiver of fear. In an instant, my mind went through a nightmare scenario: what if she is failing and is planning on using the threat of an accusation of sexual harassment to get a passing grade? Quieting this irrational worry, I casually said “Oh, you can leave the door open.” She sat down and we talked about her paper. In a bit of reflection, I realized that this was a reversal: it is usually the woman who feels the shiver of fear when a man is closing the office door.

To head off any criticisms about inconsistency, I’ve always had a literal open-door policy for all students. This originated in my grad school days when a female friend told me that when a male professor closes his office door on her, she feels trapped and vulnerable. As various cases indicate, her fear was not unfounded. Now that I have my own office, I always keep the door open. As such, it was ironic that I would be one scared by the closing of my office door by a woman.

Like everyone else, I have fears. An important question about a fear is whether it is rational. To illustrate, I will use my fear of heights. Part of this fear is rational: I suffered a full quadriceps tear when a ladder went out from under me. So, being wary about ladders, roofs and the edges of tall things like mountains is sensible. However, my fear also extends to flying. This fear, I know, is irrational. While accidents do occur, being inside a commercial airliner is one of the safest places a normal person can be. I have never been in airplane crash or mishap, so there is not even an instigating incident to explain this fear.

While I have been told and have told myself that flying is nothing to fear, this does not work. Statistics and proof do not change how I feel. I deal with it using Aristotle’s method: I make myself face my fear over and over until I can function normally—despite being terrified. Because of my fear of flying, I do not dismiss other peoples’ fears, even when they might seem unfounded or even silly. As such, when men claim to be terrified of false accusations of sexual assault, I do not dismiss this fear. This is, I am obligated to say, a fear I have felt.

As with any fear, an important question is whether the fear of a false accusation is rational. Is it like the sensible fear that leads me to be careful on roofs or is it like the irrational fear of flying that causes me needless discomfort? As with any fear, this cannot be judged by the strength of the feeling—this gives no indication of the likelihood of a bad thing happening. To illustrate, most people are not terrified of the health complications from a poor diet and lack of exercise but are afraid of shark attacks. But poor health habits are much more likely to kill a person than a shark attack. Sorting out the rationality of fear is a matter of statistics, although the specific context does matter. For example, if I jump into shark infested water while covered in blood, my odds of being attacked would be higher than usual. As another example, a person surrounded by women who are scheming, unethical liars would have greater odds of being falsely accused of assault.

While it is challenging to have accurate data about false accusations, the best available data shows that between 2% and 10% of accusations are shown to be false. The FBI claims that 8% of rape accusations are found to be false.  In contrast, unreported cases of assault (which, one must admit, are hard to quantify) are much higher than the number of false accusations. The best evidence suggests that only 35% of sexual assaults are reported. As such, an assault is unlikely to be reported and the odds of a false accusation are extremely low.

But one might insist that false accusations do happen. This is true, but the data shows the typical false allegation is made by a teenage girl trying to get out of trouble. So, the notion that women use false accusations to destroy men is not well supported. This is not to say that this is impossible, just that it is extremely unlikely. Going back to my fear of flying, the fear is not irrational because a crash could never happen. Rather, it is irrational because the fear is disproportional to the likelihood of a crash. So, the terror we men feel about being falsely accused of sexual assault is like my fear of flying: it is not a fear of the impossible, but a fear of the extremely unlikely.

There are, however, people who do have a reasonable fear of being wrongfully accused and convicted. These are black people (and other minorities). Many of those who are vocal about their fear of men being falsely accused of sexual assault have little or no concern about the wrongful accusation and conviction of minorities and express faith in that aspect of the legal system. This is an inconsistent view: if false accusations leading to harm are awful and something to worry about, then the false accusations against minorities should be seen this way. One might suspect that the worry does not stem from a passion for justice, but fear of accountability.

Imagine I am the CEO of a corporation whose factory farming practices drew the attention of the Humane Society and legislation has now been proposed to reign in my cruel excesses. If I appeared in a video complaining about the Humane Society forcing me to be less cruel and this would have a tiny impact on my vast wealth, few people would be sympathetic. If I was smart and evil, I would use astroturfing instead of honesty. Astroturfing involves concealing those behind a message or organization to make it seem that it arose and is funded by grassroot participants. In this imaginary scenario, I could hire a company to lay down some AstroTurf for me.

 While astroturfing can be a complicated, it usually involves three basic techniques. The first is using positive names for the shell organization(s). For example, my Astroturf organization might be called “Friends of Friendly Farming”, which is much more appealing than “Cow Cruelty Crusaders.”

A second technique is using commercials depicting the “common folk” who just happen to be extremely concerned about the issue. For example, my commercial might feature a mother venting her rage that meat would be unaffordable for her family if the wicked Humane Society had its way.

The third and key part of astroturfing is that those behind it remain anonymous. After all, if people knew that I was behind Friends of Friendly Farming, they would find it less appealing. Since astroturfing is inherently deceitful, it would seem to be immoral. But what, if anything should be done about it?

The use of deceptive names is unethical because of their rhetorical influence over people who might not otherwise support the group if its name matched its purpose. Going back to my example, most would find “Friends of Friendly Farming” appealing. But most would not be won over by “Make Sure Mike Keeps Making Money by Being Mean to Animals.” This technique is like advertising and labelling unhealthy junk food made in China as patriotic, healthy, “Yankee Snacks”. That is, it is deceit. However, just because something is unethical does not entail that it should be illegal.

While the First Amendment does not explicitly protect the right to deceptive speech, laws aimed at requiring honest naming for groups would seem unlikely to withstand scrutiny. There are also practical concerns about enforcement and the potential for abuse of such laws. For example, Republicans would presumably use such laws to insist that all liberal and moderate groups label themselves as “Woke Marxist Transgender Anti-American Vermin.”

 There is also the problem of sorting out whether terms, especially value terms, are being applied correctly. Value terms are especially challenging, given the extent to which even good faith disagreement about them exists. For example, determining whether a group called “Righteous Americans for Righteous Justice” is righteous and for righteous justice would be difficult. As such, while the use of intentionally deceptive names is unethical, it should not be illegal.

The use of dishonest and deceptive commercials is also unethical. They are like listing false ingredients on a food label to get people to buy it. It is also like catfishing. This is when a person pretends, online, to be someone desirable as part of an intentional deception. As with deceptive names, the use of actors portraying “common folk” with strong views on the issue is probably protected by the right to free expression.  There is also the fact that politicians favor allowing considerable leeway in certain deceptive practices, usually determined by which industry is bankrolling their re-election.  

As noted above, the essential quality of astroturfing is that the real parties remain anonymous, hidden behind an appealing shell. In addition to being unethical, this anonymity makes it difficult to assess the case made by those speaking for the anonymous entity. This is because the identity of the source of a claim is necessary to assess the credibility and possible bias of that source. While claims obviously stand or fall on their own, the identity of the source is critical to the practical matter of judging claims.

While there might be a right to deceptive (or persuasive, if one prefers) speech, there is not a right to anonymous speech. Requiring those funding groups and ads to identify themselves does not limit their right of free expression and it serves, as noted above, to protect the right of the listeners to properly assess the claims intended to influence them. Naturally, there are cases in which anonymous speech is morally acceptable—such as in oppressive regimes.

Those who engage in astroturfing might claim they would be harmed if their identities were known. After all, they want to be anonymous because they believe that if people knew their identities, then their efforts at persuasion would be less effective. As such, not being allowed to remain anonymous would harm them.

The easy and obvious response to this is that people do not have a moral right to remain anonymous simply because people would be less likely to be persuaded if they knew their identity. Using an analogy, a company wanting to sell dog meat could not justly claim it would be harmed if it was not allowed to hide the identity of the meat. In such cases, the right to know trumps the right of free expression. As such, it would be reasonable to have laws that forbid such anonymous funding. Naturally, moral exceptions can be made in oppressive countries that engage in unjust persecution.

While one of many heroes in the Iliad, Odysseus is the main character of the Odyssey. He is characterized as possessing many positive traits, especially intelligence. While President Trump clearly lacks the intellectual keenness and skill at counsel of Odysseus, there are some interesting parallels between the two.

 Odysseus is famously presented as a skilled deceiver and fond of adultery (his own, of course). While his fellow heroes benefit from his cunning, Achilles and others regard him as a liar and condemn him for this. For the heroes of the Republican party, Trump occupies a similar role: they are pleased when he wins and assists them in winning but once found his lies and immoral actions (such as adultery) troubling. Trump, like Odysseus, is a master of deceit and disguise. For example, Trump has presented himself as a populist enemy of the elites while, at the same time, surrounding himself with billionaires.  Like Odysseus, Trump achieves victory through cunning and deceit—and thus deserves all the praise due such success.

While no one likes to lose, both Trump and Odysseus are obsessed with wining. Odysseus makes it clear that he wants to win in everything. One of Trump signature lines was that were he president, we would win so much we would be tired of winning.  Trump did lose his second run for President but won in his third attempt. There is even talk of a third term. While winning is generally seen as good, there is the question of what it means to be a victor.

In the case of Odysseus, being a victor means getting what he desires, despite the contrary wishes of friends or foes. “Odysseus’ outlook threatens to make nonsense of morality in the broadest sense: including those values that provide a guide for conduct in situations affecting the well-being of others, imposing constraints on what one may do in pursuit of personal gain.” Odysseus is thus someone who “disregards moral constraints to do anything at all in pursuit of his or her own goals.” Trump, famously, takes  the same approach: he pursues what he wants and does not let concerns about ethics or the interests of others interfere. While this might seem to make both Odysseus and Trump villains, it must be remembered that Odysseus is the (complicated) hero of the Odyssey. Likewise, Trump is a hero to his followers. This raises the question of how this is possible.

One tempting explanation is that Trump’s followers are somehow still deceived: they do not know what Trump truly is. If they knew, they would abandon him. But this view is, in many cases, implausible. While Trump’s supporters claim he is honest, religious, and acting in their interest their support is (usually) not the result of ignorance. Rather, as others have argued, they see Trump as acting against their enemies and his unethical behavior as justified because it is aimed at these enemies. Trump is, as his followers point out, “winning” and fighting against the “enemies of the people.” In this regard, Trump is much like Odysseus. He exemplifies the pre-Socratic “warrior-king” virtues. This is being strong, doing anything to win, and  providing his friends with a cut of the spoils.

Most importantly, this “warrior-king” promises to harm the perceived enemies of his followers and those they disike. If the “warrior-king” convinces his followers that he is hurting their enemies and protecting their share of the loot, they praise and follow him. If Trump was seen as losing, if he stopped attacking their enemies and could no longer convince his followers that he is protecting their share of the loot, then he would lose support. However, as long as he keeps hurting the right people and is seen as winning, then the loyalty of his base is assured. Ethical violations do not matter, unless they are violations that help the enemies of his followers. As such, his followers do not care about his adultery, they do not care about his lies, and they do not care about any collusion, crimes or other misdeeds. What matters to them is what matters to Trump: believing they are winning, and their enemies are losing.

In 1985 Officer Julius Shulte responded to a missing child report placed by the then girlfriend of Vernon Madison. Madison snuck up on the officer and murdered him by shooting him in the back of the head. Madison was found guilty and sentenced to death.

As the wheels of justice slowly turned, Madison aged and developed dementia. He was scheduled to be executed in January 2018 but the execution was delayed and the Supreme Court heard his case. The defense’s argument was that Madison’s dementia prevents him from remembering the crime and his execution would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The prosecution seemed to agree that Madison could not recall the crime but argued he should be executed because he can understand that he will be put to death for being convicted of murder. In a 5-3 opinion, the Court held that the Eighth Amendment may permit executing a prisoner even they cannot remember committing their crime, but it may prohibit executing someone suffering from dementia or another disorder, rather than psychotic delusions. The Court also held that if a prisoner is unable to rationally understand the reasons for their sentence, the Eighth Amendment forbids their execution. While the legal issue has been settled (for now), there still remains philosophical questions.

While metaphysics might seem far removed from the courts, as John Locke noted, “in this personal identity is founded all the right and justice of reward and punishment…” The reason for this is obvious: it is only just to punish (or reward) the person who committed the misdeed (or laudable deed). Locke is talking about metaphysical personal identity: what it is to be a person and what it is to be the same person across time. As such, he is using the term technically and not in the casual sense in which terms like “person” and “man” or “woman” are used interchangeably.

In the normal pursuit of legal justice, the practical goal is to find the right person and there are no worries about the metaphysics of personal identity. But in unusual circumstances, the question can arise as to whether what seems to be the same person really is the same person. For example, one might wonder whether a person with severe dementia is the same metaphysical person who committed the long ago crime.  Appropriately enough, John Locke addressed this problem in considerable detail.

In discussing personal identity, Locke notes that being the same man (or woman) is not identical with being the same person. For him, being the same man is a matter of biological identity: it is the same life of the body through which flows a river of matter over the years. Being the same person is having the same consciousness. Locke seems to take consciousness to be awareness and memory. In any case, he hinges identity on memory such that if memory is irretrievably lost, then the identity is broken. For example, if I lose the memory of running a 5K back in 1985, then I would not be the same person as the person who ran that 5K. I am certainly a slower person, even if I am the same person. If a loss of memory does entail a loss of personal identity, then perhaps a “memory defense” could be used: a person who cannot remember a crime is not the person who committed the crime.

Locke does consider the use of the memory defense in court and addresses this challenge with practical epistemology. If the court can establish that the same man (biological identity) but the defendant cannot establish that they have permanently lost the memory of the misdeed, then the matter will be “proved against them” and they should be found guilty. Locke does remark that in the afterlife, God will know the fact of the matter and punish (or reward) appropriately. However, if it can be established that the person does not remember what the man (or woman) did, then they would not be the same person as that man (or woman). For Locke punishing a different person for what the same man did would be unjust.

While there is the practical matter of knowing whether a person has forgotten, this seemed to have been established in the Madison case. While people can lie about their memory, dementia seems impossible to fake, as there are objective medical tests for the condition. As such, concerns about deception can be set aside and the question remains as to whether the person who committed the crime is still present to be executed. On Locke’s theory he would not—the memories that would forge the chain of identity have been devoured by the demons of dementia.

There are, of course, many other theories of personal identity to choose from. For example, one could go with the view that the same soul makes the same person. One must simply find a way to identify souls to make this work. There are other options to pull from the long history of philosophy. It is also worth considering various justifications for punishment in this context.

Punishment is typically justified in terms of rehabilitation, retribution, and deterrence. While rehabilitation might be possible in the afterlife, execution cannot rehabilitate a person for the obvious reason that it kills them. While the deterrence value of execution has failed to deter the person to be executed, it could be argued that it will deter others—which is a matter of debate. It could be argued that executing a person with dementia will have deterrent value. In fact, it could be contended that showing that the state is willing to kill even people with dementia would make the state even more terrifying. For the deterrence justification, the metaphysical identity of the person does not seem to matter. What matters is that the punishment would deter others, which is essentially a utilitarian argument.

The retribution justification takes us back to personal identity: retribution is only just if it is retribution against the person who committed the crime. It could be argued that retribution only requires retribution against the same man (or woman) because matters of metaphysics are too fuzzy for such important matters. One could also use the retribution justification by advancing another theory of personal identity. For example, at one point David Hume argues that a person is a bundle of perceptions united by a causal chain (rather like how a nation has its identity). On his view, memory discovers identity but (unlike for Locke) it is not the basis of identity. Hume explicitly makes the point that a person can forget and still be the same person; so, Madison could still be the same person who committed the crime on Hume’s account. However, Hume closes his discussion on personal identity in frustration: he notes that the connections can become so tenuous and frayed that one cannot really say if it is the same person or not. This would seem to apply in cases of dementia and hence Madison might not be the same person, even in Hume’s view.

This view could be countered by arguing that it is the same person regardless of the deterioration of mental states. One approach, as noted above, is to go with the soul as the basis of personal identity or make an intuition argument by asking “who else could it be but him?” One could, of course, also take the pragmatic approach and set aside worries of identity and just embrace what the court decided. Vernon Madison was not executed but died on February 22, 2020.

It is common practice to sequence infants to test for various conditions. From a moral standpoint, it seems obvious that these tests should be applied and expanded as rapidly as cost and technology permit (if the tests are useful, of course). The main argument is utilitarian: these tests can find dangerous, even lethal conditions that might not be otherwise noticed until it is too late. Even when such conditions cannot be cured, they can often be mitigated. As such, there would seem to be no room for debate on this matter. But, of course, there is.

One concern is the limited availability of medical services. Once an infant is sequenced, parents will need experts to interpret the results. If sequencing is expanded, this will involve dividing limited resources, which will create the usual problems. While the obvious solution is to train more people to interpret results, this faces the usual problems of expanding the number of available medical experts. Another resource problem will arise when problems are found. Parents who have the means will want to address the issues the tests expose, but not everyone has the resources. Also of concern is the fact that conditions that can be found by sequencing can manifest at different times: some will become problems early in life, others manifest later. This raises the problem of distributing access to the limited number of specialists so that infants with immediate needs get priority access.

One obvious reply to the concerns about access is that this is not a special problem for infant sequencing; it runs broadly across health care. And, of course, there is already a “solution”: the rich and connected get priority access to care. The same “solution” will presumably also be applied in the case of sequencing infants.

Another sensible reply to these concerns is that these are not problems with sequencing, but problems with the medical system. That is, shortages of medical experts and difficulty in accessing the system based on need. Sequencing infants will put more burden on the system and this does raise the moral question of whether the burden will be worth the return. On the face of it, of course, improving medical care for infants would seem to be worth it.

A second concern about sequencing is that, like other medical tests, it might end up doing more harm than good. On the face of it, this might seem an absurd thing to claim: how could a medical test do more harm than good? After all, knowing about potential health threats ahead of time is analogous to soldiers knowing of an upcoming ambush, or a community knowing about an incoming storm before it arrives. In all these cases, foreknowledge is good because it allows people to prepare and makes it more likely that they will succeed. As such, sequencing is the right thing to do.

While this view of foreknowledge is plausible, medical tests are not an unmitigated good. After all, medical tests can create anxiety and distress that create more harm than the good they do. There is also an established history of medical tests that are wasteful and, worse, those that end up causing significant medical harm. Because of the potential for such harms, it would be unethical to simply rush to expand sequencing. Instead, the accuracy and usefulness of the tests need to be  determined.

It might be countered, with great emotion, that if even a single child is saved by rapidly expanding sequencing, then it would be worth it. The rational reply is, of course, that it would not be worth it if expanding the sequencing too quickly ended up hurting many children. As such, the right thing to do is to address the possible risks rationally and avoid getting led astray by fear and hope.