Category: Politics

“The amazing, the unforgivable thing was that all his life he had watched the march of ruined men into the oblivion of poverty and disgrace—and blamed them.”

 

-The Weapon Shops of Isher, A.E. van Vogt

 

In the previous essay, I discussed the role of chance in artistic success. In Salganik’s discussion of his experiment, he noted it probably had broader implications for success. Sorting out the role of chance in success is both interesting and important.

One reason it is important to sort out chance is to provide a rational basis for praise or blame (and any accompanying reward or punishment). After all, success or failure by pure chance would not merit praise or blame. If I win a lottery by pure chance, I have done nothing warranting praise. Aside from acquiring a ticket, I had no substantial role in the process. Likewise, if I do not win a random lottery, I do not merit being accused of failure.

This also ties into morality in that chance can mitigate moral responsibility. If the well-maintained brakes on my truck fail as I approach a stop sign at a reasonable speed and I hit an innocent pedestrian, I am not to blame—this seems a matter of chance. I were to accidentally crash into someone trying to commit murder and save their intended victim, I am not responsible for this fortuitous outcome.

Much less obvious is the connection between chance and setting rational public policy and laws. After all, setting public policy on such matters as unemployment benefits and food stamps without properly assessing the role of chance in success and failure would be a grave moral error. Suppose as some claim, people end up unemployed or in need of food stamps because of factors that are well within their control. That is, they effectively freely decide to be unemployed or in need. If this is the case, then it would be reasonable to set public policy to reflect this (alleged)reality, and this would seem to entail that such support should not exist. To use an analogy, if someone foolishly throws away her money, I have no obligation to give her more money. Her poor decision making does not constitute my obligation.

However, if chance (or other factors beyond the control of the individual) play a significant role in success and failure, then it is reasonable to shape policy to match this alleged reality. Suppose as some claim, people often end up unemployed or in need of food stamps because of chance rather than their own choice. In this case, public policy should reflect this alleged reality, and such aid should be available to help offset chance.  To use an analogy, if someone is robbed of the money she needs to buy food for herself and her children, then her situation does obligate me—if can help her at reasonable cost to myself, I should do so. Otherwise, I am lacking in virtue.

Thus, determining the role of chance in success and failure is important matter. Unfortunately, it is also a very complex matter.  I think it would be helpful to use an example to show that chance seems to be a major factor in success in factor. Since I am most familiar with my own life, I will use myself as an example of the role of chance in success and failure.

As I mentioned in the previous essay on this matter, I was accused of believing in choice because I want to get credit for my successes. As might be imagined, people who are successful usually want to believe their success is largely due to their decisions and efforts—that they have earned success. Likewise, people who are failures often blame chance (and other factors) for their failures. People also apply their view to the opposite of their situations: the successful attribute failure to the decisions of those who have failed. Those who have failed attribute the success of others to chance. People usually embrace the narrative that pleases them most. However, what pleases need not be true. As such, while I like to believe that my success is earned, I am willing to consider the role of chance.

One factor that is entirely a matter of chance is birth. It is, if there is chance, a matter of chance that I was born in the United States to a lower middle-class family and that I was healthy. It is also largely a matter of chance, from my standpoint, that I had a family that took care of me and that I was in a society that provided stability, healthcare and education. If I had been born in a war and poverty ravaged area or had serious health issues, things would have been much different.

The rest of my life was also heavy with chance. For example, I almost ended up a Marine, but budget cuts prevented that and instead I ended up at Ohio State. I ended up meeting a woman there who went to Florida State University and thus I ended up in Tallahassee by chance. This allowed me to get the job I have—which was also largely due to chance. Florida A&M University needed a philosophy professor right away and I just happened to be there. I could, easily enough, go through all the matters of chance that resulted in my success: meeting the right people, being in the right place at the right time, avoiding the wrong people, and so on.

Of course, my desire to take credit drives me to add that I surely had a role to play in my success. While chance put me in the United States with a healthy body and mind, it was my decisions and actions that got me through school and into college. While chance had a major role in my getting a job as a professor, surely it was my actions and decisions that allowed me to keep the job. While chance played a role in my book sales, surely the quality of my work is what wins people over. Roughly put, chance put me into various situations, but it was still up to me to take advantage of opportunities and to avoid dangers.

While my pride drives me to seize a large share of the credit for my success, honesty compels me to admit that I owe almost everything to pure chance—starting with day zero. Presumably the same is true of everyone else as well. As such, I think it wise to always temper praise and condemnation with the knowledge that chance played a major role in success and failure. And we should do what we can to help ensure that everyone can have a good life and not just the lucky few who all too often think they deserve what they have been granted by chance.

While asteroid mining is still science fiction, companies are already preparing to mine the sky. While space mining sounds awesome, lawyers are murdering the awesomeness with legalize. Long ago, President Obama signed the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act which seemed to make asteroid mining legal. The key part of the law is that “Any asteroid resources obtained in outer space are the property of the entity that obtained them, which shall be entitled to all property rights to them, consistent with applicable federal law and existing international obligations.” More concisely, the law makes it so that asteroid mining by U.S. citizens would not violate U.S. law.

While this would seem to open the legal doors to asteroid mining, there are still legal barriers, although the law is obviously make-believe and requires that people either are willing to follow it or the people with guns are willing to shoot people for not following it. Various space treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, do not give states sovereign rights in space. As such, there is no legal foundation for a state to confer space property rights to its citizens based on its sovereignty. However, the treaties do not seem to forbid private ownership in space—as such, any other nation could pass a similar law that allows its citizens to own property in space without violating the laws of that nation. Obviously enough, satellites are owned by private companies and this could set a precedent for owning asteroids, depending on how clever the lawyers are.

One concern is that if several nations pass such laws and people start mining asteroids, then conflict over valuable space resources will be all but inevitable. In some ways this will be a repeat of the past: the more technologically advanced nations engaged in a struggle to acquire resources in an area where they lack sovereignty. These past conflicts tended to escalate into wars, which is something that must be considered in the final frontier.

One way to try to avoid war over asteroids is new treaties governing space mining. This is, obviously enough, a matter that will be handled by space lawyers, governments, and corporations. Unless, of course, AI kills us all first. Then they can sort out asteroid mining.

While the legal aspects of space ownership are interesting, its moral aspects of ownership are also of concern. While it might be believed that property rights in space are entirely new, this is not the case. While the setting is different than in the original, the matter of space property matches the state of nature scenarios envisioned by thinkers like Hobbes and Locke. To be specific, there is an abundance of resources and an absence of authority. As it now stands, while no one can hear you scream in space, there is also no one who can arrest you for space piracy as long as you stay in space.

Using the state of nature model, it can be claimed that there are currently no rightful owners of the asteroids, or it could be claimed that we are all the rightful owners (the asteroids are the common property of all of humanity). 

If there are currently no rightful owners, then the asteroids are there for the taking: an asteroid belongs to whoever can take and hold it. This is on par with Hobbes’ state of nature—practical ownership is a matter of possession. As Hobbes saw it, everyone has the right to all things, but this is effectively a right to nothing—other than what a person can defend from others. As Hobbes noted, in such a scenario profit is the measure of right and who is right is to be settled by the sword.

While this is practical, brutal and realistic, it is a bit problematic in that it would, as Hobbes also noted, lead to war. His solution, which would presumably work as well in space as on earth, would be to have sovereignty in space. This would shift the war of all against all in space (of the sort that is common in science fiction about asteroid mining) to a war of nations in space (which is also common in science fiction). The war could, of course, be a cold one fought economically and technologically rather than a hot one fought with mass drivers and lasers.

If asteroids are regarded as the common property of humanity, then Locke’s approach could be taken. As Locke saw it, God gave everything to humans in common, but people must acquire things from the common property to make use of it. Locke gives a terrestrial example of how a person needs to make an apple her own before she can benefit from it. In the case of space, a person would need to make an asteroid her own to benefit from the materials it contains.

Locke sketched out a basic labor theory of ownership—whatever a person mixes her labor with becomes her property. As such, if asteroid miners located an asteroid and started mining it, then the asteroid would belong to them.  This does have some appeal: before the miners start extracting the minerals from the asteroid, it is just a rock drifting in space. Now it is a productive mine, improved from its natural state by the labor of the miners. If mining is profitable, then the miners would have a clear incentive to grab as many asteroids as they can, which leads to the moral problem of the limits of ownership.

Locke does set limits on what people can take in his proviso: those who take from the common resources must leave as much and as good for others. When describing this to my students, I always use an analogy to a party: since the food is for everyone, everyone has a right to the food. However, taking it all or taking the very best would be wrong (and rude). While this proviso is ignored on earth, the asteroids could provide us with a fresh start in terms of dividing up the common property of humanity. After all, no one has any special right to claim the asteroids—so we all have equal good claims to the resources they contain.

As with earth resources, some will contend that there is no obligation to leave as much and as good for others in space. Instead, those who get there first will contend that ownership should be on the principle of whoever grabs it first and can keep it is the “rightful” owner. Unless someone grabs it from them, then they would presumably see that as a cruel injustice.

Those who take this view would probably argue that those who get their equipment into space would have done the work (or put up the money) and (as argued above) would 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 mine the asteroids. Naturally, the folks who lack the resources to compete will remain poor—their poverty will, in fact, disqualify them from owning any of the space resources much in the way poverty effectively disqualifies people on earth from owning earth resources.

While the selfish approach will be appealing to those who can grab the asteroids, arguments can be made for sharing them. One reason is that those who will mine the asteroids did not create the means to do so from nothing. 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 human civilization and paying this off would involve also contributing to the general good of humanity. Naturally, this line of reasoning can be countered by arguing that the successful miners will benefit humanity when their profits “trickle down” from space. Sadly, as on earth, gravity does not seem to affect money in terms of trickling it down. It always seems to go upwards.

Another way to argue for sharing the resources is to use an analogy to a buffet line. Suppose I am first in line at a buffet. This does not give me the right to devour everything I can with no regard for the people behind me. It also does not give me the right to grab whatever I cannot eat myself to sell it to those who had the misfortune to be behind me in line. As such, 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.

Naturally, these arguments for sharing can be countered by the usual arguments in favor of selfishness. While it is tempting to think that the vastness of space will overcome selfishness (that is, there will be so much that people will realize that not sharing would be absurd and petty), this seems unlikely—the more there is, the greater the disparity is between those who have and those who have not. On this pessimistic view we already have all the moral and legal tools we need for space—it is just a matter of changing the wording a bit to include “space.”

In the previous essay on threat assessment, I looked at the influence of availability heuristics and fallacies related to errors in reasoning about statistics and probability. This essay continues the discussion by exploring the influence of fear and anger on threat assessment.

A rational assessment of a threat involves properly considering how likely it is that a threat will occur and, if it occurs, how severe the consequences might be. As might be suspected, the influence of fear and anger can cause people to engage in poor threat assessment that overestimates the likelihood or severity of a threat.

One starting point for anger and fear is the stereotype. Roughly put, a stereotype is an uncritical generalization about a group. While stereotypes are generally thought of as being negative (that is, attributing undesirable traits such as laziness or greed), there are also positive stereotypes. They are not positive in that the stereotyping itself is good. Rather, the positive stereotype attributes desirable qualities, such as being good at math or skilled at making money. While it makes sense to think that stereotypes that provide a foundation for fear would be negative, they often include a mix of negative and positive qualities. For example, a feared group might be cast as stupid and weak, yet somehow also incredibly cunning and dangerous.

Stereotyping leads to similar mistakes that arise from hasty generalizations in that reasoning about a threat based on stereotypes will often result in errors. The defense against a stereotype is to seriously inquire whether the stereotype is true or not.

Stereotyping is useful for demonizing. Demonizing, in this context, involves unfairly portraying a group as evil and dangerous. This can be seen as a specialized form of hyperbole in that it exaggerates the evil of the group and the danger it represents. Demonizing is often combined with scapegoating—blaming a person or group for problems they are not responsible for. A person can demonize on their own or be subject to the demonizing rhetoric of others.

Demonizing presents a clear threat to rational threat assessment. If a group is demonized successfully, it will be (by definition) seen as eviler and more dangerous than it really is. As such, both the assessment of the probability and severity of the threat will be distorted. For example, the demonization of Muslims by various politicians and pundits distorts threat assessments.

The defense against demonizing is like the defense against stereotypes—a serious inquiry into whether the claims are true. It is worth noting that what might seem to be demonizing might be an accurate description. This is because demonizing is, like hyperbole, exaggerating the evil of and danger presented by a group. If the description is true, then it would not be demonizing. Put informally, describing a group as evil and dangerous need not be demonizing. For example, descriptions of Isis as evil and dangerous were generally accurate. As are descriptions of evil and dangerous billionaires.  

While stereotyping and demonizing are rhetorical devices, there are also fallacies that distort threat assessment. Not surprisingly, one is scare tactics (also known as appeal to fear). This fallacy involves substituting something intended to create fear in the target in place of evidence for a claim. While scare tactics can be used in other ways, it can be used to distort threat assessment. One aspect of its distortion is the use of fear—when people are afraid, they tend to overestimate the probability and severity of threats. Scare tactics is also used to feed fear—one fear can be used to get people to accept a claim that makes them even more afraid.

One thing that is especially worrisome about scare tactics in the context of terrorism is that in addition to making people afraid, it is also routinely used to “justify” encroachments on rights, massive spending, and the abandonment of moral values. While courage is an excellent defense against this fallacy, asking two important questions also helps. The first is to ask, “should I be afraid?” and the second is to ask, “even if I am afraid, is the claim actually true?” For example, scare tactics has been used to “support” the claim that refugees should not be allowed into the United States. In the face of this tactic, one should inquire whether or not there are grounds to be afraid of refugees and also inquire into whether or not an appeal to fear justifies banning refugees.

It is worth noting that just because something is scary or makes people afraid it does not follow that it cannot serve as legitimate evidence in a good argument. For example, the possibility of a fatal head injury from a motorcycle accident is scary but is also a good reason to wear a helmet. The challenge is sorting out “judgments” based merely on fear and judgments that involve good reasoning about scary things.

While fear makes people behave irrationally, so does anger. While anger is an emotion and not a fallacy, it does provide the fuel for the appeal to anger fallacy. This fallacy occurs when something that is intended to create anger is substituted in place of evidence for a claim. For example, a demagogue might work up a crowd’s anger at illegal migrants to get them to accept absurd claims about building a wall along a massive border.

Like scare tactics, the use of an appeal to anger distorts threat assessment. One aspect is that when people are angry, they tend to reason poorly about the likelihood and severity of a threat. For example, a crowd that is enraged against illegal migrants might greatly overestimate the likelihood that the migrants are “taking their jobs” and the extent to which they are “destroying America.” Another aspect is that the appeal to anger, in the context of public policy, is often used to “justify” policies that encroach on rights and do other harms. For example, when people are angry about a mass shooting, proposals follow to limit gun rights that had no relevance to the incident in question. As another example, the anger at illegal migrants is often used to “justify” policies that will harm the United States. As a third example, appeals to anger are often used to justify policies that would be ineffective at addressing terrorism and would do far more harm than good.

It is important to keep in mind that if a claim makes a person angry, it does not follow that the claim cannot be evidence for a conclusion. For example, a person who learns that her husband is having an affair with an underage girl would probably be very angry. But this would also serve as good evidence for the conclusion that she should report him to the police and divorce him. As another example, the fact that illegal migrants are here illegally and knowingly employed by businesses because they can be more easily exploited than American workers can make someone mad, but this can also serve as a premise in a good argument in favor of enforcing (or changing) the laws.

One defense against appeal to anger is good anger management skills. Another is to seriously inquire into whether there are grounds to be angry and whether any evidence is offered for the claim. If all that is offered is an appeal to anger, then there is no reason to accept the claim based on the appeal.

The rational assessment of threats is important for practical and moral reasons. Since society has limited resources, rationally using them requires considering the probability of threats rationally—otherwise resources are being misspent. There is also the concern about the harm of creating fear and anger that are unfounded. In addition to the psychological harm to individuals that arise from living in fear and anger, there is also the damage stereotyping, demonizing, scare tactics and appeal to anger do to society. While anger and fear can unify people, they most often unify by dividing—pitting us against them. I urge people to think through threats rather than giving in to the seductive demons of fear and anger.

When engaged in rational threat assessment, there are two main factors that need to be considered. The first is the probability of the threat. The second is the severity of the threat. These two can be combined into one sweeping question: “how likely is it that this will happen and, if it does, how bad will it be?”

Making rational decisions about dangers involves considering both factors. For example, consider the risks of going to a crowded area such as a movie theater or school. There is a high probability of being exposed to the cold virus, but it is (for most people) not a severe threat. There is a low probability that there will be a mass shooting on my campus, but it is a high severity threat.

Our survival as a species seems to have been despite our poor skills at rational threat assessment. To be specific, the worry people feel about a threat generally does not match up with the probability of the threat occurring. People seem somewhat better at assessing severity, though we often get this wrong.

One excellent example of poor threat assessment is the fear Americans have about terrorism.  Between 1975 and 2025 3,577 Americans died as the result of terrorism, which accounted for .35% of all murders in the US in that time. If you are in the United States now, your odds of being killed in such an attack is about 1 in 4 million per year. This includes all forms of terrorism, although you would now be statistically most likely to be killed by right-wing terrorists.

While being killed by terrorists in the United States is unlikely, some people are terrified by the possibility (which is, of course, the goal of terrorism). Given that an American is more likely to be killed while driving than by a terrorist, it might be wondered why people are so bad at threat assessment. The answer, in terms of feeling fear vastly out of proportion to probability, involves a cognitive bias and some classic fallacies.

People (probably) follow general rules when they estimate probabilities and the ones we use unconsciously are called heuristics. While the right way to estimate probability is to use statistical methods, people often fall victim to the availability heuristic. This is when a person unconsciously assigns a probability based on how often they think of something. While something that occurs often is likely to be thought of often, thinking of something more often does not make it more likely to occur.

After an act of terrorism, people think about terrorism more often and tend to unconsciously believe that the chance of terror attacks occurring is higher than it really is. To use a non-terrorist example, when people hear about a shark attack, they tend to think that the chances of it occurring are high—even though the probability is low (driving to the beach is much more likely to kill you). The defense against this bias is to find reliable statistical data and use that as the basis for inferences about threats—that is, think it through rather than trying to feel through it. This is, of course, difficult: people tend to regard their feelings, however unwarranted, as the best evidence—despite usually being the worst evidence.

People are also misled about probability by fallacies. One is the spotlight fallacy. The spotlight fallacy is committed when a person uncritically assumes that all (or many) members or cases of a certain type are like those that receive the most attention or coverage in the media. After an incident involving terrorists who are Muslim, media attention will focus on that fact, often leading people who are poor at reasoning to infer that most Muslims are terrorists. This is the exact sort of mistake that would occur if it were inferred that most veterans are terrorists because the media covered a terrorist who was a military veteran. If people believe that, for example, most Muslims are terrorists, then they will make incorrect inferences about the probability of a terrorist attack by Muslims in the United States. This is distinct from someone simply lying about, for example, Muslims and claiming they are terrorists because the person is a bigot or wants to exploit the fear they create.

Anecdotal evidence is another fallacy that contributes to poor inferences about the probability of a threat. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. The fallacy also occurs when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of one example or small number of examples that go against the claim. This fallacy is like hasty generalization and a similar sort of error is committed, namely drawing an inference based on a sample that is inadequate in size relative to the conclusion. The main difference between hasty generalization and anecdotal evidence is that the fallacy anecdotal evidence involves using a story (anecdote) as the sample. Out in the wild, it can be difficult to tell whether a fallacy is a hasty generalization or anecdotal evidence, fortunately what matters is recognizing a fallacy is a fallacy even if it is not clear which one it is.

People fall victim to this fallacy because stories and anecdotes usually have more emotional and psychological impact than statistical data. This leads people to infer that what is true in an anecdote must be true of the whole population or that an anecdote justifies rejecting statistical evidence in favor of an anecdote. Not surprisingly, people most often accept this fallacy because they want to believe that what is true in the anecdote is true for the whole population.

In the case of terrorism, people use both anecdotal evidence and hasty generalization: they point to a few examples of terrorism or tell a story about a specific incident, and then draw an unwarranted conclusion about the probability of a terrorist attack occurring in the United States. For example, people point out that terrorists have masqueraded as refugees and infer that refugees in general present a major threat to the United States. Or they might tell the story about one attacker in San Bernardino who arrived in the states on a K-1 (“fiancé”) visa and make unwarranted conclusions about the danger of the entire visa system.

One last fallacy is misleading vividness. This occurs when a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh statistical evidence. This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the mere fact that an event is exceptionally vivid or dramatic does not make the event more likely to occur, especially in the face of statistical evidence to the contrary.

People often accept this sort of “reasoning” because particularly vivid or dramatic cases usually make a very strong impression on the mind. For example, mass shootings are vivid and awful, so it is hardly surprising that people often feel they are very much in danger from such attacks. Another way to look at this fallacy in the context of threats is that a person conflates the severity of a threat with its probability. That is, the worse the harm, the more likely a person feels that it will occur. But the vividness of a harm has no connection to the probability it will occur.

That said, considering the possibility of something dramatic or vivid occurring is not always fallacious. For example, a person might decide to never go sky diving because hitting the ground because of a failed parachute would be very dramatic. If he knows that, statistically, the chances of the accident happening are very low but he considers even a small risk unacceptable, then he would not be committing this fallacy. This then becomes a matter of value judgment—how much risk a person is willing to tolerate relative to the severity of the potential harm.

The defense against these fallacies is to use a proper statistical analysis as the basis for inferences about probability. As noted above, there is still the psychological problem: people tend to act on the basis on how they feel rather than what the facts show.

Such rational assessment of threats is important for both practical and moral reasons. The matter of terrorism is no exception to this.  Since society has limited resources, rationally using them requires considering the probability of threats rationally—otherwise resources are being misspent. For example, spending billions to counter an unlikely threat while spending little on major causes of harm would be irrational (if the goal is to protect people from harm). There is also the concern about the harm of creating unfounded fear. In addition to the psychological harm to individuals, there is also the damage to the social fabric. While creating unwarranted fear is useful for grifters, pundits and politicians, it is bad for the rest of us and thinking things through is a way to protect yourself from needless fear and those who wish to exploit it.  

While the American right favors tax cuts, the left sometimes proposes tax increases. One argument advanced by the right against increasing taxes is the demotivation argument. The gist of the argument is that if their taxes are increased, the rich will become demotivated and this will have negative consequences. Since these negative consequences should be avoided, the conclusion is that taxes should not be increased.

In assessing this reasoning, there are two major points of concern. One is whether a tax increase would destroy the motivation of the upper class. The other deals with the negative consequences, their nature, their likelihood of occurring and the extent and scope of the harm. I will begin with the alleged consequences.

The alleged consequences are many and varied. One is based on the claim that the top economic class includes the top innovators of society and if they are demotivated, then there will be less innovation. This could range from there being no new social media platforms to there being no new pharmaceuticals. While this is a point of concern, this assumes that innovation arrives primarily out of the top economic class—which can be tested. While some top earners are innovators, innovation also come from the lower economic classes—such the people doing research and engineering. The idea that the rich are the innovators does match the fiction of Ayn Rand but seems to miss the way research and development usually occurs.

Another alleged consequence rests on the claim that the upper class serves as the investors who provide the capital that enables the economy to function. Since they control the capital, this is a reasonable concern. If Americans with the most money decided to reduce or stop investing, then the investment economy would need to rely on foreign capital or what could be provided by the lower classes. Since the lower classes have far less money (by definition), they would not be able to provide the funds. There are, of course, foreign investors who would happily take the place of the wealthy Americans, so the investment economy would probably still roll along. Especially since American investors might find the idea of losing out to foreign investors sufficient motivation to overcome the demotivation of a tax increase.

There is also the claim that the upper class contains the people who do the important things, like brain surgery and creating the new bubble that will be the destroy the world economy next time around. While this has some appeal, much of the important stuff is done by people who are not in the upper class. Again, the idea that the economic elite are doing all the really important stuff while the rest of  us are takers rather than makers is yet another Randian fantasy.

Fairness does, however, require that these concerns be properly investigated. If it can be shown that the upper class is as critical as its defenders claim, then my assertions can be refuted. Of course, it worth considering that much of the alleged importance of the upper class arises from the fact that it has a disproportionate share of the wealth and that it would be far less important if the distribution were not so grotesquely imbalanced. As such, a tax increase could decrease the importance of the economic elites. I will now turn to the matter of whether a tax increase would demotivate the rich.

An easy and obvious response to the claim that a relatively small tax increase would demotivate the rich is that the rest of us work jobs, innovate, invest and do important things for vastly less money than those at the top. Even if the rich paid slightly more taxes, their incomes would still vastly exceed ours. And if we can find the motivation to keep going despite our low incomes, then the rich can also do so. When I worked at a minimum wage job, I was motivated to go to work. When I was an adjunct making $16,000 a year, I was still motivated to go to work. Now that I am a professor, I am still motivated to go to work.

It could be replied that those of us in the lower classes are motivated because we need the income to survive. We need to work to buy food, medicine, shelter and so on. Those who are so well off that they do not need to work to survive, it could be claimed, also have the luxury of being demotivated by an increase in their taxes. Whereas someone who must earn her daily bread at a crushing minimum wage (or less) job must get up and go to work, the elite can allow themselves to be broken by a slight tax increase and decide to stop investing, stop innovating, and stop doing important stuff.

One reply is that it seems unlikely that the rich would be broken by a tax increase. Naturally, a crushing increase would be a different story—but the American left does not seriously suggest imposing truly crushing tax burdens on the rich. After all, crushing burdens are for the poor. Another reply is that if the current rich become demotivated and give up, there are many who would be happy to take their place—even if it means paying slightly higher taxes on a vastly increased income. So, we would just get some new rich folks to replace the demotivated slackers. The invisible hand of the market to the rescue again.

 

While the classic anti-migrant playbook focuses on falsely accusing migrants of spreading disease, doing crimes, stealing jobs, and using resources, there is also the more recent addition of accusing migrants of being terrorists, especially Muslim migrants.  This is then used to “justify” anti-migrant actions.

On the one hand, it is tempting to dismiss this as political posturing and pandering to fear, racism and religious intolerance. On the other hand, it is worth considering legitimate worries under the posturing and the pandering. One worry is that terrorists could masquerade as refugees. Another worry is that refugees might be radicalized and become terrorists.

In politics, it is unusual for people to operate based on consistently held principles. Instead, views usually reflect how a person feels or what they think about the political value of a position. However, a proper moral assessment requires considering migration in terms of general principles and consistency.

In the case of the refugees, the general principle justifying excluding them would be something like this: it is morally acceptable to exclude groups who might include people who might pose a threat. This principle seems, in general, reasonable. After all, excluding people who might present a threat serves to protect people from harm.

Of course, this principle is incredibly broad and would justify excluding almost anyone and everyone. After all, nearly every group of people (tourists, refugees, out-of-staters, men, Christians, atheists, cat fanciers, football players, and so on) include people who might pose a threat.  While excluding everyone would increase safety, that would be absurd. As such, this general principle should be refined. For example, considering the odds that a dangerous person will be in the group, the harm such a person is likely to do, and the likely harms from excluding that group.

According to Cato institute, “A total of 237 foreign-born terrorists were responsible for 3,046 murders on US soil from 1975 through the end of 2024. The chance of a person perishing in a terrorist attack committed by a foreigner on US soil over those 50 years was about 1 in 4.6 million per year. The hazards posed by foreigners who enter in different ways vary considerably. For instance, the annual chance of being murdered in an attack committed by an illegal immigrant terrorist is zero.” Thus, arguing against immigration based on an alleged threat of terrorism is absurd. This is not to say that we should not be vigilant, just that if the goal is to protect Americans, then the resources could be better used in other ways. Such as funding health care.

It might be countered, using hyperbolic rhetoric, that if even one terrorist gets into the United States, that would be too many. While one bad thing is one too many, would it be reasonable to operate on a principle that the possibility of even one bad outcome warrants strict regulation? That would generally seem to be unreasonable. This principle would justify banning guns, peanuts, swimming pools and cars. It would also justify banning tourists and visitors from other states. After all, tourists and people from other states do bad things in states from time to time. It would also seem to justify banning birth. After all, we can be sure at least one person born in the future will be a murderer. As such, the idea of basing policy on the notion that one is too many is absurd.

There is, of course, concerns about political risk. A politician who supports allowing Muslim migrants to come to America will be savaged by the right if even a single incident happens. This, of course, would be no more reasonable than vilifying a politician who supports the Second Amendment just because a person is shot to death in their state.  But reason is usually absent in the realm of political punditry.

Another factor to consider is the harm that would be done by excluding such migrants, especially refugees. If they cannot be settled someplace, they will be condemned to live as involuntary nomads and suffer all that entails. There is also the ironic possibility that excluded refugees will become, as pundits like to say, radicalized. After all, people who are deprived of hope and are treated as pariahs tend to become a resentful and some might become terrorists. There is also the fact that banning Muslim refugees and migrants provides propaganda for terrorist groups.

Given that the risk is very small and the harm to the refugees and migrants would be significant, the moral thing to do is to allow migrants and refugees into the United States. Yes, one of them could be a terrorist. But so could a tourist. Or some American coming from another state. Or already in the state. While some right-winger might accuse me of thus supporting open borders, nothing I say entails that. Refugees and migrants need to be properly vetted, especially after our attack on Iran. While I am not an expert on terrorism, I would expect Iran to step up its efforts against the United States.

In addition to utilitarian calculation, an argument can also be based on moral duties to others, even when acting on such a duty involves risk. In terms of religious-based ethics, a standard principle is to love thy neighbor as thyself, which requires helping refugees and migrants even at a slight risk. There is also the golden rule.

As a closing point, we Americans love to make claims about the moral superiority and exceptionalism of our country. Talk is cheap, so if we want to prove our alleged superiority and exceptionalism, we must act in an exceptional way. Excluding people and refusing to help them because we are afraid shows a lack of charity, compassion and courage. This is not what an exceptional nation would do.

When attacking DEI efforts, folks on the right usually make vague remarks about merit. While the right seems to have abandoned philosophy, let us imagine a good faith argument against DEI efforts based on an appeal to merit.

While the right is unclear what they mean by “merit”, the common usage is that a person receives something, such as a position, based on earning it through being worthy. For example, when people talk about meritocracy, they usually speak of people earning positions, jobs, scholarships or promotions based on their skills, abilities and effort. In contrast, receiving such things because of factors such as wealth, social class, or family connections would not be the result of merit. There are obvious philosophical questions about what factors should count as merit in terms of determining what people earn and what they merely receive. For example, a person who gets into college because of their academic ability might seem to have earned it by merit. But what if they have that ability because of the genetic lottery and years of expensive tutoring and schooling paid for by wealth inherited by their parents? They did not earn their genes, tutoring, and schooling and this would, it seems to diminish claims of merit. But let us return to constructing a merit argument against DEI efforts. I will then use that merit argument against inheritance.

To build a merit argument against DEI efforts, one must begin with the assumption that DEI is either not needed or unfair. For it not to be needed, it must be assumed that those who benefit from DEI do not face significant discrimination or unfair obstacles and have equal opportunity to succeed on their merits. For it to be unfair, it must be assumed that those who benefit from DEI gain an unfair, unmerited advantage over others.

While those who oppose DEI often seem to do so from racism, sexism and similar bigotry, one could take the view that women and minorities are just as capable as white men (and have equal opportunities) but that DEI efforts provide its beneficiaries unfair advantages over equally qualified white men. If it is also assumed that things such as jobs and scholarships should be earned by merit, then it would follow that DEI is bad. Obviously, I do not think that most folks on the right are advancing good faith arguments against DEI but let us take the merit argument seriously and hold them to their professed view that laws should be crafted to ensure that success is merit based and that unfair advantages are eliminated. This entails that the inheritance laws should be changed to eliminate the unfair, unearned advantages conferred by inherited wealth. If one is exceptionally devoted to merit, one could even push for laws aimed at creating equality of opportunity for everyone—but I will just focus on inheritance.

Inherited wealth, by definition, is unearned and thus anything it is used to acquire would be unmerited to the degree the wealth purchased it. Such wealth can confer significant advantages in terms of such things as influence, opportunities and resources. As a minor example, a family with sufficient inherited wealth can own property in the best school district, provide tutoring and other support for their children, enroll them in special programs and so on. If one is a stickler about merit, children obviously do not earn or merit such advantages even if their parents did not inherit their wealth and to the degree the children gain from them, they would not be earning whatever they receive from them. Ironically, the anti-DEI President Trump received millions from his father, and this provided him with a massive, unearned advantage over everyone who choose their parents less wisely. Family members can also inherit businesses and gain unearned ownership and positions in those businesses. And so on, for all that can be inherited and can yield unfair advantages. None of these are earned or merit based. So, those who reject DEI based on the merit argument must also oppose inheritance on the same basis. If laws should be passed to forbid DEI to ensure that success is based on merit, then laws should also be passed to eliminate or severely restrict inheritance to ensure that success is based on merit.

It might be objected that inherited wealth is not like DEI efforts, but the challenge is to show how they different in relevant ways. One could argue that there is an obvious difference: DEI is linked to such factors as gender, ethnicity and veteran status, whereas inheritance is usually just a matter of birth. But objections of this sort would be based on the idea that merit should apply to DEI factors but not otherwise, which would not be a merit-based argument. If merit is what matters and the law must ensure this, then merit is what matters and the law must ensure this.

While few, if any, on the right would accept the above reasoning and consistency arguments obviously have no effect on the right (or most people), we should always remember that their merit arguments against DEI are made in bad faith unless they also argue against inheritance. When they speak of merit, they should be asked about inheritance and other unfair advantages they favor.

While the right’s war on history is distinct from its war on DEI, the two are connected. To justify the extermination of DEI efforts, the right is crafting a faerie tale version of history. One part of the strategy is to eliminate or downplay the history of racism, sexism and classism in the United States. If pressed, folks on the right might allow that slavery did exist or that, at one time, women could not vote. But they will also claim that slavery was not that bad (and even had good features) and some would even claim that it was good that women could not vote and that we should return to that practice. Those who admit the existence of past wrongs will assert that most (if not all) of the negative consequences remain in the past and that everything is mostly fine now. Crudely put, the narrative is that racism and sexism (if they ever existed or were even bad) have been solved. As an example, my adopted state of Florida passed a law restricting what schools can teach about systematic racism and a law forbidding General Education classes from teaching that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the U.S. “and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.” Ironically, one might point out that these laws serve as more evidence that what they seek to deny is true. These efforts are aimed at whitewashing history.

The second part of the war on history is to downplay the success, accomplishments and contributions of minorities and women. For example, people at the Pentagon purged thousands of images showing minority and women war heroes and military firsts. As if to illustrate the absurdity of the purge, images of the Enola Gay (the name of the B-29 that dropped an atomic bomb on Japan) were purged, perhaps because the plane was seen as woke. Under Hegseth (who has been accused of domestic violence), the Pentagon has also been purging the ranks of minorities and women. These efforts are aimed at creating an illusory “history” in which women and minorities lack ability and merit. If pressed, some will allow rare exceptions, such as Dr. King and Madam Curie. To be fair and balanced, the right does allow that a few women (such as Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem) and a few minorities (such as Clarence Thomas and Stephen Miller) can have merit.

When these two fronts of this war on history are combined, it creates a counterfactual history in which any discrimination or oppression lie in the past (and were not really all that bad) and women and minorities have accomplished little, if anything. This narrative can then be used to attack DEI efforts. The “reasoning” is that there is no meaningful legacy of discrimination to address, no current discrimination to rectify, and that women and minorities have always received fair consideration. With the successes, accomplishments and contributions of women and minorities purged, it appears that they simply lacked merit. And, of course, still lack merit. Again, to be fair and balanced, those erasing history do allow that some select women and minorities do have merit, but they are the rare exceptions. They are either safely dead or, if alive, exist to serve and praise Trump.

Under this fiction, DEI was, at best, trying to solve non-existent problems and, at worst, aimed at discriminating against white men. And thus, the elimination of DEI is “justified” by a fictionalized history in which past discrimination against and the success of women and minorities is erased. The myth of merit is then advanced, with the Trump regime making the patently absurd claims that people like Trump and Hegseth earned their way through life by merit. Trump, of course, received millions from his father and Hegseth is widely regarded as unqualified by experts. One can also point to Dr. Oz, RFK Jr. and Linda McMahon as woefully unqualified officials in a regime that harps about “merit.”  In closing, if there was any merit to their anti-DEI arguments, the right would not need to whitewash and erase history.

As a follow up to the war on CRT (Critical Race Theory) and wokeness, the right has waged a largely successful war on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity). While I take a favorable view of DEI, I recognize that DEI efforts sometimes suffered from corruption and inefficiency. I also acknowledge (and criticize) that some of it was purely performative. This is to say that the efforts of DEI were just like other human efforts, which gives us no special reason to criticize it in particular for these failings. But these are flaws that should be addressed, whether they be in DEI programs or the operations of the Pentagon. Despite these flaws, there are  good reasons in favor of DEI. And, of course, arguments against DEI.

One justification for DEI efforts is that they are supposed to offset past unfairness, discrimination, and injustice. That is, they are warranted on the moral grounds that they address past wrongs. A standard concern about this justification is that it can be seen as addressing past discrimination by engaging in present discrimination. As an illustrating anecdote, when I was applying for a job during my last year of grad school, I and my fellow white male philosophers were worried that our chances of getting a job would be lower because schools appeared to be addressing past discrimination in hiring by what seemed might be present discrimination in hiring. That is, that we white males of the (then) present would be sacrificed to atone for the sins of the white males of the past. While it is tempting to dismiss such concerns, there is a reasonable moral concern about fairness. I recall that there were serious suggestions that the old white guys should step down to open more jobs for women and minorities. After all, to the degree they “earned” their jobs because of past discrimination and exclusion, would it not be fair that they be the ones to pay the price demanded by justice? This approach and its consequences do raise moral concerns about individual justice and justice for groups. Being philosophers, we did consider that even if we, as individuals, were treated unfairly during the hiring process, this might still be morally justified. Those of us inclined to difficult self-reflection also considered that we might have been under the influence of racism and sexism when thinking that we might be treated unfairly simply in virtue of being white men. Because of my own experience, I can understand how people might feel about DEI. My considered view is that while there can be cases where white men are treated unfairly, concerns about addressing past wrongdoing are morally relevant on utilitarian grounds. Also, virtue theory supports this: it is better to err on the side of addressing a greater injustice rather than refusing to do so out of an exaggerated fear of the possibility of a lesser injustice.

A second reason in favor of DEI efforts is that they can address existing unfairness and discrimination. For example, funding programs for minority owned businesses can be seen as helping to offset the discrimination against minorities in the realm of finance. As another example, a scholarship for female students in the sciences can be seen as offsetting the bias against women in the sciences.

Such efforts can, of course, be interpreted as unfair. For example, a white business owner might argue that funding only available to minorities is unfair to her. As another example, a male student could contend that it is unfair that he cannot get the scholarship that a woman can. While such arguments can be made in good faith, they are often made in bad faith by people who know that, for example, white business owners are more likely to get loans than minority business owners (even when they are financially equal)—so white business owners already have an unfair advantage. Good faith reasoning requires that we consider the full context and not just take each alleged unfairness in ahistorical isolation. For example, in isolation it might seem unfair if funding or a scholarship were not available to everyone. But if one group already enjoys an unfair advantage, attempting to offset that helps restore fairness. Unfortunately, many unfair advantages are hidden and exposing them often requires good faith analysis and interpretation. To illustrate, banks obviously do not advertise special white-only rates for home loans, but these exist in practice. As such, explicit efforts to provide fair loans to minority home buyers can appear unfair, since they explicitly exclude while the exclusions in practice are usually concealed.

A third reason in favor of DEI efforts is that they can aim at allowing fair consideration of and opportunities for people who would otherwise be excluded. Going back to my example of academic hiring, academic philosophy was (and is) a mostly white male field and it took intentional effort for highly qualified women and minorities to even be considered for professorships. In the case of competitions for such things as jobs or scholarships, this approach increases fairness by preventing people from being excluded simply because of their race, gender, age, etc.

The usual criticism of this is that DEI efforts are not really aimed at providing equal consideration and fairness, but are intended to provide an unearned advantage to some people based on their identity. While such criticisms can be made in good faith, they are often made in bad faith based on racism and sexism. I will discuss this in my next essay in this series as I look at how the American right works to erase and whitewash history as part of its attack on DEI efforts.

As this is being written, people are fleeing wars, crime and economic woes around the world. As with past exoduses, some greet the refugees with kindness, some with indifference and some with hate. As a philosopher, my main concern is with the ethics of obligations to refugees.

One approach is to apply the golden rule—to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. While most readers are probably living lives of relatively good fortune, it is easy to imagine one’s life falling apart due to war or other disaster, human made or natural. In such circumstances, a person would almost certainly want help. As such, if the golden rule has moral validity, then help should be rendered to refugees.

One objection is that people should solve their own problems. In the case of nation at war, it could be contended that people should stay and fight. Or, at the very least, they should not expect others to do their work for them. In the case of those trying to find a better life elsewhere, it could be argued that they should remain in their home countries and build a viable economy. These are, of course, variations of “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.”

One could also advance a house analogy. Imagine, if you will, that the neighbors down the road are fighting among themselves and wrecking their house. Some of them, tired of the conflict, show up at your door and insist that you put them up and feed them. Though it might be kind of you to help them, it could also be said that they should put their own house in order. After all, you have managed to keep your house from falling into chaos and they should be able to do the same. There is also the concern that they will wreck your house as well.

This analogy assumes that the fighting and wrecking began in the house down the road and no outsider contributed to starting the trouble If, for example, people were put arbitrarily into houses and subject to relentless outside interference, then the inhabitants would not bear full responsibility for their woes—so the problems they would need to solve would not be entirely their own. This would seem to provide a foundation for an obligation to help them, at least on the part of those who helped cause the trouble they face.

If, as another example, the house was invaded from the outside, then that would also change matters. In this case, the people fleeing the house would be trying to escape criminals and it would certainly be a wicked thing to slam the door in the face of victims of crime.

As a final example, if the head of the household was subjecting the weaker members of the household to domestic abuse, then it would also change the situation in relevant ways. If abused people showed up at one’s door, it would be heartless to send them back to be abused.

Interestingly, the house analogy can also be repurposed into a self-interest argument for taking in refugees. Imagine, if you will, a house of many rooms that were once full of people. Though the house is still inhabited, there are far fewer people and many of them are old and in need of care. There is much that needs to be done in the house, but not enough people to do it all.

Nearby are houses torn with violence and domestic abuse, with people fleeing from them. Many of these people are young and many are skilled in doing what needs to be done in the house of many rooms. As such, rational self-interest provides an excellent reason to open the doors and take in those fleeing. The young immigrants can assist in taking care of the native elderly and the skilled can fill empty jobs. In this case, acting in self-interest would coincide with doing the right thing.

There are, of course, at least two counters to this self-interest analogy. One is the moral problem of taking in people out of self-interest while letting the other houses fall into ruin. This does suggest that a better approach would be to try to bring peace to those houses. However, if peace is unlikely, then taking in those fleeing would seem to be morally acceptable.

Another is a practical concern—that some of those invited in will bring ruin and harm to their new house. While this fear is played up, the danger presented by refugees seems to be rather low—after all, they are refugees and not an invading army. That said, it is reasonable to consider the impact of refugees and to take due care in screening for criminals.