TOOLS MAKE US SMART

When I taught mathematics and, later, my employment workshop, I gave my students two mottos for the class:

1: The truth is what works;

2: Tools make us smart.

The first motto doesn’t mean that an idea that happens to work is true. That’s a logical mistake. The mark of a true idea is its consistent ability to:

1. Describe what we see,

2. Explain what we see,

3. Predict what we will see, and

4. Empower us to influence results.

That’s what we mean scientifically by an idea being true. In other words, when you use an idea, does it reliably function the way it is supposed to? If it doesn’t, then the idea isn’t true. A new one is needed.

The second motto is a great teacher. Most people are under the mistaken notion that getting things done effectively means that one is smart. That’s misleading. Failure is no more a sure sign of stupidity than is a success a sure sign of brilliance. Intelligence has more to do with our attitudes towards success and failure, not in succeeding or failing.

Here’s why. When we know how to do something well, our minds possess idea maps as tools to get the job done step-by-step. Moreover, those idea maps identify the proper tools to use and how to get and to use them.

Success always depends upon idea maps (proper method) and proper tools. When people don’t have these, they rarely succeed. If one really wants to be smart, the preparation is where that happens. Successful execution depends on getting the method right and finding the proper tools.

In a very real sense, the ideas we use to plan our work are just as much tools as the implements we use to get a job done. And that reveals a secret about failure.

When we fail, that probably means that we are using the wrong method or employing the wrong tools—probably both. Failure’s importance to us comes from what the unsuccessful attempt tells us. What is that? Simply that we need to learn the right method and acquire the right tools before we make another attempt. If we don’t do that, we risk making failure a habit.

The person who is truly smart has learned this lesson. Before attempting any objective, such a person always asks to know the right method and the right tools. This is particularly true when the stakes are high, whether planning a career or fighting an addiction to drugs.

PROFESSOR PAUL BLOOM: DOES EMPATHY MAKE US MORALLY WORSE? (A Review)

If the reader is unfamiliar with Professor Bloom’s book (Against Empathy: the Case for Rational Compassion), the links below will provide a useful summary of his views explaining why empathy makes people morally worse.  Access to a pdf version of his book is provided at the end.

Lecture: (over 1 hr):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWWNUa6kmqE 

Bloom summarizes his position (2 min. 48 seconds):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM1gYZROu94    

Professor Paul Bloom (Yale University) has argued extensively, though not persuasively, against the very notion of empathy.  He asserts that empathy actually makes the world worse.  It is bad morally, and it is fundamentally self-centered.  Admittedly, the unscrupulous may use the empathy of others to deceive and manipulate, but they may use other human traits in a similar fashion, such as affection, the need to belong, the sense of fairness, and even reason.  Bloom wouldn’t attack human reason because it often makes mistakes.  So singling out empathy for such a massive attack seems a curious thing to do.  After all, many “life skills” programs and even the WHO identify empathy as one of the necessary relational skill.  So Professor Bloom’s dismissal of this trait suggests that recognized life skills programs are making students worse and that the WHO is spreading self-centered evil through its publications.

That perhaps seems nutty, but Blooms criticisms make more sense if understood as part of a contemporary rethinking of moral behavior, as interpreted through the lens of evolutionary biology.  Consequently, Bloom cites as an authority a leader in this movement, the Princeton bioethicist, Peter Singer.  He is the ethics expert who:

1. Equates human beings with animals by applying universally to all sentient creatures the utilitarian moral criterion, “the greatest good for the greatest number”;
2. Popularized the term speciesism, a notion describing a supposed, illicit human privilege affirming superiority over the animal kingdom; and
3. Advocates the parental right to kill a newborn up to six months after birth, a radical extension of abortion rights and a denial of human rights to the very young. 

How that supports Bloom’s efforts to label his views successfully as “rational compassion” seems puzzling.  An opinion poll would show that most people would have difficulty accepting as an expert on compassion anyone who advocates killing other human beings for convenience.  But it does put Peter Bloom in the proper context.  Both Singer and Bloom are part of the academic movement dedicated to redefining human personality and behavior in naturalistic, evolutionary terms.  They share the same utilitarian moral theory.  Bloom uses it almost unreflectively to advance his case but fails to make this clear, as if utilitarian ethics were non-controversial.  Within this movement, it’s not.

That’s extremely bad form intellectually.  Though Bloom makes a number of moral claims, he consistently fails to provide any warrant for their moral authority beyond their utility for humankind, which is a typical failing of utilitarian ethical theories.  For what proves useful for the greatest number does not necessarily equate to what is moral.  A doctor treating five young people in desperate need of a donor for kidneys, liver, heart, lung, and a massive skin graft, could not forcibly and morally take these from a sixth healthy patient who came in for a sports’ exam, even if that patient might be an exact tissue match for all five of the doctor’s ill patients.  A criminal court would remain unimpressed by the numerical “five to one” defense to justify the morality of medical murder.

By now, Christians ought to be familiar with this type of thinking.  Materialists with impressive credentials will routinely dismiss Christian morality as actually leading to extremely immoral behavior.  The medieval inquisitions, slavery, the slave trade, and the Nazi extermination of the Jews during World War II are often primary examples of where Christian moral thinking leads.  This proves, allegedly, that Christian morality is a monstrosity, a brutal value theory emerging progressively through a series of brutal, unsophisticated ages. That’s nonsense, of course, but the sheer fantasy of the allegations does not prevent critics from repeating them as serious criticism.  Bloom’s book is simply another example of this dreary history.

I would affirm that Bloom’s analysis of morality is a backdoor attempt to discredit—in the name of reason, of course–Judeo-Christian ideas that for centuries have undergirded institutions of charity in the West, ideas that have informed public policies relative to poverty relief, education, homelessness, public medical care, elder care, and many other issues dealing with the public’s welfare.  The target of his book, empathy, has been used by Christians to persuade the public’s conscience on issues of racial justice, social welfare, child labor, prison reform, childcare, and other matters that have required political action.  Consequently, it is odd to read Professor Bloom’s arguments that–if taken seriously–would imply that Letters from a Birmingham Jail represents Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s self-centered and shortsighted attempt to manipulate the American public through empathy to oppose racism.   That is not overstatement.  Bloom might even agree with Dr. King, but much of what this civil rights reformer did was designed to elicit empathy from the majority of Americans so that they would stand with him in his call for racial justice.  Does Bloom really mean to call this self-centered, shortsighted, and manipulative?  I don’t see how he can avoid that conclusion—even if he agrees with Dr. King.

Foundations and Definitions Are Important

It is curious to hear a materialist become exercised over morality.  One must have an authoritative moral theory to start with in order to become morally incensed.  A materialistic universe lacks ethical sensibility.  It neither loves nor hates.  Like the white whale in Moby Dick, it is neither good nor evil; it just is.  It does not favor man, care for his happiness or interests, or seek to guard his future.  From a human point of view, to quote what Richard Dawkins famously claimed, it is characterized by “precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”   How dismal!  In the face of such an academic model that describes human beings as organic machines and that deconstructs “morality” as an ethically indifferent instinct produced by amoral evolutionary selection, one might think that Bloom would advance a moral foundation that might legitimize judgments about what makes people morally better or worse.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen.  With just a few reservations, Bloom accepts the current model.  He believes that man is a machine, but he is an intelligent one.  And he makes much of intelligence as the true source of morality.  He also believes that what he thinks expresses this intelligence and is, apparently, rationally self-evident.  Though it is puzzling, he doesn’t feel that a rational foundation for moral values is necessary. He simply assumes that his views are morally superior, and that’s enough foundation for his purposes.  The intellectual presumption is astounding.

But a moral principle must have a warrant that gives it authority; else it is just an opinion.  Professor Bloom may believe that his views are “rational,” but that does not make them moral.  Nor does it make them rational.  He may claim that his views would benefit more human beings, but that does not answer the question why doing this would be morally good.  The Human Extinction Movement, for example, would argue–on “moral” grounds–that human beings should go extinct for the good of the planet and its creatures.  That’s a slightly different approach to a morality based on “the greatest good for the greatest number.”  But if man is simply an organic machine like other creatures, then why shouldn’t the interests of animals, fish, reptiles, bacteria, etc., count equally with man’s interests in any moral equation.  In fact, why shouldn’t they count more?  Peter Singer has already claimed that that they should.  According to the model Bloom accepts, human intelligence is simply an evolutionary and cultural difference, not proof of moral superiority over creation.  At the very least, Bloom’s position must lead to the conclusion that man and beasts, in many critical ways, are morally equivalent.

Ignoring the Obvious

Bloom’s presumption is intellectually frustrating.  He ignores the obvious.  It does not require a lawyer to understand that one must define an idea before claiming to be able to recognize an example of it empirically.  More than one criminal case has hinged upon whether a defendant’s act actually matches what the criminal code prohibits.  Sometimes these legal cases are difficult, but in every one of them, the legal code, along with precedent and technical definitions, comes first to clarify the law.  Without legal definitions, no case resolution is even possible.  A legal definition of “murder” or “assault” must first exist before a court can apply it in a particular case.  So definitions are important.  For Bloom to classify “empathy” as moral, immoral, or amoral, he must first define what morality actually is.  He never gets around to doing this.

Though Bloom provides no definition by which to distinguish what is moral from what is not in human behavior, this doesn’t’ seem to bother him.  He is content to cite numbers of people affected by an action to quantify the degree of evil.  Though statistics are not unimportant, they don’t establish a moral principle.  A natural disaster may kill thousands of people; a rapist may molest and kill a female victim.  Both are human tragedies, but only the latter is subject to moral judgment.  A tsunami does not violate any moral laws when it takes life.  Under Blooms own presuppositions, accusing a natural disaster of murder would be irrational.  The rapist, however, falls under both moral and legal sanctions.  This important distinction Bloom does not seem to understand.  He wants to equate the two.  Consequently, he cannot empirically distinguish what is moral from what is not.  He simply assumes that his opinion is enough to substitute for an ontological foundation to make such judgments.  When he does, he gets things wrong, and seems to do it intentionally.  That’s intellectually dishonest, but perhaps he hopes that his readers will not notice. We will see an example in a moment.

Professor Bloom vs. Empathy

To most people, Bloom’s rejection of empathy would appear counterintuitive—if not absurd.  The ability to put ourselves into other people’s shoes seems to be a foundation for positive charitable activity and selfless caring.  In fact, countless Christian sermons and articles exhort believers to empathize with those who suffer and to relieve their pain if they can.  And that’s understandable, for it is Christ who said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Bloom, on the other hand, emphasizes intelligence as the primary factor in moral development, not sentiments that “we would do better without,” as he wrote in an Atlantic article (March 2014).  These sentiments, he claims, must yield to reason if human kind is to have a future.  This, I would argue, is the real point of his book.  Religion, he would claim, emerges from humankind’s non-rational mind.  Intelligence is man’s true moral guide, not irrational, religious sentiments.  Human beings create values, laws, and institutions that make humankind morally better, but intelligence accomplishes this, not instinctive emotion.  That’s an almost platonic sentiment, but he is not a Platonist.  He believes that man is a physical machine, the result of an evolutionary process.  That process has created intelligence within that machine.  That intelligence is the foundation for moral behavior.  Consequently, he believes that a mindless, amoral process has created both mind and morality.  In other words, he believes that a less complicated machine (mindless nature) has created machines of greater sophistication and complexity (human beings with intelligent minds and moral behaviors).  Unlike Darwin, Bloom appears to have no doubts about the naturalistic origins of humankind.

Bloom’s attack on empathy affirms that this sentiment provides no reliable tool to motivate intelligent moral behavior, for empathy is “biased, innumerate, concrete, and myopic.”  It blinds us to long-term consequences, misappropriates resources, disconnects reason from caring, imprisons charitable motivations in “warm-glow” selfishness, and leads to such things as the “morally justified” carpet bombing of a country in order to save its population from oppression.  If one didn’t know any better, one might think that Bloom is saying that evolution didn’t know what it was doing when it gave humans such a sentiment.  For it is the source of all sorts of problems.  As proof, he points to the case of Natalee Holloway who went missing during a trip in 2005.  How is this proof?  Allegedly, the unsuccessful search to find her received 18 times the network coverage than did the contemporaneous famine in the Sudan, which was killing tens of thousands of people.  That tragic famine was the result of war and drought. In fact, drought and famine occur in that nation periodically—with or without war.  Both are happening now in 2017.

Natalee Holloway’s murder was an immoral act.  Drought is tragic and devastating but not immoral.  It is an act of nature, not subject to either moral censure or legal penalty.  Courts don’t put the weather in prison.  The war might be considered immoral, but that’s a bit more complicated.  Just ask the warring parties.  Moreover, the war in Sudan had been going on long before Natalee Holloway’s murder.  The world functionally ignored that war for complicated international reasons that had nothing to do with Holloway’s death.  Of course, the world could have invaded the Sudan and perhaps forced a peace.  It might have stepped up aid to starving people while the war was going on.  No amount of coverage, however, would have stopped the drought and famine.  These still go on periodically.  Nor would more press coverage have stopped the war.  In Holloway’s case, however, such coverage could conceivably step up attempts to find her body and reveal her murderer.  In other words, the coverage could help bring closure to the family and achieve justice.

It’s not clear what Bloom is arguing here.  What network coverage has to do with the morality or immorality of an action he does not coherently explain.  Both Natalee Holloway’s murder and the Sudan’s drought and famine are tragic.  The former was the horrific murder of an American citizen.  That falls under the scope of moral judgment.  The Sudan is more complicated.  The drought is not subject to moral sanction. To the degree that it is the result of drought, neither is the famine. Those have been happening for years.  The warring parties might be criticized morally, but would Bloom favor a United Nation’s invasion to enforce peace?  Would that action be free of unintended consequences?  Or would he favor providing food aid in a war zone?  Would that aid actually get to the people or be used by warlords to control their territories?  And if the amount of news coverage had been reversed in these cases (perhaps purposely to suit Bloom’s priorities), would that have even made a practical difference in the Sudan?  If not, what is Bloom talking about from a utilitarian point of view?  These are legitimate questions, but Bloom never considers them.  He simply mourns Natalee Holloway’s press coverage, as if that would demonstrate some kind of consummate evil and prove empathy’s moral worthlessness.

Bloom’s real problem seems to be that people do not care enough about the things that Paul Bloom wants them to care about—like climate change and massive deaths overseas.  He blames empathy for this, as if he has proved the allegation.  Moreover, he is really upset about it.  This is puzzling.  In a world that would actually follow his advice, it is unclear why his opinion should matter to anyone.  After all, who would really care to empathize?  Perhaps people might thank him for providing a reason to dismiss his concerns out of hand, but Bloom’s own reasoning gives no justification why his views should matter.  Amazingly, he assumes otherwise.  His summary lecture on the subject will take over an hour of a listener’s valuable time.

Reason Alone Can’t Do the Job, So What Else Do We Need

Now Bloom would say that his ethical critique of empathy derives from science and reason.  Unfortunately, that is mere academic pretense, for he must obscure the actual scientific work done on empathy (and there is quite a lot of research spanning many years) to advance his point and then smuggle into his formulation the utilitarian moral maxim, “the greatest good for the greatest number.”  He asserts that empathy is biased, but his own presuppositions bias his assertions.  For example, he is certain of his moral clarity when he cites statistics to decide which issues should receive moral priority (e.g., Holloway vs. the Sudan) but never justifies ethically why anyone should use statistics in this way.  He simply applies the utilitarian assumption as if his readers should see the moral superiority of his methods.  Moreover, he holds certain views that he thinks everyone should share (e.g., global warming should morally concern everyone) without explaining why these issues should cause moral concern.  Since he is an evolutionist, after all, the extinctions expected from the projected warming of the earth might be the best thing ever to happen from the standpoint of the next dominant life form, just as the extinction of the dinosaurs was terrific news for mammals.  So even from within his own model, his moral concerns over the presumed warming of earth may well be “biased, innumerate, concrete, and myopic,” simply obstacles in the way of a brave new world trying to be born—a world that Bloom is too blind to see.

To be fair, Bloom does admit that reason alone will not lead to moral behavior and caring.  That is remarkably honest.  This, however, does not improve his case.  What he suggests must be added to reason as a motivator simply scuttles his argument.  He posits compassion to serve that role, but that merely causes greater confusion. Compassion, like empathy, is emotive, concrete, and sympathetic.  It is unclear how including this characteristic into the moral equation will exclude the bias he desperately wants to avoid.

Why can’t reason do the job alone?  Perhaps without knowing it, Bloom answers that question.  He points to how advocates of opposing views seek to use empathy to sway public opinion.  If one is in favor of abortion rights, one employs reason to motivate empathy for the pregnant mother; if one is pro-life, one employs reason to motivate empathy for the unborn child.  Empathy is of no real help but becomes the mere tool that reasoning seeks to activate in behalf of chosen presuppositions.  But reason offers no help, either.  It, too, is guided by the very same presuppositions.

What causes a person to choose one set of presuppositions over another?  From what Bloom says, the likely source will surely be training and cultural experience, not reason.  Why?  According to Bloom, reason alone cannot resolve the ethical dilemma.  It awaits the adoption of presuppositions.  Something must condition the reason to choose ethical behavior; else, reason will employ its power to achieve immoral ends.  Bloom has dismissed empathy as a candidate to serve this role, so he needs a replacement.  What does he choose?  Perhaps mystically, he comes up with compassion as his substitute, though what he even means by the term is uncertain.   So empathy is out, replaced by a very fuzzy notion of compassion.  Why that’s important will become clear in a moment.

It’s worth repeating at this juncture that Bloom begins by crediting reason as humankind’s moral guide.  That is the source from which civilization develops systems that improve the moral state of people.  In what he now claims, however, reason is just as satisfied achieving “immoral” aims.”  (So much for reason as the chief instrument of moral improvement)  Consequently, it needs a motivator or governor to keep it from embracing the “dark side.”  Bloom then takes us back to sentiment, which is what he desperately attempted to escape at the beginning.  The longer he argues his case against empathy, the more incoherent his reasoning becomes.  He uses abstractions without doing his readers the courtesy of defining them.  That throws everything into a murky swamp of rhetoric.  Paradoxically, to serve as reason’s motivator, he now relies on another abstraction, “compassion,” a term that many often use as a synonym for “empathy.”  We desperately need good definitions here, but Bloom won’t come up with any.

Playing Games with Definitions

The problem with Bloom’s thinking is simply this:  Empathy is an abstract term.  Unless that term receives an operational definition, we can’t even discuss it, let alone explore it. scientifically.  We can’t know what the term means with any precision.  Bloom throws names around, such as David Hume, Adam Smith, and Peter Singer, but he never gives a satisfactory operational definition to empathy.  No, not even when he briefly mentions neuroscience or refers to some of the research literature!  Instead, he keeps going back to philosophy and philosophers.  He seems satisfied to leave the reader with literary impressions rather than scientific definitions.

He does admit that part of the problem is the term itself.  Some people, he says, use empathy to mean “everything good.”  If people mean that, he says, he’s “all for it.”   That’s incredible!  I can’t imagine a physicist so imprecise as to say, “If what you mean by gravity is that things fall down, I’m all for it.”  Imprecision is the enemy of science.  The only way I can explain how Bloom could accept the imprecise “everything good” as acceptable would be to postulate that his own definition of empathy is equally imprecise.  Or, perhaps, he just doesn’t care.

Fortunately, other researchers (and there is a wealth of literature on this topic) clearly address the operational definition of empathy before they report and interpret their experimental results.  That is good research technique, and their bibliographies are readily available.  I would presume that Bloom would meet the standard of due diligence before making global statements.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t.

Why is this important?  It’s a matter of definition.  As I have said, unless we provide operational definitions for abstract terms, we can’t understand what we are talking about.  Scientific investigation becomes impossible.  For example, do you believe in a democratic system of selecting political leaders?  Suppose you say, “Yes, I believe in a democratic process.”  “Good,” I reply.  “What I mean by democracy is doing what I tell you to do.  That’s real democracy.  Here’s my list of things that I want you to get done.  Come back when you are finished.  I’ll have another list.”

You might reply that this is not what you had in mind by democracy.  Frankly, I wouldn’t blame you, but unless we make our definitions of democracy clear at the start, we won’t know immediately that we are referring to two entirely different things. That will emerge as the surprise when I hand you your “to do” list.  This is not a silly example, by the way.  Rousseau saw man in chains, and he wanted man to be free.  He recognized, however, that many might object to the freedom he offered.    No problem.  Rousseau postulated that freedom is what society as a whole longed for.  That longing became, for Rousseau, the General Will.  So, if a person resisted being free, the General Will would force the person to be free.  Now that’s a tidy bit of reasoning that Bloom could warm up to.

Avoiding dialectical games like that in the pursuit of scientific understanding makes good sense, but making good sense is something Bloom manages to avoid.  That brings us back to Bloom’s use of compassion to induce moral and caring behavior.  Without empathy, Bloom lacks a motivator of the behavior he wants to see.  He needs something, he says, that “will fill the gap.”  For Bloom, compassion is the candidate, but just how that might work to “fill the gap” is more than puzzling.

Vague Abstractions and Concrete Arrogance

Empathy is an abstract term, but so is compassion.  Now we are juggling at least two undefined abstract terms.  Replacing empathy with compassion merely puts the conversation deeper into the swamp.  First, we need an operational definition to understand the term we want to dismiss (empathy); second, we need another to understand the term we want to substitute (compassion).   Morality is also an abstract term, and Bloom hasn’t’ really given a clear definition to that, either.  As Bloom plunges deeper into the dark, he apparently thinks that he is making sense, but adding additional, undefined layers to his model merely makes things darker.  It doesn’t help.

Ultimately, Bloom wants people to do what he wants them to do.  They are not listening, and that annoys him.  His annoyance, however, is the real focus.  He’s not talking science.  He’s simply frustrated socially and politically.  If people do what he wants, that’s moral.  If they don’t, he finds that troubling and even immoral.  Apparently, he is so sure about that he’s published a book on the topic and gives lectures.  He expects people to read his book and to listen to his lectures.  He also expects them to pay attention.  What does he want?  Some might say that he’s demanding empathy.  He wants his readers to stop caring about what they care about; instead, they should start caring about what Bloom cares about.  Incidentally, this serves as a reasonable summary of Professor Bloom’s ideas on empathy.  Why a reader should comply, however, is a question that he cannot answer.  In fact, he does not even try.  He simply assumes that others should care about what he thinks and do what he says.

Why would he make such an assumption?  I can think of two reasons.  First, he’s arrogant enough to confuse his biases for compassion; second, he is confused enough to mistake his arrogance for reason.  He has tricked himself into believing that his views are somehow scientific; consequently, he cannot see the biases he smuggles into his own arguments.  But moral judgments without rationalized foundations but possessing political preferences derived from an undisclosed political philosophy can provide neither tools of scientific analysis nor insight for philosophical discussion.  What we have instead is a lengthy opinion piece.

Conclusion

If Bloom is right about empathy, he has not proved his case—far from it.  His arguments lack the rigor of scientific investigation but make pretense to scientific authority.  That’s a pity.  I would expect better from a secular scholar teaching at Yale than carefully selected, unrepresentative references from existing literature, refusal to clarify terms operationally, the admixture of political opinion, and the subtle assumption of utilitarian ethics.  What he offers up is an uninspiring hodge-podge of materialistic reductionism accented, ironically enough, with mysticism and speculation.  He provides no insights on humankind’s actual moral improvement.

For the moment, therefore, empathy’s positive reputation remains unscathed.  Men and women of goodwill may use it to persuade their communities to respond to issues in the public’s best interests.  And Christians may confidently use their empathy to follow Christ’s command, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  We may not be perfect in our efforts.  That is something utilitarian moral theory’s “consequentialism” seems to demand. But imperfection does not make our empathy subject to Professor Bloom’s criticisms.  A world governed by his principles would prove that.  It would not be attractive.  Should he give it an experimental try somewhere, certainly others would be willing to join him.  With optimistic enthusiasm, they will formally ban empathy and build their culture.  Then we could see if “rational compassion” could ignite an ethical renaissance on earth and recreate Eden.  If it does, the rest of us will admit error, dispose of our empathy, and seek entrance into paradise.   Somehow, however, I think Bloom would fall short of the ideal objective.  A society in which people think and act the way that Professor Bloom would like—political opinions, news coverage, and all–may prove less frustrating to him, but it really doesn’t sound like a moral paradise.  It doesn’t even sound that interesting.

In conclusion, I offer the good professor some advice.

A Personal Word to Professor Bloom

I am sorry, Dr. Bloom, that people don’t behave the way you would like them to.  I feel your pain.  But please empathize with my position.  Your frustrations provide no justification for shoddy science or amateur philosophy pretending to be science.  I would very much like to see you give this presentation before the American Philosophical Association.  Moreover, the analysis you extend to empathy I would like to see extended to beauty, reason, truth, logic, morality, or any other academically or culturally important abstract term of which we might think.  It would be great fun to see what damage we could do.  We could argue that the very notion of logic gives birth to invalid reasoning or that truth is actually the source of all lies.  Then again, that would take time and effort.  Most of us have actual work to do. 

SOURCES

Bloom, Paul. Against empathy: the case for rational compassion. London: The Bodley Head, 2017. Web.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/03/the-war-on-reason/357561/

http://www.vhemt.org/

 

Resources on Empathy

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/cou/43/3/261/

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1520-6696(198401)20:1%3C38::AID-JHBS2300200106%3E3.0.CO;2-1/full

http://cultureofempathy.com/References/NewsPaper/

http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/empathy

http://www.emotionalcompetency.com/empathy.htm

FOUR IRRITATING FALLACIES—MONTY PYTHON STYLE

As Demonstrated in a Witch Trial

Mistakes in reasoning are common in everyday life. From politics to commercials to serious business discussions, logical fallacies arise to derail our thinking and smash our arguments. But we often jump willingly to our conclusions. We don’t recognize our reasoning mistakes, and that’s a pity. So here is something that you can use, while Monty Python entertains.

To help you keep your own reasoning on track, here is a wonderful video clip from Monty Python and the Holy Grail that illustrates at least four rather nasty but common logical fallacies: name-calling, undistributed middle term, false cause, and false authority. My explanations below will elaborate on the video’s fallacies so that you may follow the action and understand why others jump to conclusions. Your mission? That’s simple. Don’t follow the video’s example in your own life—where it really matters!

Here is the video clip link: Monty Python Witch Trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2xlQaimsGg

Fallacy 1: Name Calling (the Personal Attack)

Villagers bring to the Lord of the Manor (the knight who owns the land) a woman they believe to be a witch. To make her appear guilty, they dress her as a witch, even adding to her face a crooked carrot to simulate a deformed nose. The Lord of the Manor asks the villagers how they know that she is a witch. They point to her appearance, but they are forced to admit that they dressed her to look that way. To recover from this failed attempt, one villager claims that she turned him into a newt. Since he obviously isn’t a lizard now, the villager claims, with some embarrassment, that he simply got better.

These all qualify under the heading of the Fallacy of Name Calling (ad Hominem: to the man), a fallacy that attempts to undermine what another claims or argues by discrediting that person’s character or motives, typically by attributing charges of wrongdoing, immoral behavior, or untrustworthiness. This is a fallacy because a person’s character or motives are irrelevant to the truth of his or her statements. Even if a person has a reason to lie, the truth of what he or she says depends upon whether or not the statements accurately describe the real world, not the person’s virtue or lack of it. Even the most virtuous can have lousy observation skills or misinterpret what’s before them. The truth of a statement, what logicians call soundness, depends upon accuracy, not morality.

Fallacy 2: Undistributed Middle Term (Cf., Equivocation and False Analogy)

As the villagers push the accused before the Lord of the Manor, we get a lesson in faulty class inclusion. Proper class inclusion assumes that if one group is included in another, then the members of both will necessarily share common characteristics. We expect that because the included group is simply a subdivision within the same class. The shared characteristics are “universally distributed” within the class, so all members of any included class must also have them. That’s what logicians mean by a “distributed middle term.” For example, look at this logically valid argument:

“Reptiles are cold-blooded animals. This snake is a reptile. Consequently, it is a cold-blooded animal.” (Reptiles constitute a class characterized by being cold-blooded. The snake is included as a subclass of this larger class. Consequently, we logically conclude that it has the same characteristic)

The Fallacy of an Undistributed Middle Term occurs when the items we compare are not members of the same class but merely seem to share an incidental characteristic. The logical mistake occurs when the two classes are equated on the basis of the incidental, common characteristic. This is equivocal. For example, both rams and bulls have horns, but these animals belong to different classes. The horns are only an incidental similarity. Equating the two classes of animals would be a mistake. Though they both have horns, this fact does not put them in the same class, any more than a car and a horse sharing the same color could be classified as the same things. In fact, the horns of these two animals are not really the same, just similar. The Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle Term makes a shared, similar feature the illicit basis for equating two different classes of things. Like this:

“Rams have horns. Bulls have horns. Consequently, Rams are Bulls.”

Watch what happens as the Lord of the Manor tells the villagers that there are ways to determine if the accused is a witch. He explains that witches burn (a characteristic). Why do they burn? Well, wood also burns (the same characteristic), so witches are made of wood (that equates two classes of different items on the basis of an incidental but shared characteristic). This is the Fallacy of the Undistributed Middle Term. Following this form of reasoning would allow us to easily lose our way logically. (For example, Mr. Smith has two feet; Mrs. Smith has two feet. Consequently, Mr. Smith is Mrs. Smith).

Now what the duck’s weight has to do with it is anyone’s guess. Of course, this is an example of the same fallacy. Two different things may have the same weight, but that shared quality does not make them the same. Take a survey. What would people prefer: a pound of duck feathers or a pound of gold? If someone tells you that the two are the same, don’t go into business with that person. You’ll be sorry.

The Undistributed Middle Term can deflect any reasoning into pure silliness.

Fallacy 3: False Cause

In fact, this is what happens in the video. Wood floats, the Lord of the Manor says. He then asks what else floats? King Arthur, who has been observing in the background, confidently answers that it is a duck. The Lord of the Manor affirms that answer as the correct one. What does this mean? Drawing out answers from the villagers, the Lord of the Manor establishes that if the accused equates to a duck, then that equates to being wood, which equates to being a witch. This reasoning, however, is an example of the False Cause fallacy (Post Hoc, Ergo Proctor Hoc: after this, therefore because of this).

Why? Even if we take the humorous argument seriously, not all wooden items are witches. In fact, the Lord of the Manor says this explicitly, “And what do you burn other than witches.” The answer? “Wood,” says one of the villagers, to the Lord of the Manor’s approval. The video also admits that some bridges are made of wood, without directing the villagers to burn all wooden bridges on the charge of witchcraft. Clearly, the Lord of the Manor and the villagers know that not all wood comes from witches. Consequently, what the Lord of the Manor must be claiming is that when one becomes a witch, that “witchy” quality turns the person into wood.

But even taking this silly argument seriously, proving that the accused is wood does NOT demonstrate logically that she is a witch. This is a False Cause, for being wood is not necessarily the result of being a witch; otherwise, wooden bridges and all wooden things would be constructed of witches. In other words, a witch may be wood, but not all wood comes from witches. So even if the accused turns out to be wood, that might be the result of a cause quite different from what the villagers allege. In other words, demonstrating that something is wood does not prove a “witchy” origin. It simply suggests a woody one.

Fallacy 4: False Authority

The Lord of the Manor proposes a simple diagnostic test for the accused. If the accused weighs the same as a duck, that proves she is a witch. Why? Sharing the duck’s weight makes her equivalent to wood, for a duck is equivalent to wood. If she is wood, then she is a witch. So he proposes to use his weighing scales to test her. With a duck on one side and the accused on the other, the scales measure both to be identical. This proves, according to the Lord of the Manor, that the accused is a witch.

But accepting this conclusion requires one to assume that the Lord of the Manor knows what he is talking about. Nothing in evidence confirms such expertise. In fact, quite the opposite. His logic has already proven quite faulty. Moreover, his rank in society and personal land holdings don’t offer him insight into the paranormal. He is, consequently, a False Authority (the fallacy Ad Verecundiam: to authority). Moreover, using the results of the measurement as evidence assumes the authority of the scales. Even if one accepts the silly premise of the test, this will not permit assuming that the scales are accurate. Consequently, what the measurement means is uncertain. Relying upon the unchecked scales, therefore, is also an example of False Authority.

So there you have some fallacies committed on purpose–for your viewing pleasure–by Monty Python. To follow up on other logical fallacies that can get you into trouble, you might find the link below useful.

Logical Fallacies Handlist: https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html