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Real Life Terminators: The Inevitable Rise of Autonomous Weapons

image of predator drones in formation

Slaughterbots, a YouTube video by the Future of Life Institute, has racked up nearly three and a half million views for its dystopic nightmare where automated killing machines use facial recognition to track down and murder dissident students. Meanwhile, New Zealand and Austria have called for a ban on autonomous weapons, citing ethical and equity concerns, while a group of parliamentarians from thirty countries have also advocated for a treaty banning the development and use of so-called “killer-robots.” In the U.S., however, a bipartisan committee found that a ban on autonomous weapons “is not currently in the interest of U.S. or international security.”

Despite the sci-fi futurism of slaughterbots, autonomous weapons are not far off. Loitering munitions, which can hover over an area before self-selecting and destroying a target (and themselves), have proliferated since the first reports of their use by Turkish-backed forces in Libya last year. They were used on both sides of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, while U.S.-made switchblade and Russian Zala KYB kamikaze drones have recently been employed in Ukraine. China has even revealed a ship which can not only operate and navigate autonomously, but deploy drones of its own (although the ship is, mercifully, unarmed).

Proponents of autonomous weapons hope that they will reduce casualties overall, as they replace front-line soldiers on the battlefield.

As well as getting humans out of harm’s way, autonomous weapons might be more precise than their human counterparts, reducing collateral damage and risk to civilians.

A survey of Australian Defence Force officers found that the possibility of risk reduction was a significant factor in troops’ attitudes to autonomous weapons, although many retained strong misgivings about operating alongside them. Yet detractors of autonomous weapons, like the group Stop Killer Robots, worry about the ethics of turning life-or-death decisions over to machines. Apart from the dehumanizing nature of the whole endeavor, there are concerns about a lack of accountability and the potential for algorithms to entrench discrimination – with deadly results.

If autonomous weapons can reduce casualties, the concerns over dehumanization and algorithmic discrimination might fade away. What could be a better affirmation of humanity than saving human lives? At this stage, however, data on precision is hard to come by. And there is little reason to think that truly autonomous weapons will be more precise than ‘human-in-the-loop’ systems, which require a flesh-and-blood human to sign off on any aggressive action (although arguments for removing the human from the loop do exist).

There is also the risk that the development of autonomous weapons will lower the barrier of entry to war: if we only have to worry about losing machines, and not people, we might lose sight of the true horrors of armed conflict.

So should we trust robots with life-or-death decisions? Peter Maurer, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, worries that abrogating responsibility for killing – even in the heat of battle – will decrease the value of human life. Moreover, the outsourcing of such significant decisions might lead to an accountability gap, where we are left with no recourse when things go wrong. We can hold soldiers to account for killing innocent civilians, but how can we hold a robot to account – especially one which destroys itself on impact?

Technological ethicist Steven Umbrello dismisses the accountability gap, arguing that autonomous weapons are no more troubling than traditional ones. By focusing on the broader system, accountability can be conferred upon decisionmakers in the military chain of command and the designers and engineers of the weapons themselves. There is never a case where the robot is solely at fault: if something goes wrong, we will still be able to find out who is accountable. This response can also apply to the dehumanization problem: it isn’t truly robots who are making life or death decisions, but the people who create and deploy them.

The issue with this approach is that knowing who is accountable isn’t the only factor in accountability: it will, undoubtedly, be far harder to hold those responsible to account.

They won’t be soldiers on the battlefield, but programmers in offices and on campuses thousands of kilometers away. So although the accountability gap may not be an insurmountable philosophical problem, it will still be a difficult practical one.

Although currently confined to the battlefield, we also ought to consider the inevitable spread of autonomous weapons into the domestic sphere. As of last year, over 15 billion dollars in surplus military technology had found its way into the hands of American police. There are already concerns that the proliferation of autonomous systems in southeast Asia could lead to increases in “repression and internal surveillance.” And Human Rights Watch worries that “Fully autonomous weapons would lack human qualities that help law enforcement officials assess the seriousness of a threat and the need for a response.”

But how widespread are these ‘human qualities’ in humans? Police kill over a thousand people each year in the U.S. Robots might be worse – but they could be better. They are unlikely to reflect the fear, short tempers, poor self-control, or lack of training of their human counterparts.

Indeed, an optimist might hope that autonomous systems can increase the effectiveness of policing while reducing danger to both police and civilians.

There is a catch, however: not even AI is free of bias. Studies have found racial bias in algorithms used in risk assessments and facial recognition, and a Microsoft chatbot had to be shut down after it started tweeting offensive statements. Autonomous weapons with biases against particular ethnicities, genders, or societal groups would be a truly frightening prospect.

Finally, we can return to science fiction. What if one of our favorite space-traveling billionaires decides that a private human army isn’t enough, and they’d rather a private robot army? In 2017, a group of billionaires, AI researchers, and academics – including Elon Musk – signed an open letter warning about the dangers of autonomous weapons. That warning wasn’t heeded, and development has continued unabated. With the widespread military adoption of autonomous weapons already occurring, it is only a matter of time before they wind up in private hands. If dehumanization and algorithmic discrimination are serious concerns, then we’re running out of time to address them.

 

Thanks to my friend CAPT Andrew Pham for his input.

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Wanda Maximoff and the Metaphysics of Responsibility

photograph of Dr. Strange movie display

This article contains spoilers for the Disney+ series Wandavision and the films Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.

In the latest entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, the titular hero squares off against a former ally in a race across universes. After losing the love of her life (twice) at the end of Avengers: Infinity War and watching almost everyone else miraculously resurrected at the climax of Avengers: Endgame, Wanda Maximoff retreated to a small town in New Jersey to mourn. As shown in the Disney+ series Wandavision, she instead ends up (mostly accidentally) trapping the town inside a painful illusion wherein she could pretend that her beloved Vision was still alive; her powerful magic even creates two children (Billy and Tommy) to complete the couple’s happy life of domestic bliss — until everything unravels, that is, and Wanda is again forced to say goodbye to the people she loves.

Last March, I wrote about Wanda’s journey through grief and love for the Post;

at that point, MCU fans had a number of reasons to be hopeful for a genuine Maximoff family reunion. Now, the newest Doctor Strange film has buried those chances firmly under the rubble of Mount Wundagore.

In brief, Wandavision ends by revealing Wanda as a being of immense (and ominous) power known as the “Scarlet Witch” — she frees the town of her illusion, apologizes for the harm she caused, and escapes with a mysterious spellbook called the Darkhold, seemingly intending to somehow use it to reconnect with Billy and Tommy. But from her first scene in Multiverse of Madness, it’s clear that Wanda Maximoff is no longer sorry for what she plans to do: namely, absorb an innocent teenager’s soul and travel to a different universe (where Billy and Tommy are still alive) to kill and replace her counterpart, then live out her days as a mother to the alternate versions of her children. Moreover, Wanda is fully comfortable with killing anyone who tries to stop her — something she does in spades before the story’s end (including to most of the film’s celebrity cameos). Ultimately, it turns out that the Darkhold is a thoroughly evil book which taints whoever reads it with darkness and madness — by searching its pages for a spell to save her children, Wanda was also unknowingly corrupting her once-heroic soul. After Doctor Strange and his allies manage to cut through the Darkhold’s influence, Wanda sacrifices her own life to destroy the demonic book and spare the multiverse from the threat of the Scarlet Witch.

So, here’s where we can ask a more philosophical question:

Wanda brutally murders dozens of people in her quest to save her children, but — if she was under the influence of the Darkhold’s power — was she responsible for her actions?

One common idea (connected to the philosophical idea of “libertarian free will”) is that for an agent to be fully responsible for some action, they must be fully free or in control of the choice to perform the action — as it is often put, the responsible person must have been “able to do otherwise than they actually did” (more technically, they must satisfy the “Principle of Alternative Possibilities,” or PAP). If I were to cast a spell that hypnotically forces you to transfer your life savings into my bank account, you would not have the power to do otherwise, so you would not be free and I would be responsible for the money transfer.

On the other hand, some philosophers believe that a strong commitment to PAP is scientifically untenable: if our actions are ultimately rooted in the material interactions of molecules in our brains (as opposed to something like an immaterial soul), and if those material conditions necessarily obey regular laws of physics, then it seems like no one can ever satisfy PAP (because you will only ever do what the material conditions of the universe dictate). On this view (typically called “determinism”), notions like “free will” and “moral responsibility” are often written off as mere intuitions or illusions that, though sometimes useful in certain conversations, shouldn’t ultimately be taken too seriously.

The middle ground between these views is an interesting position called “compatibilism” which argues that determinism (as described in the preceding paragraph) actually is compatible with a robust sense of freedom and moral responsibility, but not one that requires PAP.

Instead, compatibilists argue that a person is free (and therefore responsible) for a choice if that choice aligns with their dispositions (like wanting or believing certain things). Often, compatibilists will frame responsibility for determined-but-free choices as a matter of “getting what you want” (even if you couldn’t have “gotten” anything else).

For example, suppose that you want to sit in a particular chair and read a book, so you enter a room, close the door, sit in your chair, and read the book — unbeknownst to you, the door locks after you close it, but that doesn’t matter, because you just want to sit and read — are you responsible for the choice to stay in the room? The compatibilist will easily say yes: you’re satisfying your desire, so the fact that you couldn’t have chosen otherwise (violating PAP, thanks to the locked door) is unimportant.

So, what does this mean for Wanda?

Admittedly, the MCU has given only sparse explanations about the metaphysical nature of the Darkhold (so we have to engage in a bit of speculation here), but the film does make clear that the demonic book exerts some kind of influence on (and extracts a price from) its readers. Which means that we can ask two questions:

1. Was Wanda “able to do otherwise than she actually did” while under the Darkhold’s influence?

2. Regardless of the Darkhold’s influence, did Wanda want to do what she did?

If the answer to (1) is “No,” then Wanda’s condition fails to satisfy PAP — just like how Wanda-838 (the actual mother to Billy and Tommy from the Illuminati’s universe) isn’t responsible for the actions that Wanda-616 (from the standard MCU reality) performs while dreamwalking across the multiverse, Wanda-616 would be similarly at the mercy of the Darkhold. If the answer to (2) is also “No,” the compatibilists will also be able to recognize that Wanda wasn’t responsible for her murderous choices, even though she couldn’t have done otherwise.

One of the most interesting things about this whole conversation, though, is that it’s actually not clear that the answer to (2) is “No.” While the movie takes pains to signpost the dangerous nature of the Darkhold (most notably by implicating it in the deaths of multiple versions of Stephen Strange), Wanda repeatedly suggests that her (understandable) desire to find her children is fully her own. If this is the case, then the Darkhold’s influence might have provoked her to act in extreme ways (to say the least), but the compatibilist might not be able to draw a sharp line between Wanda’s dispositions and the book’s suggestions.

However, though Wanda fans might balk at the notion that she authentically “broke bad” and is responsible for murdering whole armies of sorcerers and superheroes, this narrative might make Wanda’s decision to destroy both the Darkhold and herself at the film’s end all the more impressive.

It remains to be seen whether Wanda Maximoff’s tenure in the MCU has come to an end (the movie notoriously avoids offering conclusive proof of her death), just as it is unclear how her character might handle questions of guilt and responsibility, should she return. (For what it’s worth, I’m still hoping that the MCU will grant her a happy ending!) One thing, though, is certain: having grossed nearly a billion dollars in its first month, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness proves that Marvel Studios is all-but-determined to continuing making MCU films — and audiences will absolutely choose to keep watching them.

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Celebrity, Wealth, and Meaning in Life

Color photograph of reality star Paris Hilton sitting on a throne in front of a green screen while many cameras point at her.

People love celebrity and, in particular, they love rich celebrity. Reality TV makes a fortune by playing on people’s voyeuristic desires to see how rich people live. Paris Hilton, the Kardashians, and the Jenners are noteworthy simply for being rich and famous. “The Real Wives” franchise has been so successful that it has launched iterations of its brand in at least 10 different states. Many people admire and hold a high opinion of the capacities of Donald Trump simply because he’s perceived as being wealthy. Our culture is less likely to convict or to require the rich and famous to do any hard time for their criminal behavior. We live vicariously through them; we don’t want for them that which we wouldn’t want for ourselves under the same circumstances. After all, each one of us may be inclined to reason, “I myself am just a temporarily embarrassed billionaire.”

This is an attitude that people have long taken toward the rich, and it is one that we would do well to reflect carefully upon. The 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith is a figure that people often associate with capitalism, but Smith was not impressed with the ways in which people in his day viewed wealth. He wrote not only about markets, but also about moral behavior and the kinds of things about which people are inclined to express approval and disapproval. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he writes:

This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and despise, or, at least, to neglect, persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary to both establish and maintain the distinction of ranks and order in society is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. That wealth and greatness are often regarded with the respect and admiration which are due only to wisdom and virtue; and that the contempt, of which vice and folly are the only proper objects, is most unjustly bestowed upon poverty and weakness, has been the complaint of moralists in all ages.

Though there may be much to criticize in the idea of necessary distinction in terms of rank, Smith speaks to our times when he points out that while we venerate the wealthy, we are more likely to engage in what we might today call attribution bias when it comes to the poor. We seem inclined to attribute bad behavior on the part of others to their enduring personality characteristics (for example, their laziness, their self-indulgence, their lack of vision, etc.), and might be contemptuous of them for those reasons, but that same person would attribute similar bad behavior on their part to the various particulars of their circumstances. So, for example, Jane engages in attribution bias when she blames the fact that Tom got nothing done on the weekend on what she views as his laziness but explains the fact that she got nothing done on the same weekend on the fact that she had a long hard week at work and needed a rest.

A similar phenomenon occurs when people consider the behavior of the poor. We are more likely to say that a person who is out of work, addicted to drugs, or finds themselves homeless is in one or more of those circumstances because of their vicious traits of character than we are to say that they find themselves where they are due to bad luck, poor treatment, or ill health. Society tends to be contemptuous of such people for that reason, and often even passes retributive legislation that makes these social problems worse. These sentiments prevent us from viewing poverty and its attendant consequences (for example, addiction, criminal behavior, and incarceration) as public health and safety challenges that should be dealt with in compassionate ways.

When it comes to the wealthy, on the other hand, we tend to attribute success to work ethic, talent, innovativeness, and worthiness. Those who rise to the top do so because they deserve to be there; surely there could be no flaws with the system of merit that ensures that anyone with the right set of traits gets where they deserve to be. We admire such people, even when, in fact, they have vicious characters and manipulated and exploited people to get where they are.

The explanation behind how we view the wealthy probably has much to do with how we are encouraged to think about meaning in life. Here in the United States, the “American Dream” is often presented in a way that focuses on the value of material success. People live this dream to the extent that they are able to find work which allows them to purchase an impressive house and fancy cars to store in a large garage. Young people often plan their lives in ways that are focused on maximizing profits, or, at least, they are often encouraged to do so by their parents or their peers and made to feel like failures if they don’t. At some point, many come to believe that this kind of meaning can be theirs if, and only if, they work at it, and those who have not achieved such success must simply not have worked hard enough. Contempt ensues.

As Adam Smith points out, people frequently make the mistake of confusing material success and social status for virtue. He says,

The respect which we feel for wisdom and virtue is, no doubt, different from that which we conceive for wealth and greatness; and it requires no very nice discernment to distinguish the difference. But, notwithstanding this difference, those sentiments bear a very considerable resemblance to one another. In some particular features they are, no doubt, different, but, in the general air of the countenance, they seem to be so very nearly the same, that inattentive observers are very apt to mistake the one for the other.

Similar as they may feel, wealth and status are not the same thing as virtue. If we want to live flourishing lives, it would be wise of us to change our attitudes toward the rich and famous. Philosophers have long engaged in debate regarding meaning in life, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, no philosopher of note has concluded that meaning (or, absent that, a good or virtuous life) consists in attaining wealth and power. Our moral sentiments on this point are increasingly important as oligarchs gain more and more control over the planet. When our attitudes are distorted by the seductive powers of wealth and status, we aren’t in a position to recognize that the things we value most (for example, autonomy, self-respect, the well-being of the planet etc.,) are being bought and sold in a way that recognizes no greater good than the dollar.

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What Does It Take to Make an Apology?

caricature of a resigned Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson recently apologized for attending a party at No 10 Downing Street in March 2020, just after a national lockdown had been ordered. His apology has been met with general outrage and a call for his resignation. Individuals respecting the lockdown measures couldn’t see their loved ones on their deathbeds, attend funerals, celebrate weddings, and more. For instance, the queen of England had to attend her own husband’s, the Duke of Edinburgh’s, funeral in relative isolation. As of the latest, the consensus is not a matter of whether Boris Johnson will resign, but when and how he will resign.

Unsurprisingly, most parties accuse Boris of delivering a weak apology. Worse, some accuse him of failing to apologize altogether. This raises the question, “What does it take to make an apology?” Boris Johnson’s apology provides a good case study of what does and does not qualify as an apology. In what follows, I will outline three conditions for making an apology and contrast this with the related concepts of excuse, justification, and explanation. Given the notion of apology I put forth, Boris Johnson fails to make a successful apology.

Let us stipulate that an apology consists of three things: the individual who apologizes must (i) take ownership of the action and the damaging effects, (ii) regard the action as bad, and (iii) be open to making amends or reconciling in some fashion. Consider a trivial case of apology (modeled on a favorite poem of mine). Juan and Sarah are work colleagues. Juan always places his snack of choice, some tangerines, in the work cooler. As it happens, one day Sarah eats Juan’s tangerines. Juan sees the tangerine peels in Sarah’s bin, so naturally addresses the issue. Upon being confronted, Sarah apologizes. She says, “I’m sorry, Juan. Those were your tangerines, and I ate them. I don’t want to take your food and treat you that way.”

While somewhat trivial, notice a couple of things about this scenario. First, Sarah owns up to the action. She doesn’t deny that she is the tangerine-eating-culprit — she takes responsibility for the action of eating Juan’s tangerines. Particularly, she takes responsibility for a wrong action and the effects of that wrong action. Next, Sarah is open to making amends. That is, she apologizes for the sake of reconciling. If this is not clear, simply consider the opposite: Sarah says, “I apologize,” and turns around in a huff for having been confronted. Like children on a playground who only verbally apologize, this would seem to only be half an apology (or no apology at all!). So, it seems like being open to amends is necessary for an apology. Of course, even if Sarah does successfully apologize, Juan can still refuse the apology. But this does not mean that Sarah has failed to apologize. Rather, it means that reconciliation has not occurred.

So, let us consider these three conditions as necessary and sufficient for an apology. You need them all for an apology to happen; and when you have them all, an apology happens.

Now, apologies are not usually as clean-cut as in the above example. Apologies are usually muddled with justifications and excuses. Imagine the same scenario where Sarah has eaten Juan’s tangerines. Excuses are frequent companions to apologies. Sarah could reply: “Oh goodness, I had no clue those were your tangerines in the cooler — sorry I ate them!” Excuses aim to deflect responsibility for the action in question. Sure, Sarah ate the tangerines. But she didn’t knowingly eat Juan’s tangerines from the cooler. That’s not the type of action that she is willing to own up to. Thus, when present, the excuse deflates the apology. Sometimes, excuses simply replace the apology. Sarah maintains, legitimately or not, that she should not and even cannot be held responsible for the action in question. When an excuse accompanies an apology, it at least deflates it, for it calls into question the first condition of taking responsibility for the action in question.

Justifications are also frequent companions or alternatives to apologies. Sarah could try to justify her action when Juan confronts her by saying, “Yeah, I ate it. But it wasn’t so bad after all — I was starving! Sorry, Juan.” Where excuses deny responsibility for the action in question, justification takes responsibility for it. Moreover, the person who offers a justification disowns the fact that the action was bad and thus deflects the blame. Perhaps the justification is legitimate, perhaps not.

Illegitimate justifications, as we know all too well, are a common way to deflect blame. When an illegitimate justification is present, it defeats the apology. The person who says ‘sorry’ at this point has simply not taken responsibility for the wrongness of the action and the bad effects.

Now, we don’t want to conflate justifications with explanations. To see the difference, imagine that Sarah says, “Sorry I ate your tangerines. I was hungry and not thinking of you — I regret doing that.” Similar to a justification, the explanation serves to provide context. Unlike a justification, the explanation does not seek to deflect blame. Explanation is a way of making amends and helping the offended person understand. The explanation aligns with the purpose of the apology, to take responsibility and make amends of some sort. When done correctly, explanations can go a long way in making an apology and the aspired reconciliation successful.

How does this help us analyze Boris Johnson’s apology? The presence of justifications or excuses calls the apology into question. Indeed, illegitimate justifications or excuses defeat the apology. Turning to his statement, the Prime Minister repeatedly and directly stated “I apologize.” He made note of his regret at the damage caused by his actions. He ended by encouraging the investigation, indicating his openness towards making another statement. We might be charitable and presume this means he is open to making amends. These all meet the conditions of an apology. So far, so good.

When taken as a whole, however, he made both excuses and justifications. Consider one of his excuses: he “believed implicitly that this was a work event.” Really? This classifies as an excuse. If we were to liberally elaborate, the above statement amounts to the following: “you are saying I attended a party and could blame me if this was the case. But that was not what I was doing! I attended a meeting. You can’t hold me responsible and blame me for that action.”

Additionally, the Prime Minister made a justification. He claimed it was “technically legal.” This classifies as a justification. Whether it was a party or work event, it was legal and he is not therefore blameworthy. In the justification, he takes responsibility but denies the action was bad.

I won’t get into the details of whether Boris Johnson offered any legitimate excuses or justifications. Neither have I commented on whether leaders have different kinds of responsibilities, or simply heightened responsibilities for the citizens they serve. But, as is clear from the tangerine-theft, the presence of any excuses and justifications at least deflates and calls the apology into question. And this is no different with Boris.

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Can Santa Know Who’s Naughty or Nice?

photograph of child with present watching silhoette of Santa's sleigh

Reliable sources indicate that every year, Santa makes a list of boys and girls he deems “naughty” or “nice.” The stakes could not be higher: on the basis of this classification, a child receives either wonderful gifts or coal in his or her stocking. Thus, it would appear that a serious inquiry into Santa’s methods is in order. In short: how does Santa know who’s naughty or nice?

There are actually two parts to this inquiry. The first concerns Santa’s definition of “naughty” and “nice.” I’ll leave this interesting question to the serious normative ethicists. The issue I’m interested in is this: even if you’ve been naughty, I assume that Santa will not judge you deserving of coal unless you are responsible for your naughtiness. Naughtiness and responsibility for naughtiness are distinct. After all, some people behave naughtily but are blameless for doing so: for example, those who are blamelessly ignorant of what they are doing. So, the question I want to focus on is how Santa knows who is responsible for being naughty, thus deserving coal in their stockings.

Most philosophers agree that responsibility for wrongdoing has two components: a control component and a mental component. Plausibly, you are not responsible for what is not under your control. Likewise, you are not responsible if you don’t know what you’re doing. So, responsibility requires at least some sort of awareness of what one does and some sort of control over what one does. (There is much more to be said about both components, but for our purposes this will suffice).

However, as the philosopher Michael Zimmerman has observed, if you are only responsible for what is under your control, then it would appear that those who attempt naughtiness are no more and no less responsible (read: blameworthy) than those who are naughty. (Most of what follows is taken from Zimmerman’s book.) Consider Sue and Sara. Sue throws a baseball at a neighbor’s window, shattering it. Sara throws a baseball at a neighbor’s window, but a strong gust of wind blows the baseball off course and it lands harmlessly in the neighbor’s yard. Is Sue more to blame than Sara? If we are responsible only for what is under our control, the answer appears to be “no.” After all, Sara would have shattered the window with the baseball had it not been for something entirely outside of her control: namely, the direction and strength of the wind. Arguably, if a person would have done something blameworthy had she been free to do so, and what prevented her from being free to do so was something outside of her control, then this person is just as blameworthy as if she had done that thing. A pithier way of making the same point is to say that Sara was lucky that she didn’t hit the window, but since her not hitting the window was a matter of luck, Sara’s blameworthiness is the same as Sue’s.

If Santa accepts this reasoning, he will put those who attempted naughtiness on the naughty list with those who succeeded. Perhaps this expansion of the list is tolerable to the old man. The problem is that this same line of reasoning threatens to scramble the whole system. Consider first that what we do is determined not only by what we decide to do, but also by the opportunities and character that we happen to have. Consider Susanna, whose parents have refused to buy her a baseball; and Shirley, who would never dream of throwing a baseball at a window because her parents have effectively taught her never to destroy other people’s property. It may be true that Susanna would have shattered her neighbor’s window had it not been for something outside of her control: whether or not her parents had bought her a baseball. And it may be true that Shirley would have shattered her neighbor’s window had her parents raised her differently, which is also something outside of her control. Once again, if a person would have done something blameworthy had she been free to do so, and what prevented her from being free to do so was something outside of her control, then this person is just as blameworthy as if she had done that thing. Thus, the same reasoning that consigned those who attempted naughtiness to the naughty list also seems to consign those who lack opportunity for naughtiness and those whose characters preclude naughtiness to the naughty list.

Even worse, the same line of reasoning implies that everyone is blameless and, indeed, praiseworthy. Just as it may be true that Sara, Susanna, and Shirley would have shattered the window had they been free to do so were it not for some factor outside of their control, so it is also true that the three girls would have performed praiseworthy acts that they did not actually perform were it not for lack of opportunity or their own bad characters, all of which are beyond their control. If a person would have done something praiseworthy had she been free to do so, and what prevented her from being free to do so was something outside of her control, then this person is just as praiseworthy as if she had done that thing.

Now we can see why, if the argument is sound, Santa’s whole system is in trouble. The claims we have been making about the three girls — that they would have done such-and-such, were they free to do so — are sometimes called “counterfactuals of freedom.” According to the argument just developed, for any child there are an indefinite number of “counterfactuals of freedom” that make that child blameless, praiseworthy, and blameworthy. Santa will never know all of these counterfactuals, so he is never in a position to weigh them up to make a final judgment on the child’s naughtiness or niceness.

So, what is poor Santa to do? Zimmerman thinks that he should put everyone on the nice list, since it is far worse to punish the innocent than to not punish the guilty. As the ultimate niceness or naughtiness of a child is unknowable to Santa, he should assume that all children are nice to avoid punishing some nice children.

But there is an alternative response. For utilitarians, blame and praise (as well as punishment and reward) are tools that we ought to use to bring about good effects – such as deterrence or moral growth – rather than ways of registering a person’s desert. From this perspective, it would make no sense to blame or punish someone for something someone would have done in some counterfactual circumstance of which we have no knowledge. Such punishment would be arbitrary. Even if we somehow could know the truth of some counterfactual of freedom, people can’t choose to avoid being the kind of person who would commit naughty acts under some counterfactual circumstance, so there is no deterrence value in punishing them for being that kind of person. By contrast, it does make sense from this perspective to punish someone for something they have actually done — not because that person is more deserving, but because in response to such punishment people (including the punishee) can choose to avoid committing naughty acts in the future.

So, if Zimmerman’s argument is sound, then Santa has at least two choices: put everyone on the nice list, or turn utilitarian. I recommend the latter.

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On the Weaponization of Forgiveness

black and white photograph of pray hands

WARNING: The following article contains discussions of sexual assault and other violent crimes, including the sexual abuse of minors.

On April 23rd, former reality television stars Josh and Anna Duggar posted a gender reveal for their seventh child on Instagram, happily announcing Anna’s pregnancy; six days later, Josh Duggar was arrested and charged with downloading and possessing child pornography. At Duggar’s detention hearing, federal authorities testified that they found hundreds of images of sexually abused children, including toddlers, on one of Duggar’s office computers in a case file described by one agent as being in the “top five of the worst of the worst that I’ve ever had to examine.” Although software was installed on this computer to track Duggar’s activity (and regularly inform his wife of his internet searches), additional software had been installed to circumvent these measures. Josh Duggar pleaded “not guilty” to the charges and has been released on bond to the custody of family friends pending his trial in July.

This is not the first time that Josh Duggar — son to former Arkansas state representative Jim Bob Duggar — has made national headlines. In 2015, In Touch magazine published copies of a 2006 police report indicating that Duggar had repeatedly sexually molested five minors when he was fourteen years old; the ensuing scandal, worsened by the fact that Duggar’s father had leveraged his political capital to protect his son from consequences (despite several of Duggar’s sisters being among his victims), led to Duggar resigning his position as the executive director of the Family Research Council (a Christian lobbying organization). Additionally, in the wake of the controversy, TLC chose to cancel 19 Kids and Counting, the popular reality show portraying the lifestyle of Jim Bob Duggar’s large family. Several months later, hackers exposed user data from AshleyMadison.com, a dating site that markets itself towards “cheating spouses” seeking extramarital affairs; Josh Duggar was one of several celebrities revealed to have paid for multiple accounts with the service.

In his response to these previous scandals, Duggar apologized in 2015 for his “wrongdoing” as a teenager and said that he had “sought forgiveness from those I had wronged and asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life.” Regarding his infidelity, Duggar said he had been “the biggest hypocrite ever” and explained that he had developed a “secret addiction” to pornography that led him to become “unfaithful to [his] wife.” As his confession continues, he says: “I am so ashamed of the double life that I have been living and am grieved for the hurt, pain and disgrace my sin has caused my wife and family, and most of all Jesus and all those who profess faith in Him.” Duggar’s 2015 statement finishes with the following: “I humbly ask for your forgiveness. Please pray for my precious wife Anna and our family during this time.”

At this point, apart from his court plea, Duggar has been silent about his 2021 arrest, but his parents released a short statement asking for prayer and reaffirming their commitment to their family.

Although it might seem like a surprising topic to consider, philosophers have had multiple things to say about the phenomenon of forgiveness that Duggar’s past statements repeatedly invoke. Some have analyzed the emotional elements of forgiveness to, among other things, define the necessary and sufficient conditions for actions that qualify as actually bestowing “forgiveness” on transgressors. (If I say the words “I forgive you” while still harboring resentment, have I truly forgiven you?) Other academics have focused on questions of standing for acts of forgiveness: for example, if Calvin pulls Susie’s hair, it seems like only Susie could rightfully forgive Calvin (should she choose to do so) — no matter how much Rosalyn might insist that she forgives Calvin for pulling Susie’s hair, it seems like Rosalyn lacks the proper standing to forgive the offense. However, this scenario raises another question: what about acts of religious forgiveness, in particular those connected with receiving forgiveness from God? (Could God forgive Calvin on Susie’s behalf? Or has Calvin somehow wronged both Susie and God such that God has standing to forgive Calvin in this case? Or is something else going on here?) And what about obligations to forgive — are there ever duties to do so? Additionally, should forgiveness itself be seen as a virtue?

Indeed, the philosophy of forgiveness can be a rich field to plow.

I think that the Duggar case demonstrates another interesting feature of forgiveness and how it functions as a sociopolitical kind of speech act: namely, one that triggers certain social expectations (and, perhaps, even duties) to view the speaker in a certain valenced perspective (in a manner similar to what J.L. Austin describes as a “behabitive” speech act). When Josh Duggar references his past sins and explains how he has already sought “Christ’s forgiveness,” he is not explicitly obligating people to likewise forgive him for his actions — however, for a certain subset of Duggar’s audience, he is implicitly indicating that they should forgive him on their own. According to Duggar’s religion, Christ’s forgiveness is freely given to all who ask for it: for anyone who might treat Jesus as a moral exemplar (and ask “What would Jesus do?”), Duggar’s invocation of his having already sought divine absolution is an implicit appeal to the Christians hearing his confession that they should do likewise.

In this way, Duggar’s deployment of Christian terminology (like asking Jesus to “come into my life”) functions as what philosopher Jennifer Saul has called a “dogwhistle” because it has multiple layers of meaning, but only certain people in a given audience will be able to fully decode the deeper message. On its face, hearing that someone asked Jesus to “come into their life” might be easily understood as a metaphorical way to recognize Jesus’ influence on the speaker; for Christians — particularly fundamentalist Protestants like Duggar — this phrase carries significant theological meaning with considerable baggage automatically communicated implicitly to anyone who understands the code. And even if audience members don’t calculate the full implicatum of Duggar’s words (“Jesus has forgiven me for X, therefore you should not hold X against me”), they might nevertheless recognize Duggar as a member of their own social group in a manner that often results in the triggering of various in-group biases.

My point is not that Josh Duggar (or anyone else who speaks in similar fashions) is necessarily intentionally trying to manipulate their audience by evoking Christian (or otherwise partisan) terminology; importantly, dog whistles (and other sorts of covert speech acts) can easily be used without speakers realizing that they are doing so. Nevertheless, when such words function to effectively manipulate the emotions and perceptions of audience members, we would do well to pay more attention to their operation.

Consider what happened in 2015: various other celebrity Christians, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, rushed to Duggar’s defense, insisting that, although Duggar’s actions were indeed terrible, his “mistakes” had been addressed and the families involved should be protected from the “blood-thirsty media” looking for a scandal. Pundit Matt Walsh argued that “progressives” were the real hypocrites in this case (because they were allegedly only looking to discredit a prominent Christian family). Whether or not such charges carry water is beside the present point: if Duggar’s statement functioned as I’ve suggested (and indeed triggered certain members of his audience, like Huckabee and Walsh, to implicitly recognize a duty to support their fellow Christian) then these partisan responses are unsurprising.

In short, I’m suggesting that public statements mentioning God and forgiveness (which have been made by everyone from former President Bill Clinton to Kanye West) can work to identify the speaker as an ally or member of a particular subculture or sect. In much the same way that my saying “Live long and prosper” or “May the Force be with you” entitles my audience to make certain assumptions about my background or social position (insofar as they might think I’m a member of certain sci-fi fandoms), deploying specific language — like Duggar’s “Christianese” discussing his sins — works similarly. When such associations might alter interpretations or feelings about violent or otherwise unjust events, said language should be analyzed more carefully.

To date, with the exception of his lawyers and family members, no one has publicly jumped to Josh Duggar’s defense. However, he has been released from jail to await his July trial in the custody of Lacount Reber who was described in court as a “close friend” of the Duggars. Mr. Reber is a pastor in northwest Arkansas.

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Clifford and the Coronavirus

photograph of empty ship helm

In 1877, mathematician and philosopher WK Clifford published a classic essay entitled “The Ethics of Belief.” In it, he asks us to consider a case involving a negligent shipowner:

“A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.”

Clifford then asks: what should we think of the shipowner? The answer, he thinks, is obvious: he is responsible for the death of the passengers. This is because he had all the evidence before him that his ship needed repairs and really wasn’t very safe, and instead of forming his beliefs in accordance with the evidence, he stifled his doubts and believed what he wanted.

As far as philosophical thought experiments go, Clifford’s case is easy to imagine happening in real life. In fact, there have recently been a number of real-life nautical disasters, although instead of ships sinking, they involve coronavirus outbreaks, the most recent being a Norwegian cruise ship that reported a number of coronavirus cases among crew and passengers earlier in August. In response to the incident, the CEO of the company owning the cruise line stated that “We have made mistakes” and that the outbreak was ultimately the product of a failure of several “internal procedures.” Indeed, the cruise line’s website states that they followed all the relevant guidelines from the Norwegian Institute for Public Health, implemented measures to encourage social distancing and good hygiene, and set sail with only 50% capacity. Despite these measures, though, people still got sick. This is not an isolated event: numerous businesses worldwide — that have adhered to government and other reopening guidelines — have seen spikes in cases of coronavirus among staff and customers.

In introducing his case, Clifford argued that what the shipowner did wrong was to form a belief on insufficient evidence. And it is easy enough to agree with Clifford’s diagnosis when it comes to such egregious belief-forming behavior as he describes. However, real life cases are typically more subtle. Cases like the Norwegian cruise ship and other businesses that have experienced problematic reopening should then lead us to question how much evidence is good enough when it comes to making the decision to reopen one’s business, and who we should find deserving of blame when things don’t work out.

To be fair, there are certainly differences between Clifford’s case and the case of the Norwegian cruise ship: there is no reason to think, for instance, that anyone in charge of the latter actively stifled doubts they knew to be significant. But there are also similarities, in that the evidence that cruise ships are generally not safe places to be right now is abundant and readily available. Even if one adheres to relevant health guidelines, we might wonder whether that is really good enough given what other evidence is available.

We might also wonder who is ultimately to blame. For instance, if guidelines concerning the re-opening of businesses that are provided by a relevant heath agency turn out to be inadequate, perhaps the blame should fall on those in charge of the guidelines themselves, and not those who followed them. There have, after all, been a number of countries that have reinstated stricter conditions on the operation of businesses after initially relaxing them in response to increases in new infections, Norway recently among them. When cases of coronavirus increased as a result of businesses being allowed to reopen, we might then put the blame on the government as opposed to the business owners themselves.

Clifford also makes an additional, more controversial argument that he illustrates in a second example:

“Let us alter the case a little, and suppose that the ship was not unsound after all; that she made her voyage safely, and many others after it. Will that diminish the guilt of her owner? Not one jot. When an action is once done, it is right or wrong for ever; no accidental failure of its good or evil fruits can possibly alter that. The man would not have been innocent, he would only have been not found out. The question of right or wrong has to do with the origin of his belief, not the matter of it; not what it was, but how he got it; not whether it turned out to be true or false, but whether he had a right to believe on such evidence as was before him.”

Using this second case, Clifford argues that whether things turn out okay or not really isn’t important for determining whether someone has done something wrong: even if everyone on the ship made it safely the shipowner would still be guilty, he just got lucky that everyone survived. While we might think that Clifford is being harsh in his judgment, we might also wonder whether other businesses that have re-opened early in the face of some evidence that doing so may still be dangerous should be considered blameworthy, as well, regardless of the consequences.

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Buzzfeed’s Dossier Publication Threatens Trust in Investigative Media

Secret meetings in Moscow and Prague. Business leaders conducting sordid affairs with prostitutes. Russian intelligence services blackmailing the President of the United States.

The allegations sound like they found their way out of a political thriller. Yet they are all allegations leveled at Donald Trump and his presidential campaign in a dossier published in full yesterday by Buzzfeed. The report, formulated by a private intelligence firm during the 2016 election, was commissioned by Trump’s political opponents and details allegations that Russia has amassed embarrassing information to blackmail Trump once he becomes president. The dossier also alleges that surrogates for the Trump campaign met repeatedly with high-level Russian actors and discussed matters, including the hacking of the Democratic National Committee.

Continue reading “Buzzfeed’s Dossier Publication Threatens Trust in Investigative Media”

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Who Owns Climate Change?

Two days after the 2016 presidential election, John Abraham published an article on the Guardian titled “Conservatives elected Trump; Now They Own Climate Change.” In the article, Abraham claims that conservatives now “own” climate change due to Trump’s victory and the lack of action from conservative politicians, both in the United States and around the world. But is it fair to blame any person, group, or ideology for climate change? And if so, how can we determine who we should hold accountable?

Continue reading “Who Owns Climate Change?”

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Absent Perpetrator and Action-Less Bystander in East Chicago

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The small Indiana town of East Chicago sits roughly 25 miles southeast of downtown Chicago. In late July, East Chicago’s mayor and the Environmental Protection Agency began informing residents that their soil had been contaminated with lead since at least 2014. But it was only a few weeks ago that the city began the process of evacuating nearly 1200 residents out of their housing complexes. The reason for this evacuation coincides with the rich industrial history of East Chicago: the smelting of lead.

Like many cities near the northernmost Indiana-Illinois border, East Chicago was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Known for not only its steel production but also its large population of immigrants, East Chicago was once hailed as “The Arsenal of America,” and proof that America was truly a melting pot. East Chicago’s present, however, looks very different than its past.The median household income of East Chicago is over $20,000 less than the Indiana average. On top of economic hardship, East Chicago residents are facing an environmental health crisis.  

Lead is one of the most heavily regulated pollutants in the United States, with 7 major environmental policies monitoring its presence in air, water, soil and buildings. Despite the definite confidence that lead is toxic to humans and other animals, many industrial processes once used it heavily. In fact, between 1920 and 1985, East Chicago was home to two different lead refineries, U.S.S. Lead and Anaconda Lead. Though Anaconda Lead shut down in 1936, and U.S.S. Lead in 1985, an inspection by the EPA found the area around each factory to be toxic enough to potentially qualify as a Superfund Site. At this point, U.S.S. Lead’s parent company, Sharon Steel Corp, declared bankruptcy and the EPA did not receive the permission to deem the 72 acre area as a Superfund Site. The EPA finally declared the area a Superfund Site 17 years later, in 2009.

Since the discovery of lead contamination, the EPA has sued U.S.S. Lead twice, once in 1991 and again in 2012, though the ownership of U.S.S. Lead fell under the title of the Atlantic Richfield Company and E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co. During both of these lawsuits, and the time in between, residents of a 346-unit housing complex built in the 1970’s were actually living on the contaminated soil, with no knowledge of their proximity to toxic levels of lead. To put that in perspective, two entire generations of people were exposed to high levels of lead – in some areas, 228 times the EPA’s maximum level of safe exposure.

The situation in East Chicago is a crisis that demands justice, but who is at fault? The EPA states its mission “is to protect human health and the environment.” The EPA has been aware of dangerous levels of lead in East Chicago’s soil for over two decades, but has failed to begin cleaning up the site at all. Some may point out that this stems from the complicated process of declaring an area as a Superfund priority. However, it appears as though the EPA simply gave up or forgot about the area for nearly 20 years, despite the immediate threat it posed to human health.  In addition, between 1992 and 2009, the EPA declared four additional areas as Superfund Sites in Indiana, 3 of which were less toxic than the U.S.S. Site. Every one of these sites –  Terre Haute, Elkhart, Evansville, and Westfield – has a higher median household income and percentage of white citizens than East Chicago. Is it fair to say that the EPA not only ignored this public health crisis, but did so because of institutional racism and classism?

On the other hand, some might blame the very companies that are responsible for contaminating the area as most responsible. After all, if it wasn’t for U.S.S. Lead and Anaconda Lead, wouldn’t the area be safe for habitation? Even though lead was not heavily regulated until 1992, lead has been known to be a toxic substance since the 19th century. Mishandling a known toxic substance might be reason enough to blame only the lead refineries. Additionally, it took U.S.S. Lead’s subsidiaries two years to respond and settle the 2012 lawsuit with the EPA. Some might point out that neither company that polluted the area still exists, and it is nearly impossible to pin blame when U.S.S. Lead has changed ownership so many times. However, isn’t the same argument valid with the EPA as well? Since 1992, the EPA has had 14 different head administrators.

Thankfully, the EPA’s 2012 lawsuit against Atlantic Richfield Company and E.I. Du Pont de Nemours and Co. resulted in a $26 million settlement to begin cleaning up the area. Unfortunately, irreversible damage has already been done to citizens of East Chicago. Who is more morally corrupt: the perpetrator or the action-less bystander? How can we hold entities responsible for causing or allowing environmental damage and human health crises to occur? Is it possible or right to seek justice when the perpetrators of such acts are not still in power or even alive?

Perhaps the problem lies in attempting to hold people accountable for their actions, and lack thereof, of multiple entities over decades. The longevity of a crime should not determine its likelihood of meeting justice, but that seems to be the problem.The perpetrator is absent from the crime and there are too many action-less bystanders to blame. Ironically, the people of East Chicago have been blindly suffering for too long to find peace in holding anyone accountable.