Crimes Against Logic

by Jamie Whyte

  Depending on which poll you go by, between 60 and 70 percent of U.K. citizens are opposed to adopting the Euro as its currency. This means that if the promised referendum were held tomorrow, the United Kingdom would not adopt the Euro. Nor should it, at least if you think the will of The People should p. 23 decide this matter. But, it does not follow from this that adopting the Euro is a bad idea; The People has little idea what the consequences of adopting it would be. So it is no use appealing to this popular opposition in support of your view that adopting the Euro would harm British interests. Nevertheless, Euro-skeptical politicians do it all the time.

  All democratic politicians agree that ultimate political authority lies with The People. On other matters they may disagree. One may think private schools an abomination, the other that the state should have no role in education. Each tries to convince the public that her view is right, knowing that popular opinion will decide the matter. But, “decide the matter” does not mean determine who is right. The People cannot do that; no one can by mere decision make a state monopoly on education superior to a private system, or vice versa. Public opinion decides the matter only insofar as it chooses which policy will be adopted. And the public is perfectly capable of choosing the inferior policy. If it were not, if popular opinion were invariably correct, then politicians would have no serious leadership role to play; government could be conducted by a combination of opinion pollsters and bureaucrats.[3.2]

  The BBC’s recent “Great Britons” television program was a folly based entirely on this confusion about what popular opinion can decide. A case for each of the short-listed ten greatest Britons ever to have lived was made by a celebrity advocate, and p. 24 then the public was asked to vote. But what was the vote to decide? Whose statue will be erected in Hyde Park? On whose birthday we will have a national holiday? Nothing but the fact of the matter. But such a fact (if indeed there are such facts) cannot be decided. It isn’t up to anyone’s opinion who really was the greatest Briton ever to live. And nor is the public a reliable source on such matters: Princess Diana came in third.

  Matters of Opinion

  It is worth a brief digression here on matters of opinion. Some of you will think I went badly wrong above when I said that it is not a matter of opinion who was the greatest Briton ever to have lived. Surely this is a perfect example of a matter of opinion. If you are thinking this, I know what you mean. But first I must remind you of what I mean.

  When I say something is not a matter of opinion I mean it quite literally; facts do not depend on opinions about them. If Princess Diana is indeed the third greatest Briton ever to have lived that is because she was pretty, kind, and so on. It is not because someone thinks she is third greatest or because the third largest group thinks she is greatest. There is nothing special about this alleged fact. No fact can be made just by being believed. So, in my literal sense, nothing is a matter of opinion.

  What you (probably) mean when you say that something is a matter of opinion is that there is no objective standard by which to judge the matter, and so it is each man for his own opinion. Some think beauty irrelevant to greatness; they can choose p. 25 Churchill as their greatest Briton. Others think beauty paramount; they can choose Princess Diana. The problem is that “greatness” (as it applies to people) is a horribly unclear word, with about as many interpretations as there are people with different heroes. But clarify the word—take any one of these different interpretations of greatness—and it is not a matter of opinion who is greatest, who has the most of the quality, so understood. The debate in the “Great Britons” program was really all about what constitutes greatness, not about the various characteristics of the candidates.

  Sometimes we can clarify what we mean by our vague or ambiguous words, and so explain away what was an apparent disagreement—we were just talking at cross-purposes. Sometimes we can’t. Whether or not some food is good is a debate many of us have had, especially with our parents when we were children. I thought brussels sprouts were horrible but my mother insisted they were good. Neither of us could articulate any standard of goodness whereby brussels sprouts are clearly near the top, nor one on which they are obviously at the bottom. Does this make the goodness of brussels sprouts a matter of opinion?

  Again, not in my literal sense. We should not conclude that I can make brussels sprouts horrible by thinking so and that my mother makes them good by thinking so, if only because that would make brussels sprouts simultaneously good and horrible—thereby violating the most basic law of logic, namely, noncontradiction. Rather, we should conclude only that I don’t like them and she does, and that that is all there is to it. There is no such thing as the goodness of brussels sprouts. They have their various p. 26 properties that cause a flavor sensation in my mother’s mouth that she likes and one in my mouth that I don’t like. No disagreement there. We get the appearance of disagreement only by projecting this reaction of ours back onto the thing that caused it: my mother saying they are good, I that they are horrible. Whether or not you like brussels sprouts is a matter of taste, but the goodness of brussels sprouts is not (literally) a matter of opinion, because there is really nothing to depend on anyone’s opinion.

  Of course, the colloquial use of “matter of opinion” is harmless. It merely signals the lack of a clear standard and so shows that there is probably no real disagreement, except perhaps about the meanings of words. I have gone on about it a bit only because it is important that the harmlessness of the colloquial expression should not lull you into thinking that some facts are literally matters of opinion: that something can be so just because someone thinks it is.

  Victims

  Appeals to the infallible opinion of The People are the most obvious example of the Authority Fallacy at work in the modern world. As with the old authority figures, The People gains its spurious expert status in large part through fear, in this case the fear of seeming undemocratic. Disagreeing with The People is not merely bad luck for a politician who would like to be elected; it is looked upon as some kind of moral failing. It is also fear of this kind that helps our other modern authority figures transcend their hopeless ignorance.

  p. 27 No one wants to seem insensitive toward the victims of tragedies. When the mother of a child rape victim sobs at a press conference that the death penalty should be applied immediately to a man recently taken into custody, it takes a single-minded devotion to jurisprudence to tell her then and there about the many shortcomings of her suggested course of action. No one, however, should afford her words the weight of expert opinion simply on account of her anguish. Nevertheless, this happens all the time.

  In 1995, Leah Betts, a British schoolgirl, died after taking the drug Ecstasy at a party. Ever since, newspaper articles about a suggested liberalization of drug laws also report her father’s outraged reaction to the idea. Why? How has Mr. Betts’s suffering made him an expert on the effects of drug laws on public health, crime, individual liberty, and so on? If it has not, why should we be interested in his opinion on the matter?

  Mr. Betts is not alone in being elevated through tragedy. Victims of London’s Paddington Station rail crash of 1999 are now consulted on public transport policy and there are suggestions that crime victims should be involved in sentencing the convicted. Perhaps the journalists and politicians who approach policy formation in this way are genuinely concerned for the victims whose causes they espouse, but that is beside the point. Suffering does not bestow expertise. Believing what victims believe does not make you more likely to be right.

  On the contrary, the effect of suffering can be systematic error. People tend to personalize the world. Those injured in a train crash are apt to overestimate the probability of train crashes. Those who have lost a child to some disease are too ready to see p. 28 its symptoms in their other children. This may be understandable in the individuals affected but it is no basis for government policy.

  Celebrities

  Barry Manilow had several pop music hits in the 1970s.
He probably knows the pop music business inside out. You might do well to seek his advice on how to get a record contract or how to improve a tune you have just composed.

  When it comes to economics, jurisprudence, international relations, and all those other topics relevant to politics, however, Mr. Manilow is less distinguished. My little research on the topic indicates that he has no more expertise in these matters than any other randomly selected citizen. There is no apparent reason to take his advice on which presidential candidate you should vote for.

  Yet during the recent Democratic primary campaign, the American public was informed, as though this was something they should bear in mind when voting, that Barry Manilow favored Richard Gephardt.

  There was nothing special about Manilow and Gephardt. Other candidates also boasted celebrity endorsements. For example, John Edwards had Dennis Hopper, Howard Dean had Rob Reiner, and John Kerry had Jerry Seinfeld. Dennis Hopper, Rob Reiner, and Jerry Seinfeld are no more qualified to give political advice than Barry Manilow.

  p. 29 Celebrity political endorsements are the Authority Fallacy on stilts. The candidates and their campaign managers must know it; they just think the public doesn’t. Let’s hope they are wrong. Or, failing that, let’s hope voters are so promiscuous in their celebrity worship that they get pulled in too many directions. If I were a celebrity-directed voter, for example, only Gephardt would have been ruled out. To choose between Hopper, Reiner, and Seinfeld—sorry, Edwards, Dean, and Kerry—I would have had to think about their policies.

  Spotting the Authority Fallacy is easy. Ask yourself if the authoritative source offered up is indeed an expert on the matter. If he isn’t then you should ask for the case to be made explicitly rather than merely taking his word for it. His opinion on its own is no evidence.

  Be careful too that you aren’t being offered transferred expertise. This occurs when someone who is certainly an expert in one area is offered up as an authoritative source in some wholly different area. Any opinion of Einstein’s seems to rate special attention, no matter how far removed from physics. I have been told by several people that most of us use only 10 percent of our intellectual capacity. When I ask them why I should believe this, they tell me that Einstein said so. How he was in a position to know this they can’t say, but everybody knows how smart Einstein was.

  p. 30 Well, don’t be bullied. That’s what I say. Einstein was indeed a very clever man, but he didn’t know any more than you or I do about how much of our intellectual capacity we all use. As far as I can see, most of us are running near our limits. And if I’m wrong, then just telling me that I disagree with Einstein isn’t evidence.

  Being contrary isn’t the path to truth, but nor is being a toady.

  4 – Prejudice in Fancy Dress

  p. 31 It can be a little tricky when you have been over the matter quite thoroughly and, in the end, everyone can see that you have no good grounds for your position—or, worse, that you cannot even make it coherent. You must either give it up or else stick to it and live with everyone knowing it to be mere prejudice.

  Or must you? Perhaps there is a third way. You might try claiming that it is of the very nature of what you speak that it cannot be made comprehensible to mere men. Or point out that there is much that has not been explained by the narrow rationalist approach of science; seeing the truth requires intuitive insight.

  Dressed in such pieties, your prejudice now looks rather grand. Grand enough, perhaps, that no one will notice that it remains wholly unsupported by evidence.

  Properly executed, the diversion will give you a reputation, not for bigotry, but for wisdom. Consider adding some literal p. 32 fancy dress to your rhetorical finery. Don a simple robe or wrap a towel around your head; no one asks for evidence from people in such outfits. Sandals, facial hair, and a certain tone of voice can also be handy in the search for the high ground.

  You, dear truth-seekers, would never indulge in such shenanigans. But many around you do, and their glorious aura can sometimes intimidate and bewilder the normally clear thinker. This chapter is devoted to exposing the ploys by which the prejudiced attempt to substitute sanctimony or other grand irrelevancies for evidence. I consider six. There are certainly more, but the examples considered should suffice to stimulate your intellectual immune system, so that you can identify and resist the others as well.

  Mystery

  I find fish mysterious, especially their ability to breathe underwater. It has something to do with water passing through their gills, I know, but beyond that it gets rather hazy.

  My finding fish mysterious tells you nothing much about fish and nothing good about me. You will conclude, rightly, that I have failed to look into the matter with any dedication. You will not conclude, I trust, that fish are intrinsically mysterious—that my ignorance is no such thing but, rather, the proper appreciation of the mystery of the fish.

  Yet, on matters a little loftier than fish, this is often the moral drawn from ignorance or incoherence. Consider, for example, the orthodox Christian doctrine of the Unity of the Holy Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct entities—p. 33as suggested by “Trinity.” Yet each is God, a single entity—as suggested by “Unity.” The doctrine is not that each is part of God, in the way that the FM tuner is part of your three-in-one home stereo. Each is wholly God.

  And there’s the problem. It takes only the most basic arithmetic to see that three things cannot be one thing. The doctrine of the Unity of the Trinity is inconsistent with the fact that three does not equal one.

  It is also inconsistent with the fact that identity is a transitive relation: that if A is identical with B, and B is identical with C, then A is identical with C. If the Son is identical with God, and God is identical with the Holy Ghost, then the Son must be identical with the Holy Ghost. They are one and the same thing. But those who assert the Unity of the Trinity deny this last implication; they deny that Jesus is the Holy Ghost.

  The Catholic Church—its pope, cardinals, and priests—agree that three does not equal one and that identity is a transitive relation. So they have a problem. How can the doctrine of the Unity of the Trinity be true when it is inconsistent with these obvious facts?

  Well, it’s a mystery. That’s how. Indeed, it’s a strict mystery. Strict mysteries are those that are of the very nature of the thing and which it is both hopeless and sinful to attempt to resolve.[4.1]

  This response may satisfy the sheep in the congregation but it should satisfy no one with his critical faculties intact. For it simp. 34ply acknowledges the problem without solving it. The incantation “it’s a mystery” does not wash away the intellectual sin of contradiction. It remains impossible both that three does not equal one and that the Trinity is a Unity. If you hold both beliefs, you contradict yourself. One belief must be wrong, and because it is necessarily true that three does not equal one, we know which it is. Cry mystery all you like; it won’t stop you being wrong.

  The bankruptcy of the mystery ploy is made obvious by the fact that it applies equally to any opinion you care to conjure up, however outlandish. When asked how your idea can be true given that it contradicts everything else we know and that there is no evidence for it, simply reply that it is a mystery. The Unity of the Duality, the Duality of the Quadruplcy, the Trinity of the Duality: they are all equally good candidates for mysterious acceptance, as is anything else impossible or otherwise absurd. Mystery is a completely undiscriminating license for belief. It rules out only what is coherent and well-supported by evidence, which may be why the mysterious is so fashionable with new-agers, who take belief to be a matter for unfettered self-expression.

  Claiming that the Unity of the Trinity is mysterious is not only futile, it is dishonest. If you can see clearly that something is false, then there is nothing mysterious about it. The idea that the sun rises in the evening and sets in the morning is not mysterious, it’s just plain false. Anyone can see this. And anyone with even the slightest education
can also see that the doctrine of the Unity of the Trinity is false. You need only recognize that three can never equal one; or that if John’s father is the king, John cannot simultaneously be the king. Most Christians know this p. 35 much. The real mystery is why they have so little intellectual honesty.

  The world abounds with genuine mystery. Most of it is quite local. The mystery of how fish breathe underwater, for example, is local to me and others of equal piscine ignorance. But many are better informed; for them, there is no mystery. Some mystery, however, is universal. What happened in the first few nanoseconds after the Big Bang, if indeed the universe started with a bang, is a mystery to everyone, including those who devote themselves to the subject. The average weight of Napoleon’s hair in 1815, though a matter of little concern to most, remains a mystery and probably always will.

  Some are greatly impressed by mystery. It gives them a thrilling fit of the cosmic heebie-jeebies. But all mystery, whether local or universal, whether the question is trivial or important, is a mere matter of ignorance. Nothing is intrinsically mysterious. Finding something mysterious displays no additional understanding of it, on a par with discovering that it is green or weighs two grams. It displays only a failure to understand. There is nothing noble in this failure, even if there is nothing shameful in it either. The proper reaction is to keep on studying, or perhaps to give up in defeat, but certainly not to conclude that, because the matter remains a mystery, you may believe whatever you like.