Prejudices and rational thinking

I took these two examples from Steven Pinker’s book Rationality (p. 294):

1) If college admissions are fair, then affirmative action laws are no longer necessary.
College admissions are not fair.
Therefore, affirmative action laws are necessary.
[affirmative action laws: laws to improve employment or educational opportunities for members of minority groups and for women]

2) If less severe punishments deter people from committing crime, then capital punishment should not be used.
Less severe punishments do not deter people from committing crime.
Therefore, capital punishment should be used.

What do you think: Are these arguments sound? Well, if you are progressive (in European terms) or liberal (in American terms), probably you’ll think that the first reasoning is sound (correct) and that the second one is unsound (false). On the other hand, if you are conservative (and in Europe rather ultra-right), probably you’ll think that the first reasoning is not correct while the second reasoning is okay. (see Pinker, p. 294) Apparently, the truth of the reasonings above depends on your political stand. Right?

In order to investigate this question, take this example:

3) If it rains, the streets become wet.
It doesn’t rain.
Therefore the streets don’t become wet.

What do you think of example 3? Hmm, you’ll think, whether you are progressive, liberal, conservative or ultra-right, that 3) need not be true, for it is quite well possible that a car sweeping and cleaning the streets passes, and that this car uses water to clean the streets, which makes the streets wet. Therefore, the streets can be wet, although it hasn’t rained. So argument 3 is unsound, isn’t it?

Let me now reformulate example 3 in order to bring it in line with examples 1 and 2. Let me replace “wet” by “not dry” and “not wet” by “dry”:

4) If it rains, the streets don’t stay dry.
It doesn’t rain.
Therefore the streets stay dry.

For the same reason why argument 3 was unsound, also argument 4 is unsound, so false: It is quite well possible that a car sweeping and cleaning the streets passes and that this car uses water to clean the streets, so that the streets don’t stay dry.
We can argument 4 also write this way, by replacing “it rains” by “P” and “the street stays dry” by “Q”. Then we get:

5) If P then not Q
Not P
Therefore Q

As we just have seen, this argument is unsound (false).

Let us now return to examples 1 and 2. A close look at them makes clear that both 1) and 2) have the form of the unsound argument 5. For instance, in example 1 “college admissions are fair” is “P” and “affirmative action laws are necessary” is “Q”. I leave it to you to fill in P and Q for example 2. Therefore, since reasoning 5 is unsound, also examples 1 and 2 contain unsound reasonings, despite your political stand. However, we often see that, as soon as a reasoning becomes a little bit complicated or a little bit obscure and difficult to follow without thinking a little bit deeper, people stop thinking. Or people do not simply think “That cannot be right, or maybe it nevertheless is? Let’s find out what the problem is.” No, they think “This should not be right, and therefore it isn’t.” (or “This should be right, and therefore it is.”) Then they stop thinking further and adapt the facts to what they think that the facts are. In other words, they found their reasoning and view of the facts on prejudices. They walk into the trap of the “myside bias” (Pinker’s term), often with open eyes. I am the first to admit that I, too, regularly make this type of mistake, for reasonings are often not really clear and easy to get a grip on. Often prejudices commandeer the mind. So, people tend to think what they think that they must think for all kinds of reasons, for example because they really, “autonomously” think so; under group pressure; or because they have learned to do so; or from habit; etc. All kinds of people suffer from the myside bias, despite race, gender, cognitive style, education level, whether you are a logician or not, etc. You can see the phenomenon everywhere, like in the pandemic discussions, the view of the Russia-Ukraine War, the value of simple political measures, and what more. Open your mind to what you don’t believe.

Random quote
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

Philip K. Dick (1928-1982)

Unintended and unanticipated consequences of action

In my blog on the unintended consequences of actions last week, sometimes I spoke of the unintended consequences of actions and, following Robert K. Merton, sometimes of their unanticipated consequences. By using these terms interchangeably, actually I mixed up two types of effects. For what is unintended need not be unanticipated. What is unintended can both be anticipated (polluting the environment when driving your car), as unanticipated (some shortcuts are closed for cars during certain hours of the day, if too many drivers use them during rush hours). On the other hand, what is unanticipated can be unintended (that the shortcut is closed during rush hours) but it doesn’t need to be so (if you take your bike for saving the environment, your physical condition becomes better, and that’s just why you recently joined a fitness club). The latter example makes clear that unintended and/or unanticipated action consequences need not be undesirable. The terms say only something about how we perceive them, not about how we value them, and unintended and unanticipated consequences of actions can be negative as well as positive.

This little analysis helps to plan and evaluate actions in view of their side-effects. Let me discuss again the points just mentioned for getting a better oversight. I’ll add some short characterizations of the different possibilities.
I) If successful, an action has intended and anticipated consequences. We call them the purpose of the action. No surprise, of course, for that was what we were acting for.
II) However, an action can have a range of side-effects, as we just have seen:
a) unintended unanticipated consequences
- positive: good luck or unexpected benefit
- negative: bad luck or unexpected drawback
b) unintended anticipated consequences
- positive: bonus
- negative: resignation
c) intended unanticipated consequences
- positive: good fortune
- negative: doesn’t happen, for who is striving for ill fortune?
(if you prefer a schematic overview of the consequence of actions, although different in some respects, go here)

All this is yet relatively simple, although complicated enough, in case you are going to analyse real actions before they happen, since most practical situations are rather complex and cannot be surveyed in detail, for instance because the details are unknown. That’s just why actions always have unintended and/or unanticipated consequences that are not part of the agent’s purpose (the “law of unintended consequences” – see my blog last week). Matters become even more complicated if we must allow for possible recursive effects of the unintended and/or unanticipated consequences of what we intend to achieve with our action. Here, I want to mention only one, but very important recursive effect, that can even frustrate your action purpose: the perverse action consequence. It is an often-happening unintended unanticipated action effect. We call a negative action consequence perverse if it has not only negative consequences for others and for the (social) environment, but if it makes more difficult if not prevents your action purpose being reached or even makes the matter worse than before the action involved was performed. The boycott of Russian oil and gas mentioned in my last blog is a case in point. I quote (with one correction in view of the present blog): “As a way to stop the Russian attack on Ukraine the western countries have imposed a boycott of gas and oil against Russia. The idea is that it will deprive Russia of an important source of income. However, a perverse consequence of the boycott is that world market gas and oil prices have become so high that, despite the boycott, Russia earns more on energy than before the boycott was imposed.” At least the short-term consequence of the gas and oil boycott is perverse. Whether it will be so in the long run, cannot yet be foreseen because of possible unintended and unanticipated consequences.

Random quote
Modern universities … have been at the forefront of finding ways to suppress opinions, including disinviting and drowning out speakers, removing controversial teachers from the classroom, revoking offers of jobs and support, expunging contentious articles from archives, and classifying differences of opinion as punishable harassment and discrimination.

Steven Pinker (1954-)

Unintended consequences of action

Most of my readers will have heard of the pork cycle, also called hog cycle or cattle cycle. In short, it’s this: You are a pig farmer and the prices of pigs are high, so you decide to breed more pigs. However, you are not the only farmer that gets the idea and most pig farmers in your region decide to breed more pigs. As a result, by the time that the pigs must be sold the supply of pigs is that high that the price has become low. But that’s not what the farmers intended when they decided to breed more pigs and it’s not what they had foreseen.
The case just described is an instance of a so-called unintended consequence of action, in this case in the version of Adam Smith: an “invisible hand” guides the pig market in a way that is not foreseen and not intended by the individual pig farmers who invested in their farms hoping to get high prices for their product.
Here is an individual example: You use your car to go to work. However, your car pollutes the environment. It’s not what you want, but you know no other means to go to your work place. It’s too far to go by bike, and no bus or train goes there. So, polluting the environment is an unintended consequence of your drive to work.
The idea of unintended consequences of what we do has first been discussed by John Locke, more than 400 years ago, but it has become a much-discussed theme in sociology and philosophy since, in 1936, the American sociologist Robert K. Merton published his article “The unanticipated consequences of purposeful social action”. He discussed several types of, what he called, “unanticipated consequences” of action. Moreover, he analysed five causes why they may happen:
- ignorance
- errors in analysis of the problem
- short-term interests which are seen as more important than long-term interests
- basic values which may make that one avoids tackling long-term consequences of the action
- self-defeating prophecy: people try to stop expected negative consequences of an action before they happen. Or, to say it in another way, the expected and planned consequence of an action doesn’t happen because people hit by the action react in an unexpected way.
Especially the first three factors are important. Once you are aware of the idea that unintended consequences of what you do may happen, it is to be expected that most of them can be avoided (if you don’t want them) by a thorough analysis before you act. Nevertheless many situations are so complicated that it is hardly possible to analyse the consequences of acting in detail. Anyway, unintended consequences of action are that common that there seems to be a “law of unintended consequences”: Any action has results that are not part of the agent’s purpose.
Are you responsible for the unintended consequence of your actions? I think that it depends on the action and its consequences. Some unintended consequences are that important compared with the action itself that they must be taken into account before you act. Many people have been sentenced in court because they didn’t! In this context, the next case is important, which I have discussed before: A establishes a company, which has detrimental side effects for the environment. Another person, B, establishes also a company, but this company has positive side effects for the environment. Both A and B are only interested in the profitability of their companies, though they know about the side effects. Then usually people say that A hurts the environment intentionally, while they do not say that B helps the environment intentionally. Apparently, people think that you are responsible for the negative unintended consequences of what you do, while you aren’t for the positive consequences. It’s a thing you should take into account when you assess the consequences of an action.
That the problem of unintended action consequences is not to be ignored and is important to consider can be seen from the present rising oil and gas prices on the world energy market. As a way to stop the Russian attack on Ukraine the western countries have imposed a boycott of gas and oil against Russia. The idea is that it will deprive Russia of an important source of income. However, an unintended consequence of the boycott is that world market gas and oil prices have become so high that, despite the boycott, Russia earns more on energy than before the boycott was imposed. A thorough analysis of the problem might have prevented this unanticipated and unwanted effect resulting in a better thought-out plan of action.

Reference
Robert K. Merton, “The unanticipated consequences of purposeful social action” in American Sociological Review, Vol. 1, No. 6 (Dec. 1936), pp. 894-904.

Random quote
Among our fiercest problems today is convincing people to accept the solutions when we do find them.

Steven Pinker (1954-)

Does history repeat itself?

French war cemetery and ossuary Douaumont for soldiers killed
in the Battle of Verdun (1916) in the First World War

Sometimes I have the impression that history repeats itself; not in the sense of a feeling of déjà vu, which is not more than a feeling of recurrence, but in the sense of a real recurrence, albeit it adapted to the changed circumstances. Take for instance the present Russia-Ukraine War. First of all, it is a unique war in a unique time of history, the Nuclear Age. It’s also an almost direct clash between two superpowers, Russia and the USA, in which the latter is supported by its NATO allies. Moreover, it is a kind of border conflict between military powers in which one power – Russia – tries to regain lost territory, which was – in its view – illegally annexed by the other power, the USA and its allies. In that sense the war is not really new. Think of the Korean War (1950-1953) and the Vietnam War (1955-1975), which were the most important border conflicts between the superpowers after World War Two. Without a doubt there are resemblances between these wars and the Russia-Ukraine War, but that is not what I mean when I say that in the latter war history repeats itself. The differences between the three wars just mentioned are probably bigger than their similarities. No, what strikes me in the present Russia-Ukraine War is that it is not so much a recurrence o
f other border conflicts between great powers but of one of the most important direct clashes ever between big powers, namely the First World War (the “Great War”), which raged in Europe and in the world a century ago, between 1914 and 1918. The similarities between the Russia-Ukraine War and the First World War are the more striking, if you see the former not as a war between Russia and Ukraine but, as said, as a direct clash between the superpowers Russia and the USA and its allies. For isn’t it so that especially in the European Union (but also in Switzerland, which is not an EU member) they say that Ukraine fights “for us”; that it defends democracy against the authoritarian Russia “for us”?
Be it as it may, when saying that history repeats itself in this war, in the first place I think of the military events and less so of the political background. What then are the military similarities between the Russia-Ukraine War and the Great War? Here are the most important ones:
- In August 1914 Germany attacked France and Belgium, expecting that the resulting war would be short and that soon it could occupy Paris, just as in 1871. However, especially the Belgian resistance was stronger than expected. The German advance went slower than hoped and in the end was stopped at the First Battle of the Marne (5-12 September 1914). In the present Russia-Ukraine War also Russia thought to make a quick victory and that it could easily take Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. However, strong Ukrainian resistance and adverse conditions of the ground made that the attack was stopped.
- Frustrated by the Belgian and French resistance the often-inexperienced German troops committed war crimes by killing innocent civilians. In Ukraine we have seen the same: Frustrated by the Ukrainian resistance the often-inexperienced Russian troops committed war crimes by killing innocent civilians.
- After having lost the Battle of the Marne the German troops withdrew and took the best positions. After having been stopped in the Kiev area, the Russian troops withdrew from there and concentrated there where they now see the best chances to win.
- Since direct attacks had failed, the war switched to a kind of trench war: both sides dig in in trenches which function as lines of defence against attacks from the other side. We have seen this in World War One and we see it now in the Russia-Ukraine War.
- Since direct infantry attacks on trenches have no sense or are difficult, because the defenders are in the best position, artillery gets a significant role in breaking the resistance of the enemy and preparing infantry attacks.
So far the analogies between the present Russia-Ukraine War and the First World War. We don’t know how the present war will develop. But the First World War lasted long and became a war of attrition ending with a victory for France and its allies after many setbacks during the first war years. It will be in the future, whether the Russia-Ukraine War will develop in the same way. Anyway, some lessons can be learned from the parallels between both wars. Just as in 1914, also now in 2022 the attacking party overestimated its own strength and underestimated the strength (and the will power!) of the defending party. It is a general human mistake: Most people think that they are better, stronger, more powerful etc. than they really are. People overestimate themselves and think that they are better than average. It’s a common mistake in thought. People forget that as many people are better than average as there are worse. Even if they realize this logical truth, even then they think that they at least will succeed. But you can better be a pessimist of your own capacities, for whom we call a pessimist usually is a realist. And that is what we see again and again: Overoptimism is a recurrent fact in history. Another recurrent fact in history is that most of us ignore this fact. Then history repeats itself in the same old pitfalls.