I’m going to attempt to be brief tonight, and so I request some indulgence in that I won’t be attempting to address objections in the post but I may do so in the comments. One of the more disturbing trends I see is a reduction to fatalism of many of the world’s problems. While in most cases the rational actor is not completely denied, the rational actor is certainly diminished. Fatalism has a certain attraction in that we don’t have to actually coerce the will, we can just change the circumstance.
A rather innocuous example is the advice given to horizontally challenged people. On occasion it will be suggested that they change their commute so that they do not pass fast food places and convenience stores. One could legitimately argue that a person is being cognizant of the temptations they face and choosing to avoid them. (I should note that what is actually occuring is that a person is expressing their will, and the different route is part of that expression. This would be similar to going to the grave of someone to pray. It is not necessary to go to the grave to pray, but attending the grave requires a greater investment of the will toward the actual act of offering prayer for the dead.) However, typically the argument will be that these companies spend millions of dollars to lure you – not anyone else mind you, but you – into buying the Big Mac or Giant Slushee. It’s not your fault. You were just tricked. They were preying upon your “food addiction”.
This fatalism of course expresses itself in the non-innocuous as well. The philosophical foundation of eugenics is fatalism. This fatalism also expresses itself in academia with such results as: More Guns Equals Less Crime, More Abortions Equals Less Crime, More Death Row Executions Equals Fewer Murders, Common Law Produces Greater Economic Growth Than Civil Law. Any objection to these claims will merit the retort, “You can’t argue with statistics.” This will lead to the pithy rejoinder, “There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Moving away from arguments by pithy saying, I will just offer my answer. Statistics aren’t arguments. Econometrics is the leading cause of the claims made in the last paragraph. All of the claims are based on econometrics. If I haven’t hinted clearly enough, let me be explicit and claim that econometrics is worthless for making empirical claims. It doesn’t even make a good null test. Both liberals and conservatives use econometrics when it suits their arguments. For future reference, you are generally hearing an econometric claim when you hear “Action X will change Effect Y by Z amount.” To give a brief example, let’s examine the claim more guns lead to more murders. These are the possibilities I can come up with:
a) A criminal with use a more lethal mean when it is available, whether drunken brawler or seasoned criminal. (Main hypothesis.)
b) A criminal will be less inclined to commit a crime knowing his victim may be armed. (Null test.)
c) The higher the crime rate in a given area, the more likely persons are going to seek guns to defend themselves. (Reverse correletive claim, i.e. more crime equals more guns.)
d) An area with a low crime rate will induce people not to own guns. (Null reverse correlative claim.)
e) Any relation between crime and guns is purely accidental because human motivations are what determine crime rates.
My answer is E by the way. Much in the way being married increases the risk of spousal abuse – not domestic abuse lest anyone be confused on the matter – being murdered increases the risk that you were a victim of a gun crime. The plain truth of the matter is that we have few accidental killings and we have very few random killings. I’m sorry, but the difference between the wife killing her husband is not whether a gun is present in the home. Did having a bathtub in the home cause Andrea Yates to drown her children one by one?
Let me touch briefly on another part of fatalism. My interest came when discussing the risk factors involved coming from the home of an alcoholic. Risk factors are not inherently fatalistic but they can lead to fatalism. There are myriad of statistics for children of divorce and unwed mothers and race. To say that a child of an alchoholic is more likely than other children to become an alcoholic isn’t exactly rocket science. The question, and it is the question with many social issues, is “What do we do with this knowledge?” With children, the answer is generally some form of mentor. We often don’t treat the issue as intrinsic to the child, although you will find folks who will recommend children against dating a child from a divorced home.
When dealing with race and sex, the question of whether a trait is intrinsic adds a troubling dimension. (BTW, race can be more broadly defined such as slav, jew, or mestizo.) Too often when such a topic comes up I see the person as a fatalist. Commonly when dealing with this question I come to the conclusion that even if the allegation is true, the people are still owed human dignity. For example, if it is established that Martians are more violent – and we know through empirical research that they are descendents of Adam 😉 – we do not then have license to fence off their planet and allow their people to starve. If we know that Martians who receive speeding tickets are more likely to kill someone drunk driving, we can’t change the penalty for Martians speeding to reflect this. Rather, we need to look to moral agency, the will. Certainly we can defend ourselves against actual aggression, but we should look to reforming the will before engaging in our aggression.
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