A Passion for Liberty
Tibor R. Machan @ Rational Review
Posts tagged Science
Column on Predicting Free Actions
Apr 17th
Predicting Free Actions
Tibor R. Machan
For several centuries there has been a widespread infatuation with approaching every topic scientifically, meaning along lines used in the natural science. The experimental method is indeed widely used in the social sciences even if its full applicability is sometimes in doubt. So we have in the field of economics a branch now called “experimental economics,” in which the recommended method is to test out hypothesis with different groups of people to see if making predictions about human conduct within the realm of economics is feasible. (At my own university there is an entire institute devoted to doing such studies, under the leadership of several prominent figures in the field, including a Nobel Laureate.)
The courses I teach include business ethics, which is a branch of professional ethics that is itself a division of the ancient discipline of ethics or morality. Other courses like these include medical, legal, engineering, military ethics, and so forth. There may appear to be something of a divide if not out and out conflict between professional ethics of any kind and the supposedly scientific study of, say, business, law, medicine, engineering, or warfare.
Since such scientific studies–which warrant their designation as “social sciences”–aspire to be like what is done in such natural sciences as physics, chemistry, biology, anatomy and so forth, there is a powerful impetus among those doing work in these areas propose general laws by which the behavior of people involved in them can be explained, described, and predicted. Whereas in the fields of professional ethics it is unlikely that what is sought is explanation, description, and prediction. Instead what ethics focuses upon is principles by which what professionals do should or ought to be guided, with a distinct emphasis on “should” or “ought.” And, of course, if it is possible to make sense of such terms at all, it is necessary to make room for two important supposed elements of human life, namely, freedom of choice and standards of right versus wrong.
To claim that a person engaging in business ought to be honest, prudent, fair, conscientious, or whatever means that this is how such a person should choose to behave. The claim assumes that such a person is free to choose and that predictions of his or her conduct may not be possible along lines that the prediction of some phenomena in biology or zoology is. While people should be guided by the ethics of their profession, they might not choose to be, which is why we can sometimes make sense of their engaging in malpractice or wrongful conduct. In contrast, there is no wrongful conduct in chemistry or biology! Things happen as they must, no choice about them.
But if so, then perhaps no such thing as a scientific prediction is possible in economics or sociology or political science. Yet this is not quite right either.
We can make statistical predictions about human behavior, mainly because even where people are free to choose, their choices often amount to committing themselves to a certain long range course of conduct, an ongoing course of behavior that will henceforth be predictable.
Consider a commitment to become a medical doctor or a teacher or a business professional. Each of these involves certain ways of behaving and once such a commitment–let’s call it “an oath of office”–has been made, what the professional is likely to do can be expected, anticipated, even (probabilistically) predicted. Just as with people who take a marriage wow, who can be expected, on the whole, to refrain from dating people or seeking further romantic adventures. Yet there are, of course, exceptions–think of Tiger Woods.
Free men and women, who give direction to their own lives instead of simply being prodded to behave in certain ways, can be subject to predictions because they themselves have decided to carry on in certain regular ways. So even without the assumption that we are all determined by impersonal forces to behave in certain ways, how we do behave is at least roughly predictable. And that may be all that the social sciences need to be proper sciences.
Column on AGW and Due Process
Mar 3rd
AGW Science and due process
Tibor R. Machan
A powerful and vital aspect of the fully free society would be that only those burdens may be imposed on citizens that they have been convincingly shown, via due process of law, to deserve. This is roughly how the criminal law works. This is why the prosecution carries the onus of proof and not the defense–all the defense (the skeptic!) needs to do is point out serious holes in the case being mounted by the prosecution and the jury will acquit.
In contrast, when in the old Soviet Union a police officer suspected someone of criminal activity, this would pretty much close the case and the accused would have to try to do something awfully difficult, namely, prove a negative: “I am not guilty.”
The New York Times reports in a recent issue that AGW–anthropogenic global warming–scientists are beginning to mount a defense of their work in light of the growing skepticism that follows some of the recent (more or less serious) malpractice by some of them. As The Times presents the story, some of the scientists are pretty much baffled by the persistent skepticism. They appear to believe that their education, research, and academic credentials should suffice to make the case for what they earnestly believe.
This suggests that the protesting scientists share the attitude with the police officers of the former Soviet Union–a suspect is guilty until proven innocent. These–though by no means all–scientists appear to want the skeptics to conclusively disprove AGW.
But in a debate about the AGW hypothesis it isn’t the doubters who owe the proof, just as in a court of criminal law (as noted above) it is not the defense that owes the proof but the prosecution. And this is quite sensible: the assertion that someone has done the crime is provable if true since there is a reality corresponding to it; the assertion that someone hasn’t done the crime is not except for showing that the case in support of guilt is weak, not true beyond a reasonable doubt. (Proving negatives is only possible once the argument for the positive is in place, otherwise on is shooting in the dark!)
What the scientists need to realize is that a sizable portion of the public holds to the idea: the onus of proof is on those asserting the AGW theory. And it needs to be a solid proof at that since the consequences of accepting it imply Draconian burdens to be imposed on the public, burdens no one ought to suffer unless there is powerful proof that it is deserved.
Al Gore & Co. are very enthusiastic about imposing these burdens not just on Americans and other citizens of developed countries but on virtually everyone across the globe, even those whose chances to finally emerging out of poverty will be severely undermined by them. Given the prospect of such public policy consequence, the pro-AGW scientists simply must realize that many of us don’t want a plausible theory, not even a probably true one. What we want is something that nails the case firmly, without any reasonable doubt left. But this of course the scientists haven’t managed to produce and there is evidence that among them there are quite a few skeptics–e.g., reportedly among physicists. In other words the pro-AGW scientists need to realize that they don’t run the show and cannot expect to lord it over the rest of us merely because they have a strong suspicion about AGW. That will not suffice for free men and women, not by a long shot.
Perhaps it is a sign of the waning influence of the classical liberal political and legal tradition that we are witnessing with these scientists insisting that their current case alone should suffice and we need all comply, never mind reasonable doubt. That would be a devastating development for it could establish a precedent that is completely antithetical to how a government in a free country must treat the citizenry. It would, in short, begin to usher in dictatorship. I doubt even scientists confident of their belief in AGW want something like that to happen.
