Should the Washington Redskins Change Their Name?

A hot ethics topic in NFL football is whether or not the Washington Redskins should change their name in light of numerous requests for doing so from groups such as the National Congress of American Indians and the tribal council of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. For, such groups consider ‘redskins’ to be a racial slur.

Records indicate that the first use of ‘redskins’ came in the mid-18th century, where Native Americans (NA) referred to themselves as ‘redskins’ in response to the frequent use of skin color identification by colonials in calling themselves ‘white’ and their slaves ‘black.’ In 1863, an article in a Minnesota newspaper used the term in a pejorative sense: “The State reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory. This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the Red River are worth.” In 1898, Webster’s dictionary defines ‘redskin’ as “often contemptuous.” In 1933, the football team’s name was changed to ‘Redskins.’ Similar to the Oxford Dictionary, Dictionary.com writes: “In the late 19th and early 20th centuries…use of the term redskin was associated with attitudes of contempt and condescension. By the 1960s, redskin had declined in use; because of heightened cultural sensitivities, it was perceived as offensive.”

The main argument used to support the use of this name relies on opinion polls. The Annenberg Institute 2004 poll and the Washington Post 2016 poll show that 90% of NAs do not perceive the term to be offensive. These have been used by the team owner, Dan Snyder, and the NFL commissioner to defend the name.

However, one problem is with the questions posed. For instance, similar to the Annenberg poll, The Washington Post asked, “As a Native American, do you find that name offensive, or doesn’t it bother you?” Notice that it still could be that NAs understand the name to be morally wrong or racist, but they don’t find it to be offensive or bothersome. The word ‘offensive’ doesn’t necessarily mean morally offensive. Perhaps, NAs maintain a sticks-and-stones-can-break-my-bones-but-words-will-never-harm-me mentality. They are not bothered or, in other words, “offended” by the name as words will never harm them, but they do find it to be morally reprehensible. The question on the survey needs to use terms like ‘morally offensive’ or ‘racist’ when asking about subjects’ attitudes to the name. Without this, there are plausible alternate interpretations of the results, and any strong conclusion drawn from the study will be invalid.

Also, when uncovering someone’s moral viewpoint, to get their real judgment, it is important that subjects have all the relevant facts to the case. This is a standard practice in ethics, where one should have the relevant facts to a situation before making an actual decision on it. For, facts, like for a juror in a trial, can change one’s verdict. As aforementioned, the term, ‘redskins,’ is a dated term that since the 1960’s is not in common use due to its racist connotation. It could be the case that most NAs today are not familiar with its history. A more accurate survey attempting to discover this population’s real moral judgment on the use of this name first should provide an accurate and comprehensive history of the use of this word, such as that it was used as a racist term to promote genocide against NAs, as indicated above. Once one makes sure that subjects know the relevant history of the issue, participants then should answer the question as to whether they find the use of this name to be morally wrong. As this has not been done, the conclusions in the above studies are not justified.

Additionally, a word that is rooted in hatred and genocide should not be used so trivially as the name of a sports team regardless of what most NAs believe on the matter. There are acts like genocide that are so utterly vile that the relevant negative terms during that time associated with it, like ‘redskins,’ should not be used today in the same country for a sports team, proudly marked on fan gear, and uttered in cheers during games of entertainment. The same would hold if a German soccer team wanted to adopt the swastika as their symbol 100 years from now, where most German Jewish people in the future are morally ok with it. It still would be wrong and should not be done.

Finally, the historical context of the intention for giving a team such a name matters. Gilbert claims the team was so named in order to honor NAs in general and some NAs associated with the team. However, in a 1933 Associated Press interview, the then team owner said he changed the name simply to avoid using the city’s baseball team’s name. Given that the name was widely understood to be a derogatory term during this time as noted above, I take it that an underlying intention of the use of the name, as with most instances when a team or university adopts a NA name, is to draw on a negative stereotype of NAs as being something like savages that are wild, fearless, and warriorlike. They are savages in the way bears, lions, and other animals are that occupy the names of other teams. The intention is of using a racial stereotype. Whether one can foresee it or not, such a stereotype is harmful to NAs and also can limit what they’re perceived as being capable of, like being kind and intelligent. Hence, the name should be changed. Just as the intention to do good that unintentionally leads to bad consequences can at times be enough to absolve all blame, when dubbing a team name, the intention to use a racial stereotype that is in fact a racist one, whether one realizes it or not, can be all that is needed to affirm that the name should be changed.



John J. Park

Philosophy Department

Oakland University

Excuse Me?

“I never knew!” That was my go-to excuse when I was a kid. Whenever I was caught doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing, I would try to absolve myself from blame by suggesting that I didn’t know that I was doing something wrong. I thought that I shouldn’t be blamed if I didn’t know any better. But excuses come in many shapes and sizes. And in this blog post, I’m interested in a different kind of purported excuse: “I was manipulated!” Is manipulation a legitimate excuse?

A number of philosophers have suggested that being manipulated can excuse one from blame or responsibility. But many of these focus on bizarre thought experiments—involving evil neurosurgeons that can implant desires (Pereboom 2001) or omniscient demigods that can create an evil person by creating a particular zygote under deterministic conditions (Mele 2006). I tend to agree with the sentiment recently expressed by Prof. Merriam that we should be somewhat skeptical about what we can learn through such fanciful thought experiments, but the idea that manipulation diminishes or eliminates blameworthiness can be found is more realistic thought experiments.[1] One of Derk Pereboom’s cases (case 3 in his famous four-case argument against compatibilism) is not so outlandish:


       “[Plum] was determined by the rigorous training practices of his home and community so that he      is often but not exclusively rationally egoistic… His training took place at too early an age for him to have had the ability to prevent or alter the practices that determined his character… He has the general ability to grasp, apply, and regulate his behavior by moral reasons, but in these circumstances, the egoistic reasons are very powerful, and hence the rigorous training practices of his upbringing… result in his act of murder. Nevertheless, he does not act because of an irresistible desire.”


Plum ends up committing murder; he kills White for selfish reasons. To make the case even more forceful, let’s stipulate that Plum’s manipulators’ intentions were nefarious. They purposefully raised and trained him this way because they wanted him to end up killing White.

Many seem to think that Plum is not fully blameworthy, or at least less blameworthy than he would have been had he not been intentionally manipulated by some other agents. For some reason, if an agent was influenced by an intentional manipulator then she seems less blameworthy than she would be sans manipulator.

Note that the difference in blameworthiness cannot be accounted for by a difference in the actual psychologies of the agent in question. Empirical tests suggest that people tend to judge X as less blameworthy than Y when X and Y have identical psychologies and perform identical action types, but differ only in their personal histories where X’s psychology was partially due to intentional manipulation and Y’s psychology was not (Phillips and Shaw 2015).

This raises an important question. How can two people with identical psychologies performing identical action types in identical contexts not be identically blameworthy? This is difficult question for those who claim that being manipulated is a legitimate excuse. If two people have identical psychologies and perform identical action types, then it seems they should both be blameworthy to the same degree. However, if we accept this, then we must deny that manipulation is a legitimate excuse. And if we deny that manipulation is a legitimate excuse, then we have some explaining to do: if manipulated agents are blameworthy, why are we inclined to blame them less when we find out that they’ve been manipulated?

I think that manipulation is not a legitimate excuse. Plum is just as blameworthy for killing White as he would have been sans manipulation. And to meet the explanatory burden of why we’re tempted to think that manipulation diminishes responsibility, I have some suggestions.

First, I think that we downplay the blame of some agents in our search for ultimate blame. When someone is manipulated we take note that the manipulated agent becomes something like a pawn in the manipulator’s game. Suppose X manipulates Y into doing Z. When I ask whether Y is responsible for doing Z, I am tempted along this line of thinking: “It’s not really Y’s fault. X is the one to blame!” I think this line of thinking is misguided since it is possible for there to be plenty of blame and responsibility to go around—both X and Y can be blameworthy. But, when assigning blame, I am inclined to be most angry with the person that is ultimately responsible for whatever happened and I think that this clouds my judgment about the blameworthiness of the pawns.

Second, it’s important to note that the practice of blaming involves the moral emotions; it involves negative attitudes like resentment or indignation—what P. F. Strawson called reactive attitudes. To blame someone is not merely to have a belief about them; it is to take a negative affective stance toward them and regard them as deserving of some form of punishment. But there are other moral emotions, too. If someone is wronged, we feel sadness or compassion for them. And the manipulated agent occupies a strange place for our moral emotions. He is deserving of indignation and resentment, but he is also deserving of sadness or compassion; he is both victim (of manipulation) and victimizer (by committing the wrong that he was manipulated into doing). These moral emotions are in tension and I suspect that the compassionate attitude is inappropriately diminishing the indignation.

So if you don’t like what I’ve said here, you can blame me—even if I was manipulated into writing this.



Timothy Houk
Department of Philosophy
University of California, Davis

[1] Also, in criminal law a defendant’s adverse past is sometimes used as a kind of excuse to suggest that the defendant is less blameworthy or should get a more lenient sentence (Vuoso 1987). Although an adverse past is not exactly the same as being manipulated, I think these excuses share similar features.

Analogies between Ethics and Epistemology

It’s increasingly common for epistemologists (both formal and traditional) to explore analogies between epistemic justification (rationality, warrant, etc.) and moral rightness.[1] These analogies highlight the normative character of epistemology; they’re also fun to think about.

          

This post is about a commonly discussed analogy between reliabilism about justification and rule consequentialism. I’ve started to think that reliabilists have good reason to reject this analogy . But I’m not sure how they should go about doing this. Let me explain.

Begin with reliabilism:

S’s belief that p is justified iff S’s belief that p is the output of a reliable belief-forming process.

A belief-forming process is reliable iff its immediate outputs tend—when employed in a suitable range of circumstances—to yield a balance of true to false belief that is greater than some threshold, T.

Compare this with satisficing hedonistic rule consequentialism:

S’s a-ing is right iff S’s a-ing conforms to a justified set of rules.

A set of rules is justified iff its internalization by most people would produce a balance of pleasure to pain that is greater than some threshold, T’.

The similarity in structure between these two theories speaks for itself. Further, it’s standard to assume that reliabilists endorse veritism, the claim that having true beliefs and not having false ones is the fundamental goal in epistemology. Reliabilism, then, might be said to be an instance of satisficing veritistic process consequentialism.

The starting point for many discussions of consequentialism about justification is a simple counterexample to a naïve consequentialist theory (e.g., Firth, Fumerton, Berker, among others). 

According to the naïve theory:

A belief is justified if, of the available options, it leads one to have the highest ratio of true to false beliefs.

Here’s the counterexample (originally inspired by Firth, 1981): [2]

I am an atheist seeking a research grant from a religious organization. The organization gives grants only to believers. I am a very bad liar. The only way for me to convince anyone that I believe in God is to form the belief that God exists. If I receive the grant, I will form many new true beliefs and revise many false ones. Lucky for me, I have a belief-pill. I take it and thereby form the belief that God exists.[3]

According to the naïve theory, my belief is justified. But my belief is obviously not justified. So much the worse for the naïve theory.

This brings me to my interest—or puzzlement—with the reliabilism/consequentialism analogy. It’s clear that reliabilism renders the intuitively right result in the grant-seeking case, namely,  the result that my belief is not justified. The belief-forming process that generated my belief in God—popping belief-pills—is not a reliable one, and for that reason my belief is not justified. So far, so good. But how can the reliabilist, qua veritistic consequentialist, say this? As far as I can tell, this question hasn’t really been discussed. And that seems strange to me. If reliabilists really are veritistic consequentialists, then shouldn’t they give my belief in God high marks?[4] And given the analogy—one that treats “justified” as analogous to “morally right”—wouldn’t this amount to saying the belief is justified?

One might think that in asking this I’m ignoring an important feature of reliabilism and rule consequentialism, namely, the fact that they are instances of indirect consequentialism. Indirect consequentialists aren’t interested in directly assessing the consequences of individual actions or beliefs, the response goes. Rather, they assess actions, beliefs, etc. indirectly, by reference to the overall consequences of the rules, processes, etc. that generate them.

This point is well-taken. But the problem persists. Satisficing hedonistic rule consequentialism loses its appeal as a consequentialist theory if it doesn’t at least sometimes allow us to break certain general moral rules when complying with them is disastrous (viz. Brandt 1992 87–8, 150–1, 156–7). Similarly for reliabilism, qua an instance of veritistic consequentialism, right? If the view doesn’t sometimes endorse jumping at an opportunity like the one presented in the grant case, it’s hard to see how it’s really committed to the idea that having true beliefs and not having false ones is the fundamental goal in epistemology.

So, I suspect the following: [5] if reliabilists are veritistic consequentialists, they must say something awkward about the grant-seeking case (or at least some case like it—maybe the demon possibility I mention in fn. 4). And I don’t think reliabilists should identify my belief in God as justified. Rather, I think they should push back on the reliabilist/consequentialist analogy itself. More specifically, they should deny—or maybe give a sophisticated reinterpretation of—at least one of the following:

      1. Epistemic justification is analogous to moral rightness

      2. Having true beliefs and not having false ones is the fundamental goal in epistemology

      3. If 1. and 2., then reliabilism is the epistemic analogue of satisficing hedonistic rule consequentialism

      4. If 3., then reliabilists have to say something awkward about the grant-seeking case (or some case like it).

And this is where I’m stuck. 1-4 seem quite reasonable to me. Thoughts?

Clinton Castro

Philosophy Department

UW-Madison

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^[1] I’ve contributed to this trend myself, here (see especially section 4).

^[2] This case is different from Firth’s; it is closer to Fumerton’s formulation.

[3] Berker thinks these cases can be generalized: “all interesting forms of epistemic consequentialism condone […] the epistemic analogue of cutting up one innocent person in order to use her organs to save the lives of five people. The difficult part is figuring out exactly what the epistemic analogue of cutting up the one to save the five consists in.”

^[4] We can play with some details and make it epistemically disastrous to not take the pill—suppose that if I don’t get the grant the philosophy department will sic a Cartesian demon on me.

[5] I don’t think I’ve made an iron-clad case here!

Fetuses don’t play the violin

Abortion is one of the most controversial topics in America today, but among philosophers what is not controversial is that Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” is one of the most important and influential articles on the topic. Anthologized countless times, whichever position you take in the abortion debate you cannot claim to have an informed opinion without considering Thomson. Principally driven by her creative and memorable ‘violinist thought experiment,’ Thomson changed the game by granting the central pro-life assumption—namely that the fetus is a person with full moral status—and then arguing that abortion is permissible anyway.

For the uninitiated, Thomson asks us to imagine ourselves kidnapped by the ‘society for music lovers’ and hooked up the titular (innocent, unconscious) ‘violinist’ who is using our kidneys to stay alive. If you unhook yourself the violinist will die. Does the violinist’s ‘right to life’ oblige you to stay hooked up to him for 9 months? Thomson says no: even if the violinist/fetus is a person, no person has the right to use another person’s body against their will.

My concern here is not the conclusion itself as much as it is the methodology Thomson employs. My skepticism towards thought experiments has been a theme for my posts here at The Dance of Reason (see here and here) and Thomson’s are no exception. The violinist was the first of several thought experiments Thomson employed in her article, and part of what makes it such an instructive example of philosophical methodology gone wrong is how seamlessly Thomson crafts each new experiment to counter a successive series of objections. Thomson asks us to imagine diseases that can be cured by the touch of a stranger’s hand; a baby expanding like a balloon and crushing a person to death; humans procreating via ‘people seeds’ that implant in unsuspecting stranger’s carpets. Each thought experiment has a rationally comprehensible connection to the objection that comes before it, yet a common response to this whirlwind of imaginative scenarios is that we’ve lost sight of something crucially important: the biological realities of sex, pregnancy, gestation and birth.

Thomson’s experiments are an excellent example of what happens when philosophers find themselves accountable to nothing other than their imaginations. The relationship between philosophy and science fiction is so strong in no small part because both thrive on imagining what happens when we push past our current limitations. But just as bad science fiction is often born out of concepts that outstrip their connect to the world in which we live, bad philosophy is often born out of imagination untethered to the subject attempting to be illuminated.

To be blunt: I have no idea at all what morality demands of people in a world in which human beings procreate via people seeds that gestate in carpets. Moreover, I’m not sure anyone else does, either. What kind of moral values would be most important if babies could expand rapidly enough to crush a person in a house? How much stock should we put in our intuitions about whether or not it is permissible to unhook ourselves from a stranger using our kidneys to filter his blood? That’s not how biology works, that’s not how ethics works, that’s not how any of this works.

Our moral intuitions are delicate things. They are rooted in our evolutionary history, honed by our cultural upbringing and exist to help us navigate moral decisions in the actual world. When you strip the biological and cultural context out and throw those intuitions into fantastical scenarios they quickly loose perspective. Such ‘intuition pumps’ are easily abused in the hands of a creative philosopher who wants to lead their audience by the nose to their preordained conclusion.

None of this is to say that Thomson’s position is incorrect. To the contrary, I think her basic conclusion is true: regardless of their moral status, fetuses have no right to use a woman’s body against her will. And I understand the impulse to invoke a thought experiment, as pregnancy is such a biologically unique phenomena that it’s hard to find ways to triangulate our intuitions about it. But we don’t need to appeal to fantastic, intuition-pumping hypotheticals to establish Thomson’s point. There are a set of rare, but real-world cases that suffice, namely the phenomena of ‘sleepwalking rape.’

The broader phenomena of ‘sexsomnia’ (people initiating sex while neurologically asleep) is well documented by psychologists. There are several cases in which men accused of rape have, with the help of expert clinical testimony, successfully exonerated themselves in court by arguing they were asleep at the time of the attack.[1]

So let’s ask the following question: would a person being raped by a sleepwalking rapist be justified in killing their rapist in self defense? Like both Thomson’s violinist and a fetus[2] the sleepwalking rapist is both a person with full moral status and innocent of any crime. If a woman killed her sleepwalking rapist would we call that an unjustified killing? I think people could have an honest disagreement here, but I suspect that most people (even pro-life people) will say that it would be justified.

The exact implications this has for abortion is, of course, open ended. There are all sorts of ripostes that a pro-life person could give in an attempt to allow killing a sleepwalking rapist while still maintaining that abortion is wrong. I don’t imagine any single argument can settle this highly controversial issue once and for all. My point here is simply to say that philosophers would be well advised to avoid highly unrealistic thought experiments when actual cases from the real world work just as well, if not better.

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[1] And of course, others attempting that defense have failed and been sentenced accordingly.

[2] Like Thomson I am assuming for the sake of argument here that the fetus is a person in the moral sense with full moral status, even though also like Thomson I do not believe this to be the case.

Garret Merriam

Philosophy Department

Sacramento State