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Essays:
William Hinson, Trinity University, Aristotle and the Ravens: Could Aristotle Have Solved Hempel’s Paradox 2,000 Years Earlier?
Tuan Anh Chau and Tristan White, Angelo State University, “I GAME, THEREFORE I AM”: AN EXPLORATION OF VIDEO GAME EPISTEMOLOGY AND ITS ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS
Valentina Pierce, Baylor University, Ethical Concerns: Contact Tracing Software
Aristotle and the Ravens: Could Aristotle Have Solved Hempel’s Paradox 2,000 Years Earlier?
William Hinson, Trinity University
Introduction
In Carl Hempel’s 1945 paper Studies in the Logic of Confirmation, he posited the famous Raven Paradox, a problem in how we provide evidence for hypotheses that results from the equivalent nature of the statements “all ravens are black” and “all non-black things are non-ravens.” Since its publication, countless philosophers and logicians have attempted to “solve” the paradox, to varying degrees of success. This paper aims to argue that a possible solution to Hempel’s paradox can be found with Aristotle. An Aristotelian look at logic and justification can help us better understand why the Raven’s Paradox is so puzzling while giving us a possible solution.
In this paper, I will begin by explaining the Raven Paradox and exploring some possible solutions posited in response to Hempel. Then it will prove necessary to discuss Aristotle’s views on induction as well as the requirements for a successful solution to the Raven Paradox before considering the neo-Aristotelian solution proposed by Anton Zamorev and Alexander Fedyukovsky. However, their solution will prove unable to resolve the paradox while remaining fully Aristotelian. I will conclude by proposing a thoroughly Aristotelian account of the Raven Paradox. This exercise will provide insight into how Aristotle’s thoughts on induction differed from our modern-day understanding.
The Problem
Consider the claim “all ravens are black.” How do we provide evidence for this claim? All science is conducted by making observations and generalizing them once enough data has been collected. This is a form of inductive reasoning. We see individual instances of a property, such as ravens being black, and generalize those instances to the general statement that all ravens are black. Because all past ravens we have observed have been black, we assume any future ravens we see will also be black, therefore all ravens are black. With this form of justification, any observation of a black raven should strengthen the claim that all ravens are black. If we at some point see a raven that is not black (a strong possibility given the existence of albinism in ravens), then we know the statement “all ravens are black” must be false.
Now consider the statement’s contrapositive “all non-black things are non-ravens.” In classical logic, this claim is logically equivalent to the claim “all ravens are black” in the same way that the logical statement A → B is equivalent to its contrapositive ⇁B → ⇁A. Intuitively it seems as though logically equivalent statements should be interchangeable with each other, a principle called the Equivalence Condition. Now, if we observe a white cloud, that provides evidence for the statement “all non-black things are non-ravens” since it is non-black and not a raven. “All non-black things are non-ravens” is logically equivalent to “all ravens are black,” so the claim “all ravens are black” is paradoxically strengthened by the observation of a white cloud. Hempel humorously coined the term indoor ornithology as this realization would allow you to conduct ornithology from the comfort of your own home by observing any non-black and non-raven object.
So, does a white cloud provide evidence that all ravens are black? That is the paradox Hempel discovered and many philosophers after him tried to address. Scheffler and Goodman proposed the idea of selective confirmation, arguing that an observation can only provide evidence for a claim if it also acts as a counter-example to the claim’s contrary. Observing a black raven only provides evidence for “all ravens are black” because it is a counter-example of the contrary claim “all ravens are not black.” A white cloud would not be a counter-example to this contrary; it fails to show that all ravens are black rather than not [Scheffler and Goodman, 1972, p. 78]. Good takes another approach, arguing that positive instances do not necessarily provide evidence for claims [Good, 1967, p. 322]. He also argues that, in certain cases, a positive instance of a claim can actually support the claim’s negation. He imagines a newborn baby equipped with the full ability to reason but no background knowledge. Now imagine you are the baby, there are two possibilities: either ravens exist, or they do not. If they do not exist, then the claim “all ravens are black” is true by default. If they do exist, then it is relatively likely that they come in multiple colors. If a raven was described to the baby in extreme detail, it could reasonably determine that it is unlikely ravens even exist, a situation which, if true, necessitates the truth of “all ravens are black.” If the baby is then shown a black raven, it would know that ravens do in fact exist, but this means it is relatively likely that they come in many different colors. Thus, the observation of a black raven could cause the rational baby to become less certain that “all ravens are black” [Good, 1968, p. 157]. Another approach from Quine takes issue with the kinds of descriptors being used, arguing that only properties of the natural kind, like “black” and “raven”, can be confirmed through observation, while artificially constructed properties like “non-black” and “non-raven” cannot. [Quine, 2011, p. 234]. All of these solutions reject the Equivalence Principle. Maher attempts a solution that maintains it. He accepts the paradox, arguing that observing a non-black non-raven eliminates a potential counter-example by demonstrating that the non-black object is not a raven [Maher, 1999, p. 57]. Many modern solutions take a similar approach, using Bayesian statistics to show how a white cloud does in fact increase the probability of all ravens being black. I will discuss how these solutions and others like them fall short or fail to resolve the paradox in my later section “Solving the Problem.”
Aristotle and The Ravens
I intend to craft a response to the paradox in a way that Aristotle may have done so if faced with the problem; I do not claim that Aristotle ever actually argued in this manner or addressed the paradox in any way. However, finding ways to answer this modern-day question using ancient techniques can help highlight differences in how ancient thinkers thought about justification and induction. First, it will be helpful to have a discussion on how Aristotle thought about induction and how it differs from our modern understanding. This paradox is a problem of inductive reasoning, so if Aristotle understood induction differently than Hempel that difference could provide a great route to a solution. Second, we will discuss the criteria for a successful solution to Hempel’s Raven Paradox. What traits would an Aristotelian solution to the paradox, or any solution for that matter, require? Only after discussing both of these topics can I craft an Aristotelian response to Hempel.
Aristotle and Induction
The term induction typically refers to the process of going from particular instances to universal generalizations. This can look pretty different depending on who is doing it, but all are forms of induction. In a mathematical sense, induction is the process of proving some property A is true for some number (usually 1 or 0), then proving that if A is true for any given number, then A is also true for the next. These two steps combined prove that A is true for all numbers (or at least all numbers greater than the starting number). A less mathematical, but modern, look at induction assumes that the future will resemble the past. Because we have observed all past ravens were black, we assume all future ravens will also be black. Hume (1739) argues that this is circular reasoning; we only believe that the future will resemble the past because all past futures have resembled their respective pasts. However, induction is the best we have and without it, we could not do science.
This is not how Aristotle or any of the ancient philosophers thought of induction. Induction is a crucial part of Aristotle’s larger view of science. As Marc Gasser-Wingate puts it, “Scientific understanding, for Aristotle, is demonstrative in character,” [Gasser-Wingate, 2016, p. 2]. Aristotle believed that we can come to understand something in a scientific way by demonstrating (through a deduction) that it must be true given the premises we presuppose. This means that any knowledge we get in this fashion must come from previous knowledge. The problem Aristotle faced is that if all knowledge comes from previous knowledge, then science must either be circular or the chain of justification must go in ad infinitum. That is unless there are certain first principles that we can come to know without relying on any previous knowledge and can serve as the foundation for all scientific thought.
Aristotle believed that there are, in fact, such first principles that we can come to understand through means other than deduction. He points out that it is “impossible to go through infinitely many things” [Posterior Analytics, 72b10], and that there must be some starting point somewhere. The starting point, or first principles, are statements about the essence of things. So, to Aristotle, the claim “All ravens are black,” if true, would be a first principle, as being black is part of the essence of ravens (this is, again, ignoring the existence of albino ravens). The issue here is that “these are unknowable since there is no demonstration of them,” [Posterior Analytics, 72b11-12]. Aristotle rejects this line of reasoning though. He argues that we do in fact possess scientific understanding, and since we cannot keep going back to new demonstrations forever, there must be a stopping point [Posterior Analytics, 72b19-24]. There must be some way to come to know these first principles.
So, there are first principles, and since we do have scientific knowledge, there needs to be a way to know them. We know that we must have an understanding of them, but how do we have that understanding? Aristotle not only aimed to show how we come to know the first principles, but how we come to understand that they are first principles [Gasser-Wingate, 2016, p. 4]. He believed that we tend to trust first principles more than the conclusions we demonstrate from them [Posterior Analytics, 72a30-33], which would require us to have some understanding that first principles are special in some way. Aristotle needs a way to explain how we come to gain that understanding. He was not attempting to lay out a method or procedure for how to develop knowledge of these first principles. He did not simply list the steps required to gain such knowledge. Instead, his Posterior Analytics attempts to describe a “cognitive development” that allows us to grasp first principles and understand them as such [Gasser-Wingate, 2016. p. 5]. This cognitive development is more of an unconscious practice than a conscious procedure, and it is what Aristotle refers to as induction.
Aristotle’s unconscious practice of induction begins with sense data. All animals have sense data, but what makes humans special is the ability to hold on to that information and organize it in their minds. “Thus from perception there comes memory” [Posterior Analytics, 100a4]. When enough of these memories collect in the mind, we can form experience. From experience, we get principles about how things work or how things are [Posterior Analytics, 99b35-100a9]. This is Aristotle’s induction, an unconscious process that allows us to gain knowledge of the universal.
Aristotle here refers to the process of collecting experience as pieces of the universal coming to rest in the soul [Posterior Analytics, 100a6-7]. This indicates how Aristotle’s idea of induction differs from the modern view. In the modern view, we find evidence for a claim. The evidence of a bunch of black ravens is the premise for the conclusion that all ravens are black. For Aristotle, a black raven does not directly provide evidence for the claim all ravens are black but improving your idea of ravens and blackness as concepts. Every time we see a raven, we learn more about its nature. Thus, the claim “all ravens are black,” is not true because of a certain number of individual black ravens. Instead, it is true because it says something true about the nature of a raven. Once you truly understand the idea of a raven through induction, you can then know that the essence of a raven is to be black. Therefore, all ravens are black.
Aristotle clearly has different ideas on induction and how we come to know scientific truths. Humorously, it is similar to how Hume would later classify induction. Hume believed it was simply a habit of the mind, that we are just accustomed to believing what happened in the past will happen in the future. Aristotle believes something similar, that the process of induction is ingrained within us. Aristotle, though, believes induction to be a valid way of coming to understand the world. We come to know first principles through cognitive development from specific observations to general concepts that can then be used to understand scientific claims. Induction is the only way we can come to know the first principles, the truths about the essence of objects, that are required for any scientific knowledge.
Solving the Problem
Any solution to Hempel’s paradox must do two things. First, it needs to provide an answer to the question “do observations of non-black non-ravens provide evidence for all ravens being black?” Maher proposed that this can be done by rejecting one of the three following intuitive, yet mutually inconsistent, principles[1].
- Principle 1: In the absence of other evidence, an observation that some object is both F and G provides evidence for all F being G. (Called Nicod’s Condition after Jean Nicod (1930))
- Principle 2: If an observation provides evidence for a claim, then it provides evidence for all equivalent claims as well. (Equivalence Condition)
- Principle 3: In the absence of all other evidence, non-black non-ravens do not confirm that all ravens are black.
[Maher, 1999, p. 50]
Past solutions to the Raven paradox have denied at least one of these principles. Often Principle 2, the Equivalence Condition, is rejected. This can be seen in Schefler and Goodman’s selective confirmation theory (1972). Any theory that rejects Principle 2 finds some way to show that the intuitive sense of justification people seem to have does not match the classical logic that makes the two statements equivalent. However, Hempel himself argues that rejecting the Equivalence Condition is absurd and fails to take into account how generalized claims such as “all ravens are black” are used by researchers [Hempel, 1945, p. 12].
Another common road to a solution is to reject Principle 1, that positive instances provide evidence for a claim. The previously discussed Good’s “Baby” (1998) is a great example of one of these solutions. Hume (1739) would also reject Principle 1 on the grounds that induction is not a valid form of reasoning. These solutions often feel absurd and, I believe, ignore how science works in the real world. Scientists are not babies with no past experience. It is hard to imagine a scenario where a real person sees a black raven and it does not increase their confidence that ravens are black.
It is possible to maintain both the Equivalence Condition and Nicod’s Condition by simply rejecting Principle 3. Maher does just that in the same paper that he defined the three principles as being the key to solving the paradox. He rejects Principle 3 because he believes the observation of a non-black non-raven eliminates a possible counterexample to the claim [Maher, 1999, p. 57]. Common Bayesian statistical solutions also reject Principle 3. These solutions often rely on small changes in probability and the process of eliminating possible counterexamples. I think of it like this: If you imagine you have a box full of birds, you would first need to look at every raven and confirm that it is indeed black. However, there is a small white bird in the corner, so you would also have to confirm that the white bird is not in fact a raven. Solutions that reject Principle 3 treat the world as a box of birds, meaning that observing a white cloud does strengthen the claim “all ravens are black” because it confirms that the white cloud is not a white raven. The issue with these solutions is that they simply accept the paradox. It is important for these solutions to explain what makes the problem feel paradoxical despite not being so.
While it is true that possible solutions to Hempel’s Paradox can be created by rejecting one of the three principles Maher listed, there is a fourth route one could take. If one rejected that the claims “all ravens are black” and “all non-black things are non-ravens” are equivalent in the first place, that would provide another direction to find a solution. This of course would mean rejecting the rules of classical logic, a very bold move indeed, but it is a possibility not discussed by Maher. Given Aristotle lived long before classical logic as we know it today was made standard, we cannot yet rule out that his solution may involve rejecting some rules. Therefore, a fourth principle must be added for possible rejection; Principle 4 – “All ravens are black” is equivalent to “all non-black things are non-ravens.”
Whichever principle is chosen to be rejected; a successful solution should also make an attempt to explain why the question is paradoxical in the first place. As mentioned, this is especially important for theories that reject Principle 3, as that involves accepting the paradoxical conclusion. Thus, it is important to include an explanation for why the intuition is different from the logic. All four principles seem intuitive and correct at face value. The paradox comes from the contradiction of their being applied together. Whichever principle is rejected, a new principal should replace it that is similar but eliminates the paradox. This principle should be something that is easily confused with the rejected principle as that would explain why the paradox exists.
It is easier to understand this requirement by looking at a previous solution. Quine’s solution involves separating descriptors into natural and artificial kinds, with raven and black being natural and non-raven and non-black being artificially constructed. Quine argued only natural kinds can be confirmed through observation. This is a rejection of Principle 1, Nicod’s Condition. According to Quine, an observation of an object being F and G will not support the conclusion that all Fs are Gs if F or G is an artificial kind. [Quine, 2011, p. 234] This means Quine replaced Principle 1 with something akin to: In the absence of other evidence, an observation that some object is both F and G, when F and G are natural kinds, provides evidence for all F being G. If F or G are artificial kinds, the observation provides no evidence for any generalization[2].
To conclude this section, the two requirements for a successful solution to Hempel’s Raven Paradox are 1.) Must provide an answer to the question “does a white cloud confirm that all ravens are black” by rejecting at least one of four intuitive, yet mutually inconsistent, principles of induction and 2.) Must provide a similar principle to the rejected one that is consistent with the remaining principles and explains why the apparent paradox exists in the first place. These are the criteria that will be used to judge Aristotle’s solution. They will also be used to provide a roadmap to creating an Aristotelian solution. Laying out these requirements first allows consideration of all possible routes an Aristotelian approach could take.
Aristotle’s Solution
Russian philosophers Anton Zamorev and Alexander Fedyukovsky have attempted to solve the Raven Paradox through Aristotle. They make the argument that Aristotle would reject Principle 4. This is a rejection of classical logic, so they start by looking at which logical rules are used to prove the equivalence of contrapositives: the law of contradiction and the law of excluded middle [Zamorev and Fedyukovsky, 2021, p. 4]. Both are very common laws in classical logic, contradiction saying a raven cannot be both black and non-black and excluded middle saying that a raven must either be black or non-black. If either one of these laws could be shown as flawed, Aristotle could plausibly reject Principle 4. Contradiction seems out of the question as it would be hard to argue Aristotle believes something could be both black and non-black. But what about excluded middle? Is there anything Aristotle says that could infer he doubted the absolute power of excluded middle?
Zamorev and Fedyukovsky think yes. They argue that Aristotle believed that excluded middle only applied to objects in the real world. A raven is either black, non-black, or does not exist at all. That last possibility, the non-existence of the raven, is an important one. This means that, according to Aristotle, the statements “all ravens are black” and “all non-black things are non-ravens” are only equivalent in a world where ravens actually exist [Zamorev and Fedyukovsky, 2021, p. 5]. To fit this into our model, Aristotle could replace Principle 4 with a new principle: The claim “all ravens are black” is equivalent to the claim “all non-black things are non-ravens” in a world where ravens exist. They are not equivalent in a world where ravens do not exist.
By replacing Principle 4 with this new principle, we can start to understand why the paradox exists according to Zamorev and Fedyukovsky’s account. In the real world, ravens do exist, so a white cloud does in fact confirm all ravens being black (importantly, this means this account also rejects Principle 3 and accepts the paradox, but only in the real world). However, the paradox arises because our intuition is able to consider a possible world where ravens do not exist. Since we can consider those worlds, we do not feel like a white cloud should confirm all ravens are black, but in reality, it does.
Zamorev and Fedyukovsky’s argument falls short in a few ways. First, they had to use ideas from outside of Aristotle to get to the previously mentioned solution. While it is likely that Aristotle believed that the law of excluded middle failed to apply to statements about ravens in a world where ravens do not exist, we, and Aristotle, live in a world where they do. Nowhere in Aristotle’s logic does he indicate that different rules should apply in different realities. To fix this, the authors proposed a theory of subject volume, claiming that when our intuition thinks about the claim “all ravens are black,” it is speaking about a different pool of objects, a different subject volume, than when that statement is made in the real world [Zamorev and Fedyukovsky, 2021, p. 5-6]. If I said “Everyone in this room is a man” at a men’s worship group, that statement would be true. However, in a coed classroom, it would not be. The statements are not identical because they have different subject volumes. This is not an idea the authors pulled from Aristotle, invoking Kant instead, so this solution cannot be called purely Aristotelian because it relies on accounts provided 2,000 years after he died.
Second, this solution simply does not feel very Aristotelian. The authors are arguing here that Aristotle would accept white clouds as evidence for all ravens being black in the real world. Aristotle believes induction is a cognitive development from particulars to universals that then gives you access to understanding scientific claims. You cannot understand “all ravens are black” directly through induction, you first have to understand the idea of a raven and the idea of black. A white cloud provides no insight into the essence of a raven, so it cannot provide us with the first principle “all ravens are black.” For both of these reasons, Zamorev and Fedyukovsky’s account cannot be considered Aristotelian.
Instead of Principle 4, I believe Aristotle would likely take issue with Principle 2, the Equivalence Condition. First principles like “all ravens are black” are not demonstrated, they are discovered. Since there is no demonstration for first principles, the logical equivalence of the two claims means nothing. Induction is when pieces of the universal essence of a raven come to rest in your mind and, once enough pieces collect, you understand that a raven is black. You are not logically forming an argument that all ravens are black; you are just coming to understand that being black is part of the raven’s essence. Observing a white cloud does nothing to improve your idea of a raven. The universal ideas coming to rest in your mind are white and cloud not raven and black. Since observing a white cloud does not improve your idea of ravens it should not help confirm the claim that all ravens are black.
Hempel would reject this solution. He argues that rejecting the Equivalence Condition ignores how science is actually performed in the real world, claiming that researchers use equivalent statements interchangeably all the time. Scientific claims are meant to build off of each other. The reason we want to prove that all ravens are black is because the truth of that claim can be used as a premise for some other conclusion. Hempel believes that if for some reason (perhaps to simplify the proof) we want to replace one premise with a logically equivalent one, we should be able to do it. If one is trying to determine whether a given premise supports its conclusion, they should not have to distinguish between which formulation is being used [Hempel, 1945, p. 12]. Hempel makes a crucial misunderstanding here by equating equivalence qua induction with equivalence qua deduction. The inductive process of justifying a claim like “all ravens are black” is a very different thing than starting with the claim “all ravens are black” and proving something else. You could maintain the equivalence of claims P and Q when used as premises in a deduction while not allowing for any claim that justifies P to also justify Q. Before the truth of a claim is known through induction, we can reject the equivalence principle because the only way to learn first principles is by understanding the essence of things. To understand the essence of ravens you have to observe a raven. However, once the first principle is known, it is completely valid to substitute in a logically equivalent statement. Once we know “all ravens are black” we also know “all non-black things are non-ravens,” so we can substitute them freely as premises in a deduction. This solution only rejects the Equivalence Principle for the inductive process of understanding first principles. It controls how we justify claims, specifically first principles, not how those claims are used once they have been justified. Therefore, Aristotle’s solution does not ignore real-world science as Hempel might have us believe.
Hempel’s own solution, on the other hand, does actually ignore how real scientists operate. He proposes a method of “methodological fiction,” the practice of ignoring any outside data and only considering the evidence and the conclusion. He argues that we should not bring in any outside assumptions or knowledge at all when evaluating evidence. According to Hempel, we do not observe white clouds, we just see a non-black non-raven. The fact that it is a cloud is outside information that we don’t actually have before making the observation. If you do not assume the existence of clouds before making the observation, then it is true that observing a white cloud increases your confidence that “all ravens are black” because you are able to confirm that the non-black object is not a raven. [Hempel, 1945, p. 20]. This is, of course, unreasonable. Scientists bring in outside information all of the time. Science is like a pyramid with past knowledge supporting new discoveries. To stop scientists from using background knowledge is to tell the first man to discover fire to keep it to himself. None of this is to bring up the previously mentioned example of Good’s “Baby” showing what could happen if “methodological fiction” is taken to its extreme. I believe that given the arguments above it is clear that Aristotle’s rejection of Principle 2 is at least far more consistent with real-world science than Hempel’s own solution.
To complete Aristotle’s solution we must choose a replacement principle for the Equivalence Condition. To do so, it will be helpful to understand the similarities between Aristotle’s logic and relevance logic. Relevance logics are those that require the premises in a proof to be relevant to the conclusion. Premises and conclusions, in relevance logics, cannot have different subject matters. They avoid issues with the material conditional that we see in classical logic like any statement implying any true statement or any false statement implying any other statement. Aristotle’s definition of a deduction seems to hint at this idea. “A deduction is a discourse in which, certain things being stated, something other than what is stated follows necessity from their being so” [Prior Analytics, 24b19-20]. The key here is the ending, “from their being so.” In classical logic, the claim “if Aristotle wore pants then 2 + 2 = 4” is perfectly valid. In relevance logic, it is not, since whether or not Aristotle wore pants has nothing to do with a mathematical equation. Many philosophers, including myself, have argued that Aristotle’s philosophy of logic feels very similar to a relevance logic. Steinkrüger, for example, showed that using the rules laid out in works such as Prior Analytics, Posterior Analytics, Rhetoric, and Topics, Aristotle was far closer to modern-day relevance logics than he was to classical logic [Steinkrüger, 2015, p. 50].
So, it seems at least plausible, if not likely, that Aristotle supported some ideas of relevance logic. To him, a deduction was only valid if the premise related to the conclusion in some way. The conclusion not only had to be true, it had to be true because of the premises’ truth. While it is true that induction is not an argument, so rules for deductions would not necessarily apply, I believe that if Aristotle required relevance in his deductions, he would also require it in his inductions. If a relative lens is applied to induction, then no, a white cloud would not confirm all ravens being black. A white cloud would not be relevant to the claim that all ravens are black. In this case, an observation is relevant to a claim if the claim is true because of the essence of the object being observed. The truth of “all ravens are black” stems from the blackness of ravens. The reason for the claim’s truth is that the essence of a raven is black. A white cloud may technically increase the statistical likelihood that all ravens are black, but it is not at all the reason for the claim’s truth and is thus not relevant to the claim. He could then replace the equivalence condition with something like the slightly modified principle if an observation provides evidence for a claim, then it provides evidence for all equivalent claims relevant to the observation as well, where relevance is defined as we have here[3]. The paradox arises from the question of what observations are relevant to what claims.
It is possible that Aristotle would also have rejected Principle 1, Nicod’s Condition. Aristotle’s model of induction where we slowly build up our conception of a universal idea commits him to only having a science of natural objects. Raven and black would both be natural kinds while non-black and non-ravens would not. That would make “all ravens are black” a scientific claim while “all non-black things are non-ravens” would not be. Because of this, it is likely that Aristotle would reject that a white cloud even confirms the claim that “all non-black things are non-ravens.” Since non-black and non-raven do not exist, they cannot have any essence inherent in them. This means that there is no way to come to an understanding of what non-black or non-raven really means. You could argue that “all non-black things are non-ravens” is not a first principle like “all ravens are black” and therefore is not found through induction at all but through a deduction from the claim “all ravens are black.” In the case where Aristotle also rejects Nicod’s condition, he would replace it with something like in the absence of other evidence, an observation that some object is both F and G provides evidence for all F being G, provided F and G are natural kinds that exist in reality. This is a very similar solution to Quine’s.
Conclusion
What makes Hempel’s Raven Paradox so intriguing is that no solution can ever actually get rid of the paradox. The Bayesian solutions, the ones I find most convincing in terms of what is happening in the real world, still fail to make the problem seem less of a paradox. The fact that a solution can be found in Aristotle in no way diminishes the problem or the possible solutions that came after it. It simply shows another way to look at the problem.
What makes Aristotle’s solution so interesting and worth looking into is how different his view of induction is from our modern-day understanding. It may seem like a small difference, particulars confirming claims versus deepening our understanding of ideas, but the Raven Paradox shows just how large the ramifications of those differences can be. It is telling that an Aristotelian could possibly provide rejections for both Nicod’s Condition and the Equivalence Condition. Both of these are considered intuitive principles of induction, and both do not seem to hold in Aristotle’s world. If induction cannot give you direct knowledge of a claim, just understanding of an idea, then no amount of non-black non-ravens can confirm all ravens are black. Only observing a raven can deepen your understanding of ravens. Only through observing many ravens can you understand the idea of a raven deeply enough that you come to know that black is part of the essence of ravens. This is the only real path for Aristotle to come to know the claim “all ravens are black.” Take that, indoor ornithologists.
End Notes
[1] As will soon be shown, another principle must be added to Maher’s list; classical logic is valid.
[2] This is not how Quine himself formulated his solution. This is just to show that any solution to the paradox can be broken down into the rejection and replacement of one principle.
[3] This solution still holds even if you reject the relevance elements of the argument. We could rewrite the principle to say if an observation provides evidence for a claim, it also provides evidence for all equivalent claims as long as they are true because of the essence of the observed object.
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Zamorev, Anton, and Alexander Fedyukovsky. “Raven Paradox: Problem and Solution given on the Basis of Aristotle’s Logic.” E3S Web of Conferences, vol. 244, 2021, p. 11032., https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202124411032.
“I GAME, THEREFORE I AM”: AN EXPLORATION OF VIDEO GAME EPISTEMOLOGY AND ITS ETHICAL IMPLICATIONS
Tuan Anh Chau and Tristan White, Angelo State University
Abstract:
The discussion regarding ethical implications of entertainment and arts has been an age-old story in the world of philosophy, dating as far as Plato and Aristotle. Ancient Rome’s citizens during the third century BCE and the fourth century BCE got treated to the format of gladiatorial combat in which prisoners of war and slaves duked it out with deadly weapons to become the ultimate survivors, as a popular form of entertainment. The spectators of civilized Rome were indirectly exposed to the gory altercations of violence and endless slaughter. In the modern world, spectacles like gladiatorial combat scenes or fight scenes have been meticulously replicated and rendered realistically in various forms of graphic portrayals and photorealism – specifically in video games; and of course, the themes for video games span beyond historical depictions, taking inspirations from different slices of life. Nonetheless, instead of having indirect exposition to the events depicted, the user – or player – of video games actively acts out their part in the happenings of the designated story. The simulated quasi-realism of the game world allows the players, while not being intoxicated directly by the consequences of their actions (by following the story line), to directly experience and influence the actions of the in-game avatars and the environment of the game world. This research firstly addresses how a human’s epistemological engagement – the process of meaning-making – in video games is not entirely different from real-world interactions; more specifically, applying the theory of the extended and embodied mind, the video games’ simulations extend the human’s mind into the game, thus allowing phenomenological interactions. Secondly, this research aims to elaborate on how video games bring up ethical implications by making the player an ethical agent for in-game scenarios.
Keywords: video games, embodied mind, extended mind, ethical agency, art, phenomenology, epistemology, choice.
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION
“All systems are formal structures with rules that govern their behaviors and operations. This holds for belief systems like Judaism or Christianity, social and economic systems like communism or capitalism, systems of thought like Platonism or Hegelianism, and gaming systems like the puzzle game Myst, the first-person shooter game Doom, or the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) World of Warcraft. As rule-based structures, all of these could be classified as and legitimately called “games.” And as with any game, users first need to learn the rules and then conduct themselves in such a way as to follow or break these stipulations, reaping the benefits from the former, or suffering the consequences of the latter” (Gunkel 1)
The conceptualization of narrative operations has always catered to the interpretations and expectations of the human mind. To be more specific, a narrative helps – or creatively hinders and messes around with – its audience’s process of meaning-making of the content. Hence, it can be said that narratives, in different rhetorical platforms under which they are implemented, are inherently conceptualized for the sake of informing and directing their audience to certain designated agendas. Video games, as digital interactive narratives, reinforce the loop of interaction between the game system’s mechanical principles and the player’s expectations by constantly molding their experiences and beliefs as the storyline of the game progresses. Ian Bogost in Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames cites criteria established by Clark C. Abt for determining the “usefulness” of a video game in terms of its expressive, or persuasive power: “active involvement and stimulation of all players;’ sufficient realism to convey the essential truths of the simulation; clarity of consequences and their causes both in rules and gameplay; repeatability and reliability of the entire process” (qtd. in Bogost 321). Essentially speaking, the player becomes engrossed and constantly challenged by the predesigned motifs set up by game designers while simultaneously having their cognitive awareness assimilated by the worldview and conventions of the in-game environment, which explains how different genres of video games seek to convey or contain different ideologies. Therefore, it is inappropriate to classify our epistemological engagement with video games as being in some form fundamentally different from these real-world “games.” Through a technological apparatus that engages our motion and perception, video games extend our mind into the game, allowing us to experience it as we would the outside world. In light of this, one must consider the player’s ethical role in a game. The player’s intimate interaction with the formal structures of the game makes their role as an ethical agent apparent.
VIDEOGAMES AND THE EMBODIMENT OF MIND
If video game studies only focus on in-game actions and representations depicted intentionally for purpose-specific narratives on-screen, the field would eventually limit itself to the same experiences offered by screened entertainment such as watching movies, reading poetry, or listening to music; on the other hand, as Sheila C. Murphy argues, “interactivity” and “modes of input for interactivity” are the engine that empowers video gaming (19). Althoughthe self-involving nature of a video game is an important aspect of this, the particular technological means by which this involvement is enacted is crucial. Other forms of interactive art may involve a representation or some kind of understanding of the audience’s involvement within the art form, whether this be a piece on a game board in Dungeons and Dragons or a reader’s conceptual understanding of themself while reading a Choose-Your-Own Adventure Book, but users have an especially intimate relationship with the representation of themselves in a video game. Enzo D’Armenio writes that video games are a mixture of two important elements: “the visual syntax, which has already been studied in semiotics and visual studies, and which pertains to the qualities of still images, and a syntax never addressed before, that is, a kinetic syntax which articulates the qualities of the movement itself” (122).As the players interact with a game, they make movements based on the interface, but it is necessary for the game’s technology to come into play in order to “translate the abstract movement upon the interface into a system of figurative and thematic movements (running, jumping, shooting, climbing, etc.)” (125). This close relationship between our own movements and the content of a video game is necessary to understand the way in which a video game affects our experience.
This relationship is best understood within the framework provided by the embodied mind. Andreas Gregersen and Torben Grodal describe a specific condition in which the player becomes immersed into “an embodied awareness in the moment of action” – that is, “a body image in action” or dual responsibility of “agency and ownership of virtual entities” (Murphy 20). The movements of a player’s character within a game are very closely tied to the movements of the player themselves, and even though the player’s character is not a part of their biological body, the character can be understood to be an extension of the player’s body, a part of their phenomenological experience if not their biological one. Since the character is controlled so closely by the player, this character exists as a kind of tool not unlike “the blind man’s stick” discussed by Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi, which eventually ceases to be understood as tool and instead discloses an “experiential field” (157), thus becoming an extension of the lived body. The player’s movements, such as walking and turning, reveal new visual aspects of the game. The player’s character is “a zero-point set by the perceiving body. Out of it a perspectival spatiality opens up” (Gallagher and Zahavi 160), this spatiality being the environment of the video game world. With the character being a part of the player’s lived body, the player understands the character as being a part of themself. The body is a reference point for observation: “I do not perceive it; I am it” (Gallagher and Zahavi 162). Because of the close kinetic connection between the player and the on-screen body they inhabit, their epistemic understanding of the game world is similar to that of the outside world. The player is inside of and a part of the game in the realest sense. Furthermore, the player exhibits intentional action, exerting control over their actions within the game. Gallagher and Zahavi argue that a phenomenological understanding of action can be established through “ownership” and “agency” (180). In video games, we have ownership: a particular character whose actions we manipulate. There are various environmental factors, as well as other characters, whom we have no control over, and therefore no ownership over. We also have a sense of agency. The actions of the character are those that correspond to our movements, giving us control over the character.
As C. Thi Nguyen points out, however, our agency within a game is limited. The structured design of the game acts as a “prescriptive frame” (121). It is important to take into account the relationship between the play – the player’s involvements – and the systematically created rules of the game world. Regarding rules, they are “fixed,” “rigid,” “closed” and are, in nature, “mathematical” (Zimmerman 26). The player represents the polar opposite of the rules set up by game designers – that is, improvision, spontaneity, and uncertainty in terms of their courses of actions and affordances (Zimmerman 26). The player’s “play” is far more intrinsic and intuitive, for it is subjectively adjustable by the player’s interactions with the controllers or keyboards. Essentially, the phenomenological experience is created by the interwoven interaction between pre-established game mechanics and the dynamic influences of the player element; in other words, for a game to create meaning, the player has to play it; while, for a player to be able to interpret a game aesthetically, he or she needs to work around the rules of the game designers. Ian Schreiber, co–author of Game Balance, theorizes in his blog that the rules or structural restrictions of the game world represent the Mechanics while the Dynamics stems from the play experience; as a result, it is through the dynamic and intimate immersion into the mechanics of the game world that the subjective interpretations of the beauty of the system and its in-game worldviews arise, “[t]he game designer only creates the Mechanics directly. The Dynamics emerge from the Mechanics, and the Aesthetics arise out of the Dynamics” (qtd. in Guay 240).
The specific foundations behind the player’s motivations to play and interact with elements of the games depend on the challenges, conflicts, learning curves, and formal objectives created by game designers (Guay 245). Players are not wholly free to determine their actions but must also consider them within the context of the game’s structure, narrative, and aesthetics. This environment shapes the gamer’s actions in a way that is similar to how our environment shapes us in real life — “the environment directly and indirectly regulates the body, so that the body is in some sense the expression or reflection of the environment. The environment calls forth a specific body style so that the body works with the environment and is included in it” (Gallagher and Zahavi 156). Anyone playing a game must react to environmental elements that exist beyond their control. It is what gives many games their challenge that is at the heart of the playing experience. As Nguyen writes, “the game designer shapes our activities, and often does so in order to enable, encourage, and even construct aesthetic experiences of agency” (121). Since the mind of the player is extended into the game world, the player finds themself interacting directly with the pre-determined elements crafted by the game designers. The player thus experiences the situations of the game directly, and from a first-person perspective. Even if the player has no control over a particular scene from a narrative standpoint, they experience an intimate involvement in it. Near the beginning of The Last of Us, Joel, the player’s character, must carry his dying daughter. Although the player can in no way cause or prevent this from happening, the fact that they are still experiencing agency of movement during the scene builds an important emotional connection. Because the player experiences events so directly, it is important to consider how designers can create ethical games.
VIDEOGAMES AND ETHICS
Vocal opposition against the rising cultural status and transformation of video games from its former label of “just entertainment” is trivially expected. Be that as it may, certainly game designers, in their construction projects of several contemporary game titles of the twenty-firstst century, attempted or at least are attempting to bring video games to cater to a wider variety of functions (Jagoda 211). What are video games? The Oxford English Dictionary defines video games as games “played by electronically manipulating images produced by a computer program on a monitor or other display.” Nonetheless, the definition by The Oxford English Dictionary lacks mentioning video games as a medium, which is supposed to be determined by the audience and purpose – like movies, paintings, or photographs. Like photography or cinematography, video games involve the projection of content via audiovisual and visual information; despite the conceivable similarities in terms of form, video games focus on first-person perspective of the user in order to make meaning of the general narrative – said disposition is dubbed by Jon Robson and Aaron Meskin the genre’s “self-involving interactive nature” (167). To elaborate more, Eric Hayot argues that games are “about simulating activities” (178). In digital interactive narrative games (or interactive participatory simulations), the worldview is constructed with a higher emphasis on spatial design, meaning that the player is allowed to interact with, to react, and to listen to the fictions while having expansive influences over the “structural properties” and plot development of the storyline (Robson and Meskin 167).
The process of meaning-making, through interactivity, in video games is articulated through the “confrontation” between the video game’s set of principles and limitations and the player’s subjectivization of the gameplay. In addition, the concept of gaming revolves around the need for the player’s “doing” (Squire 22). In other words, video games embrace essentially the attempt at libertarian decision-making (Hayot 187) – advocating for a sense of autonomy in fictional worlds representational of real-life objects. On the other hand, in discussing subjectivization, the player’s subjective view (understandings) is said to be forged through “cycles of performance within the gameworlds” (Squire 19), and the player develops their own new identities through “game play and through gaming communities in which these identities are enacted” (19). The process of meaning-making depends on the sense of agency, which refers to the degree to which a user is allowed to influence the narrative and development of a game. If what separates video games from other mainstream forms of art lies in the medium’s emphasis on interactivity between the ideal or digital environment (or gameplay) and its audience, it is essential to reckon that the player agency plays a significant role in the creation of meaningful experiences and character identities. As such, game designers construct the “parameters for players’ experiences” (Squire 21) while the player agency contributes to interactivity by developing an adaptive and innovative vision to work around pre-determined gaming mechanisms.
Taking into account the versatility of video games as a medium for reflective judgment, Miguel Sicart defines the player as “an ethical agent”; to be more specific, the player is supposed to be “morally aware and capable of reflecting upon” the consequences and merits of their act in the game world and how their ethical decisions in the gameplay reflect their nature as an ethical agent (62). While movies, novels, or television shows could undoubtedly provide their audience with a “variety of moral perspectives” or interpreted modern takes on different social or political agendas, video games intuitively enhance meaning-making by allowing their players to interact with said perspectives or topics (Sicart 61), both intellectually and emotionally. The player actively shapes the continuity of a game for a player is “the keeper of its existence” (Sicart 68); as a matter of fact, the absence of players technically spells the absence of a game’s progress. The game – the product of virtual world-making – contains the context and sets of principles that govern the physics of its artificial world. Nevertheless, for its principles to be upheld and followed, they must be embedded in the player’s epistemic process, or, in other words, such rules must be perceived and taken for granted. Gaming scenarios, in popular mainstream creations such as Red Dead Redemption or The Walking Dead, present the players with the option of becoming virtually a legitimate moral being – one that could make a moral stance (based on their own choices and preferences). In particular, Telltale’s marketing director Richard Iggo claims that players act out based on their moral dispositions rather than on logical inferences:
The majority of people will try to do the ‘right’ thing if they can, even if there’s really no ‘right’ decision to be made. It’s fascinating because even when we offer players a decision where the apparently darker option might make sense from a purely logical point of view, they’ll often try to choose the ‘higher’ ground at personal cost even if that means being put in danger or having a relationship with another character suffer because of it.
(qtd. in Stang)
Sicart explains that a player, in accordance with the in-game mechanics, gradually comes up with “a set of ethical values inspired” by the game itself and the community; be that as it may, said player’s in-game ethical values are not inherently excluded from their presupposed ethical beliefs (Sicart 76). Taking into account Iggo’s statement about the potential dependence of in-game ethical decision-making on the player’s natural orientation towards correct moral choices, it is not hard to point out that games are capable of fostering the sense that players have a responsibility for what transpires in-game and of fostering a form of cognitive empathy.
Games such as Red Dead Redemption 2 create an ethical framework by providing phenomenal feedback to players. In this game, nearly every action the player makes in the world will cause them to either accumulate or lose honor points. If the player has positive honor points, they receive advantages such as store discounts, while a negative honor score can increase the player’s earnings from robberies. The player’s honor score also affects certain details of the narrative. A gain or loss in honor points is made immediately clear to the player via the game’s heads-up display (HUD), allowing the player to readily interpret morally acceptable actions as earning honor, whereas unacceptable ones cause a loss. Through this immediate feedback, the player can have an intimate perceptual understanding of ethics built along a particular framework. The player begins to perceive an immoral action not just as the action itself, but also understands it to be closely associated with a loss in honor. This frames the player’s interaction with the game systems inside of an ethical framework created by the designers. The player’s role as a free ethical agent is made immediately clear, giving the player an insight into this framework and an understanding of their own ethical agency.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Vocal opposition against the rising cultural status and transformation of video games from their former label of entertainment is trivially expected. Be that as it may, certainly game designers, in their construction projects of several contemporary game titles of the Twenty-First century, attempted or at least are attempting to bring video games to cater to a wider variety of functions (Jagoda 211). The video game is unique in that it cannot be separated from the experience of the audience, and in fact games intimately involve the player. Video games often portray acts of violence and morally gray situations, and because of the player’s epistemic participation it is paramount that these games develop an ethical system in which to frame these situations, one that accounts for player agency.
Works Cited:
Bogost, Ian. Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames. MIT Press, 2010.
D’Armenio, Enzo. “Beyond Interactivity and Immersion. A Kinetic Reconceptualization for Virtual Reality and Video Games.” New Techno-Humanities, vol. 2, no. 2, Dec. 2022, pp. 121–29. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.easydb.angelo.edu/10.1016/j.techum.2022.04.003.
Gallagher, Shaun, and Dan Zahavi. The Phenomenological Mind. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2012.
Guay, Louis-Martin. “Objectives.” The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, edited by Mark J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, Routledge, 2014, pp. 240-245.
Gunkel, David J. Gaming the System: Deconstructing Video Games, Games Studies, and Virtual Worlds. Indiana UP, 2018.
Hayot, Eric. “Video Games & the Novel.” Daedalus, vol. 150, no. 1, 2021, pp. 178–87. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48609832. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
Jagoda, Patrick. “Videogame Criticism and Games in the Twenty-First Century.” American Literary History, vol. 29, no. 1, 2017, pp. 205–18. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26360876. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
The Last of Us. Playstation 3, Naughty Dog, 2013.
Murphy, Sheila C. “Controllers.” The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies, edited by Mark J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, Routledge, 2014, 19-25.
Nguyen, C. Thi. Games: Agency as Art. Oxford University Press, 2020.
Red Dead Redemption 2. Playstation 4, Rockstar, 2018.
Robson, Jon, and Aaron Meskin. “Video Games as Self-Involving Interactive Fictions.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 74, no. 2, Apr. 2016, pp. 165–77. EBSCOhost search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.44510494&site=eds-live&scope=site.
Sicart, Miguel. The Ethics of Computer Games. MIT Press, 2011.
Stang, Sarah. “’This Action Will Have Consequences’: Interactivity and Player Agency.” Game Stud. 19, no. 1 (2019). Retrieved from: https://gamestudies.org/1901/articles/stang
Squire, Kurt. “From Content to Context: Videogames as Designed Experience.” Educational Researcher, vol. 35, no. 8, 2006, pp. 19–29. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4124789. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.
Zimmerman, Eric. “Gaming Literacy.” The Video Game Theory Reader 2, edited by J.P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, Routledge , 2009, p.26-27.
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Locke, Hilary Jane, and Thomas Ashley Mackay. “‘You Are a True Progressive’: Red Dead Redemption 2 and the Depiction and Reception of Progressive Era Politics.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, vol. 20, no. 1, 2021, pp. 174–193., doi:10.1017/S153778142000064X.
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Ethical Concerns: Contact Tracing Software
Valentina Pierce, Baylor University
This essay will address the ethical concerns rooted in the universal employment of mobilized digital contact-tracing applications for infection containment purposes, relating to COVID-19, post-lockdown. In 2020, the calamitous outbreak of the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic – distributing itself worldwide through the respiratory droplets of infected individuals (coughing, sneezing, laughing or even speaking). To curb the swift spread of the virus, tech giants, such as Google and Apple, enabled government officials to facilitate the tracing of COVID-19 exposure in America utilizing a newly developed contact tracing application. The application was designed to be voluntarily downloaded on a cellular device in order to track the user’s movement and notify them of any recent exposure. While technology has proved to be a reliable, practical, and powerful tool during times of crisis and national emergency, the potential for lack of user privacy and confidentiality within the tracing system has issued panic, causing American society to remain apprehensive to the employment of a new behavioral monitoring system. In addition, the question about temporary restrictions of digital surveillance becoming inadvertently permanent has raised serious concerns about its invasion of individual liberties. This essay will argue that prima facie contract tracing seems a moral tool for a developing human society, following the moral threshold of Natural Law Theory (NLT). Advocates of NLT – which states there is an objective moral law that transcends any human convention or decision – believe justice is rooted fundamentally in the rational and moral ordering of society and human flourishing. Thomas Aquinas, philosopher in favor of this moral standard, asserts that the “most fundamental principle of Natural Law” is the “preservation of life, propagation and education of offspring, and the pursuit of truth and a peaceful society” (Lawhead, 578). However, upon closer examination, it’s clear that in the long run using considerations of NLT in such behavior by either governmental or private enterprises is demonstrably unethical.
Loss Of Anonymity Threatens Privacy Rights
Digital contact-tracing infringes on an individual’s anonymity. Ideally, these tech giants want to rack up copious amounts of data – relating to new COVID symptoms, prominent exposure “hotspots,” individualized contact lists – utilizing a universally centralized server, made only accessible for alleged epidemiological and public health knowledge. At any rate, the re-identification of a once-anonymous user composes a central privacy concern in the case of digital contact tracing. Once a mobile device has been identified with its user, you run the risk of being tracked indefinitely. Hence, the decision to store and make use of an individual’s personal data is subject to whatever the software developer and the State think is best. Furthermore, the subject of confidentiality, which for our purposes we may define as taking preventative measures to protect the identity of the client from becoming public knowledge, then becomes another key concern. Insecure data storage could result in the oversharing of personal details beyond health-care professionals and ultimately threaten the user’s safety. It is important to note that once a subject is re-identified, not only is their privacy compromised, but their confidentiality and trust within the system is as well. It would be up to the creators to take into account these valid concerns and provide their users with clarity relating to their participation within the program: the overall benefits for utilizing a centralized database, the type of information collected, the extent to which designated teams have access to the data, and the sketched timeline for storing the data. When deciding to implement strategies that could fundamentally invade an individual’s privacy and autonomy, there needs to be effective oversight of the use of these surveillance technologies.
NTL affects relationships between and among individuals, so it is of no surprise that it embodies our interest to secure trust and preserve each other’s privacy. At its very core, our duty to respect privacy is also intrinsic to the privacy rights secured within NTL toward human flourishing and social cohesion.
Admittedly, digital contact tracing offers: (a) an extensive surveillance method to save countless lives, (b) a faster way of alerting the nation, and (c) a completely voluntary way for individuals to share their health data in the event of another outbreak. Due to the precariousness of data privacy in the current digital world and of the program’s storage protocol, I argue that administering methods of contact tracing causes more foreseeable harm than good.
Social Inequalities Could Result From Abuse
Active surveillance is highly invasive and can foster social inequalities. Google and Apple have decided to take a libertarian approach with the development of their new tracing app, refraining from strict or mandated enforcements; thus, making the app presumably “voluntary.” On the other hand, as the virus continues to freely mutate into different strands like that of the flu, one can assume that the prolonged use of contact tracing apps eventually deems it to be somewhat of a universal necessity. Accordingly, as in China, access to the user’s geolocation through the app is what allows civilians to attend and participate in public and private social events or even use public transportation. Thus, this notion of “voluntary” quickly morphs into “compulsory” – questioning who is to be held accountable, and sometimes blamed, for matters relating to the general public’s health .If individuals are destined to remain fully functioning members of society, then these unsolicited restrictions on their daily life would result in discrimination against those who refuse to download the app or those who do not have the technological means to partake in it. Advocating obligatory adoption of digital contact tracing apps is based primarily on the assumption that most of society: (a) has a smartphone, (b) can download the app, and (c) can maneuver it appropriately. As we move towards becoming an industrially high-tech society, we can infer that the grand majority possesses some sort of mobile device; however, this expectation continues to diminish those communal groups who may not have access to such technology. While recognizing that there is still a large sector of the population that cannot support the administration of these tracing apps, the creators and State should adhere to the termination of mandatory use of digital contact tracing for access to certain activities of daily human life, as it can and will result in the abandonment of individuals whose freedoms are unfairly curtailed. In short, these actions clearly violate NLT, as it continues to isolate and divide certain people groups – those who refuse to download the app for personal conviction or those who cannot afford the technology, which inevitably causes more harm than good. Given that the implementation of contract tracing apps fails to address issues of efficiency and equity, such applications are deemed immoral.
It Is A Slippery Slope
Allowing the exercise of digital contract tracing in this instance muddles the tracing of other “socially concerning” diseases. Digital contact tracing, which monitors and identifies infected subjects in the surrounding area, is literally a way to publicly ridicule such people for their unsolicited contamination of coronavirus. Allowing such an application to exist and collect such data brings about a vital issue of morality, as it “degrades human life, impairs human flourishing and [destroys] society” (Lawhead, 576). High-tech corporations intend on continuously tracking your device’s geolocation, even when you are not necessarily “active” on the app. Again, this allows the software developers to acquire a thorough log of your exits and entries over time. Round-the-clock surveillance becomes a relative issue when it abuses an individual’s civil rights, and once government officials allow for the tracing of coronavirus victims, it could lead to abuse. It will then normalize the ability for tech giants, like Google and Apple, to assume the responsibility of designing and developing new ways to monitor civilians in an attempt to mitigate new waves of disease and infection. It would seem then that the permission to keep tabs on coronavirus victims during the current national pandemic would allow for the later use of something like tracking future viruses that have yet to be discovered. To put this into perspective, given that the employment of digital contact tracing is subjective to its creator and the State, let us suppose that the tracking of AIDS victims, for example, is eventually deemed necessary for the welfare of the public. AIDS, defined as the “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” is a disease transmitted through specific bodily fluids (blood, semen, etc.) which is then spread during sexual activities, contaminated blood transfusions or even breastfeeding in some cases. If an individual contracts this disease and does not receive proper treatment, the disease can potentially attack the body’s immune system and result in death. The assumption that tracking AIDS victims is beneficial for matters relating to the health of the public does not overcome any probable acts of prejudice against these individuals. In permanently marking a civilian as an “AIDS victim,” you subject the individual to unsought discrimination, potential hate crimes, and unfair denial of opportunity simply because the fact that they have been exposed to the disease and/or infection has now been made public. In other words, allowing the government to keep eyes on “certain” groups of people is discriminatory and uncivil. Attaining personal information and performing such misconduct towards these alienated people groups could result in extremes such as the suppression of resources, travel, or indefinite supervision by the government and tech giants till they deem fit. As a result, allowing the use for digital contact tracing can result in unfair treatment of individuals and is, therefore, unethical because the act of publicly “ridiculing someone because of his or her disability”, or in this case their trace of illness, even without them knowing it, would only instigate bias and uncivil conduct – insinuating that such an action remains immoral (Lawhead, 577). Thomas Aquinas would argue that though “under most circumstances, [this] sort of crude, tasteless, and moral insensitivity is not illegal” it is very much unethical (Lawhead, 577).
Objection and Reply
There are those who would argue that protecting our privacy is a losing game, for in an age where information is so readily accessible, it would be irrational to assume all of our conduct is maintained in the confidentiality of communication, especially digital. For example, whenever one leaves the privacy of one’s own home, they have inevitably waived their right to privacy. In other words, privacy is only inviolate within the confines of one’s private living accommodation or extended to include places one can reasonably expect privacy: hotel rooms, bathrooms. However, on the street, in stores, classrooms or workplaces one forfeits privacy, either voluntarily or inadvertently. This standard could be comparable to that regarding mobile devices since, on a technicality, they are on public mediums. Moreover, it is as if one were on the street so to speak and thus no expectation of privacy is established nor expected.
But that is not the case. According to Chief Justice John Roberts, “cell phones are not the same as wallets or pocket litter, (for) more substantial privacy interests are at stake when digital data is involved” (WTSP). In an attempt to avoid violating the 4th Amendment, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that law enforcement agencies could not randomly search your cell phone without a judge-issued search warrant. For clarification, the 4th Amendment is concerned with protecting people from unreasonable search and seizures by the government; thus, in ruling such a decision, the Supreme Court viewed the physical phone itself as the ‘digital medium’ and the information on it as private property. Hence, “the Supreme Court took a very modern view of what a cell phone is: [its data being] as private as what’s in your home, what is in the trunk of your car, or what is in your briefcase” (WTSP). For these reasons, the trove of information stored away within a cell phone – including surveillance data which could be used for contact tracing applications – makes it considerably private property.
Conclusion
The notion that employing digital contact tracing methods will help curtail the spread of coronavirus seemed morally plausible and even acceptable at first, but as this essay demonstrates, in reality doing so creates more detriment than good. It was shown that allowing such strict surveillance methods: (a) breaches an individual’s anonymity, (b) stimulates user social and behavioral inequalities, and (c) muddles where to draw the ethical standpoint for future scenarios. As Ben Franklin would say – “the minute we decide to give up essential liberties, such as our privacy and autonomy, for temporary security, we become undeserving of liberty or safety” (Franklin)
WORKS CITED
Franklin, Benjamin. Online Library of Liberty. “Benjamin Franklin on the trade-off between essential liberty and temporary safety [1775]”. https://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/benjamin-franklin-on-the-trade-off-between-essential-liberty-and-temporary-safety-1775.
Lawhead, William F. The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011.
(WTSP), Charles Billi and WTSP. “Supreme Court Rules Cell Phones Are Private Property.” Wtsp.Com, 26 June 2014, www.wtsp.com/article/news/local/supreme-court-rules-cell-phones-are-private-property/67-300323516
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bocetta, Sam. “Digital Contact Tracing: Advantages and Disadvantages.” GlobalSign GMO Internet, Inc., 2 July 2020, www.globalsign.com/en/blog/digital-contact-tracing-advantages-and-disadvantages.
Lucivero, Federica et al. “COVID-19 and Contact Tracing Apps: Ethical Challenges for a Social Experiment on a Global Scale.” Journal of bioethical inquiry, 1–5. 25 Aug. 2020, doi:10.1007/s11673-020-10016-9
Newman, Daniel. “Privacy Pros And Cons As Apple And Google Look Into Using Data To Trace COVID-19.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 22 Apr. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2020/04/22/privacy-pros-and-cons-as-apple-and-google-look-into-using-data-to-trace-covid-19/?sh=1d1eda9951fa
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