| The Big Questions / Steven E. Landsburg | ||||||
| Reviewed by Tal Cohen | Saturday, 30 October 2010 | |||||
The book ended up being a very frustrating read. It started, indeed, with the very first chapter. While I tend to believe that the general idea presented there (namely, the mathematical universe hypothesis) is true, something about Prof. Landsburg’s presentation of it disturbed me. It was only later that I realized what’s so wrong: the tone. Landsburg has no patience for fools (which is good), but he’s also utterly decisive, and fails to back up many of his firm and resolute claims. A reader might feel slightly uncomfortable when reading such unjustified decisiveness with regard to notions he agrees with, but the text becomes intolerable as soon as you read about preposterous, absurd claims that you couldn’t possibly agree with, all delivered with the same monotonic smugness. And sadly, the book is far from being error-free. It makes no sense to enumerate all the mistakes here — this review will become a laundry list. Let me focus on a few simple examples instead. Here’s how Landsburg justifies not caring about global warming, and the future of the Earth in general, using a simple, two-step argument that “proves” we shouldn’t care about the inheritance we leave to our descendants:
(p. 188-9.) Morals aside, how many logical fallacies can you find in this argument? For example, try replacing “would rather be born with no inheritance than not be born at all” with “would rather be born as heroin addicts than not be born at all”, which is also true. Using the exact same argument above, you could prove that it is not immoral for a heroin user to keep her habit while pregnant. Replace “no inheritance” with other alternatives to reach any desired moral consequence regarding our treatment of children (who would obviously prefer to be born to an abusive father than not be born at all). In fact, the very assumption that moral “quantities” can be compared in a transitive manner seems unreasonable to me. Landsburg takes it for granted, because in his world view, anything can (and should) be measured by dollar value, and dollar value comparisons obviously are transitive. It gets worse. Landsburg “proves” that it’s okay for landlords to refuse to rent houses based on racial discrimination (p. 202). Such a landlord, in Landsburg’s view, actually does some small amount of good to the people she discriminates against, by taking in other tenants and creating vacancies in other buildings. How very sensitive of her; by the same thinking, it’s a good thing that this whole town refuses to take in black people, because this gives them ample opportunity to find houses in that other town (which happens to refuse taking in Jews). How could one possibly argue with Landsburg’s iron-clad proofs that removing anti-discrimination laws would improve everybody’s life? Landsburg refuses to see the absurdities his “logical” approach leads to, and steps from one incredulous result to another with never a pause. Rich people have more right to make noise at night; Jim Crow laws were also detrimental to white people, and nothing like it exists today, so affirmative action is “punishing the innocent”; and so on, and so forth. Even if there are valid arguments against affirmative action, they are clearly not the ones Landsburg presents. At some point, I ceased being bothered and became amused. This book, apparently, documents what happens to people who lose touch with reality. (But why would you?)
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Ittai Klein
writes: ''... would rather be born with no inheritance than not be born at all'', fails on a more basic level than the one mentioned in your review. The reasoning is as follows: The construct ... XXX would rather AAA than BBB ? predicates the existence of a volitive entity XXX that is in a position to make the choice between AAA and BBB. But if either AAA or BBB preclude, a priory, the existence of the entity XXX, then the basic premise for the construct is nonexistent and thus the construct cannot be used in any logical sense. (Did I miss anything?) |
| [628] Posted on Saturday, 30 October 2010 at 14:23 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink] |
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Tal Cohen
writes in reply to Ittai Klein: Many more fallacies to it No, I don't think you've missed anything. There are even more fallacies in there; for example, even if those unborn really do prefer X over Y, does this imply X really is better (in a moral sense) than Y? What makes these unborn children perfect moral judges? |
| [629] Posted on Saturday, 30 October 2010 at 15:17 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink] |
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Chris Winter
writes: Landsburg and housing Regarding racial discrimination in housing: well, that settles it. Removing an opportunity creates another opportunity somewhere else, and is therefore justified. (Not.) Landsburg's was name vaguely familiar, so I Googled him. Wikipedia says, ''Professor Landsburg was an undergraduate at the University of Rochester, but never completed his undergraduate requirements due to his failure to take a physical education course. He was awarded a Masters degree after he enrolled in his own course when he became a professor at the school. Landsburg received a PhD in mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1979.'' So he's evidently intelligent. But, assuming that statement is accurate, there's something that strikes me as wrong about earning course credits for enrolling in your own class. In any case, thanks for posting this review. I'll plan to give his books a miss. |
| [700] Posted on Sunday, 19 June 2011 at 19:46 GMT [Reply to this] [Permalink] |
©1997-2022 by Tal Cohen, all rights reserved. [About]
Step One: Your grandchildren would rather be born with no inheritance than not be born at all. As a good consequentialist, I infer that leaving no inheritance is better than having no grandchildren.