Random quote
War is sweet to those who haven’t experienced it.

Pindaros (c. 518 BC – c. 438 BC)

Why hawks win (and doves lose)

Kahneman is known for his contributions to psychology and especially to economic psychology. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics for them. However, his work has a wider application. For example, it can be useful for the study of war and peace, as the article “Why Hawks Win” shows, which he has written with Jonathan Reshon. The authors argue that hawks usually get the upper hand over doves, when political decisions must be taken, although often wrongly. In this blog, I’ll follow Kahneman’s and Reshon’s article.
Hawks are people who “tend to favour coercive action, are more willing to use military force, and are more likely to doubt the value of offering concessions”. They think that enemies will “only understand the language of force”. Doves, on the other hand, doubt the usefulness of such means and prefer dialogue. Generally, there may be good arguments for both positions, but psychology suggests that politicians – and humans in general – have “a bias in favour of hawkish beliefs and preferences”, at the cost of dovish views. This is a consequence of a general human trait: to overestimate your capabilities and possibilities. Don’t most of us think that they are better drivers than the average driver? About 80% think so. Of course, that’s not possible, but “the same optimistic bias makes politicians and generals receptive to advisors who offer highly favourable estimates of the outcomes of war”, on both sides of a conflict, and this “is likely to produce a disaster.” The authors have listed 40 human biases and all of them appeared to favour hawks. They stress that this doesn’t mean that hawkish advisors are wrong, but they are likely to be more persuasive than they deserve to be.
Below I present the main factors that lead to pro-hawkish behaviour in times of conflict, as discussed by Kahneman and Reshon.

- Vision problems. People ignore the context in which others speak and behave and ignore their constraints, even if they know them. However, they assume that the other side knows their own context and restraints and takes them into account. In an international conflict setting this means that “a policy maker or diplomat involved in a tense exchange with a foreign government is likely to observe a great deal of hostile behaviour by that country’s representatives.” The other side behaves from a deep hostility or a striving for power, they think, and they “explain away their own behaviour as a result of being ‘pushed into a corner’ by an adversary.” However, the adversary thinks the same of you. Each side sees what the other does as provocation and as more hostile than it actually is. “The effect of this failure in conflict situations can be pernicious.”
- Excessive optimism. Most people believe themselves to be smarter, more attractive, and more talented than average, and they commonly overestimate their future success. (see the “planning fallacy in my blog last week). They also think that they can control the situation, while in fact this is not so. When politicians behave that way, it can have disastrous effects, especially if politicians are in the grip of this bias in the early phases of a conflict. “A hawk’s preference for military action over diplomatic measures is often built upon the assumption that victory will come easily and swiftly.” In August 1914, when Germany invaded Belgium on its way to France – which was the start of the First World War – both Germany and France thought that the war would end before Christmas. However, the war would last for more than four years instead of for four months.
- Underappreciating the proposals by others. In negotiations, proposals of the other side are seen as less valuable than the same or equal proposals done by yourself. There is an intuition that something is worth less simply because the other side has offered it. This makes “that a concession …  offered by somebody perceived as hostile undermines the content of the proposal.” And this makes that violent solutions (like war) are chosen, when dovish solutions are still open, since “this bias is a significant stumbling block in negotiations between adversaries.”
- Loss aversion. (also mentioned in my blog last week) People have a deep aversion against cutting their losses, and prefer to go on even if there is only a very small chance to gain, instead of accepting a reasonable or actually inevitable loss. Therefore, politicians prefer to go on with a war, even if the consequences are worse for the citizens they lead.

These factors, and many more, make that the approaches proposed by hawks in international conflicts are more easily accepted than those proposed by doves. Now it is so that, according to Kahneman and Reshon, as such a hawkish position towards an adversary need not be bad. Show your teeth, I would characterize this view; or show that you are not a softy. However, too often, so the authors, a hawkish approach wins since hawkish approaches are overvalued because of an innate bias in the mind, with all its dangerous if not fatal consequences. Understanding the human biases can help preventing them.

Random quote
The opposite of tolerance is not intolerance but fanaticism.

Kees Schuyt (1943-)

Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive

Two weeks ago, the Israelian-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman died. He was one of the most well-known psychologists of this time. He is especially known for his contributions to the theory of rationality. His studies had a deep impact on the development of the field of economic psychology, and therefore he was rewarded with the Nobel Prize in Economics. To his mind, he should have shared it with his friend Amos Tversky, but Tversky had already died, when Kahneman received the Nobel Prize. Though some see him as the father of Economic Psychology, he sees himself as the grandfather, and his colleague and friend Richard Thaler as the person who really developed the field.
In my blogs, now and then I have paid attention to Kahneman’s studies. Here I’ll mention some of his main contributions to psychology.

- Many people believed that humans are rational beings and economists even have built their theories on this idea. However, they aren’t, or rather only for a part they are (compare the third point below). Kahneman and Tversky have shown that humans often display non-rational behaviour. One of their best-known studies showing this is what they call the “Asian disease problem”. In short it is this: An unusual Asian disease is expected to kill 600 people. There are two things you can do: If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved, while if program B is adopted, there is a one-third probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that nobody will be saved. Most people prefer program A, so they prefer the certain option over the gamble. However, a second group of people has to choose between the next options: If program C is adopted, 400 people will die, and if program D is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die. Now most people prefer the second option (D), so they prefer the gamble over the certain option. However, option A vs. option B is exactly the same as C vs. D! What is different is the wording of the problem, but the consequences of programs A and C or B and D are identical. The choice is determined by the way the problem is framed and not by a rational choice based on the differences between the cases. Experts do not do better than lay people!
- Losses that people may suffer count by far more than possible gains. The loss aversion theory says that people do much more to avoid losses than to get gains, even if the gains may be more profitable. “Losses loom larger than gains”, so Kahneman and Tversky.
- Humans have two thinking systems in their minds for making decisions: System 1 and System 2. Although this is not a discovery of Kahneman (the terms “System 1 and System 2 come from Keith Stanovich and Richard West), the theory has been further developed and explained by him. Most of what we do is not rationally and consciously considered but we just do. We simply follow our intuition and feelings. If so, then we use System 1. It operates automatically and quickly, with little or no effort and no sense of voluntary control. However, it can happen that we must think actively and explicitly about what to do or decide, for example if our actions and decisions are not routine but complicated and require attention, or if we have the time. Then we use System 2. It allocates attention to effortful mental activities like complex computations.
- Taking part in a book writing project with others, Kahneman asked one of them, a planning expert, what was the chance that the project would fail and how long the project would yet last according to him. The answer was 40% and six years. If so, the participants would have stopped the project, but they thought that they could do it within two years. In the end, it took yet seven years and then nobody was interested in the book any longer. According to Kahneman, they had here “stumbled on a distinction between two profoundly different approaches to forecasting, which Amos [Tversky] and I later labelled the inside view and the outside view.” This distinction, so Kahneman, is important for avoiding the “planning fallacy”, a term coined by Tversky and Kahneman. It is the erroneous prediction of future task duration. Participants in a project or people doing individual tasks tend to underestimate the length and costs of the project or task, because they tend to overestimate their skills and capabilities and ignore possible risks and uncertainties, even if they know them. People who must estimate the success chances of their own work are usually simply too optimistic. They depend too much on the inside view. However, the planning fallacy is not unescapable. We can do something about it, or at least we can mitigate it by taking the outside view. This involves asking expert opinions about the likely costs and length of a project or task; comparing your project or task with historical cases; using objective criteria to judge whether your plan is realistic; etc. In short, do not use subjective inside information to judge your planning, but assess it objectively with the help of outside information in order to get a realistic idea how it will develop.

Kahneman did not keep his views for an inner circle of scholars and scientist but explained them in a way that everybody could understand. Everybody can easily learn about his views and profit by them by reading his book Thinking, Fast and Slow (Penguin Books, London, 2012). That is also a great merit of this eminent scholar.

Source: Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow; my blogs (use the “Search this blog” search engine for finding the themes discussed in this blog).

Random quote
“Pallid” statistical information is routinely discarded when it is incompatible with one’s personal impressions of a case. In the competition with the inside view, the outside view doesn’t stand a chance.

Daniel Kahneman (1934-2024)

On each other’s shoulders

Photo taken at Amstel Railway Station, Amsterdam

I think that many of us don’t realize how much we owe to others in what we have done and achieved, including to many we don’t know and whose work we do not build on and do not continue. I realized it again, when I was reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics, especially Book II.1, in which he says:
“The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but everyone says something true about the nature of things, and while individually we contribute little or nothing to the truth, by the union of all a considerable amount is amassed.”
Here Aristotle says that much can be achieved only collectively and that, even in case the contribution of each of us is small, the overall result can be great. However, that we need others is not only true for collective results but also for individual results, so Aristotle:
“It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought. It is true that if there had been no Timotheus we should have been without much of our lyric poetry; but if there had been no Phrynis there would have been no Timotheus. The same holds good of those who have expressed views about the truth; for from some thinkers we have inherited certain opinions, while the others have been responsible for the appearance of the former.”
We stand on the shoulders of others, or as Isaac Newton said (see my blog): “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Newton stressed that that those on the top, like the best researchers and the best philosophers and everybody who is good if not excellent, build on the work of others, improve it etc. Everything we do could not have been done without what our predecessors have done before us. But Aristotle says here that those on whose shoulders we stand are also known because of those after them who used their ideas. That is certainly true as well. For instance, a composer who has been forgotten no longer counts, even if his music belongs to the best ever composed. Out of sight, out of mind.
However, there is more, I think. We stand not only on the shoulders of those whose work we use and continue, but also on the shoulders of those who made mistakes; who followed the wrong path, so that their work led to nothing; who are our contemporaries but whose work is inferior to ours; on the shoulders of those who simply participated in the discussion and did their work in their own ways without having any direct relation to what we are doing; etc.
Let me give an example. I my younger years, I participated in running competitions. My results were not bad, but they didn’t exceed the club level; good enough for being selected for the club team, but much below the national if not international level. Nevertheless, I always said: Without me, the top runners would not have been so good as they are now. I said it jokingly, but it was seriously meant. Without runners of my level and the levels below me (and also thanks to the few much better than me, of course), there wouldn’t be athletic clubs and there wouldn’t be competitions; there wouldn’t be national champions, international champions and Olympic champions. Good runners couldn’t prove that they were good and wouldn’t be selected. Of course, many people knew that they were good, but there wouldn’t be competitions, selections and championships. Or, if we think of other fields of activity, there wouldn’t be bad arguments that good philosophers could correct; there wouldn’t be scientists who would have to correct the mistakes of bad science, etc. Without an infrastructure built by the unknown and the anonymous there wouldn’t be scientific journals; those journals wouldn’t be printed etc. Need I go on? I think that the message is clear: Everyone who is good in his field owns a lot to bunglers and duffers and to those who do their work in silence.

Random quote
If … one were to say that a word has an infinite number of meanings, obviously reasoning would be impossible; for not to have one meaning is to have no meaning, and if words have no meaning our reasoning with one another, and indeed with ourselves, has been annihilated; for it is impossible to think of anything if we do not think of one thing…

Aristotle (384-322 BC)

Antigone’s moral problem

The cast receives te applause after the performance
of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Moussa’s Antigone
in the Music Theatre in Amsterdam. Antigone is the
woman in the middle in light dress.

Recently the Dutch National Opera (DNO) performed two oratorios based on Greek mythology and classical plays: Igor Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Samy Moussa’s Antigone. Oedipus Rex is about fate and deals with the question: Can we escape fate, and can we take control of our own destiny? In modern terms we would say: Does free will exist? It’s an eternal and still much debated problem. However, here I want to raise Antigone’s moral question, treated in Moussa’s oratorio.
For the story, I follow the version on the DNO website:
Eteocles and Polynices have agreed to rule the Greek city of Thebes jointly but they end up fighting one another. Eteocles has seized sole power and Polynices has gathered troops to attack Thebes. The battle ends in a duel in which the two brothers kill one another. Creon, the new King of Thebes, tries to restore order. He arranges a ceremonial burial for Eteocles but forbids the burial of Polynices’ corpse on pain of death. He wants the body of the brother who attacked his own city to rot away on the battlefield – a cruel punishment that deprives Polynices of the possibility of finding rest in the Underworld after his death. Antigone, the sister of Eteocles and Polynices, cannot bear this violation of her sacred duty to her brother Polynices. She secretly arranges a symbolic funeral. Creon’s soldiers see this and report the incident to the king. Creon condemns Antigone to death and confines her in a tomb that is bricked up. Warned by the seer Tiresias, he has Antigone’s tomb opened, but she has already hanged herself.
The tragedy of Antigone deals with a question that has been around for as long as there is authority or at least as long as there are states: Should we follow the rules of the state or of the authority that is superior to us, or should we follow our own private morals and let our own consciousness speak? I’ll call it Antigone’s problem. It is the problem of the conscientious objector of compulsory military service, but it is also the problem of the official who gets the order from his section chief or directly from the minister to implement a certain law, even in case the official thinks that this law is unreasonable and leads to innocent victims, as in the Dutch childcare benefits scandal. But Antigone’s problem is not only a possible moral conflict between state and individual but it can happen everywhere where authority is at stake, for instance when for moral reasons an employee refuses to perform a task set by his employer. Moreover, the consequences of refusing a state law or, for instance, a private order by an employer are not futile but serious, like Antigone’s refusal to follow Creon’s order. In addition, the refusal is not simply a practical affair but it is a moral decision; it is based on a conscientious objection. The right to follow your conscience is at stake.
Many thinkers have racked their brains about Antigone’s problem, but nobody has found a real solution. I even think that a general solution does not exist. Take the example of conscientious objection of compulsory military service. In case of a war or a threatening war against a nation adult men – why usually not also women? – of a certain age are summoned “to do their duty” and to join the army and fight the enemy, if necessary in the front line, where you directly confront the enemy and possibly must kill the enemy. This was so, for instance, during World War I and II; during the Cold War; and now it is so in Ukraine and Russia. At first sight, this may seem obvious, but a substantial number of men try to escape their “duty” for several reasons. These men are often considered “unpatriotic” or “cowards” by others, whatever these words may mean. However, it is not as simple as that. For simplicity, I ignore practical and pure political reasons and focus on moral reasons for the refusal to serve. One moral reason is based on the need to destroy the enemy; concretely, on killing humans. In civil life killing is considered immoral, disgusting or which word you want to use. It is beyond all limits and there must be good grounds for doing so, which always must be justified afterwards. Normally, killing a human leads to a heavy penalty, if not the death penalty in many countries. Then, in war, it suddenly is different. Here I must think of a saying of Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563), criticizing Calvin who justified the burning on the stake of a heretic, which I discussed long ago in a blog: “Killing a man is not defending a doctrine, it is killing a man”. Is it different if we change this quote into “Killing a man is not defending a country, it is killing a man”? And then not only once, but often regularly, as Guy Chapman, a soldier in the First World War, wrote: “If you start a man killing, you cannot turn him off like a machine”. (see here) Is it strange then that men called up for military service have a moral problem, because what is forbidden and rejected in daily life now must be done in war? That what normally goes against human feelings and morality now is allowed, no often ordered, to do? This has nothing to do with lacking patriotic feelings and with cowardice but everything with Antigone’s problem; it is a problem of conscience. This doesn’t mean that there may be no real reasons to defend a country militarily.
Sometimes a practical solution can be found for Antigone’s problem. As for my example, many countries have laws that leaves room for conscientious objectors of military service. However, as said, there are no general solutions for the problem. Just therefore it is important to give it much attention and to be open to the problem and to try to find practical solutions, when necessary.

Random quote
It is not easy to come to the conclusion that what has been written is not true. What has been written has the tangible nature of what can be shown and it is like evidence. It requires a special critical effort to free oneself from the prejudice that is cherished in favour of the written and to distinguish between opinion and truth, as it is with all oral assertions.

Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002)

Descartes in Egmond

Bust of Descartes in the cemetery around the Castle Chapel in
Egmond aan den Hoef.

When I recently visited the village of Egmond, I also wanted to see where Descartes had lived, for during his long stay in the Netherlands Descartes lived also several years in Egmond. Egmond is situated about 35 km north of Amsterdam in the province of Noord-Holland (North Holland). Actually there is not one village called “Egmond”, but there are three villages with that name, situated a few kilometres from each other, although I’ll sometimes write “Egmond”, for short. Egmond aan Zee is a seaside resort on the North Sea coast. Egmond-Binnen is situated more inland, just like Egmond aan den Hoef. For centuries there was an abbey in Egmond-Binnen, but it was destructed in 1573 during the Eighty Years’ War, the Dutch war of independence against Spain. Egmond aan den Hoef was known by its castle, owned by one of the mightiest noble families of the Netherlands. The castle was also destructed in 1573. During the years 1643-1649 Descartes lived for some time both in Egmond-Binnen and in Egmond aan den Hoef. The ruins of the abbey and the castle could still be seen in those days. The chapel of the castle had been restored and was used as a Protestant church.
In the 19th century, one of the intriguing questions about Descartes was: Why did he go to live in Egmond? Maybe in the 19th century the question was obvious, but it was also an ahistorical question. For although in the 19th century the three Egmonds had become dull and rather isolated villages, during the years that Descartes lived there the situation was different. Before the execution of the Count of Egmond by the Spaniards in 1568 and the destruction of the castle by the Dutch rebels in 1573 Egmond was an important political centre. Before the destruction of the abbey in 1573 Egmond was also an important cultural centre. In the mid-17th century Egmond still had this reputation and therefore many wealthy merchants and political leaders had built their country houses in the region. Moreover, Egmond is only about 8 km from the city of Alkmaar. In 1637 Descartes had stayed in Egmond and Alkmaar for a short time, looking for a place to live for his beloved Helen Jans van der Stroom and their daughter Francine (who would die in 1641). This made that Descartes knew the region already a little bit. Also the city of Haarlem was not far from Egmond (about 35 km). During his stay in Egmond, Descartes visited both cities regularly. All this makes clear that in the mid-17th century Egmond was not the isolated place that in the 19th century and for a long time thereafter till not so long ago it was thought to be.Why then went Descartes to live in Egmond? Descartes himself doesn’t tell us, but a recent analysis by Peter J.H. van den Berg makes clear that he had good reasons for his choice.
- Helen Jans lived in Egmond aan den Hoef. Although she had married another man in 1644, Descartes kept always a good relation with her and he was present as a witness when she married.
- Descartes was looking for a quiet place to live. Though the three villages of Egmond were not isolated, they were quiet places where visitors would not drop in frequently. Moreover, Descartes liked gardening and walking. Egmond was a good place for that.
- Descartes was a Roman Catholic. In the Netherlands, officially only the Reformed Church was allowed to hold religious services, but other religious services, including Roman Catholic services, were tolerated so long as this wasn’t done too openly. Especially, in Egmond Roman Catholic services were tolerated more or less openly.
- Descartes had contacts in the highest circles of society. Constantijn Huygens, secretary of the Prince of Orange, was a close friend of him, for instance. Friends and acquaintances lived in Alkmaar and Haarlem, or (like Huygens) regularly visited these towns. So, though living in Egmond, Descartes could well maintain his intellectual, cultural and political relations.
Descartes did not live continuously in Egmond during the years 1643-1649. From May 1643 till June 1644 he lived in Egmond aan den Hoef. From November 1644 till June 1647; from October 1647 till May 1648; and then from September 1648 till September 1649 he lived in Egmond-Binnen. It is not known where exactly in Egmond aan den Hoef Descartes then stayed. Probably he had rented the country estate called “Tijdverdrijf” (“Pastime”), outside the village. It had a garden, and it was big enough to live there with a secretary and some servants and to receive visitors. In 1637 Descartes had lived for a short time in a house opposite the castle chapel. In June 1644 Descartes left Egmond and stayed four months in France. He returned to Egmond in November of the same year. Now he established himself in Egmond-Binnen. Also during his other stays in Egmond he lived there. Probably, he had rented the house called the “Hooge Huys” (High House), later called “Zorgwijck” (Escape from the Worries), in the centre of the village on the corner of what now are the Abdijlaan and De Krijt. It was a mansion with a large garden and an orchard. Descartes liked it to live in Egmond-Binnen and the inhabitants liked him, too, and he was called the Good Frenchman.
It is a pity that nothing remains of the houses Descartes inhabited. They do not exist any longer. Also the three villages of Egmond have changed a lot. However, when I was in Egmond I have taken photos of the places where Descartes’s houses once were. You find them below.

Sources: Besides Van den Berg’s book (see link above), I have also used Hans Dijkhuis, Descartes. Zijn Nederlandse Jaren.

The Castle Chapel in Egmond aan den Hoef. In the foreground parts
of the restored foundations of the castle are visible. Descartes lived
 in the street behind the chapel, about where the green shed (or
whatever it is) is.

About here was the house called “Tijdverdrijf” where Descartes lived

from May 1643 till June 1644. In those days there were dunes here,

 which were excavated later and turned into farmland.

On this corner of the Abdijlaan and De Krijt in Egmond-Binnen once

was the “Hooge Huys” where Descartes lived after his return from

 France in November 1644 till his departure to Sweden in 1649.

Random quote
It is a common failing of mortals to deem the more difficult the fairer; and they often think that they have learned nothing when they see a very clear and simple cause for a fact, while at the same time they are lost in admiration of certain sublime and profound philosophical explanations, even though these for the most part are based upon foundations which no one had adequately surveyed—a mental disorder which prizes the darkness higher than the light.

René Descartes (1596-1650)

Kettle Logic

Now and then in these blogs, I pay attention to fallacies. I think that sound reasoning is important for avoiding mistakes in what we do and for seeing through false argumentation others use when trying to mislead us or by mistake. Especially politicians often use false argumentation, intentionally or unintentionally. But in fact all humans commit fallacies, often because they do not realize what is wrong with what they are saying. For instance, someone tries to defend his case, but instead of making his position stronger with strong arguments he makes conflicting statements, like in this fictitious case described by Sigmund Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams about “a man who was accused by his neighbour of having returned a kettle to him in a damaged condition. In the first place, he said, he had returned the kettle undamaged; in the second, it already had holes in it when he borrowed it; and thirdly, he had never borrowed the kettle from his neighbour at all. But so much the better; if even one of these three methods of defence is recognised as valid, the man must be acquitted.”
In his attempt to defend that he had returned the kettle in the condition he had received it (or even denying that he had borrowed the kettle), the man puts forward three arguments. Each argument as such is correct, but by putting forward three contradictory arguments to support his point the man he undermines his case. Because of Freud’s example the fallacy got the name “Kettle Logic”.
The logical form of Kettle Logic is:
- Argument 1 is put forward
- Argument 2 is put forward, which contradicts argument 1
- Argument 3 is put forward, which contradicts argument 1 and/or 2
- Etc.
Here is another example, a bit more realistic than Freud’s case: You are driving too fast and are stopped by a police officer. Your defence is: 1) I was not exceeding the speed limit; 2) I didn’t see the speed limit sign; 3) there was no speed limit sign. But beware, not all reasoning that is contradictory on the face of it need to be a matter of kettle logic. For instance, it can also be a matter of alternative reasoning, such as when several alternative contradictory arguments are given for the same conclusion, while it is not claimed that all premises are true: A defence attorney might claim that his defendant didn’t cause the murder, because he had alibis, and even if he had been there, he is too short to have stabbed the victim in the head. (from Wible)
I said that politicians often commit the kettle fallacy. Wible quotes several committed by US Vice President Dick Cheney, when defending the administration’s decision to invade Iraq and the subsequent problems there. Here is one: When asked about the damage done to Iraq, Cheney said that it was the Iraqis and not the allied forces who did the damage and that any invasion causes unfortunate horrific things to happen.
This fallacy makes me think of a case described by Seneca in his treatise on anger that I discussed last week (a case that is also described by Montaigne in his Essays). It is about Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso (c. 44/43 BC – AD 20; a Roman statesman, consul, governor. etc.):
“A soldier that had leave to go abroad with his comrade, came back to the camp at his time, but without his companion. Piso condemned him to die, as if he had killed him, and appoints a centurion to see the execution. Just as the headsman was ready to do his office, the other soldier appeared, to the great joy of the whole field, and the centurion bade the executioner hold his hand. Hereupon Piso, in a rage, mounts the tribunal, and sentences all three to death: the one because he was condemned, the other because it was for his sake that his fellow-soldier was condemned, the centurion for not obeying the order of his superior. An ingenious piece of inhumanity, to contrive how to make three criminals, where effectively there were none.” (source)
This case looks a bit like Kettle Logic, but it isn’t. What kind of fallacy is it then? I have no idea, how to call it in English, but in Dutch we call it (translated) the “Barbertje should be hanged” fallacy: Lothario is accused of having murdered Barbertje. He denies and says that he had always taken good care of her. Therefore, the judge accuses him also of conceit, which makes his case only worse. Then Barbertje enters the courtroom, but Lothario is sentenced to death anyway, because he is still guilty of conceit, so the judge. (Note that the fallacy actually should be called the “Lothario should be hanged” fallacy). A decision once taken must be executed, anyhow, just because it has been taken. Anyone who opposes is also guilty. How often doesn’t it happen?

Sources
- Andy Wible, “Kettle Logic”, in Arp, Robert; Steven Barbone; Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad arguments. 100 of the most important fallacies in Western philosophy. Oxford, etc.: Wiley Blackwell, 2019; pp. 174-176.
- And also Wikipedia (on Kettle Logic); Wikipedia (on Barbertje); “Kettle Logic”.

Random quote
What we commonly call friends and friendships, are nothing but acquaintance and familiarities, either occasionally contracted, or upon some design, by means of which there happens some little intercourse betwixt our souls. But in the friendship I speak of, they mix and work themselves into one piece, with so universal a mixture, that there is no more sign of the seam by which they were first conjoined. If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed, than by making answer: because it was he, because it was I.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Seneca on anger

Statue of Seneca in Córdoba, Spain

“Their eyes blaze and sparkle, their whole face is a deep red with the blood which boils up from the bottom of their heart, their lips quiver, their teeth are set, their hair bristles and stands on end, their breath is laboured and hissing, their joints crack as they twist them about, they groan, bellow, and burst into scarcely intelligible talk, they often clap their hands together and stamp on the ground with their feet, and their whole body is highly-strung and plays those tricks which mark a distraught mind, so as to furnish an ugly and shocking picture of self-perversion and excitement.”
This is how Lucius Annaeus Seneca describes anger people in the first section of his treatise “On Anger”, which actually is a letter to his brother Novatus. For Seneca, anger is a passion that he rejects: “You cannot tell whether this vice is more execrable or more disgusting.” His treatise is about the nasty effects of this passion and about how to suppress it if not to prevent it. However, I think that there is a weak point in Seneca’s treatment of anger: He sees it only as a sudden outburst, not as a passion that can determine your behaviour during a longer time or at least be for a longer time in the background in your mind. Maybe this has to do with the fact that neither the Latin language, nor the ancient Greek language had a special word for long-term or long-lasting anger; for what we nowadays call resentment. For Seneca anger (ira in Latin) is apparently a short-term, sudden passion. Nevertheless, the Romans and certainly the Greek must have known what we call resentment today. Didn’t Homer start his Iliad with the sentence: “Goddess, sing the anger [μῆνις; mènis] of Achilles, the son of Peleus”? But “μῆνις”, which I have translated here with “anger”, can also mean resentment, and that’s what it apparently means here, for the Iliad doesn’t just describe Achilles’s sudden outburst of anger on the Greek army leader Agamemnon but his long-term resentment against him and the effects of this resentment. Seneca must have known that and he should have realized that anger (ira) can also be a long-term passion with a different expression and different consequences.
In his approach of anger, Seneca differs from Aristotle. Aristotle rejects the destructive outburst of anger with all its nasty effects, but he sees a place for moderate anger. A tempered anger can be a force for change and growth, and it can show others where you stand and that they must reckon with you. According to Aristotle “Anybody can become angry; that is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.” (Nicomachean Ethics bk. 2, 1108b) Here, I have italicized what anger can make a “good”, creative anger, leading it in the right direction with positive results. I’ll not explain here how (see Psychology Today), but the essence of Aristotle’s view is that once you temper your anger, when you are furious, it can become a driving force within you. Then it can become a motivating force to help you to fix a problem, or to right a wrong, or to make that things become better. Anger shows others where you stand, and it helps to prevent that others walk over you. When you restrain yourself too much, it can give others the impression that they can do with you what they like. Of course, this doesn’t involve that you need to use strong words for expressing your anger. Most important is that your view is clear.
Aristotle shows that anger is more than a sudden fit of rage and implicitly that anger is not only a one-time passion but that it can also be long-term. Just as a long-term passion it can be a positive force. Here Gandhi comes to my mind. Once, during his stay in South Africa, Gandhi travelled first class by train. He didn’t know that this was not allowed for “non-whites”, even if they had bought a first-class ticket. Because Gandhi refused to travel third class with his first-class ticket, he was thrown off the train by the conductor. This made Gandhi so furious that the incident became the start of his lifelong struggle against injustice and oppression. What this case shows is that it is too simple to reject anger, as Seneca does. I don’t know how Gandi felt inside, when he was kicked off the train. Maybe – following Seneca’s description of anger – his blood boiled up from the bottom of his heart. I think that he’ll have behaved himself towards the conductor. However, Gandhi kept his anger in his heart, but at the same time he turned it into a creative force, a furious but positive force that led him for life, in a controlled way. Isn’t that another, not “execrable” and not “disgusting” side of Seneca’s fury?

Random quote
All men by nature desire to know.

Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC)

Johan Galtung (1930-2024)

A few days ago I heard that the Norwegian peace researcher Johan Vincent Galtung had died, 93 years old. Galtung was certainly the most important peace researcher of his time, and one can say that without his energy and activism the field of peace research wouldn’t have been what it is now. This would already be sufficient reason to write a blog about him, but the main reason I do is that he had a clear influence on my thinking. Before I switched from sociology to philosophy, I have done some investigations in the field of peace research. I have also been a peace activist. Then it was impossible not to come across his name and not to be impressed by his ideas. However, it was not because of this interest that I stumbled upon Galtung’s name, but I first heard of Galtung when I studied sociology, for Galtung, originally a mathematician and sociologist, had written a thick and thorough book on methodology: Theory and methods of social research. Though not prescribed by the study program, I bought the book and used it often.
However, it was because of my interest in peace and peace research that I came most in touch with Galtung’s ideas and views. In 1959 Galtung was the co-founder of the Norwegian Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and for ten years he was its first director. In 1964 he established the Journal of Peace Research, the first peace research journal in the world and still a leading journal in its field. Maybe the best article published by Galtung there is his “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research” (1969), which contains some of his best ideas. More than 50 years later, it still is worth to be read. Having left the PRIO after ten years, Johan Galtung got many functions inside and outside the academic world. Here I’ll mention them, nor will I give a list of his most important publications. They can easily be found on the internet (see for example the Wikipedia). Instead, I want to pay attention to three important ideas developed by Galtung that have had a big impact on my thinking and on the thinking of many others.

Structural violence
Violence is seen by many as a direct physical attack by one or more persons on one or more other persons. I think this does not need much explanation. We think here of intentionally hurting, beating, killing etc. of another person or persons. Also for Galtung such deeds are violence. However, according to him there is more than this, what he calls, “direct violence”. There is also a kind of violence that cannot be ascribed to individual perpetrators but that is as hurting and killing as direct violence: structural violence. Structural violence is clearly caused by humans but cannot be ascribed to individuals. It is a consequence of the social circumstances people live in, because victims of this type of violence have no access to the necessary resources that would improve their miserable circumstances; structural violence can even kill. The reasons why people cannot use the resources they need for improving their living conditions are not natural, but others prevent them from using them or don’t give them the means they should reasonably give to the victims. Galtung calls structural violence also “social injustice”. To quote Galtung (Violence, Peace, and Peace Research, pp. 170-1):

“Resources are unevenly distributed, as when income distributions are heavily skewed, literacy/education unevenly distributed, medical services existent in some districts and for some groups only, and so on. Above all the power to decide over the distribution of resources is unevenly distributed. The situation is aggravated further if the persons low on income are also low in education, low on health, and low on power - as is frequently the case because these rank dimensions tend to be heavily correlated due to the way they are tied together in the social structure… The important point here is that if people are starving when this is objectively avoidable, then violence is committed, regardless of whether there is a clear subject-action-object relation, as during a siege yesterday or no such clear relation, as in the way world economic relations are organized today… Violence with a clear subject-object relation is manifest because it is visible as action… Violence without this relation is structural, built into structure. Thus, when one husband beats his wife there is a clear case of personal violence, but when one million husbands keep one million wives in ignorance there is structural violence. Correspondingly, in a society where life expectancy is twice as high in the upper as in the lower classes, violence is exercised even if there are no concrete actors one can point to directly attacking others, as when one person kills another.”

Negative versus positive peace
In the article just quoted, Galtung makes a distinction between negative peace and positive peace. Often we say that there is peace, if there is no fighting; if there is no war. We call it also peace, if people ignore each other, even when they live together in some way. We call it also peace when the relations between people are tense, but if there is no open fighting. Sometimes we call this “armed peace”. But is peace really merely the absence of fighting? According to Galtung we can better call such a situation “negative peace”: the absence of personal violence. Against this negative idea of peace, Galtung developed the idea of positive peace: a situation in which people collaborate with each other and support each other. We can, following Galtung (p. 183), say it this way: Negative peace is the absence of direct (personal) violence, while positive peace is the absence of structural violence. Positive peace is a situation of social justice.

Peace building
Positive peace usually doesn’t develop automatically from a situation that once was a situation of violence and then has become a situation of negative peace. We must work on it. Unjust situations must be purposefully removed; people must learn to work together and to develop positive relations of cooperation and support towards those who once were their enemies. In other words, positive peace must be built. In 1975 Galtung coined the word “peace building” for this construction of positive peace in his “Three Approaches to Peace: Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, and Peacebuilding.” “In this article, he posited that ‘peace has a structure different from, perhaps over and above, peacekeeping and ad hoc peacemaking... The mechanisms that peace is based on should be built into the structure and be present as a reservoir for the system itself to draw up... More specifically, structures must be found that remove causes of wars and offer alternatives to war in situations where wars might occur.’ These observations constitute the intellectual antecedents of today’s notion of peacebuilding: an endeavor aiming to create sustainable peace by addressing the ‘root causes’ of violent conflict and eliciting indigenous capacities for peaceful management and resolution of conflict.” (from the peacebuilinginitiative.org website)

Galtung developed important concepts and ideas for a better world, but still much must be done to get them realized. In view of what presently is happening in the world, one wonders whether even the foundations of a peace building have already been laid.

Random quote
That which is for me through the medium of money – that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) – that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my – the possessor’s – properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has [In the manuscript: ‘is’. – Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?

Karl Marx (1818-1883) Source and translation

On obstinacy

When I reread Montaigne’s 15th essay “Men are punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort without reason” in his Essays, immediately I had to think of Hervey Allen’s Toward the Flame, which I had recently read. Toward the Flame is Allen’s account of his experiences as a soldier during the First World War. As for Montaigne’s essay, he describes there the possible fatal consequences of obstinacy in war. Already in the first sentence Montaigne summarizes what he wants to tell us: “Valour has its bounds as well as other virtues, which, once transgressed, the next step is into the territories of vice.” If one crosses the boundaries of a virtue like bravery, it easily can lead to the opposite, in this case “temerity, obstinacy, and folly.” Montaigne illustrates his view with cases of fortresses that surrendered after a hard and obstinate resistance; however, after the surrender the losers were as yet killed by the victors. In his days this was not unusual. Rather it was a “custom”, so Montaigne, “in times of war, to punish, even with death, those who are obstinate to defend a place that by the rules of war is not tenable.” Montaigne thinks that the killing is not unreasonable, since “otherwise men would be so confident upon the hope of impunity, that not a henroost [chicken coop] but would resist and seek to stop an army.” However, what is “tenable”? For “the strength or weakness of a fortress is always measured by the estimate and counterpoise of the forces that attack it … where also the greatness of the prince who is master of the field, his reputation, and the respect that is due unto him, are also put into the balance. There is danger that the balance be pressed too much in that direction.” Even more, “it may happen that a man is possessed with so great an opinion of himself and his power, that thinking it unreasonable any place should dare to shut its gates against him, he puts all to the sword where he meets with any opposition”, so kills the resisters.
Happily, this cruel custom has changed since Montaigne wrote these words, and nowadays it is at least forbidden by international law to kill a soldier who has surrendered, let alone innocent civilians, although in practice this law often is violated.
Now to Harvey Allen, a lieutenant in the 28th division of the American Army in France during the First World War. His division had been added to the Sixth French army. At the end of Toward the Flame, Allen takes part in the battle of Fismette, a little French village on the north bank of the Vesle River, opposite the somewhat bigger village of Fismes on the south bank (west of Reims). Fismette was a bridgehead, surrounded by the German army and impossible to defend, according to his American division commander, who therefore ordered his soldiers to withdraw to the south bank. However, this order was countermanded by the French commander of the Sixth French Army. So, the fierce and cruel battle continued and the Germans conquered Fismette and killed or captured almost all American soldiers there. Later the French commander apologized to the American division commander, while general Pershing, the commander of the American army, said to him: “Why did you not disobey the [French] order?” In other words, this battle of Fismette is a clear case of Montaigne’s view that “men are punished for being obstinate in the defence of a fort without reason.” The difference between Montaigne’s cases from the 16th century and before and my case from the 20th century is that now the soldiers were not punished by being killed after the battle by the victor, but they were punished “only” – if not killed in action or being wounded – by being taken captive (and released after the war).
Although these cases are all military, the negative consequences of obstinate behaviour are certainly not limited to military affairs. They are found everywhere in politics and society. Obstinate behaviour sometimes leads to success, but most of the time it leads to failure and nasty consequences. That is what we can learn from Montaigne’s essay, if we want to give it a wider, non-military, meaning. Moreover, I want to add, with obstinacy you don’t make friends but only foes in society or in your personal relations. Being too often unreasonably obstinate makes that people who should be your friends or at least should help you, turn against you. However, the problem is: What is being obstinate? Montaigne mentions the case of persons who see others as obstinate, while just they themselves are arrogant. And is not-giving-in a matter of being obstinate or a matter of seeing reasonable chances? It’s sometimes difficult to judge if we have to assess single cases, like resistance to an enemy. Who didn’t see the resistance of the Ukrainian army against the Russian invasion as obstinate and unreasonable during the first days? Western powers even advised the Ukrainian president Zelensky to flee and to form an exile government. However, the facts proved him right not to do so and to resist. Theory often collides with practice. But if everybody disagrees with you or if the facts seem to turn against you, there is reason to wonder whether your stubbornness isn’t a matter of stupidity.
And what once you have lost because of your obstinacy? Was your stubbornness really unreasonable obstinacy? Others will judge. But also here Montaigne has a warning for us, in the last sentence of his essay: “Above all a man should take heed, if he can, of falling into the hands of a judge who is an enemy and victorious.” For the winner is always right, even if he isn’t.

Random quote
Above all a man should take heed, if he can, of falling into the hands of a judge who is an enemy and victorious.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)