A few weeks ago, I presented the following syllogism:
Issue X is complicated.
Perspective Y’s position on X is not complicated.
Therefore, Perspective Y is wrong about X.
Almost all of the comments were critical. Some notable examples:
As someone who used to live in San Francisco and was involved in YIMBY activism, this argument was used frustratingly often by NIMBYs: “The housing crisis is complicated and you can’t simplify it to econ 101, therefore just building more won’t help”. The NIMBYs, after criticizing YIMBYism for being econ 101, then never made an econ 102 argument.
The problem with this argument is that you can make yourself sound wise about anything by claiming that it’s complicated and simple solutions won’t work.
How about:
Trade is complicated.
Free traders’ positions on trade aren’t complicated.
Therefore free traders are wrong about trade.
There’s a big difference between an issue being complicated, and a position being complicated. It’s certainly possible to wisely address a complex issue in a simple way, particularly if your solution only has to satisfy one party. For example, “don’t get involved in that messy fight” is normally good advice.
The universe is complicated, full of cycles and epicycles, according to Ptolemaic astronomy.
Copernicus has a viewpoint that is not so complicated.
Ergo, Copernicus is wrong.
Notice, though, that my original argument targeted not simple conclusions, but simple perspectives. A conclusion is summary; a perspective is a full story. The point of my syllogism is not to dismiss simple answers, but simple thinking. Let’s consider the three preceding examples in turn.
1. “Radically deregulate housing in San Francisco” is a simple conclusion with which I agree. However, if someone added, “In a free market, everyone would live in a mansion” or “Radical deregulation will end homelessness,” I’d still say their perspective is wrong because they neglect the subtleties of the issue. Deregulation will lead to large price declines, but not large enough to give everyone a mansion. And highly irresponsible behavior reliably leads to noticeable levels of homelessness even in the cheapest of neighborhoods.
2. “Free international trade is, all things considered, the best trade policy,” again, is a simple conclusion with which I agree. However, if someone went on to claim, “When countries impose trade barriers, they always lower the average living standards of their own people,” or “Free trade would make Africa as rich as the United States,” I’d say their perspective is wrong because they neglect the subtleties of the issue. The terms-of-trade argument is valid, and Africa has a long list of economic woes unrelated to trade policy.
3. “The Copernican model is true” is another simple conclusion with which I agree. However, if someone also claimed, “The Ptolemaic model was predictively useless” or “Ptolemy was a fool,” I’d say their perspective is wrong because they neglect the subtleties of the issue. The Ptolemaic model worked well, and Ptolemy was a genius.
If my syllogism isn’t intended to discredit simple conclusions, what’s the point? To discredit simple thinkers, of course. Life is too short to listen to everyone. Indeed, life is too short to listen to 1% of all the people eager to speak. So when someone has a simple perspective on a complicated issue, I ignore them. And so should you.
READER COMMENTS
Jon Murphy
Sep 17 2020 at 9:43am
I don’t think this follow-up really helps. I don’t see the difference you are trying to draw between conclusion and perspective. Both “free trade is the best policy all things considered” and “trade barriers always lower standards of living” are both conclusions. I don’t see why you’re calling one a conclusion and one a perspective. It just seems to me you’re drawing a distinction between a conditional conclusion (the former) and an absolute conclusion (the latter).
Paul
Sep 17 2020 at 10:07am
I have trouble grasping your distinction. Do you mean it like this?
Issue X is complicated
Perspective Y’s position on issue X does not consider the complexity (i.e. is simple)
Therefore perspective Y is wrong about X
Written this way it does not really matter if the conclusion is simple or complex. To grab the housing example the conclusion (deregulation) is a simple solution that would alleviate at least some of the housing problems while still leaving room to recognize additional complexities. While saying that “we need to give homeless people a basic income so they get off the street and can afford housing” is a simple solution that ignores the complexities of why some people are and often stay homeless despite other’s help.
So maybe “is not complicated” can be equated with “does not consider the complexity of”? Then it would actually make more sense to me.
AMT
Sep 17 2020 at 10:31am
I agree with Jon. The word “position” is most akin to conclusion, rather than analysis or perspective.
Really, this syllogism is bad because it says a complicated issue requires a complicated conclusion. But there is nothing wrong with a “simple” conclusion. The problem is with an incomplete analysis.
For example, perhaps the econ 101 analysis is correct, although econ 102 disproves it, but then further econ 103 analysis confirms the initial thought to be correct. Whether the answer is correct or not doesn’t depend on how long or complicated the answer is, and can even be correct through luck, with insufficient analysis.
We need a complicated analysis to confirm the correct conclusion for a complicated issue, but that doesn’t mean the answer can’t be simple.
So a syllogism that makes sense would be:
Issue X is complicated.
Person Y’s analysis of X is incomplete.
Therefore, we shouldn’t trust Person Y’s analysis (though they might turn out to be right).
nobody.really
Sep 17 2020 at 11:00am
I often hear people making dogmatic statements, culminating with the conclusion “That’s just Econ 101!”
I want to respond. “Yes. But if you’d bothered to stick around for Econ 102, you would have learned all the assumptions that underlay the Econ 101 analysis, and learned to be on guard for circumstances when those assumptions no longer obtain.”
“Though I am not naturally honest, I am sometimes so by chance.” William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale
AMT
Sep 17 2020 at 11:01am
For an example, “will raising taxes increase government revenues?”
Although the economic effects are complicated, there is no reason that the answer cannot be a very simple “yes,” or “no.” The calculations for determining where on the laffer curve we are comprise the important “show your work” (analysis).
We care about whether the analysis is complicated enough (complete), not the conclusion.
AMT
Sep 17 2020 at 11:30am
I must have missed this paragraph
(emphasis added)
Which makes it quite clear that this largely boils down to his poor word choice: “perspective” actually did mean analysis rather than conclusion, while most people read it as meaning conclusion. Bryan, clearer words would have been “analysis” or “reasoning.”
nobody.really
Sep 17 2020 at 10:45am
1: Imagine I tell you that certain categories of prognosticators–including astrologers, proponents of Q-Anon conspiracy theories, and proponents of stock charting (predicting changes in the price of a stock based on the pattern of prior changes)–have failed to demonstrate the accuracy of their predictions beyond what we would expect from chance. Proponents of these theories disagree, and are happy to explain–at length–the intricate subtleties of their ideas. Given your supply of time, and the competing demands on your time, to whom should you give your attention?
2: More generally, how should we make decisions about which information to pursue? (For now, let’s distinguish information acquisition from skill acquisition.) Generally we cannot evaluate information until after we have invested money and time to consume it.
I surmise that, mostly, we embrace the idea of diminishing marginal returns: The first things we learn on any given topic are the most noteworthy/salient to us. Learning more will provide better info, but at greater cost. At some point, we conclude that the cost of acquiring more info on a given topic (including the cost of forsaking the pursuit of info on OTHER topics) grows too high, and we shift our focus.
So, ideally, we want info sources that are 1) vastly better informed than we are, and 2) able to tailor their statements to our level of interest. This necessarily entails simplifying. And we, the consumers of information, must simply trust that our sources are editing the information they provide us in a manner that reflects our interests–even if we lack the time to determine if they are, in fact, acting in our interest. It’s like Godel’s incompleteness theorem: We cannot evaluate the fairness of a statement based on the content of the statement. We can only evaluate it based on an appreciation of the larger context within which the statement is made. And if you invest the time to understand that context, there’s a good chance that you will conclude that you’ve invested more time than it’s worth, thereby undermining the value proposition of receiving the original message.
Thomas Knapp
Sep 17 2020 at 11:04am
Electricity is complicated.
Flipping a light switch is not complicated.
Therefore, flipping a light switch will not cause a light to come on.
KevinDC
Sep 17 2020 at 11:42am
I don’t think this update does much to make the syllogism any more useful. As another example, let’s use another of Bryan’s positions in this syllogism – his debate with Dan Moller on the virtues of political correctness vs ordinary good manners. Moller advocated the former, Bryan the latter. How would we use Bryan’s syllogism here?
Indeed, since Dan Moller’s perspective on social relationships is more complicated than Bryan’s, it holds up better on this syllogism.
Bryan does note that his target is not simple “conclusions”, it’s simple “perspectives.” But would he argue “I reached my conclusions for simple good manners based on my complicated perspective of social relationships”? That rings hollow to me. And it also seems wildly incongruent with much of the other things Caplan has advocated. He often (correctly, in my view) points out that simple does not mean simplistic, and has considered arguments stronger and more valid by virtue of their simplicity. This is the quality he lauds most in the thinkers he most admires – they start with simple, readily grasped premises and offer equally simple and straightforward arguments from there, without the over-complications, controversial premises, and needless confusion which is too commonly found.
Perhaps one more swing of my bat before I let this dead horse lay –
Even with Bryan’s clarification about conclusions vs perspectives (which, like Jon Murphy above, I find as clear as mud), I don’t see how Bryan would find his syllogism useful here. I don’t think I’m doing him a disservice to say his perspective about pacifism is not very complicated – he himself talks about how his arguments for pacifism are rooted in common sense premises and simple deductions from those premises, and he considers the simplicity of his arguments to be part of its strength.
RPLong
Sep 17 2020 at 1:08pm
One day, my boss gave me an analytical problem to solve, and I solved it in two days using a relatively simple methodology. I handed in my answer, and my boss didn’t believe the answer, so she added some complications to the model. I went back, redid the analysis in light of the added complications, and arrived at the same initial conclusion. My boss still didn’t believe me, and added even more complications.
This went on for, wait for it, six months. We wasted the company’s money for six months trying to disprove a conclusion I reached in two days. By the end of the six months, my boss had me perform an entirely new analysis, based entirely on specifications they had given me, accounting for all possible complexities. The result? Exactly what I had presented the first time.
It’s true that some things are complicated. But sometimes the dumbest thing you can do to an issue or an analysis is over-complicate it in search of a different answer. Sometimes arriving at the right answer quickly with a simple analysis is absolutely the best course of action.
So, for me, this syllogism misses the mark.
Michael Stack
Sep 17 2020 at 6:26pm
To me, this all boils down to having a perspective/conclusion that is sophisticated *enough* for the resolution of an answer you’re looking for.
That makes sense, but doesn’t really help as a heuristic for determining whether somebody has opinions worth further evaluation.
“Simply to the extent possible, but no further”. OK, but how simple is that? There is no escaping the need to evaluate the actual position.
Gerardo
Sep 18 2020 at 12:18am
Professor Caplan,
It seems to me the main argument does not have a valid logical form, although it can be made so by including an implicit premise and making the terms more precise. The terms’ ambiguity has led other people to offer mostly irrelevant objections.
If I understand you correctly, the following restatement can make the argument clearer, logically valid, and answer most objections. Starting with a premise that your original statement left implicit:
(i) If X is a complicated issue, then Y is an adequate way of thinking about X if and only if Y is a subtle, carefully considered and logically thorough way of thinking about X.
(1) A is a complicated issue.
(2) B is not a subtle, carefully considered or logically thorough way of thinking about X.
Therefore,
(3) B is not an adequate way of thinking about X.
Gerardo
Sep 18 2020 at 12:25am
I missed the universal quantification in premise (i), but I’m hoping the idea is clear enough.
Thanks!
Gerardo
Sep 18 2020 at 12:49pm
The restatement of the argument should be the following:
(i) For all issues x and all ways of thinking y, if x is complicated, then y is an adequate way of thinking about x if and only if y is subtle, carefully considered and logically thorough.
(1) A is a complicated issue.
(2) B is not subtle, carefully considered or logically thorough.
Therefore,
(3) B is not an adequate way of thinking about A.
This answers some objections in the comment section for the current post:
Jon Murphy and Paul don’t see the difference between conclusions and perspectives. The restatement doesn’t use the distinction.
AMT and KevinDC say the argument assumes a complicated issue requires a complicated answer. The restatement doesn’t.
Thomas Knapp’s counterexample talks about things that aren’t ways of thinking and issues.
RPLong’s simple solution to the complex problem was subtle, carefully considered and logically thorough, so the restatement takes it into account.
The usefulness of Prof. Caplan’s reasoning is in determining whether someone has given sufficient thought to a complicated issue: If it’s clear someone has not gone through the details of their take, it’s not worth listening to it. However, if someone else gave the same take enough thought, and this is clear, it would be worth listening to it.
To determine whether enough thought has been given to the issue, asking your interlocutor some questions may be helpful, such as “Does your position consider this important detail? I’m not asking what your reaction is to this detail now, I’m asking whether you took it into account while you thought about it.”
KevinDC
Sep 18 2020 at 2:32pm
“KevinDC [says] the argument assumes a complicated issue requires a complicated answer.”
Actually, I don’t. What I say isn’t that Caplan’s argument requires a complicated answer, I said it calls for complicated analysis. I then pointed out that many of Caplan’s own positions on highly controversial and complicated issues don’t use any kind of complicated analysis or argument – his positions and analysis are very simple and straightforward, which is something he usually treats as a strength, not a weakness. That is why when I used the example of pacifism, I didn’t say that the position of pacifism is not sufficiently complex, or that pacifism is not a very complicated answer. I explicitly said that the case Caplan makes in order to reach the answer of pacifism is not very complex.
Gerardo
Sep 18 2020 at 8:54pm
Hi, KevinDC. Sorry if I misconstrued what you meant. I made that all too short summary of what you said because it seemed to me you never did make it explicit that the argument calls for complicated analysis.
Firstly, in the previous comment, you use the word “perspective”, which you yourself say isn’t very clear, when applying the argument to Caplan’s position on both political correctness and pacifism. Secondly, it seems that in those applications of the argument, you’re understanding “complicated” in a straightforward way when you describe Caplan’s perspective on, say, pacifism, even though Caplan uses insights from ethics, history, and social science, makes mindful qualifications and answers counterarguments when making his common sense case for pacifism (i.e. it is not his only case for pacifism). Thirdly, in your comment on the previous post, you actually say the argument “assumes that complex social phenomenon require comparably complex policy prescriptions” while also adding that “policy prescription can be very simple, but also be the result of complex analysis” (my emphasis), although you never say Caplan’s argument assumes complex analysis.
That being said, would you say my charitable reworking of Caplan’s argument quells your worries about it?
Thanks!
KevinDC
Sep 19 2020 at 3:37am
Hey Gerado –
First, you are correct to note that in my “comment on the previous post” I did in fact say “the argument ‘assumes that complex social phenomenon require comparably complex policy prescriptions’”, because I and most commenters took Caplan’s first statement to be arguing that. Hence Caplan’s attempt at clarifying here. And also why I said that at the start of my comment that “I don’t think this update does much to make the syllogism any more useful.”
I’m not sure what you mean when you say I’m “understanding ‘complicated’ in a straightforward way” in your second point, so I can’t offer much of a response here. But you suggest that Caplan’s “common sense case for pacifism” is not his only case for pacifism – so far as I know, that’s not correct. I’ve been reading Caplan’s writing on that topic for almost ten years, and if he has another case for pacifism over and above his common sense case, I’ve never seen it.
My point was that Caplan’s arguments on pacifism and a host of other highly complicated and controversial issues are not very complicated arguments – they are simple arguments, from simple and common sense premises. That’s a good thing in Caplan’s view – and mine too! You might respond that even though Caplan’s arguments are often not very complicated, they are still “subtle, carefully considered, and logically thorough.” And fair enough – I usually would say the same. But Caplan is the one who is using “complicated” as the benchmark here.
I do think you’ve offered an improvement over Caplan’s case. The idea that “perspectives that are subtle, carefully considered, and logically thorough are more likely to be true than ones that aren’t” seems pretty plausible. “Perspectives that are complicated are more likely to be true than ones that aren’t” seems highly dubious. But I’m not sure your reworked syllogism is any more useful than Caplan’s, for reasons noted by Denver in comments on this and the original post. Everyone who is on the opposite side of Caplan in all these debates will claim their own views are subtle, carefully considered, and logically thorough, and will say Caplan’s are not. I can differentiate those claims by studying all sides of the issue in dispute, but if I’m going to do that, I don’t see at what point applying your reworked syllogism is going to help me in any way. It seems at best suited to telling you something you’ve already put in the work to know and can see in retrospect – I don’t see how it’s going to help you differentiate between competing views in advance.
Gerardo
Sep 20 2020 at 4:03am
Hello again, KevinDC! Ultimately, then, I think we agree here. The main point of your last paragraph is, of course, true- by itself, the argument does nothing to help you distinguish worthwhile views.
However, if we delve deeper into the meaning of the conditions for worthiness of consideration of a way of thinking (i.e. logical thoroughness, carefulness of consideration, subtlety, or whatever other virtues we’d like) and determine quick and easy ways to establish them (or their absence) for a given viewpoint, the argument is helpful insofar as it gives us a reason to behave in certain ways, namely, to check out the way of thinking in question if the virtues are present, and to skip it otherwise.
Do you use any useful proxies for (let’s call them) epistemic virtues?
AMT
Sep 19 2020 at 4:47pm
Your formulation is not much more than a longer iteration of mine, which basically sums up to “Don’t listen to arguments from ignorant people, because they perform incomplete analyses.” This is basically what Bryan meant to say, although phrased poorly.
Rather than ask any questions about their thought process, just listen to someone IF:
1) They have a PhD in the topic they are discussing, AND
2) don’t seem stupid.
Ignore everyone else.
Gerardo
Sep 20 2020 at 4:02am
Hi, AMT!
While we’re basically in agreement, you suggest that, in assessing whether we should bother to listen to someone’s position on a complicated issue, we ought to forego their thought process and pay attention mostly to credentials. I think that criterion may be a good necessary condition to consider listening to people, but it probably isn’t sufficient, because (1) PhDs can make grave mistakes in reasoning, (2) the relevant academic credentials for some topics may not even exist, (3) a layman communicating the viewpoint of a PhD may be reliable as well. So the thought process is definitely important; the question, I think we agree, is how to assess reasoning without going through the work yourself. For example, we could ask people whose judgement we trust and who are familiar with the viewpoint in question whether it has the virtues of thought processes we care about (e.g. logical thoroughness, carefulness of consideration, subtlety). What do you think, is that hopeless?
AMT
Sep 20 2020 at 11:53pm
Well, as I said in my point 2), a PhD doesn’t mean someone knows what they are talking about so it is not sufficient. E.g. there are Peter Navarro’s in this world. There are medical doctors who think diseases are caused by sex with demons. etc. Regarding your point two, I’m not sure what you are thinking about or if it even matters because probably the closest academic proxy for the topic would suffice. And regarding your 3), there just isn’t a good reason to listen to the layman’s communication instead of the expert. There are so many times I have read journalist reports on an article, and find it completely misstating the underlying research. Journalists have surprisingly horrible reading comprehension, not to mention great difficulty even understanding complex findings.
The point is no people besides the experts can be trusted to have completely analyzed an issue, and the risk they misinterpret experts is very high. So ignore them and just analyze the reasoning of the experts. I don’t think there is a way to assess expert reasoning without analyzing their work pretty closely, though, because small errors might be significant.
RPLong
Sep 21 2020 at 10:46am
Gerardo, thanks. Your formulation seems about right to me.
Denver
Sep 18 2020 at 7:09am
I’m just going to quote part of the comment I left in the last post:
Determining whether or not someone’s thinking is “simple” is not an easy task. Especially if you cannot base this off of their “conclusions”.
To offer an alternative to Bryan. What I look out for is not simple vs complex thinking, but clear vs confused thinking.
Clear thinkers can state their case in plain English, can succinctly illustrate their point, and yes, are willing to admit things are complicated. Confused thinkers throw a long list of factual claims in your face with no backing theory, use jargon and doublespeak to hide their inadequate understanding of the world, and yes, rush to overstate the predictive power of their grand theories.
AJ
Sep 19 2020 at 5:15pm
This seems like an excuse to salvage a not-so-good syllogism instead of admitting that it wasn’t a very good syllogism to start with.
Comments are closed.