Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and the Philosophy of Law

Although Martin Luther King, Jr. was not a philosopher, one of the best introductions to the philosophy of law is King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail." In 1963, King peacefully demonstrated for civil rights in Birmingham, Alabama, even though a judge had declared such demonstrations to be illegal. He was arrested and taken to Birmingham jail. While imprisoned, King read a newspaper article written by several clergyman criticizing his methods and calling on civil rights advocates to be more patient and not to violate the law. He wrote "Letter" in response. What's philosophically interesting about this exchange between King and his critics is that it illustrates two opposing philosophies of law: Natural Law Theory (NLT) and Legal Positivism (LP).

NLT and LP take opposing views on the nature of law:

Natural Law Theory	Legal Positivism
The law is shaped by prior moral laws.	The law is the decree of a sovereign authority.
The law must not conflict with moral law.	The law does not take into account moral law.
A bad law is not a law.	A bad law is still a law.
We are not obligated to obey bad laws.	We are obligated to obey all laws.

NLT has its roots in Augustine and Aquinas, both of whom understood human law to be subordinate to higher forms of law. LP has it roots in Plato's Crito and Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan. Legal positivists believe that a law is nothing more than the decree of a sovereign authority and is not subordinate to any higher forms of law.

A key argument made by legal positivists is that it's inconsistent to obey some laws and not others. Indeed, Socrates chose to drink hemlock rather than to escape Athens on the grounds that it would be inconsistent for him to disobey Athenian law after a lifetime of benefiting from Athenian law (see the Crito). King's critics accused King of being inconsistent for obeying some laws but not others. King responded by invoking Natural Law:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may want to ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all"

This is classic NLT; a law that contradicts moral law is not a law at all, and we are not obligated to obey such laws:

How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

"Letter" is a powerful expression of Natural Law Theory and a masterpiece of argumentation. It's also a good example of how philosophy can inform the way we think about public policy.

Further reading:

"Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr.

Crito by Plato.

Video Games as Art

Can a video game be a work of art? In 2010, Roger Ebert angered gamers by insisting that "video games can never be art." The response to Ebert was book-length. The debate renewed recently when the Museum of Modern Art in New York announced its intention to display several video games in its Architecture and Design collection. Jonathan Jones of the Guardian responded with "Sorry MoMA, video games are not art." Not surprisingly, the counter-response to Jones was heated. I don't necessarily endorse the arguments made either by Ebert or Jones, but I agree that no video game can be a work of art.

Let's clear some brush. It's notoriously difficult to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions that make something a work of art. Nonetheless, it's not quite so difficult to specify at least one necessary condition that something has to meet in order to be a work of art. If our candidate doesn't meet that condition, then it's not a work of art. That's my approach here. My argument runs:

1. Something is a work of art only if it is an object of aesthetic contemplation.
2. Video games are not objects of aesthetic contemplation.
3. Therefore, video games are not works of art.

Both of these premises are likely to raise eyebrows, if not blood pressure, so let me defend them. In regards to the first premise, think about the items that we put in the category "works of art": paintings, sculptures, poems, novels, short stories, plays, films, and musical compositions. Now think about things that we don't put in that category: lectures, non-fiction books, instructional manuals, rodeos, and bingo games. What these two categories have in common is that they include things intended for an audience. However, the items in the category "works of art" are intended to invoke an aesthetic reaction in the audience; the items in the other category are meant to edify, instruct, or entertain, but they don't invoke an aesthetic reaction. Grandma might yell "bingo!" with excitement, but that's not an aesthetic response. A lecturer might move an audience to tears, but that, too, is not an aesthetic response. Whatever a work of art is, it is intended to invoke an aesthetic response and hence is intended to be an object of aesthetic contemplation.

So why isn't a video game an object of aesthetic contemplation? After all, MoMA has put several video games on display. True enough, but let's think about the logistics of putting a video game on display in an art museum (indeed, MoMA has to deal with these logistics). Suppose we're the curator of an art museum, and we've been tasked with putting video games on display. Our first video game is Pac-Man in one of its original cabinet incarnations.

We put a Pac-Man cabinet on display with the requisite captions, and now patrons can view Pac-Man as easily as they can view the Mona Lisa. Hence, both are objects of aesthetic contemplation, right? Well, not quite. Here's the problem: we've displayed the Pac-Man cabinet, but we haven't displayed Pac-Man the video game. A video game is a computer program that is executed by hardware and displays a virtual world containing a challenge for a player to overcome. A video game is fully realized only when it is played.

Paola Antonelli, the curator of MoMA's video game collection, recognizes this problem:

For games that take longer to play, but still require interaction for full appreciation, an interactive demonstration, in which the game can be played for a limited amount of time, will be the answer. In concert with programmers and designers, we will devise a way to play a game for a limited time and enable visitors to experience the game firsthand, without frustrations.

The problem with this solution is that at best it only presents a slice of the video game, and at worst it turns the video game into an interactive movie or demo. To sharpen this point, let's imagine that we're tasked with putting Bioshock Infinite on display. Bioshock Infinite is a visually stunning game with a complex story; if any video game is a work of art, it is a work of art. However, can we make it into a work of aesthetic contemplation?

To answer this, let's expand the collection in our museum. First, we have the Mona Lisa. Next, we have a large television screen that plays Citizen Kane from start to finish in a continuous loop. Next to the screen is a quad-core computer with a high-end video card and monitor. Each day, before we open the door for visitors, we turn on the computer and start Bioshock Infinite. Our visitors can gaze upon the Mona Lisa. They can watch Citizen Kane from start to finish. What, however, can they do in regards to Bioshock Infinite? They can look at the computer; they can look at the monitor; and they can gaze upon the opening screen that tells them to "press any key":

At no point has Bioshock Infinite become an object of contemplation, let alone an act of aesthetic contemplation.

Let's, then, take Antonelli's approach and "devise a way to play a game." I assume that this means that visitors will be able to play a game for some amount of time. Note that the solution cannot be to record someone playing a game and then to display the resulting footage, because that's not the same thing as putting an actual video game on display. Suppose, then, that a visitor steps up to the computer running Bioshock Infinite and begins to play. What, now, do visitors see? They see a human playing Bioshock Infinite. They can contemplate this scene all they want, but it is not an object of aesthetic contemplation. It's a scene that takes place in homes all over the world. What, then, about the player? The player is, to state the obvious, playing a game. The player could do the same thing at home.

Indeed, this sets up a very basic argument against video games as art:

1. No game is a work of art.
2. All video games are games.
3. Therefore, no video game is a work of art.

Let me defend the first premise by enumerative induction. Checkers is not a work of art; tennis is not a work of art; charades is not a work of art; tiddlywinks is not a work of art; Hungry Hungry Hippos is not a work of art; rock-paper-scissors is not a work of art; and so on. No game is a work of art. Hence, no video game is a work of art.

Now let's take the sting out of this conclusion: to say that something is not a work of art is not to say that it is trivial or less worthy or lacking in gravitas. I suspect that many gamers perceive a slight against video games in regards to the claim that they're not art. However, whether a thing belongs in a category or not hinges on the properties of that thing and not on the perceived motives of those who deny that it belongs in a certain category.

One final point: a video game is not a work of art, but it has artistic elements, namely, graphics and music. In fact, Jeremy Soule's soundtracks to the Elder Scrolls series are works of arts that can be enjoyed aesthetically on their own. Likewise, the visual assets of a video game can be enjoyed aesthetically on their own. Modern video games are not possible without artists and musicians, so modern video games do have an intimate connection to art. Bioshock Infinite would not be possible without artists, musicians, and actors. However, when all is said and done, it is not a work of art, because it is a game.

The Monty Hall Problem

Wacky game show host Monty Hall is giving you a chance to win a Ferrari. He has hidden the Ferrari behind one door, a goat behind another door, and a goat behind yet another door. He then asks you to choose a door, and you do so. Instead of opening the door you picked, Monty opens a different door, one with a goat behind it. (Monty never opens a door with a Ferrari behind it.)

Now he gives you a choice: keep what's behind the door you picked or choose the other unopened door. What should you do? It turns out that you should change doors, because doing so increases your odds of winning the Ferrari. The puzzle is explaining why this is the case when it looks as if your odds are 50/50. After all, there are now only two doors and a Ferrari behind one--that’s one desired outcome and two possible outcomes. Why does it matter which one you choose?

The reaction to this puzzle is perhaps more interesting than the puzzle itself. Most people, academics and non-academics alike, insist on the intuitive explanation, i.e., that it makes no difference whether you switch or not. One of Marilyn vos Savant's most famous columns discussed the puzzle, and she received a heated response from her audience for saying that you should switch. However, it can be demonstrated empirically that the probability of winning after switching is higher than the probability of winning when sticking to your original choice. There are computer programs showing that you win more times by switching than you do by sticking. So we need an explanation.

Let's start by altering the story a bit--but this won't change anything substantial. We're going to name each goat. Let's call one George and the other Harry. So now we have a Ferrari, George, and Harry, each behind a door. The probability of choosing any one of them is 1 in 3. The probability of choosing the Ferrari or George or Harry is 1; in other words, there is a 100% chance that you are going to pick a door, so long as you play the game. That sounds obvious, but it's going to help drive the explanation home. Another thing to keep in mind is that your chance of winning (i.e., picking the Ferrari) is 1/3 but your chance of losing (i.e., picking a goat) is 2/3. Let’s recap:

• Pr of choosing F = 1/3
• Pr of choosing G = 1/3
• Pr of choosing H = 1/3
• Pr of choosing any door = 1
• Pr of choosing either G or H is 2/3

Now you choose a door. Monty goes to work and opens one of the doors you didn't pick. George is behind it munching on some hay. So the possibility of choosing George has been eliminated. Nonetheless, you're given a second choice to make: stick or switch. Note that the probability of choosing a door is still 1. Hence, one way of stating the puzzle is this: how do we keep this number constant, since it has to remain constant? Let’s illustrate this by removing George from our list:

• Pr of choosing F = 1/3
• Pr of choosing H = 1/3
• Pr of choosing any door = 1

The problem is that 1/3 and 1/3 don’t make 1. So the probabilities must be recalculated. But how? The intuitive solution is this:

• Pr of choosing F = 1/2
• Pr of choosing H = 1/2
• Pr of choosing any door = 1

Because 1/2 and 1/2 do make 1, it looks as if we've solved the problem. However, according to the empirical evidence, this is the solution:

• Pr of choosing F = 1/3
• Pr of choosing H = 2/3
• Pr of choosing any door = 1

This gives us the same result: it keeps the probability of choosing a door at 1. It is also supported by the empirical evidence. So what has gone wrong with the former solution? In a nutshell, it neglects to take into account new information that is revealed when Monty opens a goat door.

Consider again: you initially have a 1/3 chance of winning the Ferrari and a 2/3 chance of not winning it; you have a low chance of winning and a high chance of losing. To put this into sharper contrast, suppose that there are a hundred doors. Now you have a 1/100 or 1% chance of winning and a 99/100 or 99% chance of losing. That means that the winning door is most likely in the set of doors you didn't choose. This fact doesn't change when Monty begins opening doors. What does change is that the cardinal number of the set of closed doors--it gets smaller. (A set's cardinal number is the number of members in the set.) But remember, the probability of the winning door being in the set of doors you didn't choose stays the same. To make this clearer:

• Let X = set of doors you didn’t initially choose
• Let Y = set of open doors
• Let Z = set of closed doors

X and Z initially have the same cardinal number: 999. Monty opens one of the doors. Z now has 998 doors and Y has 1 door. The cardinal number of Y continues to increase, and the cardinal number of Z continues to decrease. The probability, as we've seen, that the winning door is in X is 99%. But the cardinal number of X is simply the sum of the cardinal number of Y and the cardinal number of Z; the cardinal number of X hasn't changed, and hence neither has the 99% probability that X has the winning door. What has changed is the number of doors in Z, a number which gets smaller and smaller as Monty opens more goat doors. Eventually Z is left with one member, and since that member is the only closed door in a set of doors having a 99% chance of having the Ferrari door, it has a 99% chance of being the Ferrari door.

Therefore, you should switch when Monty gives you the chance. The same is true when there are only three doors, although the chance of winning is 2/3 rather than 999/1000--still good odds in your favor. The heart of the paradox is that Monty always opens a goat door, and in so doing gives us information about the remaining closed doors belonging to the set of unpicked doors. Monty is telling us: "The likelihood of your door being the winning door is lower than the likelihood of the winning door being in the set of doors you didn't pick. But I’m going to help you out. I’m going to eliminate possible winners out of that high-probability set, and what's left over is still going to have the high probability of the entire set. So the smart money is on the door that I don't open, and the safe bet is to switch your allegiance to that door.”

Further reading

"The Monty Hall Problem" by Dr. Math.

"Game Show Problem" by Marilyn vos Savant.

Lawrence Krauss on the Origin of the Universe from Nothing

In my first post, I pointed out that one explanation for the origin of the universe is that it came into being uncaused. Some philosophers reject this on the grounds that from nothing, nothing comes; nothingness has no potential to bring anything into existence. Other philosophers, especially David Hume, counter that the idea of the universe coming into being uncaused is logically coherent and that principles such as "whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence" cannot be demonstrated by deductive argument.

However, someone pointed me to a contemporary argument for a universe that comes from nothing. In A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather than Nothing, Lawrence Krauss argues that the universe came from nothing. His argument runs:

1. The universe came from a quantum vacuum.
2. A quantum vacuum is nothing.
3. Therefore, the universe came from nothing.

The problem lies with the second premise. A quantum vacuum is not nothing; it's a state of low energy, not an empty void. Physicists such as Krauss are treating nothing as if it were something and then concluding that the universe came from nothing when it came from something. Indeed, Neil deGrasse Tyson, in his praise for Krauss' book, says:

Nothing is not nothing. Nothing is something. That's how a cosmos can be spawned from the void -- a profound idea conveyed in A Universe From Nothing that unsettles some yet enlightens others.

I don't know how to be charitable here. Tyson is saying that A is not A but is in fact non-A. Hence, he's violating both the law of identity and the principle of non-contradiction, both of which are fundamental to rational thought and logic.

The upshot is that if any state of affairs spawned the universe, then it is not the case that the universe came into being from nothing.

Further reading

"On the Origin of Everything" by David Albert.

"Nothingness" by Roy Sorensen. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

On the Origin of the Universe: A Survey of Explanations

How many explanations are there for the origin of the universe? Not many, it turns out. I'm going to suggest that there are three basic explanations. I'm not going to argue in favor of any one of these; I just want to survey the ontological landscape in regards to the origin of the universe. To do this, I'm going to present three dilemmas and comment on each one.

Note that I'm taking for granted that our universe isn't eternal, i.e., that it didn't always exist. This is consistent with the view that the universe began with a big bang nearly 14 billion years ago. Let's begin, then, with our first dilemma: given that the universe came into being, it either (a) came into being uncaused or (b) came into being from a prior cause. Option (a) seems to be nonsensical; if nothing existed in the past, then nothing would exist now, because nothingness has no potential to cause anything. Nonetheless, David Hume argued that the idea of something coming into being uncaused cannot be demonstrated to be false or logically incoherent. In fact, he argued that it is logically possible for something to come into being from nothing, because we can conceive of, for example, a rabbit simply popping into existence without an antecedent cause. Points in favor of (b) are that it is consistent with our understanding of cause-and-effect and that "whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence" is a key principle of rational thought. We make intellectual progress by investigating the causes of things, and it seems arbitrary to suggest that the universe should be an exception.

Assuming, then, that the universe has a cause, here is our second dilemma: either (c) the cause of the universe is itself uncaused or (d) the cause of the universe had a cause. Option (c) leads us back to our points about (a). Option (d) leads us to the problem of infinite regress. Suppose that the cause of the universe itself had a cause; does the cause of the cause of the universe have a cause? If so, then does it, too, have a cause?

Indeed, this sets up our third dilemma: either (e) the chain of causes leading to the origin of the universe goes on forever or (f) the chain of causes leading to the origin of the universe does not go on forever. Since Georg Cantor's work in set theory and infinity in the 19th century, no one argues that (e) is logically impossible, that is, no one argues that the idea of an actually infinite set entails a contradiction. Nonetheless, one objection to (e) is that even if we can explain the existence of any member of an infinite set by pointing to a prior member, we do not have an explanation for why the entire set exists. This was Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz's critique of (e). He held strongly to the Principle of Sufficient Reason: for every fact F, there must be an explanation why F is the case. Suppose PSR is true and that it is a fact that our universe is preceded by an actually infinite set of causes. Leibniz would say that such a fact needs a sufficient reason, i.e., an explanation for why it is the case. Not surprisingly, criticisms of Leibniz's argument hinge on the question of why we should accept PSR. No one disputes that PSR is a rational principle with intuitive appeal, but the key issue is whether or not it can be demonstrated to be true.

A second objection to (e) is that although an actually infinite set of causes is logically possible, counter-intuitive paradoxes would result if such a set physically existed. Saint Bonaventure tried to demonstrate this with an argument similar to the following.

Let's first think about non-physical infinite sets. In particular, let's think about the set of all odd numbers and the set of all even numbers. Each of these sets is actually infinite, that is, each set is made up of an infinite number of numbers. It's not hard to imagine that every odd number in the odd set can be paired with an even number in the even set, ad infinitum. So 1 can be paired with 2, 3 with 4, 5 with 6, and so on. What's important here is that no counter-intuitive paradoxes occur because of this.

Now let's think about infinite sets that might physically exist. For example, imagine the existence of a solar system with a planet and moon such that the planet revolves around the sun once for every three times that the moon revolves around the planet. So each revolution of the planet pairs up with three revolutions of the moon. So the set of moon revolutions would seem to have more members than the set of planet revolutions. However, suppose that the number of revolutions of both the planet and moon are actually infinite. This means that every single revolution of the moon can be paired off with a single revolution of the planet, ad infinitum. No moon revolution is without a member that it can pair up with in the set of planet revolutions. Why is this counter-intuitive? Because it seems that the number of moon revolutions should exceed the number of planet revolutions. Whether or not these counter-intuitive paradoxes mean that an actually infinite set cannot physically exist is a key question in the philosophy of infinity.

If (f) is the case, then it follows that there is a first cause that stops the infinite regress of cause-and-effect. Moreover, if it's not the case that this first cause came into being from nothing and it's not the case that the first cause was preceded by an infinity of causes, then this first cause has always existed. Hence, when all is said and done, there are three explanations for the origin of the universe:

1. There is an infinite regress of causes-and-effects leading to the origin of our universe.
2. The universe came into being uncaused.
3. There is a first cause of the universe (or of the finite set of causes leading to the origin of the universe).

The main issues in regards to 1 are whether or not an infinite regress can physically exist and whether or not such a regress, if it does physically exist, requires an explanation. The key issue in regards to 2 is whether or not it makes sense to say that something can come into existence without a cause. Finally, 3 hinges on 1 and 2 not being the case; hence, proponents of 3 will want to show that 1 and 2 are not plausible.

What I think is interesting about this is that it demonstrates the power of philosophy. The origin of the universe seems like a daunting problem, but it is not an intractable one; we can understand the basic positions, as well as the key issues in defending each position. If nothing else, philosophy maps the logical terrain of any given problem, highlighting the major positions and arguments in regards to that problem.