Tomkow.com

Darwin and his Defenders

Over the weekend I found myself defending Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini's   "What Darwin Got Wrong" in the comments section of the Boston Review.  I thought I would reprint my arguments here in case anyone wants to carry on the discussion in more depth and to offer some summary thoughts.   For context you need only to understand that F&P's critics have all used variants on 1-10 below in defending Darwin.

So, here is my theory of US Presidents. Tomkow's Theory of Presidential Selection: The U.S. has the presidents it does because of the process of electoral selection. Electoral selection works by selecting the most popular candidates. Presidents are popular or unpopular because of their traits. The president elected at any given time will be the president with the most popular traits. Now I assume you agree that: 1) My theory, as far as it goes, is true. 2) There is a fact of the matter why any given president is elected. 3) Whether someone is elected president depends on some of their traits and not others. 4) The election of every president is explained by his possession of popular traits. 5) It is often obvious that certain traits at certain times make some candidates more popular than others. 6) There are plenty of clear historical examples of Tomkovian selection in action: e.g. President X was clearly selected because he had trait T and T was popular (substitute for whatever historical X and T you think clear). 7) It is perfectly clear, that, as a matter of fact, some traits that may be correlated with popularity are not really electorally significant. Thus, it happens that historically, the tallest candidate always wins a US election. But everyone can see, and Tomkow certainly would not deny, that tallness is not the trait that people are voting for.  8) There is a huge industry of serious and sensible people who do careful objective work in studying , explaining and predicting presidential elections using powerful statistical tools and careful historical analysis.  9) There may indeed be, and we may soon discover, real law-like regularities that connect the popularity of particular traits with specific environmental factors e.g. of the rate of taxation or GDP or …  10) There is no reason why the study of what traits lead to electoral success cannot be scientific in every sense of the word. Okay. Now given that you agree about points 1-10, don't you concede that Tomkow's theory represents a deep, indeed profound, insight into the workings of the political order?  No? What's that you say?  You say that even though 1-10 are true, Tomkow's theory, by itself, provides no clue at all about how to distinguish what traits are popular at any given time from other, irrelevant traits.  You say that Tomkow's theory itself really doesn't explain why any particular candidate was or will be elected.  You say that even though historians and political scientists have lots of substantive things to say, it's really no thanks to Tomkow. You say that, as it stands, Tomkow's theory cannot be used to predict who will be elected  and can only be used to explain any particular election result  post hoc. You say that, while some historical cases are clear, what makes for popularity in a candidate is so context dependent that you are skeptical that there will ever be a general scientific theory of "popular trait" per se . You say that Tomkow's theory of Presidential Selection really isn't a Scientific Theory at all!  You know, your complaints about my theory of Presidential Selection sound an awful lot like F&P's complaints against Darwin's theory of Natural Selection.

The Retributive Theory of Rights

There are many sorts of rights to many different kinds of things and most rights are complex combinations of other rights.  The standard taxonomy of basic rights comes to us from Wesley Hohfeld.  Hohfeld argued that all rights are, or are combinations of, what he called claims, duties, privileges, powers and immunities.  We’ll call them Hohfeld rights (RightsH).

Hohfeld RightsH
A has a claimH that B φ	=	B has a dutyH to A to φ
A has a privilegeH, with respect to B, to φ	=	A has no dutyH  to B not to φ
A has the  privilegeH of  φ-ing	=	A has no dutyH  to anyone not to φ.
A has a powerH	=	A has the ability to alter her own or another's RightsH.
B has an immunity	=	A lacks the ability to alter B's RightsH

Retributive rights (RightsR) are Hohfeld rights to do or not to do a particular kind of thing; viz. to forcibly interfere with other people to prevent them from acting, or to make them act, in certain ways.  Self Defense is a paradigm example of a Retributive right.  Someone acting in self-defense is free, with respect to his attacker, of the normal duty not to harm another.  He has  what Hohfeld would call the privilege of fighting back. 

We can define all the forms of rightR in terms of the Hohfeld’s privilegeH:

Retributive RightsR
A has a claimR,  against B, that B φ B has a dutyR to A to φ	=	A has a privilegeH, with respect to B,  to force B to φ
A has a claimR,  against B, that B not φ B has a dutyR to A not to φ	=	A has a privilegeH, with respect to B,  to force B not to φ.
A has a privilegeR, with respect to B, to φ	=	B has no claimR, against A, that A not φ A has no dutyR  to B not to φ B does not have a privilegeH with respect to A to force A not to φ.
A has the  privilegeR of  φ-ing	=	A has no dutyR  to anyone not to φ No one has a claimR against A’s φ-ing No one has the privilegeH to forcibly prevent A’s φ-ing
A has a powerR	=	A has the ability to alter her own or another's rightsR
B has an immunityR	=	A lacks the ability to alter B's rightsR.

Here we understand  "forcing  B to φ " as  matter of applying the minimum violence or harm  required to cause B to φ.  If you use more force than is minimally required you are doing more than just forcing B to φ; more than you have a right to.  In the case where B will φ without any coercion by A then the minimal force is, of course, no force at all.  

The right of self-defense now appears as the claimR that others not harm you, since.

A has a claimR that B not attack A B has a dutyR not to attack A

=

A has the privilegeH, with respect to B, to forcibly prevent B from attacking  A.

In my last post  on Retributivism I tried to demonstrate that the rights conferred by promising are Retributive.  When A promises B to φ, I argued,  what  is going on is that A is exercising his powerR to waive his normal claimsR  not to be interfered with to confer on B a claimR that A φ.

Hohfeld himself spoke of another Retributive right which will be of special interest to us.  He speaks of a right to “non-interference” in performing an action.  Such a right might arise, say, if B promises not to interfere with A’s φ-ing.  

B’s promise gives A a claimH against B that B not interfere in with A’s φ-ing.   Given that:

A has a claimH against B that B not interfere with A’s φ-ing

=

~(B  has a privilegeH, with respect to A,  to force A not to   φ.)

and

~(B  has a privilegeH, with respect to A,  to force A not to φ.)

=

~ B has a claimR that A not φ

and, in turn,

~B has a claimR that A not  φ

=

A has the privilegeR, with respect to B, to  φ

hence

B has a dutyH to A not to interfere with A’s φ-ing

=

A has a privilegeR, with respect to B,  to φ.

So, Hohfeld’s right to non-interference in one’s performance of φ  comes down to a privlegeR to φ.

Retributive Ethics

No one, at least no one willing to acknowledge moral rights at all, is likely to deny the existence of Retributive rights. But Retributive Ethics is not just the doctrine that there are rightsR.  It is the thesis that all rights are Retributive:  that they all are, or are combinations of, claimsR, dutiesR and privilegesR.

This is a substantive claim. One, in effect, denied by Hohfeld and more recently by Judith Jarvis Thomson.  They believe that there are rightsH  that are not rightsR.  Let's look at their arguments.