Three Red Flares

 

 

Important Concepts

 

Argument Extraction: Glaucon's Challenge

 

In the Argument Extraction video, we saw a massive challenge to the notion that justice is something we should strive for. In other words, we heard a battery of arguments that suggested that, if possible, we should try to be perfectly unjust, creating only the illusion of being a good person—thereby reaping the benefits of having the reputation of being just. This powerful challenge compelled Socrates to examine the nature of justice as closely as possible. Using the analogy between individuals and society, Socrates and friends reasoned that if we can isolate where justice is within society at large, then we can better understand where justice is in an individual. By "magnifying" the problem, looking at society (which is very large) instead of the individual (which is comparatively small), they figured they could better understand justice and—they hoped—why they should strive for it.

As they dived into creating the City of Words, things quickly escalated and they realized that their perfect society, if it is to have the luxuries that most people would enjoy having, would require a large size, specialization at different tasks (like farming, weaving, etc.), and a standing army (to protect from threats, both internal and external). Below I've reproduced the portion of the text which makes the case that the army should be composed of professional soldiers, as opposed to citizen-soldiers (i.e., individuals who are trained for some particular profession, like leatherwork, and also for combat). The characters concluded that one can only truly excel at a craft if they focus their entire efforts on just that craft, not diluting their cognitive and physical powers on other skills. This makes intuitive sense, but we must analyze the argument more closely in order to know if it is sound. Let's first read the passage again.

Arguments expressed in conversation are hardly found to already be in standard form—unless you are unlucky enough to be having a conversation with someone trained in analytic philosophy. (Poor you!) Given that Republic is in dialogue form, we'll have to extract the argument from the text, force it into standard form, and then assess for validity and soundness. This passage is particularly rich. Notice that each sentence has a premise embedded into it, sometimes in an implied way. For example, take a look at the first sentence: "Well, now, we prevented a shoemaker from trying to be a farmer, weaver, or builder at the same time, instead of just a shoemaker, in order to ensure that the shoemaker’s job was done well." What is truly being said here is that true excellence in a given domain only comes when someone specializes in that domain, spending countless hours developing the appropriate skills. Let's call this premise 1:

1. True excellence in a given domain only comes when someone specializes in that domain.

Take a look now at the second sentence: "Similarly, we also assigned just the one job for which he had a natural aptitude to each of the other people, and said that he was to work at it his whole life, free from having to do any of the other jobs, so as not to miss the opportune moments for performing it well." If you notice, there are two claims being made here—both of which are delightfully controversial(!). The first one is that some people have a natural aptitude for certain tasks or roles. The second claim being made is that individuals should not be compelled to do anything other than the task for which they are most suited. Jointly, these can be interpreted as the controversial idea that genetic factors play a role in our aptitude for certain jobs, and that those who are best suited to certain tasks (like being CEO or playing basketball) should perform those tasks and are the only ones that should do so. (We'll investigate this idea further in a later lesson.) For now, let's recognize that these two claims are what is being said in the passage and let's call these premise 2 and premise 3:

2. Some individuals are predisposed to excel in certain tasks.
3. Individuals should not be compelled to do anything other than the task for which they are most suited.

After these two premises, Socrates launches a barrage of rhetorical questions. Can you figure out the main message here? It seems to be this: excellence in warfare requires a specific skill set that must be trained for—a skill set that some, but not others, are particularly predisposed for. That's premise 4.

4. Excellence in warfare requires a specific skill set that must be trained for, a skill set that some, but not others, are particularly disposed to.

Notice, however, that the conclusion is not explicitly stated in this passage. As it turns out, the conclusion is smeared across several lines of the dialogue. Convince yourself, after reading through the assigned reading (357a-377c), that the following argument captures what Socrates is getting at:

1. True excellence in a given domain only comes when someone specializes in that domain.
2. Some individuals are predisposed to excel in certain tasks.
3. Individuals should not be compelled to do anything other than the task for which they are most suited.
4. Excellence in warfare requires a specific skill set that must be trained for, a skill set that some, but not others, are particularly disposed to.
5. Therefore, to produce a fighting force that achieves true excellence in warfare, Guardians should be selected for so that they have a natural aptitude for warfare, and they should be trained with the requisite skill set and not be allowed to perform any other function but that of waging war.

Truth be told, there are some other possible ways of extracting this argument. What I tried to do here is to focus on the important passage at 374c-d. Having said that, it is unmistakable that, once the argument is laid out in this way, it is easier to see that the line of reasoning is arguably valid. Whether or not it is sound is another matter entirely. But that's enough for now.

 

Informal Fallacy of the Day

 

 

 

The Signaling Theory of Education

I've made plenty of people angry by talking about this view, but oh what the heck. Lets start with some Food for Thought...

 

 

The view

Caplan (2018) thinks he can explain this puzzle. In other words, he has a theory for why there is an economic advantage to those who go to college even though they typically don't gain much knowledge while they are there. His explanation requires that you grant the following assumptions:

1. There are different types of people, e.g., some have higher and lower intelligence levels, some have capacities that others do not, etc.
2. A person’s type (e.g., high- or low-intelligence) is non-obvious (and self-reporting doesn’t help).
3. One type of people (e.g., high-intelligence), on average, performs differently than another type of people.

Caplan puts a lot of weight on these assumptions, so we should explain what they mean. First off, claim 1 is stating that it is simply the case that some individuals have different skill-sets and capacities. Caplan doesn't dive into why we differ in our skill-sets and capacities, although as previously mentioned we will dive into some theories as to why this might be the case eventually. (Stay tuned.) Having said that, we've already seen that Socrates makes a very similar claim in premise 2 of the argument from the previous section. Claim 2 states what is probably obvious: you can't really just look at someone and know if they are hard-working, or intelligent, or rebellious, etc. (If you think you can do this in non-obvious situations, teach me your ways!) Claim 3 makes what I think is an equally obvious claim: that people with certain skills-sets and capacities might perform better at a task than other people with different skill-sets and capacities. If there are no objections to these assumptions, let's move into examining the theory.

Caplan suggests that the education premium comes because employers can't just guess someone's type (and hence whether or not a potential employee can actually perform their job well). Perhaps it’s the case that employers are stumped with regards to one’s type through the interview process alone. Sure, they spent an hour with you, but they still don't know whether you'll really do the job well or not. What can they do? Well, it seems like they end up having to rely on signals. For example, perhaps crew cuts signal conformity, while mohawks signal rebelliousness. Rationally speaking, employers are better off hiring by haircut (the signal) then by coin toss (interview performance alone). In other words, signals come in handy.

Of course, if you are open to looking for signals that a potential employee might do their job well, you shouldn't stop at haircuts. You should see if they have the intelligence to perform their job well, as well as the ability to stay on task and not shake things up too much. These traits—intelligence, conscientiousness, and conformity to mainstream social norms—are clearly the kinds of traits that you'd want in an employee if you were the owner of a business. And this, argues Caplan, is the function of education. If you have a college degree, it signals some minimum level of intelligence. First signal! It also shows that you are willing to sit through boring classes—since most students report being bored through most classes (Arum and Roksa 2011)—and still pass at the end of the semester. This is a good sign of conscientiousness (also known as grit or stick-to-it-iveness). The second signal! Last but not least, having a college degree signals that you display a certain level conformity to mainstream social norms. Even though they might complain along the way, college graduates jumped all the right hoops if and when they were told to jump. How else would you pass college classes taught by stuffy professors like me? In short, employers hire college graduates because they've sent the costly signal (a college degree) that they are a. somewhat clever, b. willing to sit through boring work, and c. conform to the social norms of the institution they are a part of. They're more likely to get hired because of this, and, thus, they are (on average) more likely to have a higher wage (the education premium).¹

Who cares?

One possible objection that Caplan entertains is the matter of apathy. Does it really matter that education is mostly signaling? Caplan argues that this is a big deal. If education is all or mostly signaling, society is subsidizing a credentialing system that’s fostering a credentialing arms race with no other measurable benefit. In other words, everyone is now forced to take on debt to get a degree just to be on the same level as everyone else and there's no other discernable benefit. For example, Caplan reviews the evidence and it seems that education does not increase job satisfaction. It also does not increase overall happiness (after a certain financial threshold) nor does it make one healthier (or if it does, it does so only negligibly.) School is also dreadfully boring. As previously stated, most students dislike both school and work, but they dislike work a little less. (You're probably bored to tears right now!) Worse yet, education is not always fruitful. 25% of high school students don’t finish in 4 years. 60% of full-time college students don’t finish in four years. Half of advanced degree students never finish. Debt for nothing.

What to do?

Here are some of Caplan’s suggestions:

• Take the fat out of k-12 education; e.g., history, social studies, art, music, foreign language. Replace these with more time in the playground or more quiet time in the library. Alternatively, you can end school earlier in the day (once the students are old enough to not need babysitting).
• Get rid of college majors that are made of fat; eliminate them completely from public institutions and, in private universities, ensure they receive no federal funding. (Bye bye philosophy?)
• Raise standards for useless subjects to extremely high levels, thereby disincentivizing students from wanting to use those subjects as a status-enhancing activity. For example, haved mandatory auditions for music classes. If someone isn't taking it seriously, don't let them join just to get a free period or to look cool.
• Most controversially, Caplan argues that we should cut all subsidies to post-k-12 education; i.e., don't make college any cheaper. Only excellent students (either through family funding or scholarships) will go on to a higher education, since any non-excellent students would voluntarily choose not to go to an instution that they will pay an arm and a leg for and which they have very little chance of being successful in. The billions currently spent on education can be used for other things such as funding cancer research, attempting to end food insecurity, and, most importantly, fund vocational programs (e.g., automative repair, welding, machining, etc.).

 

Other objections

Caplan entertains some other objections. For example, one might object that education has the benefit of enriching the student with high culture and the love of learning, two highly-valuable traits of a well-rounded person. Or else one can say that education is the greatest equitizing tool we have. So, if we care about social justice, we must promote the ends of education.

But Caplan dismisses both of these objections. First off, since the dawn of the internet, any enriching content one wants is at one’s fingertips. Those who truly love learning and want to explore poetry, opera, history and ethnic studies can educate themselves for free. Having said that, the searches for non-academic content far outnumber searches for content of an academic nature or relating to high-culture. In other words, people care more about the Kardashians than the Battle of Karbala. Moreover, the social justice objection assumes that students retain what they’re being taught. But we’ve seen that’s mostly false. And even if you did remember, the most popular political theories taught in, for example, Political Science courses (e.g., Rawlsianism) do not address real-world problems nor do they have much to say to non-white, non-male students (see Yaouzis 2019 and Mills 2017).

 

 

 

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FYI

Suggested Reading: Bryan Caplan, What students know that experts don’t: School is all about signaling, not skill-building

TL;DR: Econ Duel, Is Education Signaling or Skill Building?

Supplemental Material—

• Video: After Words, Bryan Caplan on The Case Against Education

Advanced Material—

• Reading: Harley Frazis, Human capital, signaling, and the pattern of returns to education

• Reading: Liam Shields, Anne Newman, Debra Satz, Equality of Educational Opportunity

Related Material—

• Video: Charles Mills, Provost Lecture on Liberalism and Racial Justice

• Video: Charles Mills, Joke on the Whiteness of John Rawls

 

Footnotes

1. Do you really need all three traits to signal that you'll be a good employee? Caplan argues that candidates that exhibit all three are optimal but that candidates that lack any one might be suboptimal. For example, say you are intelligent and are full of grit but you don't conform to mainstream norms. This might actually make you a liability. If I were considering hiring you, I'd be worried that you are a little rebellious and that you're smart enough and hard-working enough to get away with some shenanigans that is ultimately going to harm my business. No thank you.