Scott Adams and Philosophy Read online

  10

  Intelligence and Duh-mocracy

  BEN SAUNDERS

  In The Dilbert Future, Scott Adams distinguishes two kinds of people. First, there are the bright, attractive people who read Dilbert books (and, we like to think, this book). Then there are all the other idiots.

  Scott calls these idiots “induhviduals.” They’re probably dumber than their smartphones. You likely know some. You may even work with them. If so, you’ll doubtless know how frustrating they are to live with. They make things difficult for the rest of us.

  Working with induhviduals is bad enough. But, in a democracy, these people also have a say over how the country’s governed. They get a vote, the same as the rest of us! You may put a lot of thought into how to vote, reading party manifestos, following the news, and the like. But your vote can get canceled out by some idiot who votes for Candidate A rather than Candidate B, because he has nicer hair.

  This seems like a bad way to run a business, so why do so many people think that this is the right way to run a country? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if only the smart people were in charge?

  Diluting Intelligence

  Scott points to a dilemma for democrats. If smart people are just as divided as everyone else, then intelligence is irrelevant to political decisions. That’s rather disappointing. But if smart people mostly agree, then democracy dilutes their influence. That’s hardly welcome either.

  Imagine one hundred people are choosing between two options, A and B. (Use whatever examples you like. Have B be something that seems like a good idea to induhviduals, but really isn’t.) Suppose twenty of these people are smart. Sixteen of these smart ones favor option A, while the other four prefer option B. The other eighty are induhviduals, of whom thirty-two prefer option A and forty-eight favor option B. This means there’s an overall majority of 52 to 48 in favor of option B.

  Because most people are induhviduals, a fairly small majority (48 to 32, or 3:2) among them is enough to produce an overall majority for option B. This is so even though the smart people overwhelmingly favor option A. Personally, I’d rather go with the smart people here, but, when everyone votes, the induhviduals drown them out.

  This example shows how intelligence can be diluted by democracy. The word ‘democracy’ comes from the ancient Greek demokratia, meaning rule by the people. But, if most people are induhviduals, perhaps it’s better described as duh-mocracy or rule by idiots.

  Many philosophers have criticized democracy along these lines. Plato attacked the ancient Athenian democracy of his day for neglecting wisdom and expertise. If you’re sick, he asked, what would you do? Consult a physician with years of medical training or, instead, have everyone take a vote on the appropriate treatment?

  It’d be ludicrous to let the unqualified masses make medical decisions but, Plato accused, this is what democratic rule amounts to. Ordinary people with no specialist expertise make decisions over all areas of life—including healthcare policy—paying no heed to those with relevant knowledge.

  Plato’s preferred alternative to democracy was rule by philosopher-kings. That’s not so surprising, given that he was a philosopher himself, but his critique of rule by the ignorant masses is still forceful, even if we’re suspicious of his proposed substitute.

  Electoral Exclusions

  Some contemporary philosophers agree with Plato. Jason Brennan from Georgetown University argues that many people are too ignorant or unreasonable to be given the vote. He doesn’t call these people induhviduals—instead he labels bad voters either “hobbits” or “hooligans”—but they must be the people he has in mind.

  Brennan proposes that the vote should be restricted to informed and reasonable people. He calls these people Vulcans to emphasize their rationality. Presumably, being smart people, they’d also be Dilbert fans. That’s why the Dilbert fan club is called “Dogbert’s New Ruling Class.”

  Brennan proposes disenfranchising induhviduals. Though he doesn’t spell this out himself, this amounts to restricting the vote to members of Dogbert’s New Ruling Class. Duhmocracy is replaced by what he calls an elite electoral system.

  Excluding people from the vote is dangerous. Many groups, including women and blacks, were unjustly disenfranchised until relatively recently. But Brennan insists that his elite electoral system isn’t like these past injustices. No one will be excluded on the basis of features like race or sex. Rather, there’d be a test to sort the smart people from the induhviduals. (Perhaps we could show people Dilbert strips and see who finds them funny. Those who do are obviously the smart ones.)

  Requiring people to pass a test before being allowed to vote may seem unjust. But we require people to demonstrate their competence before they can do other things like drive or practice medicine. Why not test people before they vote, too? These are all activities that expose others to danger. This suggests that they should be regulated in the interests of public safety. Voter licences may prevent induhviduals from voting for bad ideas and wrecking things for the rest of us.

  Of course, bad voters don’t expose others to risk of physical harm like bad drivers do. Not all harm is physical, though. For instance, we can be harmed emotionally or financially. Bad decisions can cause many kinds of harm, as those who’ve been subject to random acts of management are aware. If politicians crash the economy, you could lose your job. While this might have its attractions, it’s still a significant harm. (Unless you’re rich enough that you don’t need the job; in which case, why haven’t you quit already?)

  Another objection to voter licensing is that it threatens people’s self-esteem. One problem with induhviduals is that they rarely realize their own stupidity. Being officially labelled an induhvidual may be demeaning.

  Brennan points out that we already exclude some people, such as children, from voting. We don’t generally worry that this is demeaning to those excluded. However, age thresholds exclude all children, without judging any particular child. It’s not so nice for the smarter children that they have to wait for the rest of their peers to catch up, but at least no child need feel that they personally are judged to be incompetent. Everyone can tell themselves that they’re one of the smart ones.

  Failing a test is more demeaning than being excluded on grounds of age, because it singles out particular people as incompetent. It’s precisely because the test is supposed to measure how smart you are that it’s demeaning to fail it and be officially labelled an induhvidual. Failing tests doesn’t feel good unless you’re too oblivious to even notice. (One of my favorite Dilbert strips ends with Dilbert observing that his boss keeps failing the Turing Test!)

  So, using a test to identify the induhviduals can be demeaning for those so identified. But that’s not necessarily a decisive objection. We wouldn’t let an unfit person drive a car or practice medicine simply to spare their feelings. Why should voting be different? Is it worth exposing the rest of us to harm to spare the feelings of induhviduals?

  You might reply that the right to vote is unlike the right to drive because of its symbolic importance. Being granted the vote expresses that your interests and opinions matter. While we don’t all agree about political matters, these decisions will affect the whole society. Granting everyone a vote recognizes that we share a common fate together. Being denied the vote suggests that you’re somehow inconsequential. So everyone, even induhviduals, ought to have a vote.

  Shares in Society

  Once we rule out excluding induhviduals, it may look like we’re committed to accepting duhmocracy. But there’s another possibility. Instead of restricting the vote, we might reject the insistence on equality (one person, one vote). Maybe some people should have more votes than others, preventing their voices from being drowned out.

  One possible reason for unequal voting would be to give those more affected by decisions more say. If the justification for including everyone is that we all have a stake in what happens to our community, perhaps those with a greater stake should have a g
reater say. This explains why those with more shares get a greater say over business decisions than those with fewer shares. Could we apply this principle to political decision-making?

  A problem with this proposal is identifying who has a greater stake in the political community. Membership of political communities isn’t usually something that comes in degrees. You’re either a citizen of the society in question or you aren’t. We may think that this is unlike the business world where we can distinguish between long-term employees and those on short-term or casual contracts, or interns like Asok, who aren’t full members of the company.

  However, there are groups of people who acquire membership and voting rights. Immigrants who eventually naturalize would be one example. Children are another. In both cases, there’s no sharp dividing line between those who should be excluded and those who should be included as equals. Maybe there’s some middle ground and perhaps it’s sensible for people in this transitional phase to acquire voting rights gradually.

  Partial inclusion would distinguish new members of the community from more established members. This might mean people having voting rights in only some elections (local ones but not national ones). Alternatively, it might consist in something like their having half-votes in their first elections.

  This proposal looks to your past history to justify your claim to inclusion. But if the reason for including people is their shared future—the fact that decisions made now will impact them together—then the past is of little relevance. Instead, we should be concerned with future membership. So, we might want to exclude those who are about to leave the community, since they won’t be part of this shared future.

  On this basis, it could be that those with a longer future should have more say. Perhaps younger voters should have a greater say over decisions with long-term impacts, such as environmental policy. They’ll have longer to live with the consequences, so they have more at stake. Older voters will on average be less affected, as most won’t have to live with decisions for so long.

  These examples illustrate the difficulty of determining who’s more affected by particular decisions. It’s even harder when it comes to an election, which will influence a number of decisions for the coming term. Perhaps it’s fair enough to assume that all members of the community will be about equally affected by the election of a government.

  Extra Votes for the Smart

  An alternative justification for unequal voting is that the wiser or more intelligent should have greater influence over decisions. This gives smart people more votes than induhviduals, without entirely excluding the latter. This was proposed by the nineteenth-century English philosopher and social reformer, John Stuart Mill.

  Mill advocated expansion of the franchise, including to women, yet he distinguished between giving everyone a vote and giving everyone an equal vote. Mill suggested that almost everyone should have at least one vote. But he added that those who had demonstrated intellectual and moral superiority should have extra votes, since their opinions ought to carry greater weight.

  This plural voting scheme was intended to serve two purposes. First, Mill considered it appropriate to give more say to smarter people rather than holding all opinions to be equal. Suppose that Dilbert and his Pointy-Haired Boss disagree over some engineering problem. The Pointy-Haired Boss should defer to Dilbert’s greater expertise. So, why shouldn’t those who know less about politics be similarly deferential when it comes to political disagreements?

  Second, giving extra votes to the smart ones would enable them to protect their interests from the more numerous induhviduals. Mill worried that extending the vote to manual workers might lead them to pursue class-based policies. The masses of induhviduals might even seek to enslave the smarter minority and have them perform complex tasks like tying shoelaces and programming VCRs.

  Suppose society consists of two groups, a smaller group of smart people and a larger group of induhviduals. If each person has an equal vote, the induhviduals are bound to prevail because there are more of them. But we could give extra votes to the smart people until each group had equal votes. This would create a delicate balance of power. Neither group would be able to dominate the other. Mill’s hope was that only ideas that appealed to at least some of both groups would get passed.

  Thus, Mill hoped that plural voting would reconcile universal voting and intelligent decision-making. Giving the smarter people extra votes to balance all the induhviduals was supposed to prevent democracy from descending into duhmocracy.

  Identifying Who’s Smart

  Giving extra votes to smarter people may be all very well in theory. Trying to put such a scheme into practice raises some fairly obvious difficulties, though. The first problem is identifying who’s smart. Perhaps we could simply check people’s bookcases for Dilbert books, but even this isn’t fool-proof. If induhviduals somehow cottoned on to what was happening, they might buy Dilbert books too in order to seem smart.

  We don’t all agree on who’s smart. Take Wally, for instance. You might think he’s not very smart, since he doesn’t seem to do very much except sit around in his cubicle drinking coffee. But, others might reply that he must be very smart indeed, and for much the same reason. Given the ingenuity that he puts into avoiding work, perhaps he’s cleverer than he looks. (This isn’t difficult.)

  One of Mill’s suggestions was that we look to people’s occupation for evidence of their intellectual capacities. A supervisor might have more votes than a manual worker, and a professional—like a lawyer or surgeon—more still. Obviously, this is a bit naive. Dilbert is far smarter than his Pointy-Haired Boss. The Pointy-Haired Boss once spent twenty minutes talking to himself when Dilbert hooked his speed dial to his cell phone. In fact, he’s just the kind of induhvidual we don’t want in charge.

  Thanks in part to Scott Adams, we know that incompetent induhviduals rise through the ranks of management. Therefore, managers should have fewer votes, not more. We could give extra votes to those who actually know what they’re doing: people like Dilbert, Alice, Ted, and perhaps even Wally (though he probably wouldn’t bother voting anyway). But tying voting rights to people’s jobs is still imperfect. It might mean that those who are smart but under-employed—like Asok, the intern with an IQ of 240, or Dilbert’s strangely wise bin collector—would lose out.

  While Mill’s plural voting idea hasn’t attracted many followers, the contemporary philosopher Robin Harwood has defended something similar. Harwood proposed that extra votes could be tied to formal educational qualifications. Graduating from high school might be worth ten votes, while a bachelor’s degree could be worth one hundred.

  Harwood argues that this proposal is likely to lead to better quality public debate and better political decisions, while also giving people an added incentive to pursue education. It’d mean that Asok’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology could entitle him to extra votes (assuming he’s eligible to vote in the first place).

  Attaching votes to educational qualifications may be better than attaching them to jobs, but it’s probably still a bad idea. Dilbert and his fellow engineers presumably possess technical qualifications. Doubtless they’re well qualified to solve engineering problems. But, this doesn’t mean they’re any good at solving political problems.

  Alice may be good at her job, but her anger management issues might lead to some bad decision making. Wally is lazy and self-centered. Even Dilbert is socially inept. None of these characters seem to have the non-educational qualifications, such as empathy, that we’d want from a ruling class.

  This highlights one flaw in Harwood’s proposal. Qualifications in engineering don’t necessarily make someone any better at making political decisions. Someone could know a great deal about engineering (or many other fields) without knowing anything about politics. If we want to identify people who’ll make good political judgements, then we can’t rely on general educational qualifications.

  Engineering vs. Humanities

  On
e possibility is to distinguish between different areas of expertise. Looking at Dilbert and his colleagues, we may decide that an engineering degree doesn’t guarantee that you’re a good political decision-maker—perhaps even the reverse! However, other forms of education may foster the qualities we want in our political rulers.

  Martha Nussbaum defends a traditional liberal-arts education, including history, literature, and philosophy. She argues that such humanistic disciplines develop our critical capacities and empathy for other perspectives—features that, she claims, are crucial for democratic citizenship.

  Perhaps Dilbert wouldn’t be as socially inept if he’d studied liberal arts instead of engineering. This wouldn’t necessarily make him more attractive to the opposite sex, but Nussbaum argues that he’d be a better citizen for it. Citizens in a democracy must be capable of understanding other points of view and sufficiently critical to distinguish reliable and unreliable information (or “fake news”).

  Nussbaum doesn’t actually propose giving extra votes to those with liberal-arts degrees, even though she thinks they’re better voters. In fact, she’d probably reject this. But, if she’s right that these people are better voters, then giving them more votes might lead to better decisions.

  However, there’s still a problem identifying the better voters. Though Nussbaum describes her educational ideal as humanistic, it isn’t simply a matter of the subjects studied. What matters to her is the approach to education. Nussbaum advocates education driven by curiosity and experimentation rather than rote-learning of facts. And so, while a science degree could be taught through rote-learning, it need not be. Students might be encouraged to explore rival hypotheses for themselves. Similarly, history students might consider differing interpretations of evidence, or their degree could be based around memorizing dates.