Keith Douglas
January Puzzle Hunt
Last time I sent along a puzzle hunt. Each of the answers to the questions starts with a letter that forms an acrostic – i.e., they can be read top to bottom using the first letter. The result is a new year’s greeting in both of Canada’s official languages, and that’s your gift. I encourage you to work out how the answers are to be interpreted for those you found hard. I deliberately tried to vary the domains asked about so it may not be surprising that unless you’re a trivia buff like me that there are weird or unknown ones. If you, for example, wonder how 15 works, as I was told, just remember that all humans (indeed, all eukaryotic life, at least) is related. Alex’s suggestion that this has something to do with peace and the Nobel Prizes (worthy topics by my estimation) is interesting but alas too much related to 5 …
Answer key:
- Hydrogen
- Answer
- Ps
- Portelance
- Ytterby
- Ni
- Engineering
- Why Evolution is True
- You
- Excellent
- Armenians
- Rump parliament
- Breach
- Order in the court
- Neville Chamberlain
- Nous
- Elements
- Annie (get your gun)
- News
- Nitrogen (triiodide)
- Evil
- End
What’s new?
This time I would like to have us thinking about freedom of speech and related principles again. This time it is related to professional conduct, and when in particular someone should be regarded as acting as a member of a profession. Imagine for the moment I am a professional civil engineer working for a construction firm which often gets contracts with the city.
If I say, “I think we should make the next bridge over the river out of tissue paper” on a YouTube video, should I be censured by the order of engineers? If I put it on my own website? If I tell it to my girlfriend?
Now modify the statement to something less ridiculous. For purposes of the example, let us assume that a calculation would show that one needs such and such a tensile strength of steel to make such a bridge within a margin of safety also stated in advance. Repeat the “If I say…” question above but with an answer that is 10% off this calculation. Does the ridiculous work for or against the ethics of the statement? (I am inclined, sometimes, to regard the more plausible sounding stuff as more immoral since it is less likely to be taken as a joke, even if the tissue paper bridge was really meant seriously.)
Now repeat it all again with clinical practice and treatment as proposed by a standard manual.
Now again with a field with no legal professionalization (e.g., mine, in “cybersecurity”).
Now do it again with a field where there is debate over the correct answer to a relevant question. For example, some people have argued in favour of “explainable” artificial intelligence; others against because to do so would curtail the use of important tools.
Now do it again with a question where the human species disputes the answer.
Note well that these categories overlap! And yes, this is sort of a slippery slope format, but I would encourage this not to affect one’s thinking too much – and yet it also sort of should? Why? Margin of error, in my view – I am a strong fan of looking at views next to one’s own just in case one strays over the line accidentally. (Whatever that line is!)
Which of these deserve reproach and why? From whom? Which are governed by principles of freedom of speech (or expression?). There are, in Canada, legal principles here of various kinds. I am not really interested in those as much as the question of ethics and encouraging people to find what “knobs” affect their decisions here? Share your reaction to mine and any other such knobs you can see. (If of course the comparative legal situation interests you, by all means explore that too!)
For those who follow philosophy of religion, ask how you would use modal logic to analyze the traditional theological claim “God is a necessary being.” This is harder than it sounds, especially if one keeps the domains and ranges correct as I have suggested one must. Hint: Alvin Plantinga’s use basically reduces to a question of which modal logic to use, and he has to independently motivate that or beg the question. (Worse, he then must contend with the domain question, too.)
I think that the criteria to be censured for public expression might be dependent on the answers to these questions: 1) On what authority (professional, legal, moral, academic, etc.) are you making these assertions? 2) In what media are you publicizing your assertions? 3) Who is the intended (or vulnerable) audience for your remarks? 4) What are the consequences if you are unpopular but correct? 5) What are the consequences if you are popular but wrong?
As for what is covered by current freedom of speech legislation, I am not sure, but I am guessing that most anything would be legal, outside of treason or hate speech.
If a professional (engineer, doctor, lawyer….) believes that some standard in the field is overly stringent or unnecessarily burdensome, then I think they are free to argue that via the internal channels of the field (as long as they continue to follow accepted practice in the mean time). If their proposal is stupid, then they will suffer reputation loss and career damage, and that alone is an appropriate punishment. If they argue their position publicly, then it becomes a matter of degree: Is it clearly ridiculous? Does their rhetoric get abusive towards the profession? The “knob” here is that, if at some point they are undermining public confidence, they should be subject to professional censure. In a field with no formal professionalization, reputational damage is as far as it can go.
For questions outside of professional standards, where humans disagree, then I think everything goes, barring arguable and difficult-to-delimit exceptions for hate speech, incitement, etc.