Behavioral Economics and Rationality, Economic Methods, Politics and Economics
Search EconLog
Is "Intentions=Results" a Straw Man?
By Bryan Caplan
I was struck by this passage in the recent WaPo profile of the Federalist Society:
The newly solidified conservative majority on the court will inevitably decide more cases in line with the society's ideals — which include checking federal power, protecting individual liberty and interpreting the Constitution according to its original meaning. In practice, this could mean fewer regulations of the environment and health care, more businesses allowed to refuse service to customers on religious grounds, and denial of protections claimed by newly vocal classes of minorities, such as transgender people.
Question: Given this framing, how many readers would not leap to the conclusions that due to the influence of the Federalist Society…
1. The environment and health will deteriorate.
2. A noticeable number of businesses will refuse service on religious grounds.
3. Transgender people will on balance be worse off.
After all, the laws the Federalist Society opposes intend to help the environment and health, and intend to reduce religious and trans discrimination. And Intentions=Results, right?
You could call this a straw man, but I don't think so. This is how I was taught until I starting learning economics in my senior year of high school. And until I opened those economics books, Intentions=Results was precisely how I saw the world. It's mind-boggling to think that there are lots of people who silently reach the economist's epiphany that Intentions and Results are two very different things.
At least to me.
Categories: Behavioral Economics and Rationality Economic Methods Politics and Economics
Jonathan S
Jan 23 2019 at 2:53pm
If it isn't Intention=Results, it would be a commitment to principle over efficiency (for an economist perhaps the principle is efficiency).
If I'm a progressive, I may have a standard of human rights where transgender people should be able to use the bathroom of their choice regardless of the bathroom owner's wishes and regardless of the deadweight loss of that policy. Let's say this "well-intentioned" policy backfires and trans people are now worse off. If I am mayor of progressive San Francisco and I want to keep my job, I may have an incentive to continue to support this bad policy as a form of political signaling even if I understand that trans people are worse off. In most democracies, nuance loses.
Jairaj Devadiga
I've even had people tell me that politicians and policies should be judged by their intentions, and not their results. Meaning they know that the two are different.
The idea is that their preferred politician is always well meaning and tries to do good, but there are outside forces conspiring against them and preventing from producing results.
For example, Maduro constantly blames the opposition, the US and everyone for the failures of his socialism.
Or Trump supporters defending his failures by invoking the "Deep State". Supporters of Modi do something similar in India.
The mental gymnastics people undertake and the boogeymen they conjure are a sight to behold.
Jan 25 2019 at 12:55am
I know a staunch Indian libertarian, who I strongly suspect is Chicago trained (goes on and on about consequentialism, logical positivism and Friedman), who makes statements like, "It's been a breeze since 2014." just because it wasn't INC that won the election.
I mean, he's probably useful as a political commentator for supporting who he believes (and is probably correct) is the lesser of two evils, but it makes his arguments distasteful.
Even libertarians, ironically, sometimes, aren't immune to this.
I have combed through wikipedia's list of fallacies page and did not hit on one that matches what you're talking about exactly. The closest I found was appeal to consequences. However, one thing that's interesting is that the author is kind of concealing their beliefs. They're not jumping to conclusions themselves so much as encouraging the reader to jump to conclusions. So maybe the fallacy of pushing to conclusions?
Jan 24 2019 at 9:17am
I found a number of them that might be applied here.
False Dilemma: "Either we enact the proposed legislation or else the environment, etc. are doomed."
Mind Projection: Just because someone thinks these laws will help the environment, etc. does not mean they actually will.
Magical Thinking: Passing a law that forbids certain actions doesn't mean people will no longer engage in those actions.
Appeal to Consequences: (as you already noted).
Wishful Thinking: Just because we want certain laws to be effective doesn't mean they actually are.
" how many readers would not leap to the conclusions "
I hope not many. I give the readers a little more credit than such a simplistic conclusion.
Rob Weir
English common law has the principle, "Everything which is not forbidden is allowed."
Quantum physics has, "Everything not forbidden is compulsory."
It sounds like we have a new principle at play now, "Everything not forbidden is intended."
Hazel Meade
I think you are leaping to conclusions here.
The paragraph here seems carefully stated so as NOT to imply those things.
For instance "fewer regulations" doesn't imply negative effects on the environment. I just means fewer regulations.
More businesses "allowed" to discriminate does not necessarily imply that they *will* discriminate. If they wanted to say more businesses will discriminate, they could have said that, but they used the word "allowed".
Similarly they used the words denial of protections "claimed" by "newly vocal" classes of minorities, which says nothing about whether those claims are legitimate. Again, if they wanted to say those claims were legitimate they would have left out the word "claimed" and just said "denial of protections of minorities".
In all three cases, the wording is carefully selected to NOT render judgement about whether any of the stated effects are actually good or bad. they could have used other, more judgemental wording , but didn't.
I think how they framed it may reflect judgmental wording. For example, "allowing to discriminate" could equally be stated as "protecting businesses' right to discriminate", or "denial of protections" as "elimination of special status" or "special protections." The choice to present a policy as denying something good rather than removing a special status, or allowing someone to do something bad, rather than protecting a right to do something (whether good or bad) has judgmental connotations. One could argue that my alternatives presented are also judgmental, but I think that would just show the difficulty in finding actual 'neutral' wording.
I would agree that they seem to be trying to avoid infusing judgment, and their description of the 'society's ideals' may suggest an effort to interpretation the Federalist Society's ideals as the federalist society's understands them. But I don't think they necessarily succeeded in expunging implicit judgment from the writing. That may of course be nearly impossible.
Feb 11 2019 at 9:22am
If we look at the intentions = results view, we need to note that most of the "great evils of humanity" have been a result of "good intentions".
Good intentions to honor a deity have and still are killed tens of missions. From the viewpoint of the 9/11 highjackers, they had such good intentions they were willing to sacrifice their lives.
People like Mao had wonderful intentions with his "great leap forward" and "cultural revolution" programs while creating one of the worst human disasters in the history of humanity by starving some 40 million or so people.
COLLECTION: BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS AND RATIONALITY
The article you're reading is part of Econlib's Behavioral Economics and Rationality collection. Explore other Behavioral Economics and Rationality articles:
Historically Hollow: The Cries of Populism
Jencks on Incentives and Single Motherhood
Monetize Your Anger
£s for Brexit