Rationality, Generalizations, and Loyalty

[Robert Justin Lipkin]

        I think that we should demand much more of rationality than the 
simple fact of national origin before we judge it rational to question 
someone's loyalty however we define ‘loyalty.’ There's a world of difference 
between being a member of the American Nazi Party and being Japanese-American 
during WWII even if German-American were second-generation and 
Japanese-Americans were first-generation Americans.   Among other important 
distinctions, of course, is the fact that the American Nazi has acted while 
the Japanese-American has not without concrete evidence otherwise.   Without 
more evidence it is only trivially true that the Japanese-American may be 
disloyal. To make it true or even plausible, one needs to appeal to an 
empirical generalization stating that a person's national origin is a factor 
in his or her loyalties. Appealing to such a generalization--a generalization 
that needs confirmation not just surmise--even if true, is only trivially 
true. There are just too many possibilities of discomfirmation in any given 
case or within any group of X-Americans. That's one reason why, in my view, 
it is irrational to base judgments of loyalty on a generalization that is 
virtually empirically empty. 
 
       In comparing a group of Americans with a group of X-Americans, it 
takes merely one disloyal X-American for the generalization to be true 
irrespective of the size of the groups. So in a group of one thousand 
Americans and a group of one thousand X-Americans the generalization is 
confirmed if no American is disloyal and merely one X-American is disloyal. 
This leaves 999 loyal X-Americans. In my view, rationality in practical 
reasoning and judgment requires more support than merely being more likely 
than not. Rationality in practical reasoning, including judicial reasoning, 
is a richer notion I would think. Indeed, given the actual historical 
context, and the devastating implications judgments of disloyalty have such 
inferences highly irrational. In my view, neither the possibility of 
preventing sabotage nor the acontextual generalization that national origin 
makes disloyalty more likely than not relieves us of the obligation of 
discovering concrete evidence of disloyalty and of eschewing the use of 
proxies in this area.  
 
Bobby Lipkin
Widener University School of Law
Delaware

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