The Role of Stories in



Narrative vs. Logical Reasoning in Computer Ethics

by John M. Artz, Ph.D.

There is nothing like a clear, tight, well developed logical argument - context independent and objectively verifiable to the extent that anyone with some basic instruction in logical reasoning can verify the conclusions. And once we have an argument reduced to a formal logical structure (the extreme, of course, being a mathematical representation) we feel as though the issue is well understood. Logical reasoning provides us with an intellectually economical means of making sense out of the world around us in a manner that can be shared with other people and verified individually. It would be great if all of our vexing problems could be reduced to logical arguments. We could simply articulate the assumptions, follow the rules of logical reasoning, and adopt the conclusions. Unfortunately, life is not that simple.

As much as we revere logical reasoning we also mistrust it. Characters from Thomas Gradgrind in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times to Mr. Spock on Star Trek reveal our instinctive mistrust of logic taken to an extreme. We know that there is more to reasoning than pure logic, but most of us do not know what it is. From our own experience we know that ethical issues often defy logical reasoning because the assumptions are based in conflicting and inarticulable human values and desires. Death penalty, euthanasia, abortion, right to die and cloning among many others, are ethical issues where logical reasoning has gotten us nowhere. Issues in computer ethics, which seem tame by comparison have similarly escaped the net of logical reasoning for similar reasons that will be discussed later. If logic fails us in these important problems, where can we turn for help in working through them ?

Both Gradgrind and Spock, while caricaturing the extremes of logical reasoning, represent a different kind of argument - a narrative argument. They are believable characters, behaving in a manner that is consist both with their own character representation and our experience of how people behave. And they convince the reader of an important point. Dickens does not come right out and say that Gradgrind is a lesser kind of person. He does not produce a logical argument in which he claims that logic applied to every situation will miss important things about life. Yet without a single articulated assumption or syllogism, Dicken’s makes it quite clear to the reader that Gradgrind is not the kind of person that you want to be. And he does it through the use of narrative reasoning.

Narrative vs. Logical Reasoning

Narrative and logical reasoning represent two distinct methods of making sense out of the world around us. They are both legitimate and rigorous. Sometimes they provide alternative paths to truth and understanding. Sometimes one or the other provides the only path. This dichotomy is described by Bruner:

“There are two modes of cognitive functioning, two modes of thought, each providing distinct ways ordering experience, of constructing reality. … A good story and a well-formed argument are different natural kinds. Both can used as a means for convincing another. Yet what they convince of is fundamentally different: arguments convince one of their truth, stories of their lifelikeness.” [pg. 11]

Traditionally truth is a correspondence between what one believes and what is actually the case in the physical world. But literary truth is a correspondence between how characters behave in a story and how they would behave in similar circumstances in real life. Hence the ‘lifelikenss’ of stories is different kind of truth - truth about human nature.

Robinson and Hawpe elaborate on this dichotomy further by distinguishing between scientific (propositional) thinking and narrative thinking:

“In both, the goal is the establishment of cause and effect relations between factors. Both are attempts to organize and give meaning to human experience, to explain and guide problem solving. But the products of these two modes of thought, story and principle respectively, are quite distinct. The product of scientific theorizing is a principle, or law. These principles are general, context-free, usually abstract, and testable only by further formal scientific activity. The product of narrative thought, story, is context-bound, concrete, and testable though ordinary interpersonal checking.” [p. 114]

They go on to say,

“Perhaps the most radical difference between scientific and narrative thinking is in cast of mind: the scientist strives to eliminate ambiguity and uncertainty and is uncomfortable when there are two equally credible theoretical accounts of some phenomenon. In contrast, in our everyday reasoning about social reality we live comfortably with apparent contradictions. We want explanations which are convincing enough to be accepted as true, but recognize that there could be alternative accounts which tell a different but equally persuasive story.” [p. 115]

Logical reasoning is general, context independent, objective and leads to a single conclusion. Narrative reasoning is specific, context dependent, open to subjective interpretation, and potentially leads to multiple conclusions. The characteristics of narrative reasoning are considered flaws when applied to logical reasoning. But the reverse applies also. A story that has only one interpretation and means the same to everyone isn’t much of a story. The point of generality, however, is a little confusing. Great literature is great because of its timelessness. But timelessness and generality are not the same. The situation described in a good story tends to resonate with a ring of truth with readers perhaps centuries later. Yet, while the sequence of events may be very common to many people, the situation itself is usually very specific.

While narrative and logical reasoning are different kinds of reasoning, different ways to organize our experiences and make sense out of the world, they are not mutually exclusive. A good narrative is also often quite logical in structure, and a good logical argument can often be better understood with a good narrative example. Narrative reasoning can also be inductive or deductive. It is inductive when it provides us with experiences that we use to formulate our opinions about life. It is deductive when it establishes a model of behavior that we wish to follow. Thus, logical and narrative reasoning are not either/or approaches to reasoning. They are complimentary alternative modes of thinking that provide different paths to truth and understanding.

Rigor in Narrative Reasoning

A concern, some may have, about narrative reasoning is that it may not be as rigorous as logical reasoning. After all, syllogisms are syllogisms, and stories are stories. However, much of this concern results not from a lack of rigor in narrative reasoning, but from the lack of documentation and refinement of the rules of narrative reasoning. Logical reasoning was not rigorous until Aristotle began codifying it. George Boole took it further in his classic book on logic “An investigation of the laws of thought”. Each of these efforts were attempts to make logical reasoning more rigorous, which is to say that logical reasoning is not inherently any more rigorous than narrative reasoning. Today, we refine our reasoning abilities by studying logical fallacies and logical reasoning under the popular heading of critical thinking. It is interesting to note that Boole believed that he was actually codifying the ‘laws of thought’. Subsequent research in the psychology of deductive reasoning shows that people are not inherently logical: logical rigor is learned. Similarly, narrative rigor can also be refined and learned.

Narrative reasoning has similar rules which are being articulated today under the name of narratology. [Bal] Narratives must follow specific structural rules. They must have a plot, believable characters and a meaningful setting. There must be a coherent temporal sequence told from a consistent point of view. And the temporal sequence must embody some sort of causality. The often quoted E.M. Forster offers the following observation:

“A plot is a also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. ‘The king died and then the queen died’ is a story. ‘The king died , and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.” [pg. 86]

In fact, if someone were to tell the story - ‘Bill won the lottery and Bob filled his car up with gas.’ - the listener would automatically wonder what the connection was between Bill and Bob. If the storyteller were to say that there is no connection, the listener would dismiss the story instantly as being silly. Thus, stories, if they are to be believable, if they are to convince us of their ‘lifelikeness’ must follow the rules of narrative.

Genre fiction is yet even more tightly constructed with rules that define the genre. In Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton used the science fiction genre to explore ethical issues in biotechnology. Science fiction allows the use of technologies that have not been invented or developed, yet the genre still requires that they be believable extrapolations of today’s technology. In order to make the premise plausible, Crichton, following the rules of narrative and genre, had to create a believable explanation for how dinosaurs were brought back to life. The idea of extracting dinosaur DNA from the blood in mosquitoes that were trapped in amber may or may not be scientifically feasible, but it is plausible enough to meet the structural requirements of the genre and the expectations of the readers. Instead of using a narrative approach, Crichton could have just stated the logical proposition - If you tinker around with complex living systems without taking the time to fully understand them, you might create problems that you cannot control. But that would have been much less convincing than the book.

The most tightly constructed narrative is the short story. “Everything must work with everything else. Everything enhances everything else, interrelates with everything else, is inseparable from everything else – and all this is done with a necessary and perfect economy.” [Hills, pg. 4] Which is to say that the ‘ideal’ short story can be thought of as the quintessential tightly constructed narrative argument. From a pedagogical perspective, short stories provide great promise. They take less time to read and have fewer distractions than novels. Short stories can be used, in the classroom, to rigorously explore specific ethical issues in computer ethics with a much greater richness than is possible through purely analytical arguments. But alas there are all too few short stories available.

Certainly stories can be used to mislead, but so can logical arguments. The many book published on critical thinking and logical fallacies are a testament to vagaries of logical reasoning. There are fallacies in narrative reasoning as well, only they have not been identified and named with the same diligence as logical reasoning fallacies have been. Yet, at bottom, a logical argument must ‘make sense’ and so must a narrative argument. If a story is not believable then the characters are not acting in a way that we believe people would behave based on our own experiences.

The Use of Narratives in Computer Ethics

To some extent, logical and narrative reasoning address different domains. Logic is well suited to mechanistic processes that can be reduced to logical description. Logic is good for articulating general principles and deductive reasons. Logic is useful for describing and explaining. While logic is good for describing was is, narrative is good for exploring what could be and figuring out what should be. Narratives are a useful means for understanding the complex and ambiguous issues in human affairs. They allow us to explore possibilities and experience situations vicariously. Narrative reasoning is particularly well suited to computer ethics because many issues are not well understood and the goal of computer ethics is not to discover truth about the physical world, but truth about human nature.

and provide yet another kind of truth.

Telling the truth in fiction can mean one of three things: saying that which is factually correct, a trivial kind of truth, though a kind central to works of verisimilitude; saying that which, by virtue of tone and coherence, does not feel like lying, a more important kind of truth; and discovering and affirming moral truth about human existence – the highest truth of the art. [Gardner, p. 129]

“Discovering and affirming moral truth about human existence.” Narrative fiction gives us a means to explore and discover truths about what could be and what should be. Through narratives we can explore possible consequences of technology, construct alternative worlds and select the one in which we would like to live.

Progress in computer ethics is constrained by two serious problems that also plague many of the other ethical issues that we face today such as those mentioned earlier. The first problem is that we do not know all the possible consequences of these issues. Most speculations lean toward the darkest possibilities but few explore the subtleties of what is really likely to happen. Stories, like Jurassic Park allow us to look at possible outcomes, but there are too few of these stories to allow us to make balanced decisions. The second problem is that we do not know what the possibilities are in terms of ethical stands. Again narratives allow us to create worlds that do not exist, step into them, explore, and determine if they are the kind of world in which you would like to live.

Critics of the use of narrative in ethics point out that after exploring narratives you always have to come back to principles. Ethics, they argue, is too messy without principles and discussion of narratives does not lead to conclusions. This view misses the point of narratives. First principles are developed by extracting the principles from experience. Narratives provide some of these experiences vicariously. Hence, narratives can be used in the development of principles. Second, it is often unclear which principles apply in given situations. Narrative explorations provide insight into situations allowing us to determine the governing principles. And narratives can be used to explore the consequences of principled decisions to determine if the outcomes are indeed what is intended. Finally, narrative reasoning does lead to conclusions - very specific conclusions about very specific situations. Narrative reasoning is lacking in generally, as was mentioned before, not lacking in conclusions.

The relationship between principled and narrative ethics is similar to the relationship between theoretical and empirical science. Theories need data for validation. In turn, theories are need to make sense out of data. It does not make sense to ask whether theory construction or data collection is more important. It only makes sense to ask which is appropriate at a given point in an investigation. Similarly, it does not make sense to ask whether principled logical reasoning or narrative reasoning is more appropriate for understanding ethical situations. It only makes sense to ask which is appropriate at the current point in the investigation. Since principled reasoning breaks down in situations where outcomes cannot be know and values have not been determined, now is a good time to look to narrative reasoning to advance the state of computer ethics.

Bibliography

Bal, M. (1997) Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. University of Toronto Press.

Bruner, J. (1986) Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press.

Forester, E.M. (1927) Aspects of the Novel. Harcourt Brace & Company.

Gardner, J. (1991) The Art of Fiction. New York: Vintage Books.

Hill, R. (1987) Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular. Houghton Mifflin Company.

Robinson, J.A. & Hawpe, L. (1986) Narrative thinking as a heuristic process. In T.R. Sarbin (Ed.) Narrative Psychology: The storied nature of human conduct. (pp. 111-125). New York: Praeger.

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