Does Schopenhauer Help Explain Trump? Brian Stelter, Bob Woodward, and "Leopard Spot" Counterfactuals

Brian Stelter’s CNN Business article today, entitled “Bob Woodward's Reporting Prompts the Question: What if Trump Had Risen to the Occasion?” serves as a good example of a “Leopard Spot Counterfactual.”  And interestingly enough, it underscores the relevance of Arthur Schopenhauser's 1819 book, The World as Will and Idea (see below).

Stelter expresses the wistful (or furious) conviction of countless Americans traumatized by the COVID-19 pandemic that if only President Trump had acted differently when the virus first hit the U. S. things would have been different.  As we now know from Bob Woodard’s book (and audio tapes), Trump knew full well about the virus’s severity but still did very little to combat it.

Selter writes, 

"Trump's statements to Woodward force us, well, force some of us at least, to wonder: What if? What if Trump had risen to the occasion? What if he had been more forthright with the public about what he was hearing in private? What if the federal government's early failures regarding testing hadn't hobbled the initial response to the virus? What if the feds had closed the front door of the house, and all the side doors, in the form of earlier European travel bans, instead of just partially closing the back door from China?

 

I could go on and on but it's mightily depressing. What if the president had addressed the nation once, twice, three times and introduced concepts like "social distancing" and "flattening the curve" in February? What if, instead of accusing Democrats of coming up with a "new hoax," he had partnered with them? What if he had spent less time talking to Woodward? What if someone else had been president?

 

Just a couple more questions: What if this 9/11-level failure had been treated like a 9/11-level failure last spring? Would our children be back in school? Would some of our loved ones still be alive?”

 

These “what ifs” are all timely.  But they are all irrelevant – certainly in terms of plausibility – since we know by now everything we need to know about Trump’s character and realize that our desire for him to have acted differently amount to wishful thinking.

 

It amounts to – or can be seen as an example of -- a “leopard spot counterfactual.”

 

I’ve discussed leopard spot counterfactuals in the past (see LINK), but the gist of them is as follows: in speculating about how someone might have acted differently (and avoided missing out on a golden opportunity) this type of “what if” ignores the fact that a “leopard can’t change its spots.”  That is to say, it ignores the fact that most people cannot act in ways contrary to their character.  

 

Arthur Schopenhauer put it well (I’ve been reading about how the famed German philosopher used counterfactuals in my ongoing research) when he discussed human decision making in his 1819 book, The World as Will and Idea.

 

Schopenhauer recognized the temptation of thinking counterfactually, writing

“No evil that befalls us pains us so much as the thought of the circumstances by which it might have been warded off.”

 

But he recognized that human beings were restricted in their possible actions by their character.  As he put it:

 

“I can do what I will: yes, provided I will it. I can give all my goods to the poor and thus become poor myself — if I will! But I have not the Will, because the opposing motives are far too strong. If, however, I had another character, if I were a saint, I might will it; but if so, I could not help willing it, and I should thus be obliged to do it.”

 

In other words, to have acted differently, Trump would have to have been not himself and instead have been someone else.

 

We can regret his actions, but we ought not fool ourselves into thinking he was capable of acting differently.

 

(Thanks to Heiko Henning for bringing this article to my attention).