HERE’S an interesting article dug out by Steve Webster, which is relevant to a discussion we were having at a meeting of Salisbury for Europe on 18 September.
Also relevant to this debate is an excellent book called The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, which features in an article I wrote for this blog called Where is reason? In it they seek to topple formal logic from its pedestal and restore reasoning proper to its evolutionary function.
They write: “In our interactionist account, reason’s bias and laziness aren’t flaws; they are features that help reason fulfil its function…Reason properly understood as a tool for social interaction is certainly not perfect, but flawed it is not.”
It is this approach to reasoning, I believe, that forms one of the building blocks of Salisbury Democracy Café.
Dickie.
An interesting article.
Varol argues that we cannot win over people to our own viewpoint by using facts to “prove” the correctness of our position because people of confirmation bias, i.e. the tendency to believe facts only that support our currently held beliefs. Instead, he suggests that we need to change people’s minds by giving them a face saving way out of their currently held position by convincing them that it was perfectly reasonable for them to hold that position given the facts at the time, but now the facts have changed and so must their mind. I am fine with this.
However, he goes on to contend that in order to distance ourselves from our beliefs we ought to separate ourselves from our own arguments so that we give our own arguments an objective life of their own. So, he suggests for example, writing papers which say, “this paper suggests…” instead of “in this paper I suggest…” I don’t see how we can separate our arguments from our own identity and our own values? It would be more honest to retain the “I” at the centre of the argument and explain the values that underpin it so that those who are listening are made aware of the values and the belief systems of the speaker. To my mind, any attempt at objectifying the argument is claiming a truth for an argument that is refutable under other value systems.
Varol argues that we need to be willing to change our minds on issues when the evidence suggests the contrary and that failure to do so makes us fundamentalists, which he implies is wrong. Such an assertion ignores the importance of values and belief systems
For example, I am a strong believer in comprehensive schooling as opposed to selective education such as grammar schools. This is a strongly held belief of mine which I could see being overturned if it could be shown that a selective education system leads to greater social mobility, less elitist attitudes and greater equality of outcomes. If a study was done which showed these to be the case then I would want to know the context of that study, the belief systems of the people who conducted the study and the values that underpinned the study, as well as the academic rigour with which it was conducted. Those who argue for a selective education system hold a different set of values and beliefs to mine and for them evidence suggesting that selective education leads to less social mobility, more elitist attitudes and greater inequality does not matter because those things do not matter to them. They are not important for them because they have a different set of values and belief system.
This is not to say that we should never change our minds when the facts contradict our beliefs, but it is saying that those facts should be questioned and validated (set in the context of the author’s values) before being accepted.
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I understand what you are saying Mark but I would add, firstly, that many people arguing for selective education seem to be doing so because they believe that it actually leads to greater social mobility. They cite the massive increase in social mobility shortly after WW2 and before the arrival of comprehensive education as proof of their argument (what they neglect to say, of course, that there may be other reasons for this, the main one being that there was a massive increase in white collar jobs in those days that needed filling whatever the educational set-up was). And while it would be right to question the context of a study that challenged the Comprehensive school model, if the study turned out to be sound, then it would be right for us to change our minds (I’m with you regarding Comprehensive education by the way and would find this difficult). As it happens, however, the truth or otherwise of the study would leave the underlying belief system of greater social mobility, equality and less elitism untouched.
But even for those that simply do not believe in greater social mobility, greater equality and less elitism I think that that in itself is not a justification for what used to be called a true belief. It is possible to challenge their views on ethical grounds, which have a degree of objectivity. For example, if someone says that we should not give every moral agent equal consideration of their interests (a moral claim suggested by Peter Singer), we are entitled to ask what their justification for this position is. Simply saying that they have a different set of values or beliefs simply rebuts the moral claim, but it does not refute it.
So I’m not totally opposed to Varol’s attempt to objectify his argument because I think a degree of objectivity is important not only in empirical studies but in ethical claims as well. Important work in this field was done by the philosopher Thomas Nagel who came up with the idea of personal and impersonal points of view and how the two are connected. For example, he argued that if you subjectively (personal viewpoint) have an interest in relieving a pain than objectively (impersonal viewpoint) you have a prima facie case for relieving pain in others. In this way he tries to transcend the pure subjectivity of values and beliefs.
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