Friedman, Williams, and Intellectual Charity
more on Jeffrey Friedman's analysis of social epistemology
Jeffrey Friedman has a strong belief in intellectual charity. Dan Williams explains that this means
rather than trying to debunk or deconstruct beliefs by tracing them to underlying social, political, economic, material, or psychological causes, we should treat people’s worldviews seriously and sympathetically as an independent explanatory domain.
Friedman’s demand for intellectual charity seems too strong. Williams writes,
although Friedman’s commitment to intellectual charity—to treating people as sincere, rational agents rather than dismissing their views as consequences of deception, self-deception, or irrationality—is refreshing, it is also excessive.
it is a fallacy to infer from the fact that error and disagreement can be caused by purely honest, rational processes that they always are.
In other words, we can legitimately accuse other people of tribalism or signaling, even if we ourselves are sometimes guilty of those sins.
We engage in motivated reasoning. We advocate for beliefs and narratives that promote our and our favourite groups’ interests and adopt ideas that win us trust and status within our ingroup.
Ashamnu, Bagadnu, etc. But contra Friedman, Williams says,
you cannot understand American politics and its epistemological character if you treat people as dispassionate, truth-seeking robots. Humans are strategic, status-seeking primates who view reality in ways biased by self-interest and tribal allegiances.
Rejecting the nonjudgmentalism that seems implied by Friedman’s intellectual charity, Williams writes,
Experts are often overconfident and wrong. Whole bodies of putatively scientific knowledge are commonly built on sand. These problems are exacerbated by a situation where the line between progressive activism and science is not always clear (and sometimes wilfully blurred). And in many ways, things are even worse within establishment liberal media.
These and numerous other factors ensure that the blue tribe’s picture of reality is frequently biased, selective, or plain wrong. Moreover, without these evident problems with America’s epistemic institutions, the red tribe’s proud rejection of such institutions would probably not be possible.
Nevertheless, the blue tribe’s problems are much less severe than those confronting the red tribe.
The Republican Party and conservative media today have become almost fully unmoored from reality. Utterly baseless lies, fabrications, conspiracy theories, and absurdities run rampant. Nearly everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth is a lie or exaggeration. And remarkably, this situation seems to worsen as time passes.
Intellectual charity can help us to take the other side seriously. But in order to achieve better social epistemology, we need to fix the systems that determine who becomes influential. We should want success to go to people who best pursue truth, not those who are the best at playing the tribalism game.
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“Nevertheless, the blue tribe’s problems are much less severe than those confronting the red tribe.” Not surprising that an academic, I presume without children, would believe this. Sure Trump is a bad guy. We know that. He is a reflection of the average red tribesperson in some distorted, demented way required by presidential politics. This is disappointing to realize, but I say the blue tribe has much bigger problems than the red tribe. I encourage Dan to tour around America with me. Let’s take a drive through red counties. Get out of your ivory tower, off your computer and meet the red tribe in person. I have lived here for 48 years in blue and red. The blue tribe suffers from and causes more mental illness than the red, especially in children. Or have I misunderstood Dan’s statements? I admit to not having read his very lengthy essay this time. I skimmed. Dan - can you please make your posts more concise and stop using so much philosophical jargon? I know you have good stuff to say, but try upping your status among the red tribe. Break it down for us bro.
Re: "in order to achieve better social epistemology, we need to fix the systems that determine who becomes influential."
1) There is no Archimedean point at which truth-seekers might uplift the systems. Truth-seekers lack sufficient influence to change the systems.
2) The principle of charity in interpretation has sub-principles:
Clarify whether the disagreement centers on (a) facts, (b) mechanisms, or (c) preferences. For example, people might share a desire to reduce poverty (preferences), and even agree about patterns of poverty (facts), but disagree about whether a major increase in the Minimum Wage would reduce poverty (mechanism). In any case, pinpoint the disagreement.
Then, for the moment, assume that the person who holds a contrary view is rational. She is clear-eyed about her motivations. She takes reasonable care to get the facts straight and to understand mechanisms — or, alternatively, she humbly and carefully channels deference. She decides what to believe by deciding — thoughtfully, wisely? — whom to believe.
Finally, if these sub-principles of the principle of charity in interpretation happen to indicate that the person's beliefs (about facts or mechanisms) are irrational, or that her preferences are inconsistent, then proceed to establish the *specific* irrationality. Wishful thinking (believing what one wishes to be true)? Counter-wishful thinking (believing what one fears to be true)? Innumeracy? Conformity? Social desirability bias (believing what *sounds* good)? Etc etc etc. Precision in any diagnosis of irrationality is potentially a first step towards insight and humility.
3) At the risk of being uncharitable: The grand conversation or debate (Huemer, Kling, Williams, etc) about polarization via social epistemology focusses on careful analysis of belief-formation but reduces motivations to (unconscious?) tribal status-seeking. Although evolutionary psychology sheds fresh light on motivations and social dynamics, there is still room and need for more fine-grained analysis of motivations. We still need to build on the moralists: Montaigne, Machiavelli, Pascal, La Rochefoucault, Smith, etc.