From my perspective you’re glossing over the distinction between rationality and values and that opens multiple ways for dismissing your arguments. For example,
You know that confirmation bias corrupts your thinking if you dismiss the opinions of experts on topics you don’t really understand.
Not necessarily—if I know that the opinion of experts is driven by certain values and I reject these values, I can reasonably dismiss the experts’ opinions even if I don’t understand the technicalities. In crude terms, I don’t care how they propose to get to X if I don’t want to go to X.
Same thing:
...you have never done the graduate level work in mathematics and statistics necessary to properly evaluate what the IMF does.
A lot of people in your audience reject “what the IMF does” on the basis of values. Grad level math is entirely unnecessary for that.
You kinda recognize that in the beginning by admitting that you don’t want to invite Moloch worshipers even if you don’t have a graduate degree in religious studies.
One more nitpick/question—what in the world is an “objectively reasonable political belief” and how do you distinguish it from an “objectively unreasonable” one? Do you just mean a correct view of reality?
A lot of people in your audience reject “what the IMF does” on the basis of values.
Research shows that people with certain political opinions are much worse than average in understanding what their opponents believe. A lot of “rejecting on the basis of values” is probably based on this.
(Step 1: I completely strawman my opponent, including his values. Step 2: I “rationally” reject my opponent’s conclusion, despite his arguments and expertise, because it was based on such horrible values.)
Of course, this is another inferential step, too much for one article. Also, the argument applies recursively: why should anyone trust the research, if it was probably done by people with evil values?
Research shows that people with certain political opinions are much worse than average in understanding what their opponents believe.
I tend to quite sceptical of research which claims to show that people from the enemy political tribe make up stuff all the time and are just stupid :-/
A lot of “rejecting on the basis of values” is probably based on this.
I’m not too sure about that. Rejection on the basis of values is a very simple and basic operation. Consider e.g. abortion or gun debates—the issue is not that one sides misunderstands reality.
A: I am against guns, because guns kill people and I am against killing people. I am horrified that someone likes killing people.
B: No, I don’t like killing people, that’s nonsense. I believe that having guns would reduce killings. Here is my model that kinda supports my argument...
A: Nice try! But I know you truly are just another nutjob who likes killing people. See, we have fundamentally different values, that’s why we can never agree.
Okay; I admit that I am not an American, and I have never debated any Americans on this topic. I am just extrapolating from my general model of people. But I have a feeling that if I went to a random progressive American university, chose dozen random anti-gun students and asked them: “explain to me why some people are pro-guns”, most of them wouldn’t give an answer “because according to their model (which is factually wrong, of course), owning guns prevents human deaths”. Instead I would probably hear something about crazyness or religion or something like that. (If there actually was some research about this, I would like to see the results.)
You can’t drink alcohol on a beach in New Jersey (without a permit). Why? Because some idiot was unreasonable once, and someone complained, and now there is a universal quantifier in place.
It’s hard to draw lines against scoundrel behavior in a way that avoids undesirable side effects for reasonable people (law is hard because it is a kind of applied analytic philosophy).
For those two, sure. What ‘pro-life’ means to people who consider themselves pro-life, and what people who consider themselves pro-choice model it meaning, are not the same. Similarly, gun control people largely have a very different relationship with and understanding of guns, and so don’t have an accurate conception of what gun rights people see themselves as protecting. In both cases, the reverse is also true.
From my perspective you’re glossing over the distinction between rationality and values and that opens multiple ways for dismissing your arguments. For example,
Not necessarily—if I know that the opinion of experts is driven by certain values and I reject these values, I can reasonably dismiss the experts’ opinions even if I don’t understand the technicalities. In crude terms, I don’t care how they propose to get to X if I don’t want to go to X.
Same thing:
A lot of people in your audience reject “what the IMF does” on the basis of values. Grad level math is entirely unnecessary for that.
You kinda recognize that in the beginning by admitting that you don’t want to invite Moloch worshipers even if you don’t have a graduate degree in religious studies.
One more nitpick/question—what in the world is an “objectively reasonable political belief” and how do you distinguish it from an “objectively unreasonable” one? Do you just mean a correct view of reality?
Thanks for the constructive criticism.
Yes, but I didn’t want to mention the T word. There is only so much inferential distance you can cover in 400 words.
A wise choice, probably :-) but you can also phrase it something like “consistent with what we see in reality”...
Research shows that people with certain political opinions are much worse than average in understanding what their opponents believe. A lot of “rejecting on the basis of values” is probably based on this.
(Step 1: I completely strawman my opponent, including his values. Step 2: I “rationally” reject my opponent’s conclusion, despite his arguments and expertise, because it was based on such horrible values.)
Of course, this is another inferential step, too much for one article. Also, the argument applies recursively: why should anyone trust the research, if it was probably done by people with evil values?
I tend to quite sceptical of research which claims to show that people from the enemy political tribe make up stuff all the time and are just stupid :-/
I’m not too sure about that. Rejection on the basis of values is a very simple and basic operation. Consider e.g. abortion or gun debates—the issue is not that one sides misunderstands reality.
I imagine gun debates like this:
A: I am against guns, because guns kill people and I am against killing people. I am horrified that someone likes killing people.
B: No, I don’t like killing people, that’s nonsense. I believe that having guns would reduce killings. Here is my model that kinda supports my argument...
A: Nice try! But I know you truly are just another nutjob who likes killing people. See, we have fundamentally different values, that’s why we can never agree.
Okay; I admit that I am not an American, and I have never debated any Americans on this topic. I am just extrapolating from my general model of people. But I have a feeling that if I went to a random progressive American university, chose dozen random anti-gun students and asked them: “explain to me why some people are pro-guns”, most of them wouldn’t give an answer “because according to their model (which is factually wrong, of course), owning guns prevents human deaths”. Instead I would probably hear something about crazyness or religion or something like that. (If there actually was some research about this, I would like to see the results.)
You can’t drink alcohol on a beach in New Jersey (without a permit). Why? Because some idiot was unreasonable once, and someone complained, and now there is a universal quantifier in place.
It’s hard to draw lines against scoundrel behavior in a way that avoids undesirable side effects for reasonable people (law is hard because it is a kind of applied analytic philosophy).
Maybe they don’t misunderstand reality, but they may well misunderstand what the other side means when they state their objections.
The abortion and gun control debates are loud and public. Do you have a specific misunderstanding to point to?
For those two, sure. What ‘pro-life’ means to people who consider themselves pro-life, and what people who consider themselves pro-choice model it meaning, are not the same. Similarly, gun control people largely have a very different relationship with and understanding of guns, and so don’t have an accurate conception of what gun rights people see themselves as protecting. In both cases, the reverse is also true.