I’m inclined to agree on your latter point: looking at the results of the survey, it seems like it would be easy to go from ‘rationalist’ as a procedural label to ‘rationalist’ as shorthand for ‘atheist male computer programmer using bayesian rules.’ Of course, that’s a common bias, and I think this community is as ready as any to fight it.
As for the former, I tried to address that by pointing out that rationalism means that we’ve already decided that updating priors is more effective than prayer. That said, I have a perhaps idealistic view of rationality, in that I think it’s flexible enough to destroy itself, if necessary. I’d like to think that if we learned that our way of reasoning is inferior, we’d readily abandon it. A little too idealistic, perhaps.
That said, I will say that I find purely procedural labels less dangerous than substantive ones. You’ve alluded to the danger of conflating it with substantive labels like atheism, but that’s a separate danger worth looking out for.
So it might be the case that bayesian updating has some quirky memetic mutation that could lead it to destroy itself if it stopped working. Maybe so-called ‘rationalism’ is especially bad at absorbing internal contradictions. But this would be a feature of they belief itself—not a feature of it being a belief about procedure. Many beliefs about procedure are exactly the opposite—take believing that truth can be taken from the Bible. That procedure is self-justifying and there is no way to dispute it from within the assumptions of the procedure.
Mostly, I just don’t think the distinction you are trying to make between “procedural” and “substantive” beliefs holds water. Beliefs about political theory and economics, for example, are almost all procedural beliefs (i.e. the right procedure for making a law or stimulating the economy). What about them would make them immune to labeling problems?
“Many beliefs about procedure are exactly the opposite—take believing that truth can be taken from the Bible. That procedure is self-justifying and there is no way to dispute it from within the assumptions of the procedure.”
That’s my point about rationality—the way I think about it, it would catch its own contradictions. In essence, a rationalist would recognize that rationalists don’t “win.” So as a result, committing yourself to rationality doesn’t actually commit you to an outcome, as perhaps following a scripture would.
The bigger problem, I believe, is that most professed commitment to a procedure is superficial, and that instead most people simply bend the procedure to a preferred outcome. “The Devil may cite scripture for his purpose.” The key, of course, is following the procedure accurately, and this is the community that’ll keep you in line if you try to bend procedure to your preferred conclusion.
“So as a result, committing yourself to rationality doesn’t actually commit you to an outcome, as perhaps following a scripture would.”
Doesn’t committing yourself to rationality commit you to the outcome that so and so “will be rational”? I’m not saying that this is the same exact thing as what evangelical christians do, where they actually twist the lines to reason to their preferred conclusion. But it’s like Jack said, don’t dupe yourself into thinking none of the problems with labeling will apply to you. That’s where you get into a tricky place, because you are ignoring a piece of information that does not jibe with your preferred view of yourself.
I’m inclined to agree on your latter point: looking at the results of the survey, it seems like it would be easy to go from ‘rationalist’ as a procedural label to ‘rationalist’ as shorthand for ‘atheist male computer programmer using bayesian rules.’ Of course, that’s a common bias, and I think this community is as ready as any to fight it.
As for the former, I tried to address that by pointing out that rationalism means that we’ve already decided that updating priors is more effective than prayer. That said, I have a perhaps idealistic view of rationality, in that I think it’s flexible enough to destroy itself, if necessary. I’d like to think that if we learned that our way of reasoning is inferior, we’d readily abandon it. A little too idealistic, perhaps.
That said, I will say that I find purely procedural labels less dangerous than substantive ones. You’ve alluded to the danger of conflating it with substantive labels like atheism, but that’s a separate danger worth looking out for.
So it might be the case that bayesian updating has some quirky memetic mutation that could lead it to destroy itself if it stopped working. Maybe so-called ‘rationalism’ is especially bad at absorbing internal contradictions. But this would be a feature of they belief itself—not a feature of it being a belief about procedure. Many beliefs about procedure are exactly the opposite—take believing that truth can be taken from the Bible. That procedure is self-justifying and there is no way to dispute it from within the assumptions of the procedure.
Mostly, I just don’t think the distinction you are trying to make between “procedural” and “substantive” beliefs holds water. Beliefs about political theory and economics, for example, are almost all procedural beliefs (i.e. the right procedure for making a law or stimulating the economy). What about them would make them immune to labeling problems?
“Many beliefs about procedure are exactly the opposite—take believing that truth can be taken from the Bible. That procedure is self-justifying and there is no way to dispute it from within the assumptions of the procedure.”
That’s my point about rationality—the way I think about it, it would catch its own contradictions. In essence, a rationalist would recognize that rationalists don’t “win.” So as a result, committing yourself to rationality doesn’t actually commit you to an outcome, as perhaps following a scripture would.
The bigger problem, I believe, is that most professed commitment to a procedure is superficial, and that instead most people simply bend the procedure to a preferred outcome. “The Devil may cite scripture for his purpose.” The key, of course, is following the procedure accurately, and this is the community that’ll keep you in line if you try to bend procedure to your preferred conclusion.
“So as a result, committing yourself to rationality doesn’t actually commit you to an outcome, as perhaps following a scripture would.”
Doesn’t committing yourself to rationality commit you to the outcome that so and so “will be rational”? I’m not saying that this is the same exact thing as what evangelical christians do, where they actually twist the lines to reason to their preferred conclusion. But it’s like Jack said, don’t dupe yourself into thinking none of the problems with labeling will apply to you. That’s where you get into a tricky place, because you are ignoring a piece of information that does not jibe with your preferred view of yourself.