Thinking About the Morality of Less Biased Conscious Reasoning

Ethics: rules provided by an external source, e.g., written codes of conduct in workplaces, or professions, or principles or rules in religions

Free will: (i) the power of acting without the constraint of necessity, fate or uncontrolled biological imperative; (ii) the ability to act at one's own discretion; (iii) actions or behaviors that are not pre-determined by genetic, environmental or automatic unconscious responses to stimuli or information

Morals: an individual’s own beliefs regarding good and bad or right and wrong; morality is subjective; people do not always act in ways that accord with their morals

Virtue: (i) a characteristic of our true, natural self; (ii) sometimes, the quality of being morally good; (iii) properties of people who habitually act rightly and they may or may not be following a moral or ethical rule; some believe that virtues are subjective, while others believe that virtues are universal, and thus arguably more objective than subjective

Acknowledgment: This discussion was inspired by an excellent discussion that PD posted on his Books & Ideas blog,  Is Reflective Reason A Virtue?

Free will

Most experts believe humans have no free will based on a lot of empirical data that shows our behavior is dictated by the unconscious mind deciding what to do before we are consciously aware of the decision. Others believe we have at least some free will. It operates as a conscious decision to accept or reject automatic unconscious responses and resulting pre-determined behaviors. One researcher commented: “An unfree will may not be so hard to swallow if we have at least a free unwill.” In other words, human free will amounts to (1) conscious partial or complete veto power over what our unconscious mind wants to believe and/or do, and (2) conscious acceptance of what our unconscious mind wants to believe and do.

For this discussion to make sense, one has to assume that humans have some free will at least when when matters of ethics, morals or virtues are implicated. If we have no free will, as PD points out, then all virtuous behaviors , e.g., conscious reasoning, honesty, fairness or bravery in defense of others, are automatic. In that case, such behaviors cannot be said to be good or bad, or praiseworthy or blameworthy. Absent free will, human behavior just is what it is, leaving the conscious mind with no role in any of it. Speaking of good or bad in that scenario doesn't make much sense. One might like or dislike a certain uncontrolled behavior, but one cannot rationally assign goodness or badness to it.

Less biased conscious reasoning (LBCR)

LBCR is the second core moral value (virtue?) of the pragmatic rationality anti-ideology ideology. From what I understand, it refers to about the same thing that PD and philosopher Nick Byrd calls reflective reason. When one engages in LBCR, e.g., to consider an argument, a hypothesis or a proposed political policy, one is consciously reasoning in a more rational way than when one allows unconscious thinking to control. The unconscious mind is intuitive, emotional, moral, biased and usually tinged with some degree of intolerance, judgmentalism and tribalism.

That is the solution that evolution came up with as a means for the human brain-mind to deal with the world in the Pleistocene epoch, about 2.5 million to 11,700 years ago. That worked to keep humans alive and survive in those times. In modern times, it arguably presents an existential threat to modern civilization and possibly even the humans species itself. Although human minds are probably about the same as those in the Pleistocene, modern threats aren't the same. Most humans alive today do not worry about being attacked by lions or irate hippos.

Can LBCR be considered to be a moral or a virtue? Yes, if one accepts the following logic or reasoning. No, if one doesn’t.

1.The point of elevating it to the status of a moral value is that LBCR can counteract bad decisions the unconscious mind makes based on how modern science understands what is going on when we deal with politics. The unconscious mind is susceptible to emotional manipulation, irrational appeals to personal morals, logical fallacies, biases and a host of other reality and reason[1] distorting human traits.

2. Personal experience indicates that most people (~99%) believe they (1) base their politics on facts, valid truths, and LBCR, and (2) the political opposition does not. Evidence from empirical research shows that, for the most part, that is not true. But the near-universal belief that one should be fact-based and rational about politics is evidence that LBCR is better than the flawed thinking the opposition allegedly relies on.

3. If a widespread belief in a nation or society that X is better than not X, then that could constitute at least one source of authority for considering LBCR to be a moral value.


Questions: Is it reasonable to believe that LBCR is a good moral value? Or, is it something else, e.g., a ‘desirable trait’?


Footnote:
1. Applying logic and reasoning to an issue are quite different modes of operation. The human did not evolve to use logic or be strictly rational in most situations. It evolved to reason about things and apply a soft or fuzzy rationality, usually based mostly (~99% ?) on what the unconscious mind thinks, believes and decides. The unconscious mind gets things right most of the time and there's no problem. It still works great for most things. But when dealing with politics with all of its complexity, opacity, deceit, appeal to logic fallacies, manipulation, misinformation and disinformation, the unconscious mind is mostly out of its depth. We did not evolve minds that can deal rationally with the underlying complexity and subjectivity of things in politics, including objective facts.

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