The Science of Morality & Human Well-Being

Saturday, April 6, 2019


Nihilism: 1. the rejection of all religious and moral principles, in the belief that life is meaningless; 2. belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated

In the last few months, some commentary here and elsewhere have raised the idea that many concepts related to politics, concepts relating to concepts such as good and evil, fact and non-fact, logic and illogic, and truth and lie are essentially meaningless. Meaninglessness arises from subjectivity that can be inherent in things one might think of as mostly objective. For example, some people believe it is a fact that there is a strong consensus among expert climate scientists that anthropogenic global warming is real. About 27% of Americans reject that as false and no amount of discussion and citing fact sources will change most (~ 98% ?) of those minds.

Does that mean there is no way to discern facts or truth from lies or misinformation? When it comes to morality, is nihilism basically correct and contemplating morality from any point of view is too subjective to be meaningful in any way?

In another example, the rule of law concept is seen by some analysts as an essentially contested concept, which is something subjective and not definable such that a large majority of people will agree on what the rule of law is and when it applies. If the rule of law cannot be defined, how can what is moral and what isn't be defined?

Pragmatic rationalism: The anti-bias ideology advocated here, “pragmatic rationalism”, is built on four core moral values, (1) respect for objective facts and truth, to the extent they can be ascertained, (2) application of less biased logic (conscious reasoning) to the facts and truths, (3) service to the public interest, which is conceived as a transparent competition of ideas constrained by facts and logic, and (4) reasonable compromise in view of political, social and other relevant factors. If nihilism is correct, the anti-bias ideology is nonsense.

Science and morality: In his 2010 book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values, neuroscientist Sam Harris argues there can be enough objectivity in matters of morals and human behavior and well-being that there is a great deal of objectivity in morality. In essence, Harris is arguing that science can find things that foster human well-being by tending to make people, e.g., happy, unhappy, and socially integrated or not. On morals, religion, secularism and the role of science in discovering morality, Harris writes:

"On the first account, to speak of moral truth is, of necessity, to invoke God; on the second, it is merely to give voice to one’s apish urges, cultural biases and philosophical confusion. My purpose is to persuade you that both sides in this debate are wrong. The goal of this book is to begin a conversation about how moral truth can be understood in the context of science.

While the argument I make in this book is bound to be controversial, it rests on a very simple premise: human well-being entirely depends on events in the world and on states of the human brain. A more detailed understanding of these truths will force us to draw clear distinctions between different ways of living in society with one another, judging some to be better or worse, more or less true to the facts, and more or less ethical.

I am not suggesting that we are guaranteed to resolve every moral controversy through science. Differences of opinion will remain -- but opinions will be increasingly constrained by facts.

Does our inability to gather the relevant data oblige us to respect all opinions equally? Of course not. In the same way, the fact that we may not be able to resolve specific moral dilemmas does not suggest that all competing responses to them are equally valid. In my experience, mistaking no answers in practice for no answers in principle is a great source of moral confusion.

The the deeper point is that there simply must be answers to questions of this kind, whether we know them or not. And these are not areas where we can afford to respect the “traditions” of others and agree to disagree. . . . . I hope to show that when we are talking about values, we are actually talking about an interdependent world of facts.

There are facts to be understood about how thoughts and intentions arise in the human brain; there are further facts to be known about how these behaviors influence the world and the experience of other conscious beings. We will see that facts of this sort will exhaust what we can reasonably mean by terms like “good” and “evil”. They will increasingly fall within the purview of science and run far deeper than a person’s religious affiliation. Just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, we will see that there is no such thing as Christian or Muslim morality. Indeed, I will argue that morality should be considered an undeveloped branch of science.

Having received tens of thousands of emails and letters from people at every point on the continuum between faith and doubt, I can say with some confidence that a shared belief in the limitations of reason lies at the bottom of these cultural divides. Both sides [Christian conservatives and secular liberals] believe that reason is powerless to answer the most important questions in human life.

The scientific community’s reluctance to take a stand on moral issues has come at a price. It has made science appear divorced, in principle, from the most important questions of human life."

It seems inevitable, however, that science will gradually encompass life’s deepest questions. How we respond to the resulting collision of worldviews will influence the the progress of science, of course, but may also determine whether we succeed in building global civilization based on shared values. . . . . Only a rational understanding of human well-being will allow billions of us to coexist peacefully, converging on the same social, political, economic and environmental goals. A science of human flourishing may seem a long way off, but to achieve it, we must first acknowledge that the intellectual terrain actually exists.

Harris is right, nihilism is wrong: If Harris is correct that intellectual moral terrain actually exists and is subject to scientific scrutiny, then pragmatic rationalism would seem to be a political counterpart of Harris’ vision of what can lead to human well-being for the long run. Maybe because of personal bias and/or the amazingly good fit between what Harris argues and the core moral values that pragmatic rationalism is built on, Harris is right. Science can shed light on an at least somewhat objective vision of right and wrong, good and evil. Nihilism is wrong and destructive of both self and civilization.

B&B orig: 3/25/19

Pragmatic Rationalism: An Anti-Biasing, Anti-Ideology Ideology

Cognitive and social science research shows that political and other ideologies often foster distortion of perceptions of reality and truths and conscious reasoning about what is perceived, true, false or ambiguous. That can and often does generate irrational politics and policy. The problem is generally more pronounced for hard core ideologues and authoritarians, neither of which can tolerate the cognitive dissonance between what unbiased reality, truth and reason lead to compared to what the ideology or authoritarian mind needs these things to be. For most of those people, fact, truth and reason fall to ideological beliefs and authoritarian goals when they are at odds.

Living in a society that is awash in lies, deceit and irrational emotional manipulation makes matters worse, but that cannot be avoided in a liberal democracy. That often makes what is false and irrational seem real and acceptable. That reflects the mental workings that evolution conferred on the human species. We can't help being what we are. The best that can be done is to acknowledge our 'flawed' biological traits and try to deal with them as rationally as our minds allow.

The other pragmatic rationalisms: At least two pragmatic rationalism (PR) ideologies appear to exist. One is posited as a general theory of the human world that is grounded in (i) physics; (ii) mathematics; (iii) philosophy; and (iv) the algorithmic part of human knowledge, which could be computerised, whatever that means. The author describes his all-encompassing theory of everything in abstract terms. It doesn't seem to have much to do with mass politics.

The other PR looks to be much more relevant to mass politics. That one is posited as an inquiry into understanding how scientific knowledge variably influences formulating and implementing political policies depending on the policy at issue. That PR is getting close to the PR this discussion is focused on.

This pragmatic rationalism: The PR political ideology posited here is intended to work as an anti-bias, anti-ideology ideology. It is built on is built on four, easy to understand, core or highest moral political values. The moral values are (1) fidelity to try to see relevant objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be ascertained (they are often not fully ascertainable) with less bias, (2) application of less biased conscious reasoning (roughly, logic) to the facts and truths, (3) applying the facts and reasoning in service to the public interest, and (4) willingness to engage in reasonable compromises in view of political, social and other relevant factors. Service to the public interest is envisioned to constitute a transparent competition of fact- and reason-based ideas.

This PR attempts to account for sources of bias and irrationality in politics by (i) forcing a larger role for more objective, less biased, less distorted fact, truth and logic in politics, (ii) ignoring standard ideologies, making them of secondary importance, (iii) induce some power and influence to flow from powerful special interests to the public interest, and (iv) forcing compromise onto the process as a bulwark against the rise of both single party rule and authoritarianism.

This variant of PR is thus an ideology that is more constrained by facts, truths and logic than all other ideologies, which tend to promote distortion of facts, truths and logic to fit the needs of the ideology. This amounts to an effort to build a mindset open to politics based more on objectivity, to the extent it can be ascertained, and less on subjective factors such as personal morals and identification with irrational tribalism.

Whether nations or whole societies can accept and/or adopt such a PR mindset is an open question. It asks a lot of people to set aside their prejudices and sacred beliefs when they are at odds with objective reality and reason. Maybe the human species cannot rise to a higher level of mental performance because the cognitive load is just too high. It is an experiment that needs to be tried to know if it would lead to more rational and efficient, but less conflict-prone politics and outcomes.

Pragmatic Rationalism: An Anti-Biasing, Anti-Ideology Ideology

Cognitive and social science research shows that political and other ideologies often foster distortion of perceptions of reality and truths and conscious reasoning about what is perceived, true, false or ambiguous. That can and often does generate irrational politics and policy. The problem is generally more pronounced for hard core ideologues and authoritarians, neither of which can tolerate the cognitive dissonance between what unbiased reality, truth and reason lead to compared to what the ideology or authoritarian mind needs these things to be. For most of those people, fact, truth and reason fall to ideological beliefs and authoritarian goals when they are at odds.

Living in a society that is awash in lies, deceit and irrational emotional manipulation makes matters worse, but that cannot be avoided in a liberal democracy. That often makes what is false and irrational seem real and acceptable. That reflects the mental workings that evolution conferred on the human species. We can't help being what we are. The best that can be done is to acknowledge our 'flawed' biological traits and try to deal with them as rationally as our minds allow.

The other pragmatic rationalisms: At least two pragmatic rationalism (PR) ideologies appear to exist. One is posited as a general theory of the human world that is grounded in (i) physics; (ii) mathematics; (iii) philosophy; and (iv) the algorithmic part of human knowledge, which could be computerised, whatever that means. The author describes his all-encompassing theory of everything in abstract terms. It doesn't seem to have much to do with mass politics.

The other PR looks to be much more relevant to mass politics. That one is posited as an inquiry into understanding how scientific knowledge variably influences formulating and implementing political policies depending on the policy at issue. That PR is getting close to the PR this discussion is focused on.

This pragmatic rationalism: The PR political ideology posited here is intended to work as an anti-bias, anti-ideology ideology. It is built on is built on four, easy to understand, core or highest moral political values. The moral values are (1) fidelity to try to see relevant objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be ascertained (they are often not fully ascertainable) with less bias, (2) application of less biased conscious reasoning (roughly, logic) to the facts and truths, (3) applying the facts and reasoning in service to the public interest, and (4) willingness to engage in reasonable compromises in view of political, social and other relevant factors. Service to the public interest is envisioned to constitute a transparent competition of fact- and reason-based ideas.

This PR attempts to account for sources of bias and irrationality in politics by (i) forcing a larger role for more objective, less biased, less distorted fact, truth and logic in politics, (ii) ignoring standard ideologies, making them of secondary importance, (iii) induce some power and influence to flow from powerful special interests to the public interest, and (iv) forcing compromise onto the process as a bulwark against the rise of both single party rule and authoritarianism.

This variant of PR is thus an ideology that is more constrained by facts, truths and logic than all other ideologies, which tend to promote distortion of facts, truths and logic to fit the needs of the ideology. This amounts to an effort to build a mindset open to politics based more on objectivity, to the extent it can be ascertained, and less on subjective factors such as personal morals and identification with irrational tribalism.

Whether nations or whole societies can accept and/or adopt such a PR mindset is an open question. It asks a lot of people to set aside their prejudices and sacred beliefs when they are at odds with objective reality and reason. Maybe the human species cannot rise to a higher level of mental performance because the cognitive load is just too high. It is an experiment that needs to be tried to know if it would lead to more rational and efficient, but less conflict-prone politics and outcomes.

B&B orig: 5/20/19

How pragmatic rationalism works in a nutshell

In response to a recent comment, a quick explanation of how my pragmatic rationalism ideology works was appropriate. For what its worth, here is a version of it for public consideration:

I don't usually start out contesting truth from anyone, especially someone I trust. That's the adversarial mindset. Some people deserve adversarial treatment because they earned it, e.g., by being demagogues, liars, crackpots, etc. Absent that, I'll just look into an issue or matter with as neutral and open a mind as I can muster. It helps to sense when a posited fact, truth or line of reasoning is unfamiliar but plausible, especially when it is inconvenient. Then I decide on the basis of facts, truths and my own human reasoning. Being a pragmatic rationalist means a three-step process. Facts and truths first, reasoning second, beliefs third.

If one starts with beliefs first, as most people seem to do most of the time, the influence of unconscious biases, ideologies and social pressure/situation, e.g., tribe loyalty, are more potent. Inconvenient facts and truths are more easily obscured, distorted and/or downplayed. Reasoning tends to get distorted to make beliefs more comforting and plausible. False/unjustifiable beliefs tend to remain intact.

Science has diagrammed the human foundation that gave rise to pragmatic rationalism. Inconvenient facts, truths, reasoning and beliefs are shown below in green, and the psychological-social discomfort they cause is shown in red. The human is highly motivated to make the discomfort at least appear to go away. 

Pragmatic Rationalism Explained Again

“One cannot fully grasp the political world unless one understands it as a confidence game, or the stratification system unless one sees it as a costume party. . . . . Finally, there is a peculiar human value in the sociologist’s responsibility for evaluating his findings, as far as he is psychologically able, without regard to his own prejudices likes or dislikes, hopes or fears. . . . . To be motivated by human needs rather than by grandiose political programs, to commit oneself selectively and economically rather than to consecrate oneself to a totalitarian faith, to be skeptical and compassionate at the same time, to seek to understand without bias, all these are existential possibilities of the sociological enterprise that can hardly be overrated in many situations in the contemporary world. In this way, sociology can attain to the dignity of political relevance, not because it has a particular political ideology to offer, but just because it has not.” -- Sociologist Peter Berger in his 1963 masterpiece, Invitation to Sociology, commenting on the poison that ideology typically is for most people most of the time, which modern cognitive and social science has now shown to be basically true

“Time as cyclical, especially when married to the idea of fate and destiny, is inherently conservative, protective of the established social order, established political authority, and dominant traditions. .... In addition, with time as cyclical, the debate between advocates of democracy, such as Aristotle, and those who advocated aristocratic rule, such as Plato, is stable. Nothing new will alter that debate as human nature is fixed and our natures either suit us for democracy, as some have it, or for aristocracy as others have it.” -- Psychologist George Marcus commenting in chapter 3 of his 2013 academic text book, Political Psychology: Neuroscience, Genetics and Politics, on the difficulty of mindset change and hinting at why pragmatic rationalism is such a difficult concept to explain

Context

Over the last 8-10 years I have tried multiple times to explain my political ideology, pragmatic rationalism (PR). PR is built around four core moral values and those four morals are grounded in knowledge from modern cognitive and social science. The morals are not based on any political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology or mindset that I am aware of. They are based on the science of human beings and their minds as they are understood today as individuals and as social creatures.

I revise PR ideology or concept as various criticisms and suggestions arise and as I learn more from relevant science as it progresses. The last major revision was adding core moral value 4, reasonable compromise as a bulwark against authoritarianism. I did that about a year ago. The PR concept has been mostly stable since then.

At first, I thought that the PR concept was brain dead simple and easy to explain and be understood. I figured that most people would easily get it. Now, I believe it is hyper-complex and almost impossibly hard to grasp because the concept is counter intuitive to most non-scientists and maybe even most scientists. I grossly underestimated how hard it is for the human mind to simply be open to and grasp what I now believe is a deeply counter intuitive concept related to politics. I sometimes refer to PR as an anti-biasing and/or an anti-ideology ideology. I naively thought that 'simple' labeling would clearly convey the essence of what I was talking about. It doesn't.

This OP flows from flack and distrust I got from an OP about a week ago about the Common Sense Party and my own clearly esoteric and largely inscrutable brand of politics. It is so inscrutable that apparently most leftists think its far right and most rightists seem to think its far left. In fact, it is far neither.

Pragmatic rationalism: Version ~ #6

PR is built on four core moral principles that (1) seem to be the most anti-biasing beliefs that most people can at least aspire to adhere to based on science, and (2) most people already believe they agree with at least in theory. Value #4 seems to be increasingly rejected by American conservatives and populists as tribalism, polarization and distrust ramps up on the right. That poison seems to be rising on the left, but isn't yet nearly as pronounced.

The morals are (i) fidelity to trying seeing fact and true truths with less partisan bias, (ii) fidelity to applying less biased or partisan conscious reason to the facts and truths, (iii) service to the public interest based on factors including the facts, truths and sound reason, and (iv) willingness to reasonably compromise according to political, economic and environmental circumstances point to.

Service to the public interest means governance based on identifying a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices, while (1) being reasonably transparent and responsive to public opinion, (2) protecting and growing the American economy, (3) fostering individual economic and personal growth opportunity, (4) defending personal freedoms and the American standard of living, (5) protecting national security and the environment, (6) increasing transparency, competition and efficiency in commerce when possible, and (7) fostering global peace, stability and prosperity whenever reasonably possible, all of which is constrained by (i) honest, reality-based fiscal sustainability that limits the scope and size of government and regulation to no more than what is needed and (ii) genuine respect for the U.S. constitution and the rule of law with a particular concern for limiting unwarranted legal complexity and ambiguity to limit opportunities to subvert the constitution and the law.

Some comments

• Service to the public interest and many of the concepts it includes are essentially contested. There is thus no authoritative definition or agreement on definitions or when and how they may apply in various circumstances. That is an unavoidable aspect of politics and why reasonable compromise is necessary in a democracy. In a dictatorship, plutocracy or other non-democratic form of government, definitions and compromise are at the whim of the person or people in power. 

• The first enumerated factor in the mindset is reasonable transparency and responsiveness to public opinion. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates either transparency or respect for public opinion to a place of central importance. 

• The goal, "a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices", is my attempt to bake core moral values 1 (respect for facts and true truths) and 2 (respect for less biased conscious reasoning) right into the concept of service to the public interest. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates facts and less biased reasoning to a place of central importance.

• PR is predicated on persuasion, not coercion or brute force. People can accept it reject it as they choose. People can envision all sorts of horrors from PR. But since we've had all sorts of horrors from everything else that I am aware of, there's no basis in reality to level an argument that PR is somehow worse. The core moral values are selected because based on science, they will tend be anti-authoritarian, anti-kelptocratic, anti-liar and anti-incompetent.

A couple of thoughts about atheism and pragmatic rationalism

NYT opinion columnist Ross Douthat opines (full opinion not paywalled off):

Where Does Religion Come From?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the ex-Muslim critic of Islamic fundamentalism and longtime champion of Enlightenment liberalism, has announced that she now calls herself a Christian — a conversion that she attributes to a twofold realization.

First, that atheist materialism is too weak a base upon which to ground Western liberalism in a world where it’s increasingly beset, and the biblical tradition from which the liberal West emerged offers a surer foundation for her values. Second, that despite the sense of liberation from punitive religion that atheism once offered her, in the longer run she found “life without any spiritual solace unendurable.”

Her essay, not surprisingly, attracted a lot of criticism. Some of it came from Christians disappointed in the ideological and instrumental way that Hirsi Ali framed her conversion, the absence of a clear statement that Christian claims are not merely useful or necessary but true. The rest came from atheists baffled that Hirsi Ali had failed to internalize all the supposedly brilliant atheistic rebuttals to her stated reasons for belief.

I have no criticisms to offer myself. Some sort of religious attitude is essentially demanded, in my view, by what we know about the universe and the human place within it, but every sincere searcher is likely to follow their own idiosyncratic path.

A lack of a spiritual component to both atheism and pragmatic rationalism struck me as a serious problem starting about 15 years ago. My study of human cognitive biology and social behavior led me to believe we are hard-wired for spirituality. Spirituality apparently has a powerful attraction for humans and formal, organized religion. As best I can tell, that still seems to be a reasonable belief today.  

So when Douthat opines that in view of human knowledge and behavior, some sort of religious attitude is demanded, that seems to be basically right. The human brain-mind really does demand some sort of religion or source of spiritual gratification. 

For the life of me, I cannot figure out a way to integrate spirituality into either atheism or pragmatic rationalism. That probably permanently relegates those mental frameworks to permanent small minority, low influence status. I can see serious pro-civilization and pro-sustainability value in both, but they are fatally flawed by evolution. I’ve hit a brick wall and can’t see a way past it. Bummer. 

Q: Is that true, false or mixed true & false?

A Nascent Evidence and Reason-Based Political Party

The Common Sense Party is working to become a registered party in California. The group needs about 67,000 registered voters to register with the CSP as their party to obtain official recognition by California. A group of voters decided to form the CSP last September out of frustration with the two major parties. I joined the group effort a few days later when I heard about it. The party intends try to to mostly set standard liberal and conservative ideology aside and instead look more to evidence, reason and public opinion as influences on policy formation and choice. The group has registered over 15,000 voters so far.

Not surprisingly, local commentators have pointed out the difficulty that third parties have in gaining traction with the public. Lack of ideological unity among independents and dropouts from the two main parties is cited as one reason for why third parties don't easily gain traction. Despite the problems, there is enough discontent to lead about a quarter of California voters to register as no party preference or NPP voters.

A possible unifying belief that might help to attract ideologically disparate voters is a belief in facts, truths and sound reason as important guides to inform both reality and policy choices.

My participation

Once the party is officially registered in California, the group plans to have party members vote on a platform. I communicate with the group's Interim Chairman, Bob Campbell, a former republican US congressman and currently a Professor of Economics and a Distinguished Professor of Law at Chapman University. At present, I am writing platform and position papers for the CSP to take up once the party is officially recognized. 

To the extent I am able to do so, I will take this unusual opportunity to introduce the anti-bias mindset and moral basis of pragmatic rationalism to the CSP. In part, doing that is my attempt to provide some basis for cohesion and CSP identity. Obviously, CSP members will accept or reject anti-bias and pragmatic rationalism in whole or in part as they see fit. Nonetheless, my position and platform papers will be informed and shaped by my anti-bias mindset and the moral principles that pragmatic rationalism is based on. 

The CSP's website is here.

For California residents interested in registering with the CSP, you can do that online by going to the Secretary of State's online registration form: https://covr.sos.ca.gov/ . When you get to the choice of party option, select OTHER and then type into the Other (specify) box that lights up when OTHER is selected. After you fill out the form and submit it, you will receive a card a week or two later indicating that you are registered with the CSP. Note, this is a legal affidavit and the registration form must be filled out honestly. 

Hannah Arendt: Some Thoughts on Loneliness and Its Usefulness to Dictators

I hope this isn't too wonky for folks.

Samantha Rose Hill, the assistant director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities, wrote a fascinating essay on how Stalin and Hitler used loneliness to help build their totalitarian regimes. Although both regimes are gone, human loneliness remains a very useful tool that demagogues and dictators can still exploit to serve their immoral and evil ends. Loneliness can be fomented by propaganda or dark free speech. It tends to make people more susceptible to authoritarians and authoritarianism. The essay is posted online by aeon here. 

Hill writes:

“Writing on loneliness often falls into one of two camps: the overindulgent memoir, or the rational medicalisation that treats loneliness as something to be cured. Both approaches leave the reader a bit cold. One wallows in loneliness, while the other tries to do away with it altogether. .... Everybody experiences loneliness, but they experience it differently.

In the 19th century, amid modernity, loneliness lost its connection with religion and began to be associated with secular feelings of alienation. The use of the term began to increase sharply after 1800 with the arrival of the Industrial Revolution, and continued to climb until the 1990s until it levelled off, rising again during the first decades of the 21st century.

But in the middle of the 20th century, Arendt approached loneliness differently. For her, it was both something that could be done and something that was experienced. In the 1950s, as she was trying to write a book about Karl Marx at the height of McCarthyism, she came to think about loneliness in relationship to ideology and terror. Arendt thought the experience of loneliness itself had changed under conditions of totalitarianism: 

What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever-growing masses of our century. 

Totalitarianism in power found a way to crystallize the occasional experience of loneliness into a permanent state of being. Through the use of isolation and terror, totalitarian regimes created the conditions for loneliness, and then appealed to people’s loneliness with ideological propaganda.

Before Arendt left to teach at Berkeley, she’d published an essay on ‘Ideology and Terror’ (1953) dealing with isolation, loneliness and solitude in a Festschrift for Jaspers’s 70th birthday. This essay, alongside her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, became the foundation for her oversubscribed course at Berkeley, ‘Totalitarianism’. The class was divided into four parts: the decay of political institutions, the growth of the masses, imperialism, and the emergence of political parties as interest-group ideologies. In her opening lecture, she framed the course by reflecting on how the relationship between political theory and politics has become doubtful in the modern age. She argued that there was an increasing, general willingness to do away with theory in favor of mere opinions and ideologies. ‘Many,’ she said, ‘think they can dispense with theory altogether, which of course only means that they want their own theory, underlying their own statements, to be accepted as gospel truth.’

The initial conclusion, published in 1951, reflected on the fact that, even if totalitarian regimes disappeared from the world, the elements of totalitarianism would remain. ‘Totalitarian solutions,’ she wrote, ‘may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social, or economic misery in a manner worthy of man.’ When Arendt added ‘Ideology and Terror’ to Origins in 1958, the tenor of the work changed. The elements of totalitarianism were numerous, but in loneliness she found the essence of totalitarian government, and the common ground of terror.

Why loneliness is not obvious. 

Arendt’s answer was: because loneliness radically cuts people off from human connection. She defined loneliness as a kind of wilderness where a person feels deserted by all worldliness and human companionship, even when surrounded by others. The word she used in her mother tongue for loneliness was Verlassenheit – a state of being abandoned, or abandon-ness. Loneliness, she argued, is ‘among the most radical and desperate experiences of man’, because in loneliness we are unable to realize our full capacity for action as human beings. When we experience loneliness, we lose the ability to experience anything else; and, in loneliness, we are unable to make new beginnings. 
But in order to make individuals susceptible to ideology, you must first ruin their relationship to themselves and others by making them sceptical and cynical, so that they can no longer rely upon their own judgment: 

Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationship with reality. The preparation has succeeded when people have lost contact with their fellow men as well as the reality around them; for together with these contacts, men lose the capacity of both experience and thought. The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (ie, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (ie, the standards of thought) no longer exist.  

Organised loneliness, bred from ideology, leads to tyrannical thought, and destroys a person’s ability to distinguish between fact and fiction – to make judgments. In loneliness, one is unable to carry on a conversation with oneself, because one’s ability to think is compromised. ....” (emphasis added)

Regarding ideology

Hill describes how Arendt believed that political, economic or religious ideology can create and then play on loneliness: 

“Arendt spends the first part of ‘Ideology and Terror’ breaking down the ‘recipes of ideologies’ into their basic ingredients to show how this is done:

• ideologies are divorced from the world of lived experience, and foreclose the possibility of new experience;
• ideologies are concerned with controlling and predicting the tide of history;
• ideologies do not explain what is, they explain what becomes;
• ideologies rely on logical procedures in thinking that are divorced from reality;
• ideological thinking insists upon a ‘truer reality’, that is concealed behind the world of perceptible things.”

Her assessment of ideology and ideological motivated reasoning being divorced from experience and sound reasoning seem to be spot on. Her assessment that ideologies are concerned with controlling and predicting the tide of history is partly true. It omits the fact that ideologies also tend to rewrite history in ways that favor the ideological fake reality vision. Ideological and authoritarian detachment from reality and sound reason covers the past, present and future.

Regarding pragmatic rationalism

Her point about ideologies not explaining what is, but instead explaining what will happen strikes me as very important but complicated. She goes into this idea in detail in her Origins book. This concept is one to the points I have been turning over in my head for several years. Can it somehow be used to evoke a reasonably realistic future that is sufficiently appealing to constitute a glue that can hold people of differing, even opposing, ideologies together? That is of personal interest because my own ideology, pragmatic rationalism, lacks a glue or secular spiritual component that might keep conservatives, centrists and liberals on the same page at least in terms of core political moral values.[1] Simply laying claim to trying to be more evidence-based and rational about politics and less ideological is probably weak glue at best, and at worst no glue at all or even an anti-glue.

Footnote: 

1. For wonks, it may be interesting to note that pragmatic rationalism, unlike authoritarian ideologies, does try to explain the present based on modern science, unspun history and moral philosophy. By definition, pragmatic rationalism is designed to be at least these three things: (i) anti-biasing (pro-reality and reason), (ii) anti-ideological (not liberal, conservative, capitalist, socialist, fascist, Christian, etc.) and (iii) anti-authoritarian and rule of the tyrant-demagogue, and pro-democracy and rule of law. 

Book Review: Escape From Freedom

Erich Fromm - 1974

Context

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) was a German Jew who fled the Nazis and settled in the US. He was a co-founder of The William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He wrote Escape From Freedom in 1941 in response to what he was as the sources of authoritarianism in the human condition and the grave threat to freedom this aspect of humans posed to democracy. 

This review is based on the original 1941 Foreword and a newer 1965 Foreword (9 pages). They lay out his vision of humanity and the source of threats to democracy that are inherent in modern civilization. I focus on the two Forewords because they describe Fromm's desire or goal for the human condition that is basically identical to what I came to believe about what might be possible and have tried to convey here as pragmatic rationalism. In essence, Fromm recognized and articulated the intellectual framework for pragmatic rationalism in 1941, about 70 years before I came to also see the same threat and to some extent, its human origins. 

What Fromm saw clearly that I did not fully understand, only sensed, was the social unease that leads some or many people to need to escape from freedom into the comforting arms of reassuring demagogues and authoritarians or dictators and their reassuring lies, deceit, emotional manipulation and motivated reasoning. This need for psychological comfort and tribe is apparently universal in all societies.

Review

Given the urgency of the situation in 1941, Fromm interrupted his much broader life long investigation of the human condition in modern civilization. In Escape From Freedom, Fromm focuses on the meaning of freedom for modern man. After Escape, he wrote The Sane Society which expanded on the themes he laid out in Escape. In The Heart of Man, Fromm focused on the origins of hate and destructiveness. 

In the 1941 Foreword, Fromm wrote: 

"Pointing out the significance of psychological considerations does not imply, in my opinion, an overestimation of psychology. .... It is the thesis of this book that modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simultaneously gave him security and limited him, has not gained freedom in the positive sense of the realization of his individual self; that is, the expression of his intellectual, emotional and sensuous potentialities. Freedom though it has brought him independence and rationality, has made him isolated, and thereby, anxious and isolated. This isolation is unbearable and the alternatives he is confronted with are either to escape from the burden of his freedom, or to advance to the full realization of positive freedom which is based upon the uniqueness and individuality of man. .... the understanding of the reasons for the flight from freedom is a premise for any action which aims at the victory over the totalitarian forces." 

In the 1965 Foreword, Fromm wrote: 

"Escape From Freedom is an analysis of the phenomenon of man's anxiety engendered by the breakdown of the Medieval World in which, in spite of many dangers, he felt himself secure and safe. .... modern man is still anxious and tempted to surrender his freedoms to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton. .... There can be no doubt that in this last quarter of a century the reasons for man's fear of freedom, for his anxiety and willingness to become an automaton, have not only continued but have greatly increased."

Fromm goes on to point to nuclear weapons, the nascent rise of fast thinking computers and fast acting giant corporations, and overpopulation are all factors that tend to undermine a comfortable Medieval-type sense of self and social place that some (most?) people need. 

He goes on to firmly reject the criticism that despite psychological insight and knowledge, that science cannot be translated into social progress and benefit:

"It becomes ever increasingly clear to many students of man and of the contemporary scene that the crucial difficulty with which we are confronted lies in the fact that the development of man's intellectual capacities has far outstripped the development of his emotions. Man's brain lives in the twentieth century; the heart of most men still live in the Stone Age. The majority of men have not yet acquired the the maturity to be independent, to be rational, to be objective. They need myths and idols to endure the fact that man is all by himself, that there is no authority which give meaning to life except man himself. .... How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical over-maturity and emotional backwardness?

As far as I can see there is only one answer: the increasing awareness of the most essential facts of our social existence, an awareness sufficient to prevent us from committing irreparable follies, and to raise to some small extent our capacity for objectivity and reason. We cannot hope to overcome most follies of the heart and their detrimental influence on our imagination and thought in one generation .... At this crucial moment, however, a modicum of increased insight -- objectivity-- can make the difference between life and death for the human race. .... Progress in social psychology is necessary to counteract the dangers which arise from the progress in physics and medicine."

 Does any of that sound familiar to people who are familiar with Dissident Politics? Most of that sounds very familiar to me. The social goals Fromm articulates, just a small increase in objectivity and reason, are identical to one key goal of pragmatic rationalism. The hope is the same: try to coax humanity away from self-annihilation and toward long-term sell being and survival. The tactic is the same: teach people self-awareness so they can better understand themselves and better defend themselves against the reassuring dark free speech[1] that demagogues and tyrants know is the path to power and wealth.

Dang, I feel vindicated once again. What a great book.

Footnote: 

1. Dark free speech: Constitutionally or legally protected (1) lies and deceit to distract, misinform, confuse, polarize and/or demoralize, (2) unwarranted opacity to hide inconvenient truths, facts and corruption (lies and deceit of omission), (3) unwarranted emotional manipulation (i) to obscure the truth and blind the mind to lies and deceit, and (ii) to provoke irrational, reason-killing emotions and feelings, including fear, hate, anger, disgust, distrust, intolerance, cynicism, pessimism and all kinds of bigotry including racism, and (4) ideologically-driven motivated reasoning and other ideologically-driven biases that unreasonably distort reality and reason. (my label, my definition)

Book Review: Critical Thinking

The 2020 book, Critical Thinking, is a short description (181 pages) about the origins of critical thinking, what it is and what values it has. The author, Johnathan Haber, is an educator and researcher in the field of critical thinking. The book is written for a general audience and easy to read.

The origins and status of critical thinking

The concept started with Socrates and Aristotle. Socrates questioned fixed beliefs and advocated leading a life of self-examination. His activities in this area “earned him the title of father of Western philosophy and well as a death sentence from his annoyed fellow Athenians.” The lesson there is don’t annoy Athenians. (oops, bad logic)

Aristotle went much farther. He gathered and systematized existing knowledge into what are now major fields of inquiry including botany, zoology, political science, rhetoric and logic. His work on rhetoric and logic established key areas of education for the ancient world that lasted until modern times.

A major contribution of Aristotle was to uncouple knowledge from the superstitious and plug it into the empirical. Haber writes that “Aristotle’s method of inferring truths from what the human senses could perceive, rather than explaining natural phenomena as the works of gods, was a tremendous intellectual breakthrough.”  Of course, since human senses can be wrong, manipulated, biased and self-deceived, this was just the first of many intellectual revolutions that flowed from what Aristotle had discovered about how to perceive reality.

The progress of critical thinking as a field of research and education unto itself was significantly derailed in 1892 when the “Committee of Ten” educators, led by Harvard’s president, created a new curriculum for K-12 schools. Reading, writing, math and science were included, but rhetoric and logic were not. After that, teaching of rhetoric and logic declined in public education. Critical thinking education began a significant comeback in 1983 when California state universities imposed a critical thinking requirement for graduation. Since then, critical thinking has gained in importance in K-12 education. The intellectual weaknesses of students unskilled in rhetoric and logic became both apparent and acute in the modern information age.

What critical thinking is

There is no universally accepted definition, but a some of a cluster of concepts tend to be included. The concepts themselves tend to be a bit fuzzy, but usually include structured thinking (roughly, logic), communication skill, argumentation skill, creativity, reasonable background knowledge, and IMO, very importantly, personal dispositions or traits. Haber prefers ‘structured thinking’ over logic to emphasize the importance of organized thinking over any particular form of formal logic. Humans tend not to apply formal logic and instead think in terms of informal logic (I call it reasoning or sound reasoning), which can be informed and shaped by things like the structure of arguments, the social situation, emotions, intuitions and personal morals and biases. Modern critical thinking education emphasizes informal logic over true logic, but true logic remains an important part.

Haber argues, reasonably, that you cannot do critical thinking if you do not know what you are talking about. Hence a necessary component is learning and applying sufficient background knowledge to support clear-headed, sound reasoning.

Two important concepts that underpin critical thinking are the difference and prevalence of deductive and inductive arguments, which are different. Deductive arguments are logic constructs where the conclusion of a valid argument must be true if you accept that the premises are true. If the premises are actually true, the conclusion is both valid and sound. This kind of reasoning is rare because it is rare to have premises that are not disputed.[1]

By contrast, inductive arguments are based on premises that make the conclusion or basis in evidence or logic possibly, probably true or very likely true. The conclusion’s strength can vary from weak to near certainty. The relevance and sufficiency of the premises dictate the strength of the conclusion. By definition, inductive arguments are invalid because it is possible to accept the premises but still reasonably reject the conclusion. Counter examples are possible to imagine and usually too numerous to test. Inductive reasoning dominates everyday life, politics and science.
Not understanding the uncertainty that is common in science allows science deniers to point to almost any level of uncertainty as a basis to deny things that are not reasonably deniable, including climate change and the effectiveness of vaccines.

The value of critical thinking

Haber frames the issue like this:

“Catastrophic decisions like those that lead to .... being ruled by men and women competent in nothing but playing to our weaknesses are just the most dramatic consequences of refusing to develop or use our reasoning ability ..... If we can increase our odds of success by locating and evaluating evidence, putting it into an informative structure, and analyzing the results, why not follow this critical thinking process rather than shooting first, aiming later?”  

He argues that there is now plenty of evidence, e.g., Russian attacks on critical thinking in the 2016 elections, that there are compelling reasons to up our game in terms of our ability to apply critical thinking to politics:

“Many of those ‘others’ [propagandists] are professional skilled at taking advantage of the flaws in our mental faculties, such as the many cognitive biases that prevent us from thinking critically or the ability of emotion and tribalism to overwhelm reason. .... As demonstrated in recent elections, candidates still spearhead this kind of manipulation, but now they are supported by armies of political consultants skilled in techniques for preventing people from thinking clearly. .... Yet, has the public appetite for bad premises (i.e., ‘fake news’), invalid logic, refusal to develop or apply background knowledge, and uncharitable behavior toward out political enemies diminished at all since we learned how vulnerable we make ourselves by basking in our biases?”

The fits with pragmatic rationalism

What Haber describes is a mindset that is applied in a process of organized thinking. The mindset requires personal traits including but not limited to sufficient open-mindedness to look at an issue form at least two points of view, willingness and discipline to do the necessary learning and mental work, and charity as envisioned by the Principle of Charity (discussed here). That sounds a lot like the mindset and process that I designed pragmatic rationalism to be based on and operate with. It also reflects some of the core personal or mental traits and tactics, e.g., viewing multiple points of view, that Philip Tetlock’s superforecasters had in common.

Unless I am misunderstanding something significant, Haber’s description of the critical thinking mindset and approach to reality sounds much like those of superforecasters and pragmatic rationalists. In other words, pragmatic rationalism appears to be rising naturally out of, or mostly overlapping with, separate lines of research. That sort of looks like some sort of consilience to me.

Or, are my biases and/or misunderstandings leading me down a wrong path?

Footnote:
1. When actually true premises are rejected by a person as false because the person does not like the conclusion the premises lead to, the person may reject both the premises and the conclusion. Sociologists call this implicatory denial (discussed here). It is arguably the most common form of logic fallacy in science denial.

The Pragmatic Rationalism Ideology: A 12-Point Explanation

The following is an explanation of and rationale for pragmatic rationalism in 12 points.

1. Empirical cognitive and social science data are clear that when dealing with politics, the human mind has a strong tendency to distort both reality (facts) that we perceive and how we think about the facts we think we see. This is a normal part of being human. Most of the distortion is unconscious and thus it’s something that’s hard to be self-aware about. Nonetheless, some people can and do reduce distortions in facts and reason by adopting a self-aware, open mind set that allows some reduction in the distortions.

2. In general, the main purposes of politics is to solve problems, build a peaceful civil society, foster social and technical progress and the rule of law, and conduct relations with foreign nations. The main product of politics is policy. Governments, with or without input from affected interests, typically formulate and implement policy according to controlling legal or governmental structures, e.g., the US Constitution for America.

3. In reality, political policies are based on perceptions of reality and facts and the reasoning we apply to what we think we see, all of which are invariably claimed to be used to guide and formulate policy that best serves the public interest (common good or general welfare). Therefore, those three things are three key raw materials that political policy is built on. Other factors may affect the final product, e.g., bribes to politicians, undue special interest influence or a politician’s self-interested or pandering vote, but those are optional ingredients.

4. There is no logical reason to believe that political policies based on perceptions of reality or facts and reasoning or thinking about perceived facts that are distorted to some degree by normal human cognitive processes would be more effective in serving the public interest than policies that are based on perceived facts and reasoning that is somewhat less distorted. The more a policy is shaped based on less biased reality and less biased reason, the higher the chance that the policy would work better than a policy based on more distorted reality and reason.

5. One powerful source of fact and reason distortion is personal belief in a political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology (or set of morals or principles). That constitutes a distorting lens that frames personal thinking about politics. Capitalism, socialism, liberalism, conservatism, libertarianism, anarchy, Christianity and fascism are examples of prevalent ideologies that can distort both facts and reason. For whatever reasons, most people need one or more ideological lenses through which they view matters related to politics.

6. Strong belief in an ideology often gives rise to conformation bias, or the more powerful fact and common reason, motivated reasoning. An example of motivated reasoning’s distortion power is described here.

7. If one accepts that it’s true that (1) existing political ideologies tend to unconsciously distort fact and reasoning for essentially all people, and (2) political policy that’s better grounded in less biased perceptions of fact and less biased reasoning would be generally better for serving the public interest, then it’s reasonable to think that existing ideologies will probably continue to have about the same negative effects on policy they now exert, e.g., ineffective and/or inefficient politics.

8. If one wants to improve politics by reducing ideologically-inspired policy drag, that raises the question of whether any ideology could possibly partially reduce fact and reason distortion in politics. Are humans doomed to work with the fact and reason distorting intellectual frameworks or ideologies that have always dominated politics?

9. At least in theory, the answer is no. Humans may not necessarily be constrained by as much irrationality as has been the case. One possible less reality and reason distorting alternative could be an anti-bias ideology based on what social and cognitive science now know about how the human mind and social influences work in politics. There is no legal, economic, or political authority or constraint that precludes viewing politics through an ideology that is intended to be a less biasing lens. Having such a viewpoint is legal and rational.

10. One possible anti-biasing ideology could be based on the three core morals or ideological principles that are aimed directly at the three core, necessary ingredients described in point 3 above. Those three ingredients are present in essentially all political policies. Therefore, a pragmatic, problem-solving focused political 3-morals ideology could be one that is (i) dedicated to fidelity to finding less biased facts, (ii) dedicated to allowing less bias in the reason that’s applied to the perceived facts, and (iii) focused on service to the public interest.

11. None of that argues that such a pragmatic, science-based ideology would ever be accepted by a significant plurality or a majority in any country now or ever. Given human cognitive biology, any anti-bias pragmatism concept is likely to be threatening and psychologically uncomfortable for most people (>95 ?). Science-based pragmatism and its moral values may never be an acceptable ideology for more than just a few people (~5% ?). This is also not an argument that such a pragmatic mindset could ever come to dominate most policy makers’ or politicians’ personal ideological beliefs.

12. This also is not an argument that if such pragmatism were to be adopted and seriously tried that it would work well enough to make a detectable difference for the better in political policies and outcomes. However, this is an argument that there just might be a better ideology relative to all prior ideologies. The only way to know if science-based pragmatic pragmatism could work is to seriously try it. That is a testable hypothesis.

B&B orig: 10/27/16

Political Concepts: Fact, Truth, Logic

Some poll data indicates that most Americans, about 78%, believe that the two sides cannot agree on basic facts related to various political issues. At one time the idea that people were entitled to their opinions but not their facts no longer applies. Each side sees the other as significantly or mostly untethered from facts. Partisan differences in what people accept as facts, truths and sound reasoning or logic seem to constitute most of the basis for partisan disagreements.

The following descriptions of concepts such as facts and truths are intended to apply either (1) in the context of politics in ways that most people would understand and agree with, and/or (2) in accord with modern cognitive and social science. Despite their common use, the concepts are complex and hard to describe. Even the concept of what a fact is is disputed, with some arguing that facts do not exist but only reflect our flawed perception of objective reality. Some technical discussion about these concepts are complex enough to border on incomprehensible.

Fact

A fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with or representative of objective reality. Facts can be proven to be true with evidence and should thus be verifiable by anyone. For example, reliable fact checkers assert that the president has made many false statements to the public, because there is objective evidence to show those statements are false. Fact checkers also assert that he makes many misleading statements, but what is misleading to one person may be not misleading to another. Thus, that assertion cannot be fact, but instead this can be classified as truth, which may be justified or true, or not.

Truth

Opinions will vary, but fact and truth are not the same. Truth is something that is believed by most people to be in accord with fact or reality. Truth is something that can be grounded in facts or reality and/or in personal factors such as biases, beliefs, morals, ideology, identity and/or life experiences. Truth can be mostly or completely objectively true, false or unknowable. Truth is usually sufficiently linked to fact to lead most people to believe it reasonably reflects fact or reality.

Disputes arise when personal factors influences or completely determines what constitutes truth. For example, reliable fact checkers assert that the president makes many misleading statements to the public. Most people would probably consider that to be true. Nonetheless, most supporters of the president would probably reject that as false or a lie. From the foregoing, it is clear that what is truth to most people can be false to many others.

Logic

“. . . . the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. . . . cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. . . . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.”   Democracy For Realists: Why Elections Do not Produce Responsive Governments, Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels, 2016

Logic for people doing politics is unlike logic in philosophy, which is reasoning conducted or assessed according to principles of validity. In politics, people reason mostly in accord with personal factors (see the list above) and to a lesser extent with principles of validity. This view of logic in politics or ‘political logic’ is based on my understanding from cognitive and social science of how the human mind processes or thinks about input information such as a political speech. Because personal factors, e.g., motivated reasoning, dominate over principles of validity, political logic can easily lead different people to opposite conclusions, even if they agree on facts and truths.

When facts and justified truth (~ ‘real truth’) conflict with political logic, they are usually rejected as false or distorted to be less threatening. This reject or distort mental response to inconvenient facts and truths is a mostly unconscious process. We are usually or always unaware of what our unconscious minds have done to inconvenient facts and real truths, unless we stop and consciously, critically self-question. Most people do not do that most of the time because that is not how the human mind evolved to work. This is how the mind works:

“Morality binds and blinds. The true believers produce pious fantasies that don’t match reality, and at some point somebody comes along to knock the idol off its pedestal. . . . . We do moral reasoning not to reconstruct why we ourselves came to a judgment; we reason to find the best possible reasons why somebody else ought to join us in our judgment. . . . . The rider [the conscious mind] is skilled at fabricating post hoc explanations for whatever the elephant [the unconscious mind] has just done, and it is good at finding reasons to justify whatever the elephant wants to do next. . . . . We make our first judgments rapidly, and we are dreadful at seeking out evidence that might disconfirm those initial judgments.” Johnathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, 2012

What about pragmatic rationalism?

In view of the foregoing, it is obvious that politics is not an inherently rational endeavor. That arises from the nature and functioning of the human mind as we it got from evolution. Pragmatic rationalism relies on moral values that include fidelity to facts, truths and sound conscious logic or reasoning. The point is to try to nudge politics toward rationality to some small, but hopefully meaningful extent. Whether people can adopt such a more rational mindset is an open question. Personal experience and human history suggest the answer is no for the time being, and maybe forever. Human biology just is not aligned with political rationalism.

Truth Decay

Over the last couple of years, the RAND Corporation has been doing a deep dive into the political-social phenomenon they call truth decay. The study is part of an effort to "restore the role of facts and analysis in public life."

That sounds much like the anti-biasing anti-ideology, pragmatic rationalism, ideology that is advocated here at B&B. Two of the four core moral values that pragmatic rationalism is built on are (i) fidelity to trying to see objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be objectively based, with less bias and distortion, and (ii) fidelity to trying to apply less biased conscious reason (roughly, logic) to the facts one thinks one sees.

RAND's 326 page 2018 book, Truth Decay, can be downloaded for free here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html [1]

In a summary post, RAND comments:

There are four trends that characterize Truth Decay:
1. increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data
2. a blurring of the line between opinion and fact
3. the increasing relative volume and resulting influence of opinion and personal experience over fact
4. declining trust in formerly respected sources of facts.

Most of these trends are not unprecedented in American history. But today's level of disagreement over objective facts is a new phenomenon.

RAND's findings so far point to the main drivers of truth decay as being (i) cognitive biases, (ii) the rise of social media and other changes to the information environment, (iii) demands on the educational system that limit its ability to keep up with changes in the information ecosystem, and (iv) political and social polarization. Political and social polarization can reasonably be seen as political and social tribalism that tends to be significantly fact- and logic-destroying or distorting for most people (~95% ?) most of the time.

A prior B&B discussion about a survey of experts of President Trump noted that he was ranked as the most polarizing President in US history, significantly out ranking Abe Lincoln, who came in a fairly distant second. Both RAND's sources of truth decay and its drivers seem be generally in accord with the political reality of at least the last 15 years or so, maybe the last 30 years or so.

An existential threat?: Over at his blog, Neurologica, Steven Novella posited RAND's truth decay observations as possibly constituting an existential threat, presumably at least to modern civilization, and maybe to the human species itself. Novella writes:

What is the greatest threat facing human civilization? This question is obviously meant to be provocative, and is probably inherently unanswerable. But I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that perhaps the greatest threat is the deterioration of fact-based political and social discussion. The argument is that this is a meta-problem that keeps us from effectively addressing all other problems.

But of course we don’t want to assume anything, which would ironically be part of the very problem itself. We first need to ask – are these trends actually happening or are they just illusion and confirmation bias? Also, can we put these trends into historical context? RAND recently conducted a study looking at item #3 – the relative volume of opinion vs fact-based reporting in the media over the last 28 years.

They identified several trends, which may contribute to Truth Decay. The first is that prior to 2000 broadcast news tended to be more academic and fact-based. After 2000 the news became more narrative based – presented more as simplistic stories, with less complexity and nuance.

Over this same time there was a shift in viewership from broadcast to cable networks. The cable networks contained much more opinion-based reporting, and far less fact-based reporting. They were more likely to have people discussing the news rather than giving a prepared factual report of the news. So essentially we went from watching Walter Cronkite to The View.

In print they saw a similar pattern. Print newspapers have changed the least, but also have shifted toward a more narrative style (just not as much). Meanwhile there was a shift to digital print news, which is more personal and anecdote-based.

All of these trends verify the concern that the overall volume of information being consumed by Americans has shifted from fact-based reporting to personal stories, narratives, discussions and opinions. We are no longer content to have a talking head give us a prepared digested form of “Just the facts, Ma’am” (which is, ironically, itself a bit of false reporting). We want to be entertained with a story, we want our emotional buttons pressed.

The short chain of moral logic: Cognitive and social science both strongly argue that the human mind is inherently susceptible to truth decay or dark free speech such as lies, deceit, and unwarranted emotional manipulation, especially fomented negative emotions such as fear, anger, hate, distrust, intolerance and bigotry or racism, all of which are usually intentionally associated with a person's tribal identity. Use of truth decay to deceive and manipulate the public is common among people with low or essentially no decent moral values because it works. The purveyors of truth decay either don't care about the morality if it, or they believe the usually immoral proposition that the ends justify the means and is thus moral, at least when they do it (but it's not when the other side does it).

The limited grasp of history I have says that social and international conflicts are usually (≥ ~95% of the time?) seeded by shrewd purveyors of truth decay to whip an up antagonistic us vs. them social mentality. That appears to be so common that one can argues there is a chain of logic with two necessary links in it. The first link is heavy seeding of the social milieu with vast quantities of truth decay or dark free speech. That seeding of the public with lies, deceit and irrational emotion is the necessary prelude to unnecessary violent conflict, at least by aggressors.

If that logic is sound, then from a moral point of view, one can argue that use of truth decay to deceive, mislead and foment the negative emotions needed for social acceptance of violence is the moral equivalent of the actual violence itself. One could even see truth decay as a form of violence because it relies on coerces minds into false and/or irrational beliefs.

When viewed in that way, fidelity to objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be ascertained (and they often cannot be fully ascertained, leaving some degree of ambiguity), can bee seen as one of the highest, most important moral values a human can hold. The same applies to the moral value of trying to be less biased in one's conscious reasoning about the facts and truths one thinks one sees.

So, the question is this: Is using truth decay or dark free speech to deceive and emotionally poison minds as immoral as actual unwarranted violence?

Footnote:
1. The first paragraph and a half of the book says this: "Much has been written about the growing disregard for facts, data, and analysis in political and civil discourse in the United States. Increasingly, it seems that important policy debates, both within the federal government and across the electorate, are as likely to hinge on opinion or anecdote as they are on objective facts or rigorous analysis. However, policy decisions made primarily on the basis of opinion or anecdote can have deleterious effects on American democracy and might impose significant costs on the public.

The current discourse about the diminishing role of, trust in, and respect for facts, data, and analysis is often hamstrung by the use of conflicting language and unclear or undefined terms. Without a common language with which to discuss the problem—which we are calling Truth Decay—the search for solutions becomes more difficult. This report seeks to address this gap by offering a clear definition of Truth Decay and an examination of its drivers and consequences—all with the aim of creating a foundation for more-meaningful discussion of the challenges to U.S. political and civil discourse."

Moral Rebels: On the Scarcity of Moral Courage

“I do not myself believe that many people do things because they think they are the right thing to do . . . . I do not think that knowledge of what is morally right is motivational in any serious sense for anyone except a handful of saints.” Federal judge Richard Posner commenting on the creeps and characters who traipsed through his court room for decades always pleading their real or imagined innocence, Social Norms, Social Meaning and Economic Analysis of Law: A Comment, 27 J. Legal Studies, 553:560, 1998

“What is morally right is a matter of long-term human survival. The days of pretending that we cannot self-annihilate or that God will intervene to save us from ourselves are illusions. There are two choices with two moral paths, immoral business as usual or a moral, honest and fundamental reassessment for our condition and situation. The reassessment requires real guts, i.e., moral courage. The easy but deadly dangerous way is business as usual.” -- Germaine, July 14, 2020

A BBC article, Why some people risk everything to be whistleblowers, discusses some of the science and reality of what it takes to have moral courage. The BBC refers to people with moral courage as moral rebels. The BBC writes:

"Moral rebels speak up in all types of situations – to tell a bully to cut it out, to confront a friend who uses a racist slur, to report a colleague who engages in corporate fraud. What enables some people to call out bad behavior, even if doing so may have costs? 

First, moral rebels generally feel good about themselves. They tend to have high self-esteem and to feel confident about their own judgment, values and ability. They also believe their own views are superior to those of others, and thus that they have a social responsibility to share those beliefs. 

Moral rebels are also less socially inhibited than others. They aren’t worried about feeling embarrassed or having an awkward interaction. Perhaps most importantly, they are far less concerned about conforming to the crowd. So, when they have to choose between fitting in and doing the right thing, they will probably choose to do what they see as right."

The article goes on to briefly touch on some brain and science stuff, in this case the lateral orbitofrontal cortex. The article asserts that for moral rebels, it generally doesn't feel so bad to feel different than others. Not mattering so much makes it easier for rebels to stand up to social pressure.

The article also comments that what rebels stand up for vary widely. For these people, it is more about standing up to social pressure to stay silent. That pressure can be applied to just about anything. The point is that rebels withstand the social pressure from their family, group or tribe better than most people.

The moral rebel mindset seems to be fostered by having seen moral courage in action. Moral rebels tend to feel empathy and an ability to imagine the world from someone else’s perspective. Getting to know people from different backgrounds helps. The article points out that research data shows that white high school students with more contact with people from different ethnic groups generally have higher levels of empathy. They tend to see people from different minority groups more positively.

The article concludes:

"Finally, moral rebels need particular skills and practice using them. One study found that teenagers who held their own in an argument with their mother, using reasoned arguments instead of whining, pressure or insults, were the most resistant to peer pressure to use drugs or drink alcohol later on. Why? People who have practiced making effective arguments and sticking with them under pressure are better able to use these same techniques with their peers. .... It is possible to develop the ability to stand up to social pressure. In other words, anyone can learn to be a moral rebel."

Why bring this up? Pragmatic rationalism

This article makes a point that's central to understand pragmatic rationalism (PR). One of the most powerful influences on our perceptions of reality, beliefs and behavior is social pressure.[1] The influence is mostly (~98% ?) unconscious and unknown. That was the main point that Peter Berger made in his short 1963 masterpiece, Invitation to Sociology. Berger was blunt about how disruptive this knowledge can be to some people. He felt knowledge of the power of social institutions was so deeply disturbing that he questioned in 1963 whether it should even be taught to college undergraduates, but dismissed it as innocuous because most of us are oblivious creatures because we evolved to be that way:

“What right does any man have to shake the taken-for-granted beliefs of others? Why educate young people to see the precariousness of things they had assumed to be absolutely solid? Why introduce them to the subtle erosion of critical thought? .... the taken-for-granted are far too solidly entrenched in consciousness to be that easily shaken by, say, a couple of sophomore courses. ‘Culture shock’ is not induced that readily.” 

In other words, mindsets rarely change and facts don't usually matter much or at all. Massive shock tends to be what it usually takes. The German people after WWII is an example. They had a real shock. Teaching a couple of sociology courses to undergraduates in the US will not faze them in their rock solid but false beliefs in themselves and their grasp of reality and false sense of mental freedom. Note the point Berger makes, “the subtle erosion of critical thought.” 

Critical thought is a false certainty killer. I know that truth from direct personal experience, and I'm not even much good at it.

At present, PR has no significant chance of gaining significant social influence unless and until society builds institutions that revere and adhere to the core moral values of that anti-ideology ideology, or from a better variant of it than I can envision. From what I can tell, the PR concept is no less radical that what Berger was concerned about teaching to college students. But like the German people after WWII, it just might take a similar shock. That assumes it won't be too late for us to save ourselves. That is an open question.

Or, am I being waaay too self-important, self-righteous and/or otherwise self-deluded?

 Footnote:
1. The most piercing, in-your-face modern arguments about the staggering power of social situation that I am aware of is in an article by legal scholars Don Hanson and David Yosifon, The Situation: An Introduction to the Situational Character, Critical Realism, Power Economics, and Deep Capture. They wrote:

“We have already summarized some of the "evidence that people are inclined to offer dispositionist explanations for behavior instead of situationist ones, and that they make inferences about the characteristics of actors when they would do well to make inferences instead about the characteristics of situations ...." We have also suggested that this fundamental attribution error has not spared the professional and credentialed minds of economists and legal economists-hence, our repeated emphasis on the fact that they too are human. 

Regarding the first question, our gun-to-the-head example makes clear that our dispositionism does occasionally give way to situationism. The example is particularly apt because it appears that we rarely see situation unless the situation is thrust upon us in the form of another hard-to-miss actor such as a person wielding a gun. 

Even a very obvious, controllable, and tangible situational influence-money-is commonly overlooked in favor of dispositionist explanations of behavior. The effects of financial incentives on lay people tend to be understood in terms of stable dispositional proclivities.”

Fundamental attribution error: the tendency for people to under-emphasize situational explanations for an individual's observed behavior while over-emphasizing dispositional and personality-based explanations for their behavior. This effect has been described as "the tendency to believe that what people do reflects who they are".

Social situation rules. People tend to not do who they are. Instead, they tend to do what their social situation dictates they must do. Moral rebels aren't like that at least sometimes in some situations. Sometimes, they have the moral courage to resist their social situation.

Truth Decay

Over the last couple of years, the RAND Corporation has been doing a deep dive into the political-social phenomenon they call truth decay. The study is part of an effort to "restore the role of facts and analysis in public life."

That sounds much like the anti-biasing anti-ideology, pragmatic rationalism, ideology that is advocated here at B&B. Two of the four core moral values that pragmatic rationalism is built on are (i) fidelity to trying to see objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be objectively based, with less bias and distortion, and (ii) fidelity to trying to apply less biased conscious reason (roughly, logic) to the facts one thinks one sees. Apparently, RAND and B&B are significantly on the same page.

RAND's 326 page 2018 book, Truth Decay, can be downloaded for free here: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2314.html [1]

In a summary post, RAND comments:

There are four trends that characterize Truth Decay:

1. increasing disagreement about facts and analytical interpretations of facts and data 2. a blurring of the line between opinion and fact 3. the increasing relative volume and resulting influence of opinion and personal experience over fact 4. declining trust in formerly respected sources of facts.

Most of these trends are not unprecedented in American history. But today's level of disagreement over objective facts is a new phenomenon.

RAND's findings so far point to the main drivers of truth decay as being (i) cognitive biases, (ii) the rise of social media and other changes to the information environment, (iii) demands on the educational system that limit its ability to keep up with changes in the information ecosystem, and (iv) political and social polarization. Political and social polarization can reasonably be seen as political and social tribalism that tends to be significantly fact- and logic-destroying or distorting for most people (~95% ?) most of the time.

A prior discussion about a survey of experts of President Trump noted that he was ranked as the most polarizing President in US history, significantly out ranking Abe Lincoln, who came in a fairly distant second. Both RAND's sources of truth decay and its drivers seem be generally in accord with the political reality of at least the last 15 years or so, maybe the last 30 years or so.

An existential threat?: Over at his happy blog, Neurologica, Steven Novella posited RAND's truth decay observations as possibly constituting an existential threat, presumably at least to modern civilization, and maybe to the human species itself. Novella writes:

What is the greatest threat facing human civilization? This question is obviously meant to be provocative, and is probably inherently unanswerable. But I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that perhaps the greatest threat is the deterioration of fact-based political and social discussion. The argument is that this is a meta-problem that keeps us from effectively addressing all other problems.

But of course we don’t want to assume anything, which would ironically be part of the very problem itself. We first need to ask – are these trends actually happening or are they just illusion and confirmation bias? Also, can we put these trends into historical context? RAND recently conducted a study looking at item #3 – the relative volume of opinion vs fact-based reporting in the media over the last 28 years.

They identified several trends, which may contribute to Truth Decay. The first is that prior to 2000 broadcast news tended to be more academic and fact-based. After 2000 the news became more narrative based – presented more as simplistic stories, with less complexity and nuance.

Over this same time there was a shift in viewership from broadcast to cable networks. The cable networks contained much more opinion-based reporting, and far less fact-based reporting. They were more likely to have people discussing the news rather than giving a prepared factual report of the news. So essentially we went from watching Walter Cronkite to The View.

In print they saw a similar pattern. Print newspapers have changed the least, but also have shifted toward a more narrative style (just not as much). Meanwhile there was a shift to digital print news, which is more personal and anecdote-based.

All of these trends verify the concern that the overall volume of information being consumed by Americans has shifted from fact-based reporting to personal stories, narratives, discussions and opinions. We are no longer content to have a talking head give us a prepared digested form of “Just the facts, Ma’am” (which is, ironically, itself a bit of false reporting). We want to be entertained with a story, we want our emotional buttons pressed.

The short chain of moral logic: Cognitive and social science both strongly argue that the human mind is inherently susceptible to truth decay or dark free speech such as lies, deceit, and unwarranted emotional manipulation, especially fomented negative emotions such as fear, anger, hate, distrust, intolerance and bigotry or racism, all of which are usually intentionally associated with a person's tribal identity. Use of truth decay to deceive and manipulate the public is common among people with low or essentially no decent moral values because it works. The purveyors of truth decay either don't care about the morality if it, or they believe the usually immoral proposition that the ends justify the means and is thus moral, at least when they do it (but it's not when the other side does it).

The limited grasp of history I have says that social and international conflicts are usually (≥ ~95% of the time?) seeded by shrewd purveyors of truth decay to whip an up antagonistic us vs. them social mentality. That appears to be so common that one can argues there is a chain of logic with two necessary links in it. The first link is heavy seeding of the social milieu with vast quantities of truth decay or dark free speech. That seeding of the public with lies, deceit and irrational emotion is the necessary prelude to unnecessary violent conflict, at least by aggressors.

If that logic is sound, then from a moral point of view, one can argue that use of truth decay to deceive, mislead and foment the negative emotions needed for social acceptance of violence is the moral equivalent of the actual violence itself. One could even see truth decay as a form of violence because it relies on coerces minds into false and/or irrational beliefs.

When viewed in that way, fidelity to objective facts and truths, to the extent they can be ascertained (and they often cannot be fully ascertained, leaving some degree of ambiguity), can bee seen as one of the highest, most important moral values a human can hold. The same applies to the moral value of trying to be less biased in one's conscious reasoning about the facts and truths one thinks one sees.

So, the question is this: Is using truth decay or dark free speech to deceive and emotionally poison minds as immoral as actual unwarranted violence?

Footnote:
1. The first paragraph and a half of the book says this: "Much has been written about the growing disregard for facts, data, and analysis in political and civil discourse in the United States. Increasingly, it seems that important policy debates, both within the federal government and across the electorate, are as likely to hinge on opinion or anecdote as they are on objective facts or rigorous analysis. However, policy decisions made primarily on the basis of opinion or anecdote can have deleterious effects on American democracy and might impose significant costs on the public.

The current discourse about the diminishing role of, trust in, and respect for facts, data, and analysis is often hamstrung by the use of conflicting language and unclear or undefined terms. Without a common language with which to discuss the problem—which we are calling Truth Decay—the search for solutions becomes more difficult. This report seeks to address this gap by offering a clear definition of Truth Decay and an examination of its drivers and consequences—all with the aim of creating a foundation for more-meaningful discussion of the challenges to U.S. political and civil discourse."

B&B orig: 5/16/19