Being a sceptic about certainty
I am not keen on certainty. I think Western philosophy has spent way too much time seeking it and angsting over it.
I am even more a sceptic about certainty on empirical matters. Especially moral claims requiring certainty about such matters.
Hence my scepticism about the premature certainty about global warming. The antics of the proponents of global warming are the sort of thing I have come across before, from folk who have generally been on the losing side of the arguments.
Consider this Boston Globe op. ed. by an optimistic climate scientist (he believes global warming is happening, is largely human caused, is bad but is technologically solvable). Sceptics are liars and charlatans funded by oil companies. This is empirical claims as simple morality play. Good people are altruistic well-intentioned folk who believe X and bad people are malignant, self-serving folk who believe not-X. Having the wrong beliefs is not mere empirical error, it shows moral delinquency. (And if he believers the sceptics were so appalling, he should have them charged with perjury, since evidence to Congress is given under oath.)
Since the different results from earth stations and the satellite and balloon data has apparently been largely resolved, the evidence for warming (in the sense of increasing global average temperatures) does seem to be fairly solid. The argument that is largely human caused still seems a bit of a stretch-the rate of increase from 1910 to 1940 (0.5 degrees in 30 years) is faster than the increase from 1980 (0.4 degrees in 25 years) with effectively no change from 1940 to 1980. (Indeed, there was a bit of a drop from 1940 to the 1970s, leading to the infamous global cooling scare.) Though that there is some human contribution seems to have wide scientific support.
Yet we move seamlessly from it’s getting warmer (as happens lots in Earth’s geological history) to it’s largely human caused, to it will be bad (why are there no good effects from the Earth becoming friendlier to plant life?), to we have to cut emissions (why wouldn’t adaptation be cheaper and easier?). And each move is treated as a moral imperative. Leading to obvious inconsistencies and double-standards. Folk who believe “most climate scientists believe X” closes the argument yet treat with contempt any claim to authority from “most economists believe Y”. Who think that climate models are great evidence, but treat with contempt economic models about the potential cost of mitigation effects. And so on. As Colby Cash recently wrote: Any body of received knowledge stops being science the moment it starts being a priesthood. (A scientist worries about overselling the certainty of human-caused climate change being bad here.)
I am only using global warming as an easy example. The pattern recurs. Such as holding that anything government does which is bad represents capitalism in operation. (Or anything anyone does which is bad in a capitalist society.) Conversely, anything government does which is good is a repudiation of capitalism. Support for private property and markets implicates one in anything bad any corporation has ever done ever. Yet support for socialism does not implicate one in anything any socialist state has done ever, or any failure of socialism. And so on.
A classic example is proclaiming that racism is “natural” or “inherent” to capitalism, when that is precisely what it is not. Commercial states are generally more cosmopolitan and latitudinarian than non-commercial states. The tension between bigotry and commerce was noted over two centuries ago by Voltaire and should be obvious to any thinking gay or lesbian. Commerce has persistently treated gays and lesbians better than has politics-thus, far more of the top Fortune 500 copies provide benefits for same-sex partnerships than US States do. The “Jim Crow” laws were introduced in large part precisely because capitalists could be relied upon to care about the colour of money, but could not be relied upon to care about the colour of one’s skin.
Nor is the pattern restricted to one side of politics. One of the striking things about Christian opponents of granting homosexuals equal protection of the laws is how their patterns of argument replicate ones I am familiar with in other contexts.
But treating empirical truth claims as having moral imperatives, and thus disagreement as a sign of moral delinquency, makes one an unreliable interpreter of empirical evidence and its implications. In the words of Jeffrey Hart Ideology is always wrong because it edits reality and paralyzes thought. Consider the sheer political tribalism of this screed, for example, which starts with a very dubious claim about Reagan’s racial politics. Reagan formally announced his intent to run for President in New York, in a speech which included a clear states right passage: given Reagan’s political philosophy, it would have been deeply weird if he hadn’t been a states rights supporter. (See here for a suggestion that there was less than meets the eye in his later Missouri appearance. More.) His Mississippi speech was at the Neshoba County Fair, which is Mississippi’s premier political event in a year Mississippi was a swing State and was deliberately scheduled before his civil rights speech so precisely not to undermine it. (A conservative Afro-American commentator takes on criticism of Reagan’s attitude to blacks here.)
Reality as a simple-minded morality play that leads to easy assumptions with precious little empirical support. Since difference is treated as self-evident moral turpitude, there is no correcting consideration of whether that really is a correct, or even terribly plausible, construction of the evidence. Reality-as-morality-play distorts ability to use evidence because alternative considerations and perspectives are ruled out a priori. As a recent essay on the intellectual damage done by the exclusion of “conservative” (by which the author means “Folk whose views are favourable to Western civilisation”, Hayek explicitly said he was not a conservative) perspectives from contemporary social science and humanities academe points out. The treatment within academe of Hayek is a good example, however. I remember being told by a refugee from academe some years ago that the disappearance of Hayek from university reading lists was a sign of the ideological narrowing within modern academe.
There is the further difficulty that, not only does treating empirical difference as a sign of moral turpitude get in the way of considering the simple factual evidence directly, it gets in the way of considering other folk’s perspectives. Something of a handicap in democratic politics, since one risks being blindsided by the concerns of one’s fellow citizens. But, more generally, it accentuates the likelihood of error. It is perfectly obvious that much of the bigoted nonsense the Catholic Church produces on homosexuality, for example, flows quite directly from the fact that homosexual experiences and concerns have no standing within Catholic thinking. Relevant evidence is cut off from consideration. An “echo chamber” effect is set up, encouraging decisions which lack, let us say, a well-rounded and genuinely informed perspective.
Again, not a problem of only one side of politics. Most academic writing on so-called “neo-liberalism” (sic) suffers from exactly the same problem. In seminar after seminar, department after department, there is no one who will speak up for such “noxious” stuff, so an echo-chamber effect is set up leading to a lack of well-rounded and genuinely informed perspectives. Typical academic writing on “neo-liberalism” is every bit as ill-informed and bigoted as anything the Catholic Church produces on homosexuality. Of course, both progressivist academics and Vatican functionaries would be equally certain that they have a well-grounded and deeply informed perspective and outraged at the suggestion that what they actually display is their bigoted ignorance. After all, everyone they consult-good folk all, experts in their fields-contribute to the agreement and there is, despite what you might think, debate and discussion …
Certainty and arrogance march together. They do not make a pretty pair. And they don’t make a good basis for seeing the world as it is.
ADDENDA: A rather nasty case of premature certainty is playing out at the Duke University.
I am even more a sceptic about certainty on empirical matters. Especially moral claims requiring certainty about such matters.
Hence my scepticism about the premature certainty about global warming. The antics of the proponents of global warming are the sort of thing I have come across before, from folk who have generally been on the losing side of the arguments.
Consider this Boston Globe op. ed. by an optimistic climate scientist (he believes global warming is happening, is largely human caused, is bad but is technologically solvable). Sceptics are liars and charlatans funded by oil companies. This is empirical claims as simple morality play. Good people are altruistic well-intentioned folk who believe X and bad people are malignant, self-serving folk who believe not-X. Having the wrong beliefs is not mere empirical error, it shows moral delinquency. (And if he believers the sceptics were so appalling, he should have them charged with perjury, since evidence to Congress is given under oath.)
Since the different results from earth stations and the satellite and balloon data has apparently been largely resolved, the evidence for warming (in the sense of increasing global average temperatures) does seem to be fairly solid. The argument that is largely human caused still seems a bit of a stretch-the rate of increase from 1910 to 1940 (0.5 degrees in 30 years) is faster than the increase from 1980 (0.4 degrees in 25 years) with effectively no change from 1940 to 1980. (Indeed, there was a bit of a drop from 1940 to the 1970s, leading to the infamous global cooling scare.) Though that there is some human contribution seems to have wide scientific support.
Yet we move seamlessly from it’s getting warmer (as happens lots in Earth’s geological history) to it’s largely human caused, to it will be bad (why are there no good effects from the Earth becoming friendlier to plant life?), to we have to cut emissions (why wouldn’t adaptation be cheaper and easier?). And each move is treated as a moral imperative. Leading to obvious inconsistencies and double-standards. Folk who believe “most climate scientists believe X” closes the argument yet treat with contempt any claim to authority from “most economists believe Y”. Who think that climate models are great evidence, but treat with contempt economic models about the potential cost of mitigation effects. And so on. As Colby Cash recently wrote: Any body of received knowledge stops being science the moment it starts being a priesthood. (A scientist worries about overselling the certainty of human-caused climate change being bad here.)
I am only using global warming as an easy example. The pattern recurs. Such as holding that anything government does which is bad represents capitalism in operation. (Or anything anyone does which is bad in a capitalist society.) Conversely, anything government does which is good is a repudiation of capitalism. Support for private property and markets implicates one in anything bad any corporation has ever done ever. Yet support for socialism does not implicate one in anything any socialist state has done ever, or any failure of socialism. And so on.
A classic example is proclaiming that racism is “natural” or “inherent” to capitalism, when that is precisely what it is not. Commercial states are generally more cosmopolitan and latitudinarian than non-commercial states. The tension between bigotry and commerce was noted over two centuries ago by Voltaire and should be obvious to any thinking gay or lesbian. Commerce has persistently treated gays and lesbians better than has politics-thus, far more of the top Fortune 500 copies provide benefits for same-sex partnerships than US States do. The “Jim Crow” laws were introduced in large part precisely because capitalists could be relied upon to care about the colour of money, but could not be relied upon to care about the colour of one’s skin.
Nor is the pattern restricted to one side of politics. One of the striking things about Christian opponents of granting homosexuals equal protection of the laws is how their patterns of argument replicate ones I am familiar with in other contexts.
But treating empirical truth claims as having moral imperatives, and thus disagreement as a sign of moral delinquency, makes one an unreliable interpreter of empirical evidence and its implications. In the words of Jeffrey Hart Ideology is always wrong because it edits reality and paralyzes thought. Consider the sheer political tribalism of this screed, for example, which starts with a very dubious claim about Reagan’s racial politics. Reagan formally announced his intent to run for President in New York, in a speech which included a clear states right passage: given Reagan’s political philosophy, it would have been deeply weird if he hadn’t been a states rights supporter. (See here for a suggestion that there was less than meets the eye in his later Missouri appearance. More.) His Mississippi speech was at the Neshoba County Fair, which is Mississippi’s premier political event in a year Mississippi was a swing State and was deliberately scheduled before his civil rights speech so precisely not to undermine it. (A conservative Afro-American commentator takes on criticism of Reagan’s attitude to blacks here.)
Reality as a simple-minded morality play that leads to easy assumptions with precious little empirical support. Since difference is treated as self-evident moral turpitude, there is no correcting consideration of whether that really is a correct, or even terribly plausible, construction of the evidence. Reality-as-morality-play distorts ability to use evidence because alternative considerations and perspectives are ruled out a priori. As a recent essay on the intellectual damage done by the exclusion of “conservative” (by which the author means “Folk whose views are favourable to Western civilisation”, Hayek explicitly said he was not a conservative) perspectives from contemporary social science and humanities academe points out. The treatment within academe of Hayek is a good example, however. I remember being told by a refugee from academe some years ago that the disappearance of Hayek from university reading lists was a sign of the ideological narrowing within modern academe.
There is the further difficulty that, not only does treating empirical difference as a sign of moral turpitude get in the way of considering the simple factual evidence directly, it gets in the way of considering other folk’s perspectives. Something of a handicap in democratic politics, since one risks being blindsided by the concerns of one’s fellow citizens. But, more generally, it accentuates the likelihood of error. It is perfectly obvious that much of the bigoted nonsense the Catholic Church produces on homosexuality, for example, flows quite directly from the fact that homosexual experiences and concerns have no standing within Catholic thinking. Relevant evidence is cut off from consideration. An “echo chamber” effect is set up, encouraging decisions which lack, let us say, a well-rounded and genuinely informed perspective.
Again, not a problem of only one side of politics. Most academic writing on so-called “neo-liberalism” (sic) suffers from exactly the same problem. In seminar after seminar, department after department, there is no one who will speak up for such “noxious” stuff, so an echo-chamber effect is set up leading to a lack of well-rounded and genuinely informed perspectives. Typical academic writing on “neo-liberalism” is every bit as ill-informed and bigoted as anything the Catholic Church produces on homosexuality. Of course, both progressivist academics and Vatican functionaries would be equally certain that they have a well-grounded and deeply informed perspective and outraged at the suggestion that what they actually display is their bigoted ignorance. After all, everyone they consult-good folk all, experts in their fields-contribute to the agreement and there is, despite what you might think, debate and discussion …
Certainty and arrogance march together. They do not make a pretty pair. And they don’t make a good basis for seeing the world as it is.
ADDENDA: A rather nasty case of premature certainty is playing out at the Duke University.