Last
weekend I had a very nice conversation with some of Caroline’s coworkers about
liberalism and conservativism and current events and all that jazz. Free will only came up a little, and I didn’t
latch on to it believe it or not, I think I’ve mostly gotten that out of my
system and I think I’m able to discuss it now with a little more tact and in a
way that’s not so off-putting (saying “free will doesn’t exist!” tends to get
people on the defensive). Don’t get me
wrong, my views on it are still basically the same. I’m just not as passionate about it as I was
when the idea was new to me.
But
anyway, a recommendation that came out of that conversation was that I should
read Atlas Shrugged. It’s been on my shelf
for a couple of months, and I just finished one of J.K. Rowling’s detective
novels (or Robert Galbraith’s, whatever) so I figured it was time I tackled
this thousand page tome. I’m pretty
curious about it but I’m worried about my own biases; having a more liberal
social circle, I’ve heard lots of not great things, and reading Ayn Rand’s
Wikipedia page it sounds like academic philosophers have largely dismissed her
ideas. However, I will try to be as
objective as possible.
As part
of my prep for it I spent some time on Rand’s Wikipedia page, as well as the
various pages dedicated to her ideas.
One quote from her struck me: “I am not primarily an advocate of
capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of
reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently,
all the rest follows.”
What I
find amazing is the number of people in this world who espouse reason as the
best way to determine truth (I count myself among them), yet arrive at very
different conclusions about the nature of the world, morality, philosophy
(typically the armchair brand) in general etc. (how do you end a sentence with
etc.? It looks weird to leave it just like that, but it’s also weird to write
out et cetera…). You’d think that if everyone who promoted
reason were perfectly reasonable, they’d all agree on most things, no?
Not
going into differences in critical thinking ability, education, etc. I was
trying to think of where exactly do things break down, and I think a large part
of it is the ability to identify empirical questions, or to identify beliefs
that should be based on and
evaluated/reevaluated on empirical principals.
I didn’t really think of questions in this sort of dichotomy until
Bjoern came along. We would be
discussing something and I would make a claim and he’d respond with, “Well,
that’s really an empirical question, isn’t it?”
Empiricism
is an epistemological view that, basically, the best way to determine the
reality of a thing is to observe it.
Want to know the color of an apple? Go look at an apple. Better yet, go look at a million apples from
all different parts of the world, then have a hundred of your friends do the
same thing. If you’ve had any scientific
training, this should sound familiar to you, as it’s the basis for the
philosophy of science.
So
without going into a diatribe about science (which I actually just did for half
a page, realized I was way off track, and then deleted), what defines an
empirical question? The short answer is: given omnipotent abilities, could you
observe something and get an answer to the question? From this perspective most
things turn out to be empirical questions, though sometimes the answers to
these questions are not currently observable,
given technological limitations, ethical imitations, what have you. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t empirical
questions.
The
reason I bring this up is that people form beliefs about empirical questions
without realizing that the answers to these questions could be obtained through
observation. If the data isn’t there,
any formation of a belief about that question cannot really be justified. Individual feelings and anecdotes are not
good data. So getting back to Ayn Rand
and more broadly politics and economics in general, maybe the empirical
question that’s being asked is, “How do we make the best society possible?”
Operationally defining “best” is tricky and a blog post of its own, but let’s go
with: a society that maximizes utility (or happiness or contentment or
whatever) for the most current and future humans (sorry non-humans, again,
another blog post). A libertarian might
say, “Minimize government interference and let people live up to or down to
their potential.” A liberal might say, “Provide a safety net so that chance and
poor circumstance don’t inhibit one’s happiness.” A Christian might say,
“Follow the teachings of Christ and follow his example.” Obviously this one question is made up of
several smaller questions; that’s why we have economists and sociologists and
such.
But,
like I said, it’s an empirical question.
Given omnipotence, we could “look” at the world and get an answer. It’s just super complicated. But yeah, here’s the rub: we can’t just
throw our hands up and say, “I have no opinion!” because we’re left with the
fact that we have to make decisions about
these things, as a society and as individuals. So, the best thing is to use what data we
have, and the best source is the majority opinion of the experts – contentious,
I know, but I’m not going to go into that here.
I have
to say, though, that particularly as a psychologist (and specifically an eating
behavior researcher), many people have beliefs about nutrition and the way the
brain works that are just… not based on good data. I guess it comes with the territory. Everyone has a brain, everyone eats food, so
everyone’s an expert. I hate to sound
like your high school teacher here, folks, but news articles, blogs, and that
thing your friend told you are not good bases for belief formation. Even if your GP told you something, don’t
take it at face value. A GP is not a
nutrition specialist (or an anything specialist, that’s why they’re GPs). Do some Google Scholar searches people, ffs.
P.S. No offense to any GP’s out there, but there are a lot
of them and you know they’re not all reading every specialized health journal
that comes out. Health is complicated
stuff. Also maybe some GP’s are
specialists, or used to be, I don’t know how that game works.
P.P.S. Yes I know this is my first blog post in like two
years. As many of you know I’m finishing
up my dissertation, but fewer of you may know that I want to try my hand at
writing while I’m looking for a real job.
I’m going to try to write some every day, whether it’s a blog post or
fiction (or dissertation, I guess) just to try to keep it up and keep in the
habit. So maybe you’ll see more of
these.
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