1. In political discourse about the economy, lots of people give an argument that basically says something like relative inequality has all these bad effects, and we should orient our economy to minimize the difference between what people have. I don't find this convincing at all, so in my mind I substitute those arguments with a version that has much more to do with effective altruism and absolute living standards. Someone might read my posts and think I'm very far to the right, but in reality EA type arguments move me much closer to the center-left than typical inequality arguments do.
2. One time in a debate about population genetics, a prominent person said that there weren't meaningful differences between groups because it's not like some groups have the "engineer gene, banker gene" etc. Basically, having genes that are specific to professions. That struck me as an example of not evaluating the argument by the strongest version of the argument, which to me wouldn't say there are profession-specific genes, but general traits that could influence population outcomes.
This is a convincing recommendation for the good faith engagement that tends to be lacking, especially in digital chatter. We do often tend to see arguments for one proposition in light of other worse arguments for the proposition. I've never noticed this before, so thanks!
Meh, so many of these philosophical issues are things where, we already believe in something on a gut level, and the "arguments" are things we come up with post hoc. Probably one of the best ways to avoid falling prey to our inner sophist (assuming we''ve bought into the "truth is a thing" narrative and think philosophical reasoning has any value beyond sophistry, in the first place), ironically, is to practice constructing sophistry Against our own beliefs--throwing the kitchen sink at them in terms of counterarguments, polished formalism, rhetoric, deconstruction, poetry, nonstandard perspectives, emotional appeals, etc. That is, since our inner sophist ain't going away, we might as well put him to work falsifying our potentially wrong beliefs, instead of confirming them
But in that case, I run into the problem that different versions of the ideas are not the same ideas.
Alan and Bob both tell me capitalism is great. Then it turns out, Alan meant a North Korea type economy is really bad and capitalism is better than that, and Bob is saying we should be privatising roads.
And it tends to be true of all the big ideas people argue about.
The tricky issue here is: what's supposed to be the counterfactual set of "me"s in "might convince me"? The largest reason why many arguments for theism (including yours) fail to sway me much, is the extreme rationalist hubris of purporting to interact with concepts such as "absolute goodness" or "absolute intelligence". But what if, tomorrow morning, I were to transform from a generally empiricist type-A physicalist into a rationalist dualist? Well then, your arguments very well might convince me, certainly more than unsupported empirical claims about (unknown by the patient) prayer curing cancer and such. So there are arguments that thoroughly convince me of theism in a larger percentage of branching worlds (those in which I've radically changed my foundational views while still counting as "me"), and then there are arguments that thoroughly convince me in many fewer worlds, but reliably move my Bayesian estimates slightly in the theistic direction in worlds where my foundations remain intact, where I'm clearly "the same me". Which do you propose I should spend more effort evaluating?
When we’re evaluating about ideas for the sake of philosophic inquiry, I agree. But when we’re evaluating ideas for practical reasons - to see how effective a particular movement is, to see whether we should vote for a certain candidate, etc. - the most popular version of the idea matters, because it affects what people do with the idea in the real world.
The “version of an idea” that is “most convincing” might be utterly useless. For example, you currently believe in in a maximally uncommitted abstract God. I don’t see why I should care about whether or not that’s true.
In contrast, the validity of Christianity is much more important, and should be seriously considered. The question is not whether some abstract being exists, but of whether an idea is relevant to my life.
I was obviously not claiming that for every possible idea you should consider the best version of it. I was not claiming that if you're trying to figure out if some idea is true, you should evaluate the version of it that's most personally convincing.
Once again, you’re accusing me of ascribing crazy positions to you. At no point did I claim that you said we should consider every possible idea’s truth.
You gave a few specific examples, like belief in God. You said that if one is trying to figure out whether God is real, they should evaluate maximally uncommitted abstractionism instead of Christianity, if they find the former more convincing. My point is that this is senseless, because the *reason* that people try to find out the truth of ideas is not some intrinsic motivation towards truth, but rather practical necessity.
If someone is evaluating the Truth of an idea for some end (in the case of God, that end might be whether one should make changes to their lifestyle), then they should not evaluate versions of an idea that fit within the literal version of what they are trying to find the truth of, but which have no relation to the purpose behind the truth-seeking.
If Christianity being true is dramatically more important than Maximally uncommitted abstrictism being true, then it’s reasonable to look into Christianity when evaluating the existence of God.
Maybe you can object and say that, in this case, the relevant question is not “is God real?” But rather “is God real and is that relevant to me?”. But I would say that the latter is implicit in the former to the kind of laypeople that you criticize in this post.
I won't comment on the obviously ridiculous claim that whether a God exists that means we'll spend forever with our loved ones in paradise is unimportant. My claim was, of course, merely that if you want to figure out if theism is true--and perhaps you don't--then you ought to figure out if the best version of theism is true. If you're only interested in learning if Christianity is true, then you'd evaluate the best version of Christianity, not theism.
I won’t comment on your practice of saying you won’t comment on something as an excuse for commenting on it without rigor.
And I hadn’t taken your version of uncommitted abstraction to require an eternal good afterlife. Though if it’s universal I’m not sure what relevance it has to us here…
2 somewhat relevant examples:
1. In political discourse about the economy, lots of people give an argument that basically says something like relative inequality has all these bad effects, and we should orient our economy to minimize the difference between what people have. I don't find this convincing at all, so in my mind I substitute those arguments with a version that has much more to do with effective altruism and absolute living standards. Someone might read my posts and think I'm very far to the right, but in reality EA type arguments move me much closer to the center-left than typical inequality arguments do.
2. One time in a debate about population genetics, a prominent person said that there weren't meaningful differences between groups because it's not like some groups have the "engineer gene, banker gene" etc. Basically, having genes that are specific to professions. That struck me as an example of not evaluating the argument by the strongest version of the argument, which to me wouldn't say there are profession-specific genes, but general traits that could influence population outcomes.
Just 2 examples.
This is a convincing recommendation for the good faith engagement that tends to be lacking, especially in digital chatter. We do often tend to see arguments for one proposition in light of other worse arguments for the proposition. I've never noticed this before, so thanks!
Meh, so many of these philosophical issues are things where, we already believe in something on a gut level, and the "arguments" are things we come up with post hoc. Probably one of the best ways to avoid falling prey to our inner sophist (assuming we''ve bought into the "truth is a thing" narrative and think philosophical reasoning has any value beyond sophistry, in the first place), ironically, is to practice constructing sophistry Against our own beliefs--throwing the kitchen sink at them in terms of counterarguments, polished formalism, rhetoric, deconstruction, poetry, nonstandard perspectives, emotional appeals, etc. That is, since our inner sophist ain't going away, we might as well put him to work falsifying our potentially wrong beliefs, instead of confirming them
But in that case, I run into the problem that different versions of the ideas are not the same ideas.
Alan and Bob both tell me capitalism is great. Then it turns out, Alan meant a North Korea type economy is really bad and capitalism is better than that, and Bob is saying we should be privatising roads.
And it tends to be true of all the big ideas people argue about.
The tricky issue here is: what's supposed to be the counterfactual set of "me"s in "might convince me"? The largest reason why many arguments for theism (including yours) fail to sway me much, is the extreme rationalist hubris of purporting to interact with concepts such as "absolute goodness" or "absolute intelligence". But what if, tomorrow morning, I were to transform from a generally empiricist type-A physicalist into a rationalist dualist? Well then, your arguments very well might convince me, certainly more than unsupported empirical claims about (unknown by the patient) prayer curing cancer and such. So there are arguments that thoroughly convince me of theism in a larger percentage of branching worlds (those in which I've radically changed my foundational views while still counting as "me"), and then there are arguments that thoroughly convince me in many fewer worlds, but reliably move my Bayesian estimates slightly in the theistic direction in worlds where my foundations remain intact, where I'm clearly "the same me". Which do you propose I should spend more effort evaluating?
Does modal rationalism rule out contingency, if it is concerned with our access, not with the ontological basis for it?
Does modal rationalism rule out contingency, if it is concerned with our access, not with the ontological basis for it?
When we’re evaluating about ideas for the sake of philosophic inquiry, I agree. But when we’re evaluating ideas for practical reasons - to see how effective a particular movement is, to see whether we should vote for a certain candidate, etc. - the most popular version of the idea matters, because it affects what people do with the idea in the real world.
The “version of an idea” that is “most convincing” might be utterly useless. For example, you currently believe in in a maximally uncommitted abstract God. I don’t see why I should care about whether or not that’s true.
In contrast, the validity of Christianity is much more important, and should be seriously considered. The question is not whether some abstract being exists, but of whether an idea is relevant to my life.
I was obviously not claiming that for every possible idea you should consider the best version of it. I was not claiming that if you're trying to figure out if some idea is true, you should evaluate the version of it that's most personally convincing.
Once again, you’re accusing me of ascribing crazy positions to you. At no point did I claim that you said we should consider every possible idea’s truth.
You gave a few specific examples, like belief in God. You said that if one is trying to figure out whether God is real, they should evaluate maximally uncommitted abstractionism instead of Christianity, if they find the former more convincing. My point is that this is senseless, because the *reason* that people try to find out the truth of ideas is not some intrinsic motivation towards truth, but rather practical necessity.
If someone is evaluating the Truth of an idea for some end (in the case of God, that end might be whether one should make changes to their lifestyle), then they should not evaluate versions of an idea that fit within the literal version of what they are trying to find the truth of, but which have no relation to the purpose behind the truth-seeking.
If Christianity being true is dramatically more important than Maximally uncommitted abstrictism being true, then it’s reasonable to look into Christianity when evaluating the existence of God.
Maybe you can object and say that, in this case, the relevant question is not “is God real?” But rather “is God real and is that relevant to me?”. But I would say that the latter is implicit in the former to the kind of laypeople that you criticize in this post.
I won't comment on the obviously ridiculous claim that whether a God exists that means we'll spend forever with our loved ones in paradise is unimportant. My claim was, of course, merely that if you want to figure out if theism is true--and perhaps you don't--then you ought to figure out if the best version of theism is true. If you're only interested in learning if Christianity is true, then you'd evaluate the best version of Christianity, not theism.
> I won't comment on the obviously ridiculous
I won’t comment on your practice of saying you won’t comment on something as an excuse for commenting on it without rigor.
And I hadn’t taken your version of uncommitted abstraction to require an eternal good afterlife. Though if it’s universal I’m not sure what relevance it has to us here…
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/beware-of-paraleipsis-and-other-shady-34107/#:~:text=This%20is%20a%20timely%20example,saying%20it%20shouldn't%20matter.