Following Reason

An open mind is rare these days.  Many people make up their minds before even hearing another position.  It’s become increasingly common to respond with the first Google posting that supports your position without sifting through the arguments.  Search engines aren’t driven by truth.  They are often driven by advertisement profits, algorithmic biases, and programmer’s political priorities. We often don’t hear the strength of opposing arguments.

This fosters an echo chamber where bad arguments flourish.  Here are some reasons why it is good to hear an opposing argument:

1. Understand Concepts Better
2. More Empathetic
3. Hearing Opposing Arguments Makes Your Position Stronger
4. Prevents Triggering

1. Understand Concepts Better

Reason involves searching for truth, not scoring points in a debate.  Often, we create a weaker version of the opposing argument in order to more effectively attack the position.  This argument is the straw man fallacy.  This does not properly represent an opposing argument.

Hearing the real argument lets you learn about the position.  You may learn something that you have not heard before and understand the concept better.  You can sharpen the quality of your position or modify your position when the evidence shows that you are wrong. 

2. More Empathetic

Beneath people’s positions is usually a life experience.  People rarely arrive at a position in an empty vat.  Learning about the opposing argument and why someone may adopt the position makes you more empathetic to the position.  (It also makes you far better at keeping friends).

Take for example Obama Care.  A person who is for the legislation may have lost their job or needed to leave the job market to help a sick relative.  Providing free healthcare could have been beneficial. Perhaps, even lifesaving. 

On the other hand, take a person who is against the legislation.  They may have spent twenty years of their life running a one-person business.  If they made too much money for subsidies and are still relatively poor, the legislation could have substantially hurt them.  Their premiums could have gone up over $1,000/month for their family for substantially worse care.  This could force the person to take another side-job.    This could result in the business owner needing to work 60+ hours/week for worse care while someone who is not working gets free care. This would seem unfair.

Understanding people’s life experiences helps you to understand their positioning and help craft a more knowledgeable foundation for your position.

Julia Galef from the Rational Speaking podcast provides a great explanation on why saying “I just can’t understand how anyone could think. . ” shows a lack of insight into other’s opinions. She thinks it’s either lazy and disingenuous. She suggests the phrase is condescending and shows a lack of imagination.

3. Hearing Opposing Arguments Makes Your Position Stronger

The best way to make a strong argument is to make the opposing argument as strong as possible. This makes you comprehensively understand the topic to sharpen your expertise.   This also forces you to address and show error with all the opposing points.  If you can successfully show why all the opposing points on a strong position are not correct, you can be confident that you have the stronger argument. 

4. Prevents Triggering

Regularly, hearing an opposing arguments helps prevent your blood from boiling.  Simply put, you can control your temper better. 

Everyone thinks that they are even keeled in an argument.  However, most people are not.  As for myself, there are certain topics that I can feel my heart race.  This makes your arguments weaker, makes you more defensive, and makes you more likely to fall into rhetorical traps.

Although righteous indignation has its place, ask yourself, how often has the person who lost their temper made the stronger augment?

Usually, Never.  You are just dumbfounded on how many points you forgot to make or how silly you looked.

Regularly hearing opposing views tends to desensitize you to losing your temper.  You can far more effectively advocate a position.  More importantly, you can arrive at the truth when you calmly can hear an opposing argument. 

A person with an open mind answers questions by following the evidence, not by fitting facts into an established narrative.  Accuracy involves letting go of the need to prove what you believe is correct.  Avoiding narratives and rhetorical techniques is needed to clearly view the world.  What is the difference between reason and rhetoric? 

The Two Types of Arguments

The division between reason and rhetoric goes back to ancient philosophy.  Aristotle described two areas of argument:

1.) Dialectic – An accurate and correct argument from systematic reasoning. This is what we associate with reason.

2.) Rhetoric – Persuasive argument involving emotion, the credibility of the speaker, and logic.

Dialectic responds to questions with dispassionate discussions aimed at verifying observations and making reasonable deductions.  Dialectic accepts the facts and conclusions without regard to if you like them. 

Rhetoric uses speech techniques and engages emotions to defend an established position or narrative. Persuasion is not open-minded; its aim is to convince you of a position.   Being able to change your mind is needed for accuracy.

Supporting Narratives Means You’re Not Open to New Information

The use of rhetoric and supporting narratives often point to strongly held values, beliefs, and emotions.  These are very sensitive areas for most people and are often part of our identity.  People tend to defend their values, beliefs, and emotions rather than being open to new information.  This motivates people to construct facts into narratives to protect their values and identities. 

Values, beliefs, and emotions are good things.  However, they need to be informed by accurate information.  Constructed narratives are signs that you are not open to contrary evidence and changing your mind.  They stand for determining what is true before hearing the evidence, not determining what is true based on the evidence.

Are you a Scout or Soldier? 

Julia Galef, the host of the Rationally Speaking podcast, had a TED talk and recently published book discussing the difference between what she calls a Scout and Soldier mindset. This Scout archetype is a symbol for seeking accuracy and changing an opinion when contrary evidence arises.   The Soldier archetype is a symbol for defending an entrenched position despite contrary evidence.  Julia argues that rationality involves a Scout mindset.  The archetypes are useful models.  It can be helpful to ask if you are acting like a scout?

When anyone presents a position, ask yourself are they using rhetoric to support a narrative?  Do they selectively cherry-pick facts, while ignoring other evidence?  These are all signs that the position is not based on accuracy, but a predetermined position.  Although rhetoric is useful to convince people to change a position, reason is the best way to assess accuracy of a position.

Everyone thinks that they are reasonable and the person they are having a disagreement with is not. We realize reason is useful for achieving our goals and describing the world. We all want to have it, but we don’t want to be a computer! We acknowledge that emotion is an important past of the human experience, too. But, what exactly is reason and why should we follow it?

Reason can be hard to define. Many scholars tie reason to logic, valid arguments, and truth. Reason can also involve consistency and systematic thought. Sometimes it involves determining causes and identifying fallacies. Reason removes clouded judgment, but does not remove emotion.  

My hope is to make reasoning concepts more digestible to everyday life to help people make ethical decisions. More practically, reason involves thought clarity. Simple ideas like is my argument supported with evidence? Am I appealing to an authority rather than providing an argument? Is there some type of fallacy or bias? When we remove the thought errors, we follow reason.

Let’s take for example, the largest topic in the news, Covid-19. A recent article in the New York Times called ‘Covid Partisan Errors’ discusses a Gallup Poll.  The poll showed the members of both major political parties made mistakes.  For instance, the polling showed that 33% of Republicans believed that without Covid-19 symptoms the virus could not be spread.  Numerous studies have shown the reality of asymptomatic spread.  Similar numbers of Republicans thought Covid-19 killed less people than seasonal flu, which is contradicted by the CDC numbers.

But, before my Democratic readers get a big head, the studies showed Democrats made many errors, too.  For instance, 69% of Democrats thought that there was more than a 20% chance a Covid-19 infection would result in hospitalization (41% of Democrats thought there was a more than 50% chance that a Covid-19 infection would lead to hospitalization).  The real answer according to the New York Times was 1-5%.  Similarly, Democrats overestimated the danger Covid-19 presented to children.  The CDC showed the fatality number as 4/10,000.  Some studies have shown an even lower percentage.

In order to make informed and ethical decisions, we need to properly understand the world around us.  Reason allows us to remove our thought errors and make informed value judgments.  I am not citing the New York Times, the CDC, or Gallup as the trusted authority, but as a resource of information and starting point.  None of these organizations are flawless and without mistake.  Like every organization, they have their own priorities and biases.  Part of why I liked the article is because the New York Times challenges itself and its readers own assumptions.  This is what you should do. The process would be exactly the same for Fox News or other polling companies. Reasoning requires consistency.

We must always be open to new data and new arguments.   We must always ask ourselves, how we know something is true and are we making an error? We should make the opposing argument as strong as possible, in order to test how your position holds up.  Only if you argument holds up to scrutiny, can you have a strong argument. 

This is the journey that I hope to take my reader on. Let’s follow reason to become more informed and ethical people.