Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Phil Plait's "Don't Be a Dick" Speech

"How many of you lost your faith because somebody called you an idiot?"

Several atheist bloggers have embedded a talk by Phil Plait on how to promote rationalism where the question above played a key role in that presentation. Plait expects that most skeptics will say that they were not convinced of skepticism by being called an idiot and proposed that we quit using practices that do not work.

I suggest that Phil Plait is asking the wrong question.

The proper target of condemnation is desires, not beliefs. The fact that condemnation is ineffective against beliefs is not a surprise. Condemnation is not meant to be effective against beliefs.

The proper target of condemnation is desires. Praise and condemnation are used to affect what people like and dislike.

If the question is, "Should skeptics use praise and condemnation as an argument to try to convince others whether certain propositions are (probably) true or (probably) false?" . . .

Then the answer is "no". Actually, the answer is that this would be an absurd practice. Praise and condemnation do not provide any evidence that a particular proposition is true or false, thus they do not provide any good reason to adopt or reject that proposition.

In fact, using praise and condemnation to affect beliefs is itself immoral because it embraces the principle of unsound reasoning that people's beliefs should be affected by claims that have no relevance to the truth of falsity of those beliefs.

So, this is a practice worthy of our condemnation.

However, if the question is, "Should skeptics use praise and condemnation as a way of affecting desires - to promote aversions and affections that are useful and to inhibit aversions and affections that are harmful?" . . .

Then the answer is "yes".

In fact, there is nothing else to use.

In the same way that praise and condemnation absolutely fail to provide evidence that a proposition is true or false, pure factual propositions have no relevance to desires.

An evil person - a person who likes things that are harmful to others - who has true beliefs and sound reasoning - is simply going to be very efficient and effective evil person. Nothing that you can say to this person in the forms of altering his beliefs - in the forms of argument and evidence - will ever have any effect but to teach him more effective and efficient ways of doing evil.

If you wish him to be good, then the tools to use are not rational argument - they are praise and condemnation.

Now, it is important to pay attention as to what target you are going after.

I want to repeat that point because it is of crucial importance. It is vital to pay attention to what your target is - to what you want to accomplish. Because affecting beliefs requires a different set of tools than affecting desires.

If you are going after somebody's belief, then the thing to do is to present evidence and sound reasoning. Calling somebody an idiot does not provide him with a good reason to adopt or reject a particular belief.

However, when he shows a moral failing - a defect in desire - then it is time to cast aside evidence and sound reasoning and to bring out the tools of praise and condemnation.

Here are cases is which it is perfectly legitimate to bring out praise and condemnation in response to somebody else's behavior.

(1) When the person you are talking to lies.

You are having a public debate with somebody and he says something that is not only false, but you have good reason to believe that the other person knows to be false.

Go ahead, make the evidence available, and call him a liar.

It is not name-calling when you call somebody who murders somebody else a murderer, when you call somebody who forces sex on somebody without consent a rapist, when you talk to somebody who makes gross and derogatory overgeneralizations about all people of a particular race or gender a bigot, or when you call somebody who utters claims he knows to be false a liar.

(2) When the person asserts claims he has not checked and could have easily checked.

Let's say somebody claims that recession of the moon proves that the earth could not be billions of years old. Now, I am not talking about somebody asking a question. I am talking about somebody who is making an assertion.

This person is showing a moral failing. "Before you make these stupid assertions why don't you research them and find out what the facts are you intellectually reckless sophist?"

The problem you are addressing here is not being wrong, it is being lazy. Lazy people deserve to be called lazy and they deserve to be called lazy in public - and their laziness needs to be demonstrated.

"It would take you 15 seconds to find the answer to your question on the Internet. Why do you come here and assert that utter nonsense as if it is proved true when, if you had an iota of concern for the truth rather than pushing a myth, you could have found out the answer yourself?"

This is a perfectly legitimate response when a person shows a moral failing of laziness.

A lack of concern for the potential harmful consequences of one's errors - as demonstrated by a lack of motivation to check claims or reasoning supporting conclusions that have potentially harmful consequences is not a "belief" problem. It is a "desires" problem.

The fact is, there is no set of evidence you can provide - no sound syllogism of any form - that will provide a proper response to a lying, intellectually lazy hypocrit who does not care about the potentially harmful consequences of pushing nonsense as if it were truth.

Phil Plait asks the question, "What is your goal here?"

Sometimes the goal is to condemn lying, intellectual laziness, hypocrisy, and a lack of compassion over the potential harmful consequences of pushing nonsense. When it is, calling such a person a lying, intellectually lazy, hypocrite who cares nothing about others is not only true, it is perfectly legitimate.

I would like to close by calling the attention to the fact that the very title of Phil Plait's speech, which is taken from his closing argument, is an example of condemnation through name-calling. It is an example of the type of activity that I support, and which Plait - in a speech where he condemns its use - actually uses.

Phil Plait - Don't Be A Dick from JREF on Vimeo.

6 comments:

J. W. Gray said...

I agree that praise and blame and emotions aren't a reason to believe something, but beliefs are morally relevant.

I'm not convinced that beliefs can't be immoral. The "truth" of a position is part of the reason we should accept it. The justification for a belief can be morally relevant to the point of morally requiring belief.

For example, the belief that one race is superior to another has no merit and it is harmful. It could be immoral to have such a belief, and a "virtuous" person could be praised for having the most rational beliefs possible (at least where morality is concerned).

I suppose what should be praised is forming beliefs for the right reasons, and we could condemn forming beliefs for the wrong reasons.

Having the right reasons seems to relate to what you call being "lazy," but poor reasoning also extends to having a poorly developed ability to reason. We could ask ignorant/irrational people to try to become less ignorant/irrational, but they tend to be overconfident about their abilities and see no reason to change.

I find this all to be a lack of virtue (which is morally relevant) even though these people behave in predictable ways and praise/blame might not be able to motivate them to change.

Additionally, you are wrong that factual beliefs have no relevance to desires. A person who is hungry and believes that an apple could relieve the hunger could "desire" the apple. Even Hume would admit that beliefs and desires combine to give us reason for action.

An evil person - a person who likes things that are harmful to others - who has true beliefs and sound reasoning - is simply going to be very efficient and effective evil person. Nothing that you can say to this person in the forms of altering his beliefs - in the forms of argument and evidence - will ever have any effect but to teach him more effective and efficient ways of doing evil.

Yes, an evil person might not care about what is moral, but a good person will. We can use reasoning with the good person, but not the bad one.

If you wish him to be good, then the tools to use are not rational argument - they are praise and condemnation.

What makes you think that would change an evil person? You are making a factual empirical claim that could be backed up by science.

Certainly coercion could change an evil person. We could try to force them to behave how we want. Of course, I'm not sure that very many people are truly evil. Most criminals would probably like to find out how to be productive and respected members of society, but that is almost impossible for criminals to achieve.

I think reasoning can work with most people, but it can take a long time, and they have to have some care towards others (desire that others do well). Very few people totally lack a desire for others to do well.

However, when he shows a moral failing - a defect in desire - then it is time to cast aside evidence and sound reasoning and to bring out the tools of praise and condemnation.

I'm not convinced that these are effective tools at shaping emotions, but there are many other ways to reform our desires. We need people to care for others, and closer relationships with others is essential to develop care towards others. Team work is a good way to transform people into friends as well.

J. W. Gray said...

You are wrong that factual beliefs have no relevance to desires. A person who is hungry and believes that an apple could relieve the hunger could "desire" the apple. Even Hume would admit that beliefs and desires combine to give us reason for action.

Yes, an evil person might not care about what is moral, but a good person will. We can use reasoning with the good person, but not the bad one.

What makes you think that praise and blame would change an evil person? You are making a factual empirical claim that could be backed up by science.

Certainly coercion could change an evil person. We could try to force them to behave how we want. Of course, I'm not sure that very many people are truly evil. Most criminals would probably like to find out how to be productive and respected members of society, but that is almost impossible for criminals to achieve.

I think reasoning can work with most people, but it can take a long time, and they have to have some care towards others (desire that others do well). Very few people totally lack a desire for others to do well.

I'm not convinced that praise and blame are effective tools at shaping emotions, but there are many other ways to reform our desires. We need people to care for others, and closer relationships with others is essential to develop care towards others. Team work is a good way to transform people into friends as well.

Alonzo Fyfe said...

J.W. Gray

When a person holds a false belief, it is possible to ask why he holds that belief.

And because people tend to believe what they want to believe, false beliefs (or poorly grounded beliefs) often tells us something about what a person desires. And those desires can be the legitimate object of praise or condemnation.

The question to ask is: How do we distinguish beliefs worthy of condemnation from those that are not? And what is it about those beliefs that make them worthy of condemnation? Why is condemnation the right response?

I argue that it is those beliefs that show a defect of desires - that tells us that the agent wants to believe something he should not want to believe that deserve condemnation. And the reason condemnation is the right response to those beliefs is because condemnation is the tool for affecting desires.

Alonzo Fyfe said...

J.W. Gray

Yes, an evil person might not care about what is moral, but a good person will. We can use reasoning with the good person, but not the bad one.

This is exactly true. This is why, with a good person, the goal should be to alter beliefs, which is done through the presentation of evidence and sound reason. Condemnation, ridicule, name-calling, none of these are appropriate when in a discussion with a virtuous person.

But when you are in a discussion with somebody who is not virtuous, then evidence and sound reason produce no good results. Then the proper tools to use are praise and condemnation.

Alonzo Fyfe said...

J.W. Gray

You are wrong that factual beliefs have no relevance to desires. A person who is hungry and believes that an apple could relieve the hunger could "desire" the apple. Even Hume would admit that beliefs and desires combine to give us reason for action.

There is a distinction to be drawn between what we desire as an end and desire as a means.

Beliefs have no relevance to what we desire as an end. However, what we desire as a means is a combination of what we desire as an end and beliefs. So, beliefs do have relevance to what we desire as a means.

My comments in this post regarding beliefs and desires refer to desires-as-ends.

J. W. Gray said...

Alonzo,

Thank you for the response. Although arguments might not be effective for evil people, they can sometimes have a very emotional impact on people with even a smidgen of humanity, and it might be that everyone has a smidgen of humanity.

The fact is that even many sociopaths make use of utilitarianism to guide their behavior. Either those sociopaths care about people more than we might have thought or their evaluative beliefs somehow motivate them in some other way.

From Go Grue!:

"In recent work Joshua Greene argues that when we realize that many of our characteristically deontological moral judgments arise from emotional reactions rather than deontological reasoning, we will lose our confidence in these deontological judgments. In contrast, when we learn that many utilitarian judgments arise from cognitive processes that engage in cost/benefit analysis, then this vindicates these judgments. And (to simplify Greene’s reasoning) the conclusion of all this is that we should become utilitarians." -- http://gogrue.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/the-morality-of-psychopaths/

I certainly don't think the research is definitive, but it might shed some light into moral motivation.