Rejection is Not The Answer
by Joseph Rowlands
One day I'm arguing with a scientist. She informs me that she's an agnostic when it comes to religion. I ask if she actually believes there's a god, and she says no. But she won't rule out the possibility that there is one. In fact, she offers, she won't rule out anything. She believes that a scientist's job requires a kind of humility. A scientist must never be sure about anything, and must always question every assumption. In her case, it led to a strong form of skepticism. It was a systematic method of doubting everything. She thought this would prevent any form of dogmatism, and give her the ability to comfortably dismiss a theory when evidence proved it wrong.
Her questioning assumptions sounds a lot like the Objectivist motto "Check your premises". Both aim at a similar goal. Make sure that you aren't blinded to the truth by assuming some premise is true. But the difference is like night and day.
When you check a premise, you aren't simply doubting the premise, or rejecting it. You're supposed to be double-checking it. You evaluate it based on new and old evidence. Through a process of reasoning, you're trying to determine the validity of the premise.
When she questions her assumptions, there is no reevaluation. She's simply choosing to doubt it and ignore it. She says that humans are fallible. She says that we can never be sure of anything. Reality may not exist. If it does, it might be different for each of us. Contradictions might exist in reality, and not just our ideas. Maybe there is no god in her reality, but there could be in yours. This is skepticism.
Questioning assumptions like this is not a real solution to the problem of dogmatism because it doesn't address the main concern. It does not provide a correct method for determining what's true. Instead of addressing this need, it simply dismisses the possibility of being certain about anything. It's a search for anything a person is pretty confident about, and rejecting them because of that confidence.
This is one example of a class of errors. The errors find some problem (usually real), and attempt to "solve" them. But instead of addressing the difficult part, like finding a method of reevaluation, a dismissal takes place. There's an attempt to avoid the entire problem.
Take the idea that we should withhold judgment until all of the facts are in. It's a perfectly reasonable statement addressing a real concern. The problem it aims to correct is leaping to false conclusions when we might be missing critical information. But when do you know you have enough information? There must be a means of deciding this. Without it, this rational principle of caution becomes an excuse to never form a conclusion at all. There are people who attempt to never make judgments because there may always be some factor that they don't have knowledge about. This doesn't address the problem. It just rejects the need to form conclusions.
Similarly there's the idea that you should analyze a position from many different angles to gain a fuller understanding of the context. But how many angles is enough? When do you have a sufficient grasp of the context? Again, simply continuing to analyze it from another angle is a method to never make a judgment. Without the key part of the puzzle, the ability to determine that you have sufficient understanding, you haven't really addressed the problem. You've just rejected the ability to make judgments.
This kind of error exists in other areas. In the field of ethics, a person may easily come to the conclusion that violence is not conducive to our lives. But what happens when they suggest pacifism as the solution? They haven't address the main problem of identifying what the proper use of force should be, such as retaliatory force. Instead, they simply reject the possibility of using force morally.
Or how about those people who see that government is often a violator of our rights. They could try addressing the problem by identifying the limits of government, and determining the means of keeping it within those limits. Or they could opt for anarchism, rejecting the need for government.
In all of these examples, the problem is avoided by giving up on the original need. The skeptical "questioning of assumptions" avoids dogmatism by rejecting our need of knowledge. Waiting for all the facts to be in avoids jumping to false conclusions by rejecting our need to form conclusions. Always analyzing from another angle avoids making bad judgments by rejecting our need to make judgments. Pacifism avoids an improper use of force by rejecting our need to ever use force. And anarchism avoids a bad government by ignoring our actual need for government.
It's easy to see how a bad approach can be destructive or irrational or whatever. And consequently, its very easy to just argue to never do it. It takes a lot more to find a way to satisfy the original need correctly.
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