Empathy, curiosity, and diverse ideas

There are a variety of reasons that we might value diverse ideas and points of view: interacting with those with whom we disagree can help us to check our assumptions, improve our inquiry (Elgin, 2018; Longino, 2002), know we are justified (Mill, 1966), and meet democratic ideals (Landemore, 2017; Lynch, 2018b), to name just a few.

It is key that, by hypothesis, intellectual humility helps us to be empathetic and curious. This is because neither curiosity nor empathy alone helps us to be tolerant of diverse viewpoints in a productive way.To see this, we'll consider agents that have one but not the other trait as com­pared with an agent who has both.

First, consider Edward. Edward is empathetic in both ways outlined above: he is both affec­tively and cognitively empathetic. This means that when Edward encounters Sarah, he is able to both feel what Sarah feels and make inferences based on her values.This will, by hypothesis, make Edward better able to relate to and have productive dialog with Sarah. However, this relies on Edward encountering Sarah. If Edward is not curious, his interactions will be limited. And, since we know that people tend to interact with those with whom they antecedently agree, Edward will likely only interact with those whose views are similar to his own (Badger, 2017; Baumgaertner, 2014; Nguyen, n.d.). Because of this, despite being empathetic, Edward will only encounter (and so be in a position to tolerate) diverse ideas by accident and in a limited way.

Next consider Cate. Cate is virtuously curious: she is properly motivated to acquire epis- temic goods. Cate asks questions, seeks new information. In particular, we can imagine that Cate is curious about people who are different than she is. However, she is curious without being empathetic. This means that when she encounters Sean, who holds deeply different political beliefs she asks him questions, but is horrified, put off, or judgmental of the answers. She might be fascinated precisely because Sean's views seem so weird, or exotic. She seeks to know his views, not to assume or even understand his perspective, but as a kind of detached empirical exercise. And, unless she's very good at hiding the nature of her interest and her reactions to Sean's answers, she's unlikely to achieve much in the way of productive interaction with him.

We can see from the cases of Edward and Cate that neither curiosity nor empathy alone puts agents in a good position to tolerate diverse beliefs. However, if we imagine that Edward had some of Cate's curiosity, or that Cate were a little more empathetic, then they might each be better positioned to encounter and to tolerate diverse beliefs. And, if I'm right in what I've argued in the above, both curiosity and empathy are facilitated by intellectual humility. Being intellectually humble, then, may improve the chances that agents are both curious and empa­thetic, thereby improving the chances that they tolerate diverse ideas.

Notes

1 Research for much of this work has been funded by the Templeton Foundation.

2 There is not room, here, to canvas all of the changes that would be needed for my account under each understanding of intellectual humility. Nonetheless, we can begin to see the kinds of changes needed for some accounts: for the Roberts and Wood account, the lack of concern with recognition for intel­lectual achievement would make a person more likely to be open to engage with someone who fails to recognize that achievement — such a person would not be defensive of their epistemic position, or reluctant to admit other thinkers hold reasonable views.

3 I mean to be inclusive in my use of alief of all the sorts of automatic habits of thought or attitudes that are in tension with our explicit or avowed beliefs.

4 (Hazlett, 2012) has some discussion about how awareness of these could help us be intellectually hum- ble.This discussion, though useful, is beyond the current scope.

5 (De Vignemont and Jacob, 2012) offers a helpful and empirically based explanation of the variety of ways in which an agent might experience the affective state of another, only some of which are rightly called empathetic.

6 (Michael, 2014) offers a really helpful exposition of the conflict detailed in this section.

7 Notice that imaginatively taking on another's perspective can be instrumental in either affective or cognitive empathy. I might be imagining what it would feel like to be in my target's position, or I might be imaging having the same prior commitments or beliefs as that person.The claim, here, is that when psychologists want to encourage empathy, they ask their subjects/patients to imagine being in the position of the target of that empathy.

8 In these cases in which Cal and Bev happen to be curious, my inclination is to think that their servility and arrogance, respectively, aren't quite sincere. I can imagine an agent who feigns arrogance to cover up her insecurity. Such an agent would then be highly motivated to find out more information in order to shore up her show of arrogance. Similarly, if Cal is curious only about those areas where he is in fact limited, then I would guess that he is really aware of his limitations but is feigning servility. In both of these cases, the agent in question is not acting fully virtuously, but the failure is less clearly one of intellectual humility.

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