False skepticism and false fallibilism

I have dwelt on these affinities between the virtue of skepticism, the virtue of fallibilism, and the virtue of intellectual humility (Section 27.3) because I would like to now turn to some species of false intellectual humility (Section 27.1) which masquerade as manifestations of (the virtues of) fallibilism and skepticism.

27.4.1 Conspiracy thinking

By “conspiracy thinking” I have in mind the kind of thinking characteristic of those who (i) believe in a conspiracy (i.e. a clandestine attempt to do something wrong), (ii) the existence of which is denied by a consensus of official sources of information (i.e. mainstream news media, academic experts, government reports, etc.),²⁴ (iii) without first-hand evidence. Although it has been suggested that conspiracy thinking is most at home in right-wing politics,²⁵ it is a perva­sive feature of American politics more generally: for every person who believes that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, there is someone who believes that 9/11 was an inside job. Populist politicians across the political spectrum maintain that the “economy is rigged” and that liberal (for right-wingers) or capitalist (for left-wingers) elites are secretly scheming against the interests of the common man.

Knowledge denials are thus an essential part of conspiracy thinking: the conspiracy theorist must reject the claims to knowledge made by the official sources that reject the existence of the conspiracy. This accounts for the superficial resemblance between conspiracy thinking and the manifestation of the virtue of skepticism (Section 27.3) — the conspiracy theorist is rightly described as being skeptical of the official story.

However, these expressions of curiosity and open-mindedness are inauthentic, because the conspiracy theorist already takes themselves to know what the hell is going on: they already believe, and typically are quite sure, that the conspiracy exists. This is not to say, or at least not yet to say, that conspiracy theorists are irrational. Certainly there are conspiracies; the conspiracy theorist’s characteristic belief is not necessarily false. But it is a belief, and it is typically a quite confident belief, which makes the conspiracy theorists’ articulated interest in inquiry insincere.

Recall the diagnosis of dogmatism offered by fallibilists and skeptics (Section 27.3), which appeals to the dogmatist’s desire for certainty. Such a desire is a familiar feature of conspiracy thinking: the need for answers, the desire to tie up loose ends, to account for complex or seemingly inexplicable events. Now, there is more than a superficial resemblance between the dogmatist’s inability to cope well with uncertainty and ignorance and the virtuous person’s curiosity. The difference is revealed in the results: the virtuous are led to suspension of judgment and genuine inquiry; the dogmatic are led to conviction and “sham inquiry,” as Pierce calls it.

The conspiracy theorist’s reluctance to inquire is a consequence of that feature identi­fied by Popper as characteristic of pseudo-science: the refusal to accept anything as evidence against the existence of the alleged conspiracy. Genuine inquiry is premised on the possibility of evidence one way or another; sham inquiry is not. It might be said, in defense of conspiracy thinking, that conspiracy theorists are not insensitive to evidence in this way. Indeed, we are familiar with the way in which conspiracy theorists are able and willing to incorporate new evidence into their explanations. However, it is distinctive of conspiracy thinking that there is an non-negotiable “core” of the conspiracy theory, some basic assumption or allegation that is not genuinely open for revision, even if it is something as ambiguous and unspecific as that “something is going on” or that “the truth is out there.” (This leads to a tension in some instances of conspiracy thinking, whereby it is insisted both that inquiry is needed, since we don't know the whole story, and that inquiry is pointless, because we can never know what really happened.)

It is this dogmatic commitment to the existence of a conspiracy, more than their special rela­tionship with any particular conspiracy theory, that characterizes the intellectual arrogance of the conspiracy thinker.The reason we can level this charge of intellectual arrogance against the conspiracy thinker is that we have defined conspiracy thinking as both conflicting with a con­sensus of official sources of information and lacking a first-hand evidential basis.The conspiracy thinker refuses to defer to those official sources, but without the kind of evidential support that would justify doing so. By classifying conspiracy thinking as a species of false intellectual humil­ity, we can appreciate the kind of confidence that is masked by the conspiracy thinker's would- be skeptical and fallibilistic pronouncements.

27.4.2 Amateurism

According to a familiar narrative, contemporary politics is characterized by the rise of skepti­cism about expertise.²⁶ According to the British MP Michael Gove, who argued in favor of a “Leave” vote in the UK's 2016 “Brexit” referendum,“people in this country have had enough of experts.”²⁷ Like conspiracy thinking, this tendency can be found across the political spec­trum: populists and their supporters, whether conservative or progressive, are inclined to reject what economists have to say about free trade and immigration.

At first glance, this could be mistaken for prudent caution about expert consensus — experts, after all, even when there is consensus among them, are often wrong. A case could be made that doubting the consensus view among experts often manifests the virtue of skepticism or the virtue of fallibilism (Section 27.3). However, the phenomenon that characterizes contemporary politics involves more than merely doubting the consensus view among experts. It also involves believing some alternative view.The “Leave” voter who rejects the standard view among econo­mists does not suspend judgment about the economic consequences of the UK leaving the EU, the way someone might if they simply thought that the experts were unreliable, because that would not particularly support voting “Leave.” The “Leave” voter not only fails to believe that leaving the EU will have negative economic consequences; they, in addition, believe that leaving the EU will not have negative economic consequences.

The phenomenon in question here, therefore, is better described as a kind of amateurism, rather than as “skepticism about expertise."The people who have “had enough of experts” are not going around suspending judgment, the way a skeptic might.They are going around believ­ing the negation of what the experts say. What is distinctive of them is less their distrust of experts than their trust in alternative sources of information.

What alternative sources, exactly? In some cases, amateurism comes in the form of height­ened self-trust. As Gove put it, in the same interview mentioned above, “I'm not asking the public to trust me. I'm asking them to trust themselves.”²⁸ Amateurists are thus disposed to work things out for themselves and to draw their own conclusions. However, amateurism just as often comes in the form of deference to someone other than the experts — a politician, a pundit, a website, or an anonymous stranger on social media.Amateurists are particularly fond of intellec­tual iconoclasts — an especially appealing type is the “rogue” or “renegade” academic, especially if they have been censured or rebuffed in some way by the academy; ideas that have failed to survive peer review are especially exciting, and ex-academics who have been fired or resigned under pressure are particularly compelling.

Both of these forms of amateurism manifest intellectual arrogance, although in different ways. First, consider the amateurist who puts their trust in themselves — the voter who conducts their own economic analysis of Brexit, say. There is, we should acknowledge, something valu­able about people who are prepared to put independent thought into their political decisions.²⁹ There is a temptation to complain that intellectual autonomy is a vice when autonomous rea­soners come to different conclusions than those to which we have come. However, the value of independence and autonomy needs to be balanced against the value of truth: even if there is something good about my coming to my own conclusions, there is something bad about coming to conclusions that are uninformed, not supported by evidence, and based on fallacious reasoning. Typically, the self-trusting amateurist simply fails to recognize these costs, by overes­timating their own intellectual powers and scholarly abilities, relative to the experts of whom they are suspicious. In this way, they manifest intellectual arrogance.

Second, consider the amateurist who defers to someone other than the experts. Here, there is really no question of the value of independence and autonomy, although amateurists may be tempted by the incoherent idea that, by deferring to someone outside of the mainstream, they are not being deferential. But in what way does such deference manifest intellectual arrogance? Unlike the amateurist who conducts their own research, the amateurist who defers to some “alternative” source of information has not overestimated their ability to conduct the relevant research. However, they are overestimating their ability to evaluate sources of information for the purposes of deference.There is a temptation in epistemology to think that deference involves a kind of abdication of intellectual responsibility, in which the person who defers is an entirely passive recipient of information.

As above, a desire for certainty (Section 27.3) seems to play a role here.Amateurism is appeal­ing for someone suffering from an excessive desire for certainty, for expert explanations are often complex, invoking a plurality of factors, and hedged in probabilistic terms, such that no simple, decisive answer can be given to any question addressed by experts. Expert explanations, relative to such a desire for certainty, tend to be unsatisfying, and amateurism provides a way to avoid this, with the simple and decisive answers provided by “common sense” or “alternative” experts.

As with conspiracy thinking, we gain insight by classifying amateurism as a species of false intellectual humility, because there is a temptation to think of amateurism as something nega­tive, involving a distinctive kind of doubt or suspicion, directed at experts and expertise. On the present analysis, amateurism is, in fact, something positive, involving a distinctive relationship of confidence or trust, directed at one's own intellectual powers.

27.4.3 Science denial

Let us consider, finally, that which is probably the most famous form of skepticism in con­temporary political life, climate change skepticism. The climate change skeptic doubts that anthropogenic climate change is occurring; they argue that we do not know or cannot be sure whether it is occurring; they concede that the climate may be changing but profess not to understand why.

However, as in the case of amateurism,“skepticism” is not quite the right word here, because the climate change skeptic does not merely doubt that anthropogenic climate change is occur­ring; rather, they believe that anthropogenic climate change is not occurring.The climate change “skeptic” does not merely doubt the scientific consensus about climate change, they deny that consensus, by believing its negation.³⁰ This reveals the essential insincerity that climate change “skepticism” shares with conspiracy thinking and amateurism: belief (that anthropogenic climate change is not occurring) is combined with articulated doubt (about whether anthropogenic climate change is occurring).

The denial of climate science is part of a broader pattern of science denial in contemporary political life. Like conspiracy thinking and amateurism, science denial is at home both on the right (e.g. climate change “skepticism”) and the left (e.g. preference for organic and GMO-free foods). Some instances of science denial manage to have bipartisan appeal despite political polar­ization: both conservative presidential candidate Ben Carson and progressive celebrity activist Robert DeNiro have expressed concerns about the safety of common vaccines, and suspicions about scientific bias and corruption are voiced with equal vehemence on conservative talk radio and in college humanities classrooms.

For the same reason that amateurism manifests intellectual arrogance, science denial mani­fests intellectual arrogance: the science denier overestimates their own intellectual powers and scholarly abilities. But the relevant contrast here is not so much with the intellectual powers and scholarly abilities of scientists, such as they are, but with the overwhelming evidential value of the scientific method and the consequent reliability of scientific consensus.³¹ The science denier's arrogance is the presupposition that their methods — whatever they are — are superior to the scientific method. And this is an arrogant presupposition simply because the scientific method is the best method known to human beings for inquiring about contingent empirical questions.

As above, a desire for certainty (Section 27.3) seems involved in this species of false intel­lectual humility. Because science necessarily offers probability, and never certainty, the person who desires certainty will always be disappointed by what science has to say. Climate change “skeptics” are right that anthropogenic climate change hasn't been proven — but no scientific theory ever will be.

27.5