Fact/Value Interdependency, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, & Killing Witches
Ignorance As An Impediment to Morality
Ignorance and immorality are nearly coterminous. The biggest problem with our society is that everyone — you, me, Einstein, literally EVERYONE— is stupid as fuck and resistant to being educated. Nevertheless, you have a moral obligation to educate yourself. My reference to ignorance/immorality here is not meant as an insult but is just stating a harsh reality. The number of facts in the universe is nigh-infinite and we are all infinitely “stupid” about far more than we happen to be well-informed about. The task is educating yourself about the stuff that matters because to behave ethically requires you to be well-informed about the matter at hand.
How we ought to treat “witches” really depends upon facts. Are witches really cursing our children and dragging them to hell for all eternity? If so, killing witches is justified. As a society, we stopped killing witches because we realized that these women don’t actually have magic powers that they use to hurt children. Our morality changed only insofar as our beliefs about reality changed. As I said, there’s always going to be far more that we don’t know than that we do. The degree of our ignorance is always infinite. What is morally relevant, though, is that which is within our grasp to learn and which appears to have a bearing on how we ought to act.
I almost certainly behave unethically in certain matters of day-to-day life due to ignorance. What counts is that I look for areas of ignorance where my lack of knowledge may make me behave in ways I ought not to, then I attempt to educate myself to correct those ignorances. The tragedy is that wrong behavior and bad actions nearly always result from ignorance and humans naturally have a resistance to being corrected when pointing out a fault implies that one has been either “stupid” or “bad.” To correct someone’s failure to behave ethically, you must point out either their ignorance or their immorality. Unfortunately, doing so naturally makes people shut down and stop listening. Ask my wife! I too am highly resistant to correction!
Well, I’m here to tell you that we are all stupid and terrible people because that is just human nature, so we need to get over it and try to do better. Perfection is impossible but perpetual improvement ought to be our goal. Ignorance and immorality are entangled phenomena and neither can be tackled in isolation. We cannot solve America’s immorality problem without solving its stupidity problem. This interplay of knowledge and morality is relevant for all manners of human action. What politician ought I to vote for? What sort of policies ought I to support? What kind of things should I buy? How should I interact with my neighbors? How should I deal with various conflicts and problems?
The issue of vaccines is something that we might look at in this light. Some people can’t get a vaccine for legitimate reasons. Everyone else needs to get a vaccine to create herd immunity in order to protect those people. Refusing to get the vaccine for conspiratorial or “religious” reasons is unethical, impedes herd immunity, and puts others in harm’s way. I fully understand that anti-vaxxers and skeptics aren’t trying to be malicious. I get they are motivated by ignorance rather than mal-intent but the consequences of one’s actions matter more than the motivation. If I accidentally hurt someone because I’m too stupid to know that gasoline is flammable, it’s still my fault that they got hurt. It is my contention that the anti-vaxxer has a moral obligation to learn as much about vaccines as they can and to put their own ideas to the test by reading contrary opinions. If you are worried about the vaccine, then you ought to read the studies related to it. Learn how the vaccine works, the risks that come with getting it relative to not getting it, and delve into the relevant facts and data. If you are afraid of the vaccine while all of the experts are not, it’s probably the Dunning-Kruger effect.
We are all victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect. When you know just a little about a subject, you tend to think you know more than you really do. Then, when you learn more, you will realize the extent to which you are ignorant of the subject matter. When a kid learns to count, add, and subtract, they think they are good at math and very smart. When they start learning multiplication, division, fractions, bigger and smaller infinities, etc., then they realize the extent of their own ignorance with regard to mathematics. That is the Dunning-Kruger effect. When you have “unknown unknowns,” or things that you are not even aware that you aren’t aware of, you don’t even realize that you are being dumb. Once you turn those into “known unknowns,” you realize the extent of your remaining ignorance.
But, let’s get back to the intersection of epistemology and ethics — where knowledge and morality intersect. As I said, you can’t behave appropriately if you aren’t aware of all the facts of the situation. This ignorance/immorality correlation thing applies also to politics and policy issues. Policy disagreements are fundamentally disagreements about facts. We all want a better society. We just disagree about which policies are best to bring about a better world. We all need to constantly be learning. What matters most of all is facts and data. Once we come to a consensus on the facts of any particular matter, we are bound to come to a consensus on the appropriate solution. Insofar as we continue to disagree, it’s because we still have disputed “facts.”
