Rachel Wahl: “Risky Talk: Public Deliberation Across Deep Divides”

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 Rachel Wahl

“Risky Talk: Public Deliberation Across Deep Divides”

April 19, 4:00-5:30 Babbidge Library, UCHI Conference Room

Rachel Wahl is  an assistant professor in the Social Foundations Program, Department of Leadership, Foundations, and Policy at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. She is also a Fellow and member of the Council Trust at UVa’s Institute for Advanced  Studies in Culture and an affiliate of the University of Connecticut’s Human Rights Institute. Her research focuses on how state officials respond to human rights efforts to prevent torture as well as on learning through public deliberation between people  on opposing sides of political divides.

  Description: Trump voters and Clinton voters. The police and people of color.  Supporters and critics of immigration. The deepest divisions have roiled the American political landscape, cutting so deeply as to include fundamental questions about whose lives matter. Often these divides seem to foreclose any possibility of mutual  understanding.  Yet calls persist for a more civil civic culture where competing views are exchanged. Many people worry however that such civility will cloak continued oppression by dominant groups. Others may feel it is a waste of energy better spent on political  resistance. But what actually happens when deeply divided groups sit down together to talk?
This presentation will report on findings from two studies: one  of deliberative dialogue in the most challenging circumstances, occurring between groups who occupy unequal positions and concerning the highest of stakes: police and communities of color. The second study examines deliberative dialogue between university  students who voted for opposing candidates in the 2016 presidential election. The presentation examines whether and how people learn from each other in these exchanges, as well as the political and ethical implications of asking people to learn from their  adversaries through deliberation.

 

Associations Between Religious Convictions and Intellectual Humility by Liz Mancuso

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Associations Between Religious Convictions and Intellectual Humility
by Liz Mancuso

 

Most people hold convictions in life. Convictions, by definition, involve firmly held beliefs that are often associated with behavioral commitments. My recent work has focused on how convictions and associated commitments relate to intellectual humility. Intellectual humility can be defined as a nonthreatening awareness of one’s intellectual fallibility (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016). This definition assumes the intellectually humble person understands that his or her cognitive faculties are not perfect and that his or her knowledge, perceptions, and beliefs are therefore sometimes incorrect. This is paired with an attitude of acceptance, whereby the person does not feel defensive about his or her mental fallibility.

 

It is most fitting to study intellectual humility in the context of convictions that are of greatest importance to people. This makes religious convictions a particularly relevant domain, because they offer so much in the way of finding meaning, coping with life’s struggles, terror management, and so forth. My research has been examining whether it is possible to be intellectually humble and simultaneously deeply committed to religious beliefs.

 

Some may assume intellectual humility to be incompatible with firm commitments. Yet, research has indicated that intellectual humility is unrelated to conformity, social confidence, or low self-regard, and has small, positive links to self-confidence (Krumrei-Mancuso & Rouse, 2016). This suggests that intellectual humility is not associated with modifying beliefs on the basis of social influence or to fit others’ standards and suggest that intellectual humility, therefore, may co-occur with convictions. Yet, this has rarely been examined with regard to specific convictions, such as religious beliefs and commitments.

 

This line of research has resulted in two particularly interesting findings so far. First, in addition to the emergence of small negative linear relationships between religious variables and intellectual humility, curvilinear relationships are emerging as well (Krumrei-Mancuso, 2018). For example, in the case of religious belief salience, prayer fulfillment, and religious fundamentalism, U-shaped links are suggesting that extreme scores at low and high levels of these religious variables tend to be associated with higher levels of intellectual humility compared to moderate levels of these religious variables. A possible explanation for this finding is that those with moderate levels of religion may be masking their ambivalence about their worldview with a façade of overconfidence that presents as a lack of intellectual humility. Alternatively, these findings could reflect a developmental faith trend, whereby individuals who move from no or very low faith to more substantial levels of faith may initially be encumbered by a more closed-minded approach, whereas those who continue to progress still further into more mature faith move toward greater intellectual humility as they shift away from black and white thinking, gain more appreciation for paradox and mystery, and experience greater acceptance of others (Fowler, 1981). Notably, a number of previous studies have found conceptually similar curvilinear relationships with religious variables and other outcomes such as prejudice toward outgroup members (Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis, 1993; Gorsuch & Aleshire, 1974) and mental wellbeing (Galen & Kloet, 2011). Taken together, these findings suggest that individuals toward the middle of the continuum of religion may fare the least well on a variety of outcomes, including intellectual humility.

 

Second, and perhaps more important, is the finding that the links between religious variables and intellectual humility can be almost fully accounted for by right-wing authoritarianism (Krumrei-Mancuso, 2018). This holds in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Although religious participation, religious belief salience, prayer fulfillment, and religious fundamentalism initially seem to be associated with slightly less intellectual humility, controlling right-wing authoritarianism erases all of these links except for a small association between religious participation and less intellectual humility.

 

Right-wing authoritarianism is characterized by obedience to authority, conformity to conventional norms, and intolerance of deviance. Previous research has emphasized that right-wing authoritarianism and certain forms of religiosity can promote one another through a mutual emphasis on obedience to authority, conventionalism, and perhaps even feelings of self-righteousness or superiority (Hunsburger, 1995). Yet, right-wing authoritarianism is not religious in nature. The suggestion of the current research is that, for the most part, it is not religious conviction itself that is associated with decreases in intellectual humility, but rather, that sociopolitical attitudes about authority, conformity, and conventionality are associated with less intellectual humility. This parallels a theme in previous research about the links between religion and prejudice, as well (Hunsberger, 1995).

 

Thus, the emerging picture is that intellectual humility may function independently from many religious beliefs, behaviors, and experiences. It is possible that religious convictions co-occur with openness to improving one’s knowledge and beliefs. Although further research is needed, it seems that intellectual humility, involving an appreciation for the tentative nature of one’s personal knowledge, need not conflict with religious conviction.

 

 

 

References

 

Batson, C. D., Schoenrade, P., & Ventis, W. L. (1993).  Religion and the individual:  A social-psychological perspective. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Fowler, J. W. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the

            quest for meaning. San Francisco: Harper & Row.

Galen, L. W., & Kloet, J. D. (2011). Mental well-being in the religious and the non-religious:

evidence for a curvilinear relationship. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 14(7), 673

  1. doi:10.1080/13674676.2010.510829

Gorsuch, R. L., & Aleshire, D. (1974). Christian faith and ethnic prejudice: A review and interpretation of research. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 13(3), 281-307. doi:10.2307/1384759

Hunsburger, B. (1995). Religion and prejudice: The role of religious fundamentalism, quest, and right-wing authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues, 51(2), 113-129. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1995.tb01326.x

Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J. (2018, in press). Intellectual humility’s links to religion and spirituality and the role of authoritarianism. Personality and Individual Differences, 130C, 65-75.

Krumrei-Mancuso, E. J., & Rouse, S. V. (2016). The development and validation of the Comprehensive Intellectual Humility Scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 98, 209-221. doi:10.1080/00223891.2015.1068174

 

 

 

 

SEWing Circle Featured Speaker: Jennifer Saul

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Jennifer Saul Professor of Philosophy

“Dogwhistles and Figleaves: Techniques of Racist Linguistic Manipulation”

April 5, 4:00-5:30 Babbidge Library, UCHI Conference Room

Jennifer’s primary interests are in Philosophy of Language, Feminism, Philosophy of Race, and Philosophy of Psychology. Her most recent book was Lying, Misleading and What is Said: An Exploration in Philosophy of Language and in Ethics (Oxford University Press 2012). Currently, she is working on racism in political speech. In 2011, she received the 2011 Distinguished Woman Philosopher Award in Washington, DC; she has also been chosen as Mind Association President for 2019-20.

Abstract: Until recently, it was widely believed that explicit expressions of racism would doom a political candidacy in the United States. Yet nonetheless racism was a frequently used tool that won many elections. This talk examines one of the methods, the dogwhistle, that allowed such racist electoral victories. It then turns to the present day, in which explicit racism is proving remarkably successful. Here I explore a different linguistic technique, the fig leaf, which I take to have enabled this success.

Working Group

SEWing Circle Featured Speaker: Sanford Goldberg

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Sanford Goldberg
“Your Attention Please!  (The Ethics of Address)”

March 26, 4:00-5:30 Babbidge Library, Heritage Room (4th Floor)

Sandy Goldberg (PhD Columbia University, 1995) works in the areas of Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind. Goldberg’s interests in Epistemology include such topics as reliabilism, the epistemology of testimony, the theory of epistemic justification, social epistemology, self-knowledge, and skepticism. In the Philosophy of Mind and Language, his interests center on the individuation of the propositional attitudes, externalist theories of mental content and linguistic meaning, the semantics of speech and attitude reports, and speech act theory. A good sample of his work can be found in his four recent books, Anti-Individualism (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Relying on Others (Oxford University Press, 2010), Assertion (Oxford University Press, 2015), and To the Best of Our Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2018).

There are various ways through which we try to capture another person’s attention. One of these ways – a particularly sophisticated way! – is to address them. After trying to highlight what it is to address another person, I argue that doing so generates a reason (for you, as addressee) to attend to the act. When the act of address is a speech act, matters are further complicated by the expectations parties bring, and (I argue) are entitled to bring, to an (anticipated) speech exchange.  The upshot is that speakers who address an audience have a defeasible claim on the audience’s attention. To fail to attend to a speaker who addresses you and whose claim on your attention is not defeated, I argue, is to disrespect her as a rational subject. ​That this is an underexplored topic in social epistemology is unfortunate, since if I am right addresses form the foundation of most, if not all, attempts at joint action, including those that arise in the course of our attempts to share information with one another.

Working Group

Trespassing Onto Other Experts’ Turf by Nathan Ballantyne and David Dunning

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Trespassing Onto Other Experts’ Turf
by Nathan Ballantyne and David Dunning

Experts’ knowledge and skills are a valuable resource for individuals and communities. One economist recently estimated that 75% of the capital in the United States lies in the knowledge and intellectual abilities of its people.1

But non-experts can easily fail to make good use of experts’ superior insights. Thus, one threat to the flourishing of human beings, individually and collectively, is the inability for non-experts to accurately recognize and take advantage of genuine expertise. At times, people even reject the input and advice of experts, a move that lies at the heart of our team’s project.

In a phrase, we explore epistemic trespassing, in which non-experts move into an expert’s field, reject their judgments, and supplant the expert’s perspectives with their own. A quick survey of contemporary news (or maybe anyone’s Twitter or Facebook feed!) will reveal examples in which people replace informed opinion with their own flawed and incomplete knowledge. This behavior is not a reflection of intellectual humility, and so its patterning and prevalence is worthy of careful study to examine how often people trespass and whether they do it out of wisdom or its opposite.

In coordinated projects, Dunning and collaborators at the University of Michigan investigate the psychological and social dynamics that promote or inhibit trespassing behavior, using the methods of empirical psychological research, while Ballantyne at Fordham University investigates normative questions about the appropriate evaluation of trespassing behavior, using the tools of philosophical analysis.

Dunning’s lab has recently completed a study, spearheaded by postdoctoral researcher Stephanie de Oliveira Chen, that explored when non-experts dismiss the conclusions of scientific experts. The key issue is knowledge of scientific method—and believing whether scientists’ claims are constrained by those methods or instead are free to roam wherever they please the scientist.

In the survey study, respondents were quizzed on their familiarity with the constraints built into the scientific method that limit scientific claims. Knowledge of these constraints proved to be important. Many participants expressed a distrust of scientific conclusions about vaccines, climate change, genetically modified organisms, and nuclear power. They expressed the view that scientists were neither trustworthy nor competent enough to make judgments on these topics. Importantly, this distrust of science was traced back to a belief that scientists are free to say anything they wish, that scientific data largely decorates viewpoints scientists already favor.

This dismissive opinion toward scientists was overwhelmingly predominant among subjects who lacked basic knowledge of the scientific method and how it restricts scientific conclusions. In contrast, subjects with an ample working knowledge of the scientific method and its restrictions had a more positive, trusting, and deferential view towards scientific conclusions.

Critically, epistemic trespassing does not just involve untrained novices claiming knowledge about a field they don’t possess. It also involves experts in one field who make claims beyond their actual competence in another. One example is Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, a chemist who championed the health benefits of Vitamin C even though medical experts denied them. In a forthcoming article in Mind, Ballantyne explores this sort of trespassing, arguing it is a commonplace problem in interdisciplinary research.

Researchers in multiple fields often explore shared questions about topics such as human freedom, rationality, the mind, and ethics. Many of these questions have been “hybridized.” They are answered by combining evidence and techniques from two or more distinct intellectual fields. But researchers who answer hybridized questions by drawing exclusively on the resources from one field risk trespassing on cross-field experts. These trespassers may form their opinions without the requisite skills or evidence needed to judge well.

If trespassers are reflective about their overreaching, they will often have reason to either develop cross-field expertise or avoid holding confident answers about hybridized questions. Learning about trespassing can thus be a powerful reason to change our intellectual practices.

Of course, trespassing without apology is sometimes perfectly legitimate. Astrologers have skills that non-astrologers typically lack, for example, but scientifically-informed non-astrologers will believe astrologers lack reliable methods and so they can dismiss astrologers’ claims.

But at times researchers lack defensible reasons to trespass. One standard rationale is that “critical thinking” skills transfer across fields, allowing trespassers to make competent judgments about matters far away from their home turf. Effective transfer of skill, however, also requires familiarity with the domain of use. In other words, the further trespassers stray from “home”, the less likely they are to transfer their skills successfully.

Once researchers recognize they are in danger of trespassing, they do not just have reason to adjust their confidence or develop cross-field expertise. They also have motivation to rethink the design of their research communities. So many important questions are hybridized, and researchers in cognate fields should be encouraged to rub shoulders more than they ordinarily do. However, in doing so, they may make the heads sitting on those shoulders a little more cautious to be better able to address the complex challenges facing contemporary society.

1 Gary Becker, “The Age of Human Capital” in E. Lazear, Education in the Twenty-First Century, 2002.

 

Political Polarization & Epistemic Arrogance Workshop

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People on all sides of the political spectrum often view their opposites as arrogant know-it-alls—as not really being willing to listen to alternative voices. The goal of this workshop is examine the role that a certain kind of arrogance—arrogance about one’s view or beliefs—plays in divisive, polarized political debate. Is arrogance or perceived arrogance a consequence or a cause of polarization? Could promoting a more open-minded or intellectual humble attitude help make politics less divisive? A dozen researchers from around the world will gather in Hartford to discuss these questions and the broader issue of whether reasonable, constructive public dialogue is even possible in our political moment – and if it is, what concrete interventions and/or strategies might be helpful in addressing this problem.

The workshop is sponsored by Humility and Conviction in Public Life (HCPL), an applied research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation and the University of Connecticut, which aims to shed new light on how democracies can balance the value of strong moral conviction with the need for citizens to dialogue with one another, to have some sense of humility about their own values. The hope is that the workshop will be a launching pad for future collaborations and practical interventions.

Register here! Registration is free, but limited.