Non-Ideal Epistemology by Robin McKenna;

Author:Robin McKenna; [McKenna, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780192888846
Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

5.4 Against Roberts and Wood on Intellectual Autonomy

Roberts and Wood’s intellectually autonomous individual is good at making decisions about who to rely on for information and which experts to listen to. They also deal well with criticism of their views. But what does the literature on motivated reasoning tell us about how good we are at these things?

The answer, in short, is that it tells us that we are not good at them. When making decisions about who to rely on for information, we often look for what we want to hear, and ignore what we don’t (recall Kunda’s 1987 study about caffeine consumption). We also look for a ‘fit’ between our political beliefs and values and the political beliefs and values of our potential informants. This applies even when we are making decisions about which experts to rely on (recall Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, and Braman 2011). Far from being inclined to ‘give in’ when our views are criticized, the more usual response is to find ways of rejecting those criticisms. We are, in general, motivated to find ways of rejecting evidence and information that seems to cast doubt on our views (recall Taber and Lodge 2006).

If all this is right, many of us will frequently and predictably fail to conduct our inquiries in the way Roberts and Wood say is required for intellectual autonomy. So intellectual autonomy, at least as they conceive of it, is a goal that many of us will frequently and predictably fail to achieve, at least a fair amount of the time. (How much of the time? Motivated reasoning is well-documented in political cognition, and its influence on our self-conceptions and -understandings is also well-documented. While there is no reason to think its influence extends to all human cognition, it clearly extends quite far.)

This is a persuasive argument against Roberts and Wood’s view of intellectual autonomy, especially as it is part of their regulative epistemology that the achievability of goals and ideals matters. Their thought is that a goal cannot regulate our inquiry unless we have a realistic hope of achieving it. But you might respond, even if not on Roberts and Wood’s behalf, that the fact that a goal is hard to attain does not mean we should not strive for it. A goal like justice is (very) hard to attain. But this is no reason for thinking that we shouldn’t strive to attain it (for a similar point, see Emmet 1994). In my discussion of Carter, I argued that not only is intellectual autonomy hard to attain, but it is also a goal that serves to frustrate our other epistemic goals. We need to sacrifice something for intellectual autonomy, and the sacrifice is often not worth it. I need to show that the same goes for intellectual autonomy as Roberts and Wood understand it.

My argument is based on three claims. First, our tendency to engage in motivated reasoning limits our intellectual autonomy, but we have no reason to think that striving to be intellectually autonomous is an effective way of minimizing our tendency to engage in motivated reasoning.

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