Marcus Aurelius thinks the obstacle to your goal can become the way forward to achieve your goal. This post provides you with Aurelius' thoughts about this idea and applies them to life.
What are our moral obligations regarding extreme global poverty? If you buy an expensive coffee (and trust me I love my expensive coffee), do you do anything immoral?
When it's physically hard to do something and people fail are they responsible for that failure? I'm not super tall. If I tried to dunk a basketball and failed, am I responsible and to blame for that failure? Typically, we'd say "no." Though it was possible for me to dunk the basketball with a lot of hard work, it was, well, hard. The difficulty of the task lessens my responsibility for not achieving the dunk. We'd likely blame my genetics for the failure, despite all my effort.
Intellectual responsibility is important. It's important that we're accountable for our mental errors.
Sometimes the errors are harmless. I might make a simple mistake in forgetting my coffee downstairs when I wanted to bring it upstairs.
Other mental mistakes impact others. I might forget to meet a friend when we had scheduled a meeting. When this happens they lose time, feel stood up, and lose confidence that I'll do what I say.
How do you respond when you discover a mental error or someone else brings it to your attention?
If you're human, which I'm assuming you are, your ego will make you want to sweep the mistake under the rug.
Taking ownership for intellectual oversights can be hard. Two recent examples come to mind.
I helped a family member optimize their investments. But I forgot to impress upon them that what we were doing would generate a taxable event. They might end up owing money at tax time instead of getting money back. I received a panicked phone call when the person met with their CPA and discovered that they would owe a good chunk of change.
My temptation was to minimize my oversight. Instead, I took responsibility and admitted that it was my fault. I should have better explained to them that they might owe money.
Another example occurred in creating philosophy quotes for The Philosophical Life’s social media outlets. I used to use a website to gather the quotes. I thought the site was reliable, but I discovered it's not.
I used a quote from the site by Socrates. This quote is often attributed to the historical Socrates, but the quote is actually from a character in a novel named Socrates. After someone asked me where exactly Socrates made this quote, and I did some digging and discovered the error, I was tempted to minimize or explain away things. Instead, I acknowledge that this was a good reminder of the importance of verifying quotes against their sources before putting them out there.
How does this relate to philosophy? I did my dissertation on moral responsibility. I argued that we can be held morally responsible for the consequences of our actions even when we’re ignorant that we’re doing something wrong. But, it’s one thing to argue this intellectually, and it’s another thing to embrace it personally when there is skin in the game.
I was morally responsible and blameworthy for not informing the family member fully of the ramifications of the tax move. I was blameworthy for putting out a misquote of historical Socrates. I should have known better. I should have informed the person fully, and I should have done my due diligence in vetting the quote prior to sending it out into the social media universe.
What’s nice is that admitting responsibility, admitting cognitive failures is freeing. I don’t have to act like I’m perfect. I can apologize for the way my oversight impacted people. I don’t have to let my ego run the show.
I encourage you to step into this freedom. Take responsibility for your cognitive blunders. Even if your ego puffs up and tries to play its minimizing and masking dance, you can step honestly into the light of truth. This leads to intellectual integrity.
As a step of courage, share an instance in the comments where you admitted a cognitive oversight. And know you’re not alone. We all have intellectual blind spots and challenges.
You might be missing out on a really important truth.
William James was an American philosopher and psychologist. In this post you'll learn why William James thinks William Clifford is off his rocker regarding his ethics of belief. And you'll see how James's view may motivate you to take a leap of faith and believe something that's really important.
In the last post, I talked about William Clifford's ethics of belief. If you missed that post you may want to take a look at it.
William James published a response to Clifford. James thinks Clifford is a "delicious enfant terrible"...or someone whose ideas are shocking and embarrassing.
Clifford's principle about belief formation prevents faith from running ahead of fact. That sounds reasonable and good. Then, why all the smack talk from James? You'll know by the end of this post.
For Clifford it's wrong to believe on the basis of insufficient evidence. What you believe and your confidence in a belief should strictly align with the evidence you have for the truth of the belief. If you have good evidence that supports a belief, then you should believe it. But, if you don't have sufficient evidence for it, you shouldn't believe it. Below is his principle.
"It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence." —William K. Clifford
James notices that Clifford's principle prescribes agnosticism in certain cases. Agnosticism is often mentioned in connection to religious belief. A religious agnostic believes that God's existence is just as likely as God's non-existence. The agnostic suspends judgment about whether God exists. Clifford's principle endorses this stance when a person has evidence that's equally divided for and against something, like whether God exists.
William James thinks this fence sitting can lead you to miss out on important truths. Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith in order to see what's in fact the case. Does this mean you can just believe whatever the heck you want on James's view? Can I believe that unicorns live in my basement because such a belief is comforting. Okay, that's weird.
Anyway, James' view doesn't make belief formation the wild West. He thinks you can believe in advance of having sufficient evidence in cases where you know the evidence is divided. Also, the issue needs to be "momentous" or of great importance, believing or not believing it needs to not be forced, and it needs to be a genuine possibility in your mind. So, the unicorn in my basement thing just isn't a "live" possibility for James.
As James says about Clifford's principle and its prescribed agnosticism in such cases, "[A] rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule (James, p. 313).
James thinks in specific cases going beyond the evidence helps you establish or discover a truth.
Let's take a practical example.
Think about genuine friendship. Friendship is important. It's good and healthy to have trusted confidants in life.
But, when you first start becoming friends with someone you may not have sufficient evidence whether they are trustworthy as a friend. Your evidence may be neutral on that score. If you sit back and wait for sufficient evidence to roll in, you will not lean into that friendship. They might pick up on that. You may never become genuine friends. Without doing that you'll never discover the truth--that they are a trustworthy friend, assuming that they are.
In such a scenario, the fact of the matter does not arrive on the scene unless you initially believe the person is trustworthy, something that goes ahead of the fact. You miss out discovering an important truth. As James says, contrary to Clifford, "where faith in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is 'the lowest kind of immorality' into which a thinking being can fall."
You need to learn this ethical principle. It may save your life or the life of someone you love. By the end of this post you'll recognize the importance of forming well-supported beliefs. This will help you form beliefs you can have confidence in.
As a professor of philosophy, I've helped tons of people think critically about important things. I look forward to helping you do the same.
Are you trying to learn something new but it's a struggle and you're tempted to give up? Are you trying to understand philosophy or level up your thinking and sometimes you just feel stuck and confused? Then this post is designed for you, philosophical lifer! I'm giving you the 5 best steps to develop intellectual perseverance and succeed intellectually.
Intellectual humility is the secret sauce for critical thinking. Owning your intellectual limitations helps you learn more and think more objectively. In this post, I offer you 3 smart strategies to amplify your intellectual humility.
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