I 100% agree with what you said -- which is why we need a reform of philosophy journals.
It's great to explore new ideas but, like you said, philosophers are great at making them seem plausible. Since most ideas are wrong if we want philosophy to be a net epistemic benefit it should spend more time knocking down ideas and showing where arguments are flawed than introducing new ideas.
This is exactly the opposite of how journals work now days. They mostly won't accept direct point by point rebutalls and while you can write an article like "I define Xism to be ... as has been seen in papers like cite. It's wrong" still has the problem that it requires you to produce an argument that X must be false not merely show that the author has a fallacious argument for X or relies on implausible assumptions.
This is why I think each philosophy journal ought to commit to publishing a rebuttal for each paper it accepts -- say the best response that meets minimum standards within a year.
You wrote "I suspect part of what explains this is that examining reasons is hard, and it is easier to simply pick a belief that is held by others. And given the opportunity cost of thinking through a difficult philosophical issue, most people would rather spend their time doing something else. Not to mention, the cost to them of being wrong about this or that ethical or philosophical issue—as far as they can tell, anyway—is negligible."
That passage contains several reasons why someone might not go through the trouble of looking at reasons for their moral and philosophical views. But I doubt that any of those reasons is what's actually behind the lack of reasons-based moral/philosophical thinking. The things you cite are *potentially* explanatory, but I think that in most cases they don't apply to people.
Instead, I suspect that the idea of "examining reasons" just doesn't even occur to most people. Almost all of us virtually never see anyone do this, at least outside of a class in school. The rest of our lives we don't encounter the phenomenon, or only very briefly and then we turn our attention to IG or TV. So, it's not on our radar after a number of years. We *are* happy to examine reasons when trying to figure out something at work, or when discussing who will win the Super Bowl. But the road to examining reasons is almost never seen by most people after they've left college.
'Instead, I suspect that the idea of "examining reasons" just doesn't even occur to most people.'
I agree. It doesn't even occur to most of my undergraduates until we go through the process in class. 😂
Also I suspect they don't occur to people due, at least in part, to the costs. The costs are explanatory even if folks aren't aware. But that's a guess.
I 100% agree with what you said -- which is why we need a reform of philosophy journals.
It's great to explore new ideas but, like you said, philosophers are great at making them seem plausible. Since most ideas are wrong if we want philosophy to be a net epistemic benefit it should spend more time knocking down ideas and showing where arguments are flawed than introducing new ideas.
This is exactly the opposite of how journals work now days. They mostly won't accept direct point by point rebutalls and while you can write an article like "I define Xism to be ... as has been seen in papers like cite. It's wrong" still has the problem that it requires you to produce an argument that X must be false not merely show that the author has a fallacious argument for X or relies on implausible assumptions.
This is why I think each philosophy journal ought to commit to publishing a rebuttal for each paper it accepts -- say the best response that meets minimum standards within a year.
That's a great suggestion for improving journals. More blogging would help too! I'm a trend setter.
Yup! And I'm trying to share that suggestion as widely as possible and maybe one day it will happen.
You wrote "I suspect part of what explains this is that examining reasons is hard, and it is easier to simply pick a belief that is held by others. And given the opportunity cost of thinking through a difficult philosophical issue, most people would rather spend their time doing something else. Not to mention, the cost to them of being wrong about this or that ethical or philosophical issue—as far as they can tell, anyway—is negligible."
That passage contains several reasons why someone might not go through the trouble of looking at reasons for their moral and philosophical views. But I doubt that any of those reasons is what's actually behind the lack of reasons-based moral/philosophical thinking. The things you cite are *potentially* explanatory, but I think that in most cases they don't apply to people.
Instead, I suspect that the idea of "examining reasons" just doesn't even occur to most people. Almost all of us virtually never see anyone do this, at least outside of a class in school. The rest of our lives we don't encounter the phenomenon, or only very briefly and then we turn our attention to IG or TV. So, it's not on our radar after a number of years. We *are* happy to examine reasons when trying to figure out something at work, or when discussing who will win the Super Bowl. But the road to examining reasons is almost never seen by most people after they've left college.
'Instead, I suspect that the idea of "examining reasons" just doesn't even occur to most people.'
I agree. It doesn't even occur to most of my undergraduates until we go through the process in class. 😂
Also I suspect they don't occur to people due, at least in part, to the costs. The costs are explanatory even if folks aren't aware. But that's a guess.
The more I get away from higher education, the more I realize how utterly weird philosophers are compared to other people. We’re aliens.
We really are. But necessary aliens.