Lessons Learned From Listening to Critics

A Reflection on Lent

When I started this practice/series on “Listening to Critics for Lent,” I genuinely had no idea where it would all go and the particular views I would end up considering. Now that we are at the end of this series, I want to offer a few reflections on the lessons that I have learned (or had reinforced for me) as a result. Oh, and I am also including pictures from recent time spent in the mountains just as reminders that beauty and joy are still possible (no matter how strong the reasons for despair and cynicism).

First, listening to critics doesn’t mean being converted to their position or convinced of their view. Often being receptive to criticism means becoming more convinced that one’s own view remains the best option on offer. The key is that we are not just paying lip-service to the objection, but actually doing our best to take it seriously and present it in the strongest form possible. Avoiding straw-man and weak-man presentations of the views we reject is crucial if we are genuinely trying to weigh and consider the relevant alternatives to where we currently stand. But, despite taking a view very seriously and presenting it maximally charitably, it is still reasonable occasionally to conclude that the support for it does not outweigh the support for where you stand. Listening doesn’t mean that you cede the day to the critic, but simply that you are open to doing so if their reasons are good enough. The real danger is that we become obstinate in our commitments and calcified in our claims. Such habits then lead to a kind of cognitive complacency that causes us to overestimate the evidence for our views and minimize the evidence for alternatives. That might make us feel good, but it is vicious and leads to egoism rather than truth.

Second, not all criticisms are offered in good faith and, accordingly, not all alternative views are worthy of serious consideration. It is important to be judicious in our efforts to interrogate our own commitments. It is an epistemic failure to think oneself infallible, but it is also an epistemic failure to spend time being charitable to views and people who do not deserve it. That said, it is extremely important to be self-critical about how those lines get drawn and those judgments get made. It is far too easy to conclude that anything and anyone that rejects where you stand is, thus, unreasonable. I have tried to offer some conditions for determining something/someone to be unreasonable (namely that they refuse to give public reasons, or they fail to recognize the humanity of all interlocutors). But, these conditions are themselves nested in particular histories and conceptions of how reason works best as a social practice. It is possible to understand things differently even at this more basic level and so, yet again, humility is required and hospitality should be maximally on display. And yet, such virtues should lead to the conclusion that just anything goes when it comes to discursive practice.

Third, standing with confidence doesn’t mean that you stand with certainty. Years ago I wrote an essay called “confidence without certainty” and the goal of that essay was to say that standing on purpose and with reasons doesn’t mean that you think any/all rational people will necessarily agree with you. In almost every case, there are other reasonable places that people of good will could come down. It is crucial to realize that being fallible doesn’t mean that you are wishy-washy. Humility just means that you are where you are for good reasons, but acknowledge that you might change your views as the conversation continues.

Finally, our embodied experience doesn’t determine whether an argument is valid, but it definitely will impact whether we are likely to be able to enact the conclusions as an existential option for our lived practice. William James terms this live/dead options. Only live options are possible and what counts as live options is largely anchored in your historical circumstances and your lived history. Thinking that we are all just rational algorithms misunderstands the role of embodied cognition. Life is not very much like an argument, even if we should care deeply about the various arguments offered for how to live. At the end of the day, though, people are rarely motivated exclusively by reasons. We feel before we think. And so learning to be kind is every bit as important as learning to engage logically. Indeed, I think that there are good moral reasons to take reason-giving seriously. It is because I see you as a person of dignity that I owe you justification for how I live in a shared social world. But, an argument is no replacement for empathy. So, unless we see each other as mutual participants in vulnerable humanity, we risk reducing each other to discursive obstacles, rather than deliberative neighbors.

Ok, well, I hope you have enjoyed this series. I have definitely enjoyed thinking with you during it. As always, drop a comment and let’s continue the conversation.

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