Exercise 3
Instructions
Monitor yourself in conversation over a few days. Notice whenever you assert that something is true. In particular, notice whenever you assert that something important for how a person should live or something somewhat controversial or something to do with good and bad or something to do with value is true. It is true that a triangle has three sides, and it is true that Pavement Coffeehouse is on Gainsborough St. However, neither of these claims meets the criteria. They are not suitable for this exercise. In contrast, a claim like you should always tell the truth or the United States is not actually a democracy or a good person cannot be harmed are claims that do meet the criteria. Monitor yourself in conversation, and notice whenever you assert a claim that meets the critera.
Write that claim down. It is your conclusion. Then try to come up with a valid argument for it. You are now trying to identify premises that support your conclusion. More specifically, you are trying to identify premises that if true mean that your conclusion must be true, too. Additionally, try to identify premises that are plausibly true. So, you are trying to construct a sound argument for your conclusion, an argument that is valid and whose premises (ideally) are true.
Set a timer for 10 minutes, and then start this exercise. Write down your attempts to construct a sound argument for your conclusion. If you discover that you want to keep writing after the 10 minutes, keep going. The important thing is to write for at least 10 minutes.
Now take a look at your best attempt to give a sound argument for it. Ask yourself whether, on the basis of that argument, everyone should believe your conclusion. Set a timer for 5 minutes, and explore your thoughts in response to that question. Write them down. You are finished with this part of the exercise when the 5 minutes is over.
Now take a look again at your conclusion. Ask yourself whether you know that it is true. If so, how exactly do you know that? If not, should you really keep believing it? Why not get rid of the belief? Set a timer for 3 minutes, and explore your thoughts in response to these questions. Write them down. You are welcome to continue writing for as long as you wish.
My opinion has some relation to the dunning kruger effect. Misinformation is fundamentally bad, but is spreading what a person genuinely thinks to be good advice bad?
I think that if you are unintentionally ignorant and spreading advice, much like someone at the "peak of mount stupid" does, it is not morally wrong. But if you are just beyond that, in the "valley of despair", you know you are uninformed and should not spread advice despite having about the same level of expertise. So, being aware of the extent of your knowledge is a requirement for good and trustworthy advising. Still, when providing advice, you are almost always speaking to a less informed person. Is any advice really bad advice if it is even marginally better than what the person would have thought anyway? Should a person never test the limits of their knowledge, exposing what they do not know, because it limits their ability to give (ignorant) advice? No. People should still strive to know more. Some people may find it more difficult to give advice on things once they know a great deal about them, especially because they now understand the nuances and small gaps of knowledge they have. So, I think my complete conclusion is not that it's wrong to give bad advice or spread incorrect information, but rather it's bad to be ignorant of your ignorance and spread bad information. If someone honestly believes that their advice is going to help someone, it's fine to provide it, but part of that honest belief must contain some awareness of one's own ego and pride.
I don't think everyone will necessarily agree with this point. What constitutes bad advice? How do peoples' values affect what kinds of advice they give? How do people determine what is "good" for other people? Isn't that the deprivation of another person's autonomy? When you spread thoughts to someone else are you robbing them of the autonomy to learn and think about things??? No, not really. When someone comes to you for advice, they are deferring their autonomy to your expertise. I think that most people who seek advice are not unwilling. This brings a bit of an expansion of my point; maybe it's also immoral to provide advice to those who do not ask for it--even if it would better them.
I don't think it's necessarily true in all cases that giving unwanted advice is always morally bad. Are you robbing the autonomy of a person by warning them they're about to walk into an oncoming car? Maybe this is just providing them more awareness rather than advice, enhancing their autonomy. Not sure. What if you have been brainwashed into thinking something is good, i.e. a suicide cult, and you feel believe you have some righteous duty to "save" people by bringing them to die? Is that morally wrong, or just ignorant? Can you blame that person for providing that advice? What about with regards to pursuit of religion, trade, partner, lifestyle? Can you ever provide genuine advice on how to live life if you haven't lived yours yet? How can you know? If it is really bad to spread advice when you aren't totally sure, will a sudden lack of advice in the world make it worse? What are the effects and where is the line? I dunno...
Side note: If you are not quite an expert and someone requests advice from you, is it more morally apprehensible to leave them not knowing or to potentially tell them something wrong?
