I had another read and think about this. Implicit in your thinking is (I suspect) an underlying assumption that human beings are mutually committed to finding the truth. The challenge we face is that the truth is actually very hard to find, so as a consequence we should start with a premise that we may be wrong about what we 'know'. This is true at both an individual and a group level.
My growing question is whether this base assumption actually describes human behaviour and motivation. There is no doubt the world is full of truth seekers. But it is also full (even fuller) of what we could call truth makers. These people are seeking to create a world where their preferred version of reality is accepted, or at least accepted enough for them to pursue their own goals.
In areas where absolute truth is hard to come by, the contest between truth seekers and truth makers becomes a contest between epistemic humility and certainty. Humility may be better, but certainty is stronger - especially when it comes to defining future events.
I think that humans are generally committed to finding the truth, but only clearly on things of immediate importance. E.g. We want to know the truth of whether the food is safe, or whether it is going to taste good.
On bigger questions, including societal level ones, our commitment to truth is much less strong - partly as we rarely face immediate consequences if we are wrong. How we feel about things, social pressures and belonging, personal ambition and gain, and all the other factors we know well often take over. This opens up the space for the 'truth makers' (nicely put!) to do their thing.
There is no doubt that certainty is stronger in the short term. But longer term success often requires us to learn as we go, and so we need more humility. Of course, wow to get there is a different, and difficult, question!
Charitable (or generous) reading would be a wonderful norm to encourage. It is well suited to maximising understanding and, hopefully, harmony. Getting there, however, relies on a level of open-mindedness which we rarely see in human behaviour. In reality most of interactions with truth occur in circumstances where we have something to gain or lose personally, which hampers our ability to be charitable. In many ways, the search for charitability sits behind the concept of a jury. Even there we accept that the truth may be beyond us. For me, there is a need to go one step further to encourage more tolerance. My feeling is that this accepts some things will never be resolved into a yes or no, which truth seems to demand.
I am well aware that it is a norm that seems unlikely to catch on easily! And your point about personal gain is very apt.
I hope people can recognise that there is a truth to find but, on the difficult issues, accept we will not ever fully get there. In those cases, truth is an important ideal but not something we can easily achieve.
I had another read and think about this. Implicit in your thinking is (I suspect) an underlying assumption that human beings are mutually committed to finding the truth. The challenge we face is that the truth is actually very hard to find, so as a consequence we should start with a premise that we may be wrong about what we 'know'. This is true at both an individual and a group level.
My growing question is whether this base assumption actually describes human behaviour and motivation. There is no doubt the world is full of truth seekers. But it is also full (even fuller) of what we could call truth makers. These people are seeking to create a world where their preferred version of reality is accepted, or at least accepted enough for them to pursue their own goals.
In areas where absolute truth is hard to come by, the contest between truth seekers and truth makers becomes a contest between epistemic humility and certainty. Humility may be better, but certainty is stronger - especially when it comes to defining future events.
I think that humans are generally committed to finding the truth, but only clearly on things of immediate importance. E.g. We want to know the truth of whether the food is safe, or whether it is going to taste good.
On bigger questions, including societal level ones, our commitment to truth is much less strong - partly as we rarely face immediate consequences if we are wrong. How we feel about things, social pressures and belonging, personal ambition and gain, and all the other factors we know well often take over. This opens up the space for the 'truth makers' (nicely put!) to do their thing.
There is no doubt that certainty is stronger in the short term. But longer term success often requires us to learn as we go, and so we need more humility. Of course, wow to get there is a different, and difficult, question!
Charitable (or generous) reading would be a wonderful norm to encourage. It is well suited to maximising understanding and, hopefully, harmony. Getting there, however, relies on a level of open-mindedness which we rarely see in human behaviour. In reality most of interactions with truth occur in circumstances where we have something to gain or lose personally, which hampers our ability to be charitable. In many ways, the search for charitability sits behind the concept of a jury. Even there we accept that the truth may be beyond us. For me, there is a need to go one step further to encourage more tolerance. My feeling is that this accepts some things will never be resolved into a yes or no, which truth seems to demand.
I am well aware that it is a norm that seems unlikely to catch on easily! And your point about personal gain is very apt.
I hope people can recognise that there is a truth to find but, on the difficult issues, accept we will not ever fully get there. In those cases, truth is an important ideal but not something we can easily achieve.