The Surprising Threat to Human Society
If you like reading about philosophy, here's a free, weekly newsletter with articles just like this one: Send it to me!
When I was an undergraduate, a friend told me that, if you go to any article in the English-language version of Wikipedia, then click on the first link in the article to another Wikipedia page, then click on the first link in that article, and so on, you will, within 30 iterations, arrive at the page for philosophy. It’s pretty much true — now confirmed scientifically. Try it with the word, ‘Paris’, for example. The first linked term on the page for Paris is ‘capital’. The first linked term on the page for ‘capital’ is ‘municipality’. Then: administrative division; sovereign state; state; political; making decisions; psychology; mind; thinks; cognitive; knowledge; awareness of facts; awareness; philosophy. Or try it with the word, ‘cabbage’. Cabbage; cultivars; cultivated; etymology; morphemes; linguistic; language; communication; information; abstract concept; rules; philosophy of logic; philosophy. There are rare exceptions, such as when one gets caught in a loop, e.g., when the first link in each of a pair of pages leads directly to another. (For more on the phenomenon, it has its own Wikipedia page.)
Does this prove that everything in the world ultimately comes back to philosophy? Or does it just show us something about the structure of the English-language version of Wikipedia? The former would exaggerate things, but the latter is too modest. After all, something must explain why it is that all of these hyperlink chains in Wikipedia lead to the page for philosophy rather than any other.
What it does demonstrate, I think, is that philosophy is essential to humans' efforts to understand the world. If you really want to understand something — what it is, how it relates to other things, if and why it is important — then philosophy is unavoidable. This is why the hyperlink chains in Wikipedia take you to the philosophy page. You cannot ask many questions about a topic before you encounter deep theoretical issues.
If humanity is at risk, then, and if we want to understand why it is at risk and what we can do about it, then philosophy seems like a good place to start. If we really want to understand the issues, we will find ourselves doing some philosophy soon enough anyway.
◊ ◊ ◊
The future of humanity is at risk. The threats are manifold. But the issue is not only about the future of humanity qua species — though some of the threats, like climate change, war, and perhaps eventually challenges posed by AI — really do threaten the survival of the species. We should want to do more than ensure the continued existence of homo sapiens. The issue is also about ensuring that the continued existence of homo sapiens will be in a human society, or human societies, worth having. This should not be taken for granted.
Foremost among the things which make a human society worth having are cohesiveness, inclusiveness, and the ability of a community to address challenges which individuals cannot overcome alone — including those challenges which do threaten the very survival of the species. A cohesive, inclusive, cooperative society is a society worth having in a strong sense: it is society which can make individuals' lives better. But cohesion, inclusion, and social cooperation are in jeopardy, even in the fairest and most free communities.
Once we look at things this way, we can see that the human societies which are worth having — to the extent that we have these — are in the grip of a political crisis. By ‘human societies’, I mean communities with governments: entities such as states. ‘Human societies worth having’ are not necessarily human societies with any particular form of government — they are just those human societies which are cohesive, inclusive, and cooperative — though they will tend to be liberal democracies. And I mean ‘political’ in a foundational sense. The crisis I am talking about is not a crisis at the level of particular policies, particular public debates, or particular elections. The crisis I am talking about is a crisis at the ground level: a crisis concerning the fitness of political institutions to operate in the world as it now is.
Of course, many communities have never benefited from the kind of political institutions which facilitate cohesion, inclusiveness, and cooperation. They have been denied these by tyranny, corruption, conflict, or countless other factors. The lack of good systems of government in a community obviously says nothing about the people in it. Ensuring that the future of our species will be in human societies worth having requires both preserving good systems of government where they exist and establishing them where they have never been present. Mostly, I am going to talk about the crisis facing human societies worth having where these have been achieved but are in danger, but everything that I will ultimately suggest can also be understood as relevant for the establishment of a worthwhile society.
There is good reason to think that philosophy might be able to help with the crisis I have described, given its track-record in influencing politics at the foundational level. This track-record is familiar to philosophers and historians, but it may be surprising to others. The philosophy of John Locke, who insisted on the equality of individuals and, correspondingly, rejected the divine right of kings, pervades the founding documents of the United States. His influence is most obvious in the Declaration of Independence, with its famous words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable Rights”. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women was a catalyst for the feminist movement, which eventually achieved reforms such as universal suffrage. More recently, a Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Zapatero, explicitly adopted Philip Pettit’s principle of non-domination — the notion that members of a community should enjoy sufficient equality in status and resources that none need feel subordinate to any other — as an ideal to which the work of government should be directed.
◊ ◊ ◊
What can philosophy do to help address the political crisis which we face now? Perhaps surprisingly, my answer starts with an idea at the cutting edge of contemporary epistemology: epistemic akrasia.
Akrasia is the phenomenon of doing something which one realises is not the best thing to do. This can happen in a moral context. For example, one might realise that they should not spread false rumours for moral reasons but do it anyway. It can also happen when one does something which they realise is just inconsistent with their own goals, e.g., when one eats a pizza despite knowing that doing this interferes with their goal of losing weight. We all perform akratic actions sometimes.
Epistemic akrasia is slightly different. Epistemic akrasia does not involve doing something which you realise you should not do; rather, it involves believing something despite realising that it is not rational to believe it. Think of a high-school mathematics student who has been struggling with a difficult problem. The student eventually completes the task, believing that they have solved the problem. However, the student also knows that they are only moderately good at mathematics and that they struggle with problems at this level of difficulty. The student knows that they usually make mistakes on problems like this one. So, the student believes they have solved the problem correctly, on the basis of the proof they have produced, but they also believe that it is not rational to believe that they solved the problem correctly, on the basis of evidence about their mathematical ability. Things like this also happen to all of us.
There are different views which can be taken about epistemic akrasia. You can make a case that the student should continue believing that his solution is correct (he has the proof!); that he should believe that his solution is incorrect (look at his past performance!); or that he should just suspend judgement (at least he won’t be wrong about anything!). I am not going to make a case for any of those positions. What I would like to highlight, though, is that epistemic akrasia is pervasive in political thinking.
A lot of people get their news from one source. They form their beliefs about important political issues on the basis of this news. But they also know that news sources can be extremely biased, and they realise that they have no decisive reason to believe that their news source is not extremely biased. So, they realise that their beliefs about particular political issues actually may not be justified, but they do not stop holding those beliefs.
Many people become attached to one political party and support it throughout their life. They might come to support a party because of influences early in their life. Perhaps their parents supported the party very strongly, for example. Or they might support a particular party because it is associated with a social class with which they identify. Moreover, the support they provide is no pretence: they do not vote for the party or donate to it just to please family members or social peers. They genuinely believe the propositions which form the party’s political platform. Yet they might recognise that it is not rational to hold beliefs which they have formed on the basis of family and social influences if they have never scrutinised those beliefs themselves.
Some people deny that climate change has anthropogenic causes. But they also know that, on complex issues about which one has no particular expertise, it is rational to defer to those people who are experts, especially when the community of experts has reached a consensus. No one would deny this general proposition. So these people (or many of them) know that their denial of anthropogenic climate change is irrational, even if they might try to suppress this thought when it comes to mind.
Epistemic akrasia can happen in any context, but we are especially vulnerable to it in political contexts. One reason is that our own material interests are often at stake in politics. Suppose someone believes that a policy which happens to benefit them is also the best policy for the community generally. They might also realise that self-interest could be influencing their judgement, and thus also believe that their belief about the policy itself may not be justified. The often adversarial nature of political discourse plays a role. Sometimes people will become more entrenched in a position they hold after being forced to see its shortcomings by the rational argument of an opponent. They might insist that they know they are right, even when they realise they have lost the argument. And perhaps some people feel licensed to hold what they recognise are irrational beliefs by the liberal notion that we are entitled to our own views and do not need to justify them to others.
You can probably find instances of epistemic akrasia with respect to any political issue you choose. Climate change, immigration, taxation, funding for education and healthcare, welfare, conflict in Eastern Europe and the Middle East — on all of these issues and others, people hold beliefs which they know are irrational. Epistemic akrasia is everywhere in political discourse.
Arguably, epistemic akrasia itself is not always irrational. Recall our mathematics student. He has a good reason to believe that he has solved the problem correctly (his proof), and he has a good reason to think that that belief is irrational (his track-record). So, perhaps he cannot be faulted if he believes both of these things. In political contexts, however, epistemic akrasia is dangerous. The reason is that the influences on people’s beliefs about critically important political issues — influences which they recognise as interfering with their own rationality — can be terrible influences. Influences like self-interest, tribalism, highly biased news. The fact that people can hold beliefs formed under these terrible influences despite recognising the influences is deeply unnerving.
Epistemic akrasia is not new, including in political contexts. So why say that there is a crisis now? Because the situation has become much, much worse. There is an extraordinary degree of material inequality within and between human societies. The last thing we should want is for the privileged to form beliefs about economic and social policies on the basis of their self-interest, and then to act on these beliefs, despite recognising their irrationality. Technology has allowed people to be more and more selective about their media diet, even when they realise that this might lead to them being poorly informed. In large part because of extreme inequality and the ability to select one’s sources of information, tribalism has become polarisation. The groups which influence their members thinking have become more extreme.
If things keep going this way, then the future of human societies worth having really is at risk. Remember what these societies are: ones which facilitate cohesion, inclusiveness, and cooperation. Cohesion, inclusiveness, and cooperation do not just arise in a community. They are the result of good policy-making, and good policy-making can happen only if the members of a community think rationally about matters which affect the community and the other people in it. This is undermined if the members of the community form beliefs about such matters and persist in holding those beliefs notwithstanding an awareness that the beliefs really only result from terrible influences.
If the future of human societies worth having is at risk, then our ability to confront those challenges which threaten the future of humanity more broadly is also at risk.
◊ ◊ ◊
What to do? The first thing is to understand. We can find ourselves mystified by the political beliefs which others hold. Sometimes, we are also stunned by the irrationality of those holding the beliefs. We are shocked by the obviously flawed arguments they offer. But here’s the thing. Someone who offers an obviously flawed argument might be in a state of epistemic akrasia. They might believe their conclusion, but they might also know that their argument is flawed. And we are all vulnerable to epistemic akrasia.
Realising this matters, because it can narrow the gap between people on opposing sides of intense political debates. Recognising that someone offering a completely irrational argument might nonetheless be a generally rational person may help to maintain respect for them. It also has practical implications for how we should discuss politics.
Next time you are stunned by the irrationality of someone’s argument for a particular political view, you should remember: they might know that their argument is irrational. The two of you might well be in agreement about this! If this is so, there will be no point taking further steps to convince them that their argument is irrational. You’ll need to find another strategy. Here’s one possibility: suggest a game in which you each argue for the other’s position. If they try, they will have to separate themselves, as far as possible, from the influences which have led them to hold a belief which they know is irrational. And this may be a first step towards liberating themselves from those influences.
An even better thing to do: Next time you think you might be in the grip of epistemic akrasia when thinking about some political issue (or any other issue, for the matter), put yourself to the test. Ask yourself how you would argue for the opposing view.
Of course, this will only get us so far — and probably not very far at all. For one thing, the fact that we are all vulnerable to epistemic akrasia does not excuse every possible belief. Anyone who holds prejudiced beliefs should be judged harshly, even if they also believe that it is not rational to hold these prejudiced beliefs. Plausibly, someone who holds prejudiced beliefs despite realising that the beliefs are not justified should be open to even greater sanction. For another, even once we recognise the significance of epistemic akrasia in political thinking, very few people will really take steps to extricate themselves or others from the influences which prevent them from abandoning manifestly irrational beliefs, no matter how helpful particular strategies might be.
In order to work out how to live with epistemic akrasia in political contexts, we need to think bigger.
◊ ◊ ◊
There are some big ideas in the area which might help. One is non-partisan democracy. That is, democracy without political parties, in which all members of parliament are independent. There are advantages and disadvantages to this form of government. It compels negotiation and compromise, but it may also lack the efficiency which is possible when one party has majority control of parliament. What is presently relevant, though, is that non-partisan democracy removes one of the major forms of tribalism in politics, namely, identifying with a political party. Whatever political beliefs one holds in a non-partisan democracy, one can be confident that one’s rationality in forming them was not compromised by the influence of partisanship. Non-partisan democracy has the potential to remove one of the obstacles to social cohesion, inclusiveness, and cooperation.
A second idea: Allowing voters to divide their votes. If I think that two candidates both have some merit, and have only a weak preference for one over the other, why should I not be allowed to assign 0.6 votes to the first candidate and 0.4 to the second? Any voter who has felt unsure about how to cast their vote would welcome this possibility. It would also provide a means for voters to take into account both their political beliefs and their assessment of their own rationality in forming those beliefs. A voter who genuinely believes that one candidate’s social and economic policies are better than the social and economic policies of other candidates, but who also realises that they may have formed this belief under the influence of, e.g., self-interest, could split their vote to reflect this. There is no guarantee that very many voters would do this — it would require considerable integrity and humility — but it would at least provide a mechanism for those in a state of epistemic akrasia to vote in a way which reflects that state, if they choose to do so.
One more possibility. The ability to speak freely is very precious. We should only even think about imposing any regulation on it if there are very, very good reasons. But if news providers present information in a way which is biased to such an extent as to mislead, and if this is demonstrably undermining the effective functioning of societies of the kind which make people’s lives better, then maybe some regulation needs to be considered. We should not limit what providers of news can say, but maybe we should require them to put it in context. Here we must tread tentatively, cautiously, but with open minds.
Whatever the advantages and disadvantages of these ideas, what will be clear is that we are now deep into the territory of political philosophy. Political philosophy does best when it connects the question of how we should govern ourselves with deep insights about human nature. This is what Locke did when he reasoned from the fundamental equality of humans to undercut the possibility of a divine right to rule. And it is what is required now: to find a way for political communities to deal with the strange but pervasive idiosyncrasy of human thinking which allows us to hold beliefs about important matters even while recognising that it is not rational to hold those beliefs. The rapidly increasing effects of some of the worst influences on political thinking makes this urgent.
◊ ◊ ◊
The final lines of the Wikipedia page about philosophy are a little depressing:
The idea that philosophy is useful for many aspects of life and society is sometimes rejected. According to one such view, philosophy is mainly undertaken for its own sake and does not make significant contributions to existing practices or external goals.
Chains of first links starting with almost any page on Wikipedia lead to the entry on philosophy, and that entry concludes by pointing to the possibility that philosophy itself is just a kind of intellectual indulgence.
Fortunately, it isn’t true. Political philosophy, especially, does influence the world, as Locke, Wollstonecraft, Pettit, and others have shown. It does not influence the world in the same direct, unmediated way as political actors, business leaders, or major figures in the media. So, philosophy alone cannot ensure the future of humanity, whatever we take this to mean. Philosophy alone cannot preserve human societies worth having; far less can it establish such societies where they have not yet existed.
But philosophy can certainly help to ensure the future of humanity. It can provide an outline for how a worthwhile human society can function in the world as we find it now, taking account of our shortcomings as humans. Actually, if anyone wants to sketch such an outline, they will inevitably find themselves doing philosophy. That’s just where the path leads, if you keep asking the deep questions.
◊ ◊ ◊
Daniel Gregory on Daily Philosophy:
Cover image: Envato Elements, used with permission. Other images: Midjourney.
