Thread by @EveKeneinan

A Compromised Skeptic

On @nf_reece’s “Religious People are Gullible”

[THREAD]

Part of me would like to do an autopsy on @nf_reece’s whole video, but that would require watching the whole thing. So I’m just going to stick to the point where he runs off the rails. It reliably happens in the first minute or so, so it works out.

Anyway, Reese takes issue with a (not very smart, low hanging fruit) theist for saying that belief on God does not affect one’s ability to be skeptical about things.

Reese’s response is to say that belief in God is a “skepticism compromiser.”

A “skepticism compromiser”? Let’s consider: it isn’t the God part that’s the issue, it’s the belief part. It is BELIEF as such, in anything, that compromises skepticism.

Skeptic purity spirals can be amusing as they try to “out non-believe” each other.

(Spoiler: Pyrrho wins)

The problem is that “skeptics™” like Reese think that “not believing something” is virtuous as such.

From this is naturally follows that the more things you don’t believe, the better you are.

But this is of course wrong. The end of reason and the unique human capacity to know truth is, will, to know truth. Yes, we should avoid error and falsehood, but as hazards. Avoiding truth as METHOD of avoiding error is self-defeating foolishness.

I’m sure Reese believes in things about which he isn’t “skeptical.” He’ll have to tell me, but I bet he believes in the uniformity of nature. THAT compromises the hell out of skepticism: if you believe THAT, you believe SCIENCE is possible, and that makes you believe MANY things.

That nature is uniform cannot, of course, be proven by any means the typical “skeptic” would accept — as a generalization from experience it is really an extraordinarily bad induction, based on a tiny amount of experience in one tiny corner of the universe, in a very short time.

So I’m fairly sure Reese is very much a “compromised” skeptic. Which, in turn, places him among the ranks of the gullible, along with the religious. If not, he is free to declare for Pyrrhonian skepticism.

Although why a Pyrrhonian skeptic would DECLARE it is a mystery.

William James pointed this out a century ago, but it is worth regularly reminding ourselves.

The two imperatives of reason: KNOW TRUTH and AVOID ERROR are not the same imperative. They are, in fact, sometimes at odds.

The more TERRIFIED OF ERROR you are, the more “skeptical” you will tend to be.

Why? Because you have the unjustified belief that falling into error is MUCH WORSE than failing to find truth.

But truth is what we need. It is easy to avoid error: go the way of Pyrrho. Just BELIEVE NOTHING.

I note that Nietzsche rightly denigrates this sort of “skepticism” as COWARDICE.

The skeptic acts like a starving man on a desert island who won’t eat any unfamiliar fruit, because he (rightly) doesn’t want to eat any poisonous fruit and he doesn’t know which, if any, of the available fruit is poisonous.

Presumably, the skeptic would starve to death there.

And not just in my metaphor, but in life generally, the skeptic STARVES HIMSELF of truth.

The ANCIENT meaning of “skeptic” was “one who considers everything carefully.”

The MODERN meaning is “one who doesn’t believe stuff."

The difference between ancient skeptics and modern ones (and why you should respect the former but not the latter) is that “considering everything carefully” is a virtue, whereas, pace Reese, “not believing stuff” is NOT a virtue.

Rather obviously, “credulity” or “gullibility” is an intellectual vice. But it has an Aristotelian structure — it’s opposite, “incredulity” or “stubborn willful refusal to believe things you should” is ALSO a vice.

The virtue is the MEAN between credulity and incredulity, or:

But — and here’s the kicker — “evidence” is not something that is labeled as such in advance. There are no uniform rational standards of what constitutes uniform rational standards.

Evidence doesn’t come with a big label that says “EVIDENCE” on it.

Atheist philosopher Michael McCormick has been trying to get his fellow atheists to grasp this, without much success I’m afraid:

Thus, the amusing thing in all this is that the “skeptic™” believes himself to be in possession of the ONE TRUE EVIDENCE DETECTOR and the ONE TRUE STANDARD OF REASON — which he of course beliefs without evidence or reason to, at least no non-circular kind.

To conclude: The best thing would be to know the truth, fully, but that is beyond us mortals.

The next best thing is to be what Reese deplores in his video: A COMPROMISED SKEPTIC.

Worst of all would be to be an UNCOMPROMISED SKEPTIC. Is this way one ENSURES IGNORANCE.