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True Prejudices, Rational Prejudices, and Conservative Philosophy
Roger Scruton as quoted by Daniel Hannan on a podcast here on Ricochet: “The role of a conservative thinker is to reassure the people that their prejudices are true.”
It’s a wonderful quote, but I’m tempted to modify it: The role of a conservative thinker is to reassure the people that their prejudices are rational. I think the challenge to — for example — disapproval of embryonic stem-cell research is rarely “You are mistaken,” but rather “Your view is only held by nutjobs who hate science.”
A question for the Ricochetti:
For which of the people’s prejudices do we have the most need these days for reassurance that they are true, or rational?
Update: For a compilation of suggested answers, see comments 41-43.
Published in General
I prefer to seek definitions through logic instead of dictionaries when I’m familiar with the applications.
For example, what qualifies as a sport? What is the difference between a sport and a game?To answer, one must compare the qualities of sports and games, then identify which qualities are essential and which are incidental.
Dictionaries, like Wikipedia and print encyclopedias, are most reliable on relatively uncontroversial and concrete subjects. The more heated or abstract the topic, the more definitions reflect biases and estimations.
“Prejudice” is a word associated heated topics. The variation of definitions in dictionaries reflect that controversy.
On a related note, consider the words “sex” and “gender”. The dictionary definitions have changed in just the past twenty years, but many traditionalists didn’t get the memo.
“Political authority derives from the people (aka, all residents).”
I’m still not convinced of that fundamental idea. It seems to me that authority is derived rather from moral justice or else from sheer power.
That Big Government doesn’t really help the people. It helps itself – and its friends – but not the poor and middle class. In fact, it steals people’s freedom from the average person and leaves them impoverished in the end.
Here we are not in agreement. I think some beliefs requiring no proof may also be held tentatively and subjected to further testing.
The word “rational” need not be reduced to that which is derived by reasoning; as I already showed, that’s not the only thing the word means. (But if anyone prefers to use “rational” in that restricted sense, he could read the question in the opening post as asking about whatever quality makes a belief “agreeable to reason, reasonable, or sensible,” rather than about rationality.)
Indeed. I would do nothing of the sort.
However, I might call some axioms “rational” simply because I can clearly see that they are true, despite the inability of others to clearly see. (An appeal to clear seeing is an appeal to an epistemic criterion which is more than my own perceptions.)
Put differently, what I am calling “rational” could perhaps be equated with what is “self-evident,” but could in no way be equated with what simply makes perfect sense to me.
If I understand you rightly, you hold that various things that simply seem true to a person, while not rational, are not irrational either.
I think Scruton and Hannan would like that conclusion, though they wouldn’t think it goes far enough.
Ok, we have a nice set of prejudices suggested now. I think I’ll try to compile them if my offline life and dialogue with Larry allow!
– That a person born a man (or woman) is really their natural gender, regardless of how they’d like to be perceived.
– That people should, in most cases, have the right to freedom of association, even if it hurts ‘feelings’.
– That traditional marriage is worth celebrating and protecting. (note: the greatest damage to traditional marriage is probably done by hetros – with their casual, easy-come, easy-go approach).
– That it is good and noble to grow up and be an adult – not to live in perpetual adolescence.
A few more:
— Women should not get drunk at frat parties. (Not that it justifies what might happen, but it’s not a good idea.)
— Most women seek a man she can look up to and respect. A protector.
— Married people should be very careful about close friendships with persons of the opposite sex.
— And something I never thought would be open to question: ALL LIVES MATTER!
You fiddled with the quote and the concept. Jefferson wrote that governments derive their “just powers” from the consent of the governed. The word “just” is what harmonizes the derivation of political authority with moral justice. Otherwise, as you say, it is all merely sheer power.
Well corrected. I didn’t mean to question Jefferson’s statement so much as the supposed one-to-one relationship between democracy and authority that modern Western philosophers assume.
A just society honors free will because freedom is good and generally necessary for human fulfillment, as designed by our Creator. It does not follow that democracy is the only or even the best means of honoring free will politically… let alone the presumption that our particular manner of democracy is the best.
Here’s a compilation. The Ricochetti suggest that these prejudices of the people have the most need for reassurance that they are true, or rational:
From Tom Meyer:
From Aaron Miller:
From me:
From Z in MT: that:
(Continued)
(Continued)
From Karen Humiston here and here: that:
(Continued)
(Continued)
From LilyBart here and here:
Great stuff, gentlemen! There’s an interesting post on the Member Feed on that topic right now.
Since there is such as thing as “natural law” and that particular set of understandings predate anything you or I can express, assuming that the “natural law” can be blown off as my inexplicable thinking leads me to consider that you are wrong.
I should probably clarify. I spoke hastily here. It’s not just the moral assumptions; I imagine Scruton in particular would approve of various pre-reasoned assumptions of the people that are not strictly moral: some aesthetic, some epistemological, perhaps some metaphysical or religious.
I sure would.
Examples:
Yes. Since you believe in natural law you would, of course, think that.
I’d probably change the wording, to “non-rational, but not irrational” or something like that.
Prejudices aren’t rational, but that isn’t to say they are irrational. Science winds up backing up many of these biases and stereotypes we hold. For example, people have a better than even chance at identifying criminals from photographs, and rather accurately guess the age of people, and reliably assess outsiders as threats in most conditions.
These aren’t rational decisions we make, but non-rational, or animal I suppose, instincts that serve our basic survival instincts well.
I would say do not seek rational approval of your instincts, but rather make sure they aren’t opposed to rational inquiry. It is enough that your instincts (or prejudices if you prefer) are not irrational, because they are already not rational by their nature.
This is a lovely analysis, and it is probably correct about a number of prejudices.
But I’m still pretty sure “rational,” at least in the broad sense described above, is an appropriate description of at least some prejudices–especially whatever are the true moral axioms, the ones of which Lewis wrote in Abolition of Man:
To see the street, or the garden, is “agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible.” It is both rational and, since either the street or the garden is a first principle, a necessary condition for being rational about anything else.
These are distinct separate from those prejudices that are neither rational nor irrational, but may become rational upon further investigation—although they may cease being prejudices in the process.
“Marriage is a union between one man and one woman” is true but not rational. As Holmes said (following Burke): “the life of the law has not been logic. It has been experience.” It is the libbies at their worst that require all legal matters to be rationally demonstrable. This is why they can’t even understand the conservative objection to same sex marriage and also why polygamy etc are sure to follow.
Since you are a lawyer who seems not to recognize the legitimacy of the natural law – an item over which you and I have had previous encounters – you might wonder why lawyers are often held in questionable regard in what seem to be sharp dealing with their interlocutors.
I have no idea what that means. Having dealt with a lot of other lawyers in my life, I hold many of them in questionable regard, but it has nothing to do with “natural law.”
While you are welcome to your opinions, I am entitled to state that when I hear someone describe some assertion or other as being a statement of “natural law,” I understand that to mean that they hold that particular opinion and want to dress it up as having some sort of gravitas that they think it would lack if they just called it “my opinion.”
Like God, there may or may not be some sort of “natural law,” but also like God, if it exists it does not reveal itself to mortal man. Conservatives are supposed to be characterized by epistemological humility. We are supposed to be aware of the limits of our own knowledge. In my opinion, making claims to know the “natural law,” or any other form of The Ultimate Truth, is the opposite of that. Epistemological hubris.