31.2: General Concerns

There are some critical reasoning missteps that trend to creep up no matter what ethical topic we are considering. The first of these is belief perseveration. As we have discussed several times in this text, it is very easy to continue to believe something, even after acquiring evidence that it isn’t so. Most ethical arguments move very quickly from academic considerations to identifying changes you need to make in how you live your life. If you are looking at arguments about the moral obligations we have to non-human animals, the conclusion you draw should have a direct impact on whether you are a vegan or vegetarian. Similarly, understanding microaggressions and the effect they have on people might lead to an implication that you need to stop telling certain jokes. Many people are uninterested in making difficult changes to how they live their lives, and so they find it easier to just reject the evidence and arguments that require these changes.

In academic settings, most of us are trying to do a good job and have a genuine interest in coming to the right answer, even if that means having to change our minds. This is not always the case for people engaging with moral arguments in the public sphere. Given people might be presenting arguments in bad faith or misrepresenting information to make their views seem more reasonable, we need to be mindful of the misinformation effect and the validity effect. Because being exposed to false claims can cause us remember things incorrectly, and the mere repetition of claims increases the likelihood that we will begin to believe them, we need to be quite vigilant. To the best of your ability, you should make sure to actually investigate the claims made on these issues, and you should do your best to avoid sources that you have established to be disreputable in the past.

Going along with this, we should keep in mind that framing effects impact the way we think about things. Our current public conversations about “cancel culture” are a good example of this. Some parties try to frame the issue as mean-spirited attempts to silence intellectuals or to punitively take away the jobs of people who are controversial. The people on the other side are typically talking about holding people accountable for the things they say, and making sure that we have a more equitable representation in the media. The frame you are given will likely color how you understand what is going on, and as a result what you think should be done about it. Whenever possible, you should try to remove the frame and consider the morally relevant factors independent of the presentation.