>Standpoint Epistemology emphasizes that if someone tells you about something that you haven’t had experience with, you should take this as a learning opportunity, rather than concluding that they must be irrational, biased, or crazy.
Given that rationalists are keen on overcoming biases that affect individuals (usually doing so through agreed-upon processes for analyzing large swathes of data) it would make no sense for rationalists to necessarily treat someone’s individual experience as indicative of anything, especially if you yourself have no experience with the topic, and as such have poorly calibrated priors. On the other hand, if your priors are properly calibrated, than SE seemingly has no use for you. I struggle to see how this has any usefulness for rationalists.
Moreover, in practice, statements’ truth or falsity isn’t dependent on your emotional closeness with the subject matter, but this is how SE is often used, even if that’s not ‘proper.’ With this in mind, it definitely isn’t commensurate with how rationalists conduct themselves and find truth.
I think (by my arguments about standpoint epistemology) that these stories show that the black people I asked questions of had often had bad experiences with the police, and I think the selection bias is probably weak enough that this shows that probably many black people have had bad experiences with the police. Are there any particular biases you have in mind which invalidate those conclusions?
> Moreover, in practice, statements’ truth or falsity isn’t dependent on your emotional closeness with the subject matter, but this is how SE is often used, even if that’s not ‘proper.’ With this in mind, it definitely isn’t commensurate with how rationalists conduct themselves and find truth.
That is a fair objection. Part of the point in my post is that the problem with Standpoint Epistemology is not the philosophical foundation (as e.g. described by Wikipedia), which is actually quite reasonable, so if there are problems in the application of Standpoint Epistemology, those problems are probably due to other factors interfering with its use, or due to not applying it sufficiently much or sufficiently correctly.
>Are there any particular biases you have in mind which invalidate those conclusions?
I was referring more to notorious problems with human memory and interpretations of events. Depending on one’s disposition you could misconstrue almost any interaction with a police officer as negative (due to your race, or any number of other factors).
I don’t doubt that the majority of black Americans have had ‘negative’ (by their own interpretations) interactions with the police, but I’m highly skeptical of personal accounts of experiences like this; people tend to embellish, add things that weren’t there, and assume malice. Were their accounts accurate? Were they taking into account relevant variables that could explain officer behavior?
If your goal is to ascertain the subjective experiences of a population, then standpoint actually works well in theory (I agree that the more academic definitions are not as bad as many rationalists make them out to be) but I don’t think most people are after this type of information, especially when it comes to implementing policies that will affect the material conditions of the country.
Thank you for writing this, I hope it opens a discussion on the topic. I think Standpoint Epistemology really can help by making some biases explicit, and finding uses for that - sometimes there are things we can learn from biased sources only when we know their bias, whereas when the ideal is to be unbiased that doesn't necessarily lead to objectivity - sometimes it just means the bias is hidden.
Of course objectivity is a very good thing, when it can be had, but acknowledging when it's not present and dealing with that is such a strength. Sometimes when we assume we are objective is when we develop some truly absurd blind spots, after all.
>Standpoint Epistemology emphasizes that if someone tells you about something that you haven’t had experience with, you should take this as a learning opportunity, rather than concluding that they must be irrational, biased, or crazy.
Given that rationalists are keen on overcoming biases that affect individuals (usually doing so through agreed-upon processes for analyzing large swathes of data) it would make no sense for rationalists to necessarily treat someone’s individual experience as indicative of anything, especially if you yourself have no experience with the topic, and as such have poorly calibrated priors. On the other hand, if your priors are properly calibrated, than SE seemingly has no use for you. I struggle to see how this has any usefulness for rationalists.
Moreover, in practice, statements’ truth or falsity isn’t dependent on your emotional closeness with the subject matter, but this is how SE is often used, even if that’s not ‘proper.’ With this in mind, it definitely isn’t commensurate with how rationalists conduct themselves and find truth.
I think (by my arguments about standpoint epistemology) that these stories show that the black people I asked questions of had often had bad experiences with the police, and I think the selection bias is probably weak enough that this shows that probably many black people have had bad experiences with the police. Are there any particular biases you have in mind which invalidate those conclusions?
> Moreover, in practice, statements’ truth or falsity isn’t dependent on your emotional closeness with the subject matter, but this is how SE is often used, even if that’s not ‘proper.’ With this in mind, it definitely isn’t commensurate with how rationalists conduct themselves and find truth.
That is a fair objection. Part of the point in my post is that the problem with Standpoint Epistemology is not the philosophical foundation (as e.g. described by Wikipedia), which is actually quite reasonable, so if there are problems in the application of Standpoint Epistemology, those problems are probably due to other factors interfering with its use, or due to not applying it sufficiently much or sufficiently correctly.
>Are there any particular biases you have in mind which invalidate those conclusions?
I was referring more to notorious problems with human memory and interpretations of events. Depending on one’s disposition you could misconstrue almost any interaction with a police officer as negative (due to your race, or any number of other factors).
I don’t doubt that the majority of black Americans have had ‘negative’ (by their own interpretations) interactions with the police, but I’m highly skeptical of personal accounts of experiences like this; people tend to embellish, add things that weren’t there, and assume malice. Were their accounts accurate? Were they taking into account relevant variables that could explain officer behavior?
If your goal is to ascertain the subjective experiences of a population, then standpoint actually works well in theory (I agree that the more academic definitions are not as bad as many rationalists make them out to be) but I don’t think most people are after this type of information, especially when it comes to implementing policies that will affect the material conditions of the country.
Thank you for writing this, I hope it opens a discussion on the topic. I think Standpoint Epistemology really can help by making some biases explicit, and finding uses for that - sometimes there are things we can learn from biased sources only when we know their bias, whereas when the ideal is to be unbiased that doesn't necessarily lead to objectivity - sometimes it just means the bias is hidden.
Of course objectivity is a very good thing, when it can be had, but acknowledging when it's not present and dealing with that is such a strength. Sometimes when we assume we are objective is when we develop some truly absurd blind spots, after all.