Decisions and skepticism

Skeptics misjudge unbelief

Debating many self-proclaimed “skeptics” about my notion that it’s not necessary to hold beliefs, the most common retort is that no one can live this way.

I really do wonder how the internal mental processes of other people play out.

Let’s consider this example: I want to get a 7 from rolling dice, do I necessarily trust that I will get a 7?

It is obvious to me that: no, I don’t necessarily trust that I will get a 7, and yet I’m perfectly able to roll the dice in the hopes that I will get the desired outcome. Why would I need to trust I’ll obtain a particular outcome in order to engage in the action?

I don’t need to hold any belief to roll the dice.

Therefore I can live my entire life without actually holding any belief. Do I believe a chair is necessarily going to hold me? No. I can still sit down. Do I believe that drinking water is necessarily going to save me from dehydration? No. I can still drink water. Do I believe my computer is necessarily going to keep functioning while I write this article? No. I can still write it. Do I believe a woman is necessarily going to accept an invitation to a date? No. I can still ask her out. And so on.

The notion of suspending judgement is not new, and goes as far back as ancient Greek, from Pyrrhonism: the school of thought which rejects dogma and advocates for epoché (suspension of judgement). I arrived to this notion on my own and I call it unbelief.

Thousands of years later and people still can’t wrap their minds around that concept.

The real life example people seem to have trouble with is COVID-19 vaccine safety. The three doxastic attitudes are: belief (they are safe), disbelief (they are unsafe), and suspension of judgement (we don’t know if they are safe or unsafe).

If we get vaccinated do we need to necessarily believe they are safe? No. If we don’t get vaccinated do we need to necessarily believe they are unsafe? No.

If we suspend judgement both decisions are still available to us.

We don’t need to believe or disbelieve a proposition to make a decision.

Is there a difference?

Yes. If I believe vaccines are safe and I get vaccinated but then turns out vaccines were unsafe, that means I was wrong. On the other hand if I suspended judgement then even if vaccines turned out to unsafe, I was not wrong. Conversely if vaccines turn out to be safe, I still wasn’t wrong if I suspended judgement.

If I suspend judgement I cannot be wrong.

Moreover, more often than not the people who adopt a belief get attached to it, they get married to it. They defend their belief, even on the face of contradictory evidence, and they are prone to seek evidence that supports their belief. Their ego and sense of self-worth gets tangled with the belief. It’s much easier to remain objective without holding a belief.

And for what? There is no upside in holding a belief that might very well be wrong.

How is that complicated? That’s beyond me. Perhaps some philosophical skeptics do understand this, but certainly not the “skeptics” I’ve encountered in the wild.