On perspective

Reasoning objectively is difficult because we are all biased by our own subjective experiences. There are two ways I can see to address this. The first is to consider others’ subjective experiences in addition to your own. This gives you what many would call a more balanced point of view. You might say that reading about another person’s experiences gave you new perspective on an issue. The second is to attempt to unconsider your own subjective experiences by training yourself to recognize cognitive bias.

I think the conventional wisdom is that you should always try to seek out others’ perspectives, but I question how useful that really is. I’m biased enough already; why would I want to inject even more bias into my thoughts? Emotion is really important in day-to-day life, but I think that it shouldn’t enter the debate on important moral issues facing humanity. When people talk about how their perspectives have been changed, often they mean something like how they visited an impoverished country and were moved by what they saw. Honestly, I don’t care. I already know that poverty causes a great deal of suffering, and, like many others, I would really like to know how it can be reduced. I don’t want to hear your sob story, though.

On the other hand, talking to other people about issues can be rewarding in that they may provide you with facts that you didn’t already know. So that’s the strategy I try to use: talk to other people to learn things you didn’t know, and, at the same time, work by yourself to become less biased. Unfortunately, if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that becoming less biased is really hard. I’m definitely still a very biased person.

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