On Constructive Skepticism

Happy Wednesday,

Most success in life is a function of showing up on time. The rest is a function of producing something of high quality. Today’s post is an attempt at the former, and a strategic retreat from the latter. My dad came to town last weekend, and I didn’t want to make the time to finish my next few posts in time for today’s deadline. So, I whipped this one up last Monday.

A few months ago, I’d write multiple posts at once and queue them well ahead of time to avoid this problem, but I’ve since changed strategies. Namely, I’m going deeper into subjects, when at first I was limiting the amount of words per post I’d write. I’m also narrowing the substack’s focus, primarily talking about philosophy.

Why philosophy? Well, I have a degree in it, technically, and I genuinely like philosophical conversations. When I say that, I don’t mean those annoying, abstract philosophical conversations that use formal logic that resembles algebra. Rather, I like talking to people who disagree, analyzing our concepts and methods, reflecting on our own beliefs, and using these tools to find serviceable beauty and purpose in the world. I’ll admit that can sound cheesy to some ears!

With that change in focus, I’m also going to rename the substack to Constructive Skepticism.

What Is Constructive Skepticism?

I consider myself a constructive skeptic. It’s not a real philosophy elucidated by a professional philosopher, so much as it is a reflection on how I live my life.¹ Namely, I’m influenced by pragmatic, skeptical, and naturalistic philosophies, liberal and libertarian² political philosophy, and mystical or apophatic religious traditions.³

Skepticism comes from the Greek word skepsis, which means “inquiry” or “examination.” When I say I’m a skeptic, I agree with many philosophical definition of skepticism,⁴ but I’m also signaling that I like questioning. Everyone operates every day without questioning, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I find it fun to frequently stop and question.⁵

When people think of skepticism, they think of two things: YouTubers and the skeptics of the 1990s.

For the first group, I don’t think they’re actually skeptics. They’re metaphysical naturalists who approach religion, pseudoscience, and quackery from a place of genuine disbelief. There is value in what they do, and there’s nothing wrong with being a metaphysical naturalist (I consider myself one as a default position, as skepticism requires effort), but it’s not skepticism. I’ll talk about that in a post in the near future.

For the second group, think of James Randi, Michael Shermer, Carl Sagan, and the kind of people who debunk what I would call “viral woo” - psychics, crystals, homeopathy, ESP and anyone who claims to have experience with the supernatural and use that experience to coerce money, power, and influence out of others.

To be clear: I generally agree with these thinkers without any caveat. But when I say I’m a skeptic, I don’t mean it in the same way. Namely: I don’t want to burst anyone’s bubble. My fiancée is really into crystals and essential oils and I have no intention of ruining that for her. My family is mostly religious, while I am not. I typically don’t want to use skeptic tools to deflate someone’s belief, unless I can see clear harm in it, or the clear risk of extreme harm.

And that’s why I’m leaning more into the constructive aspect of the label: I want to ask questions that help people have a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. I want them to be pushed in a way that helps them build a better life for themselves as a result of questioning.

Examples of Constructive Skepticism

Unfortunately, there’s also a political dimension to constructive skepticism. Obviously, there’s a great deal of political propaganda and falsehood that proliferates on social media and otherwise. I’m not against debunking that sort of nonsense, but I’m more interested in debunking unquestioned catastrophizing.

A good example of constructive skepticism that I’ve read other people exhibit is not debunking climate science denial, but debunking the assumption that we’re all going to die because of climate change.

Another good example (that I haven’t seen as much, though thankfully I think it’s gaining momentum) is the idea that the current U.S. President is bad for American institutions for unique reasons (and should be opposed!), but that these institutions are successfully reigning in his power. A skeptic in the traditional sense would debunk that the president is bad. But a constructive skeptic would say “okay, he’s bad, but what are the reasons to think we’ll be okay?”⁶

I’m less confident in the American democratic backsliding example than climate change one. The good thing about skepticism is that you can ask the questions and not have a clear answer. Maybe there isn’t a good answer.

And indeed, constructive skepticism needn’t be aimed just at politics, but at other topics as well. Let’s say you’re a Christian, but you really don’t like the idea of Hell as eternal conscious torment (ECT). You feel secure in your belief in Christianity on all grounds but this, but you find ECT bafflingly unbelievable.

A typical skeptic may use that as an entrance point to persuade you toward atheism. I, however, am more interested in a conversation that harmonizes Christianity without ECT. I don’t believe in either proposition, so it’s intellectually inconsequential to me, but I want that Christian to live a happy life. So I encourage them to question, formulate a solution, harmonize it within their own beliefs, and have a conversation or discourse about it.

These conversations are genuinely fun to me. I think these beliefs are more common than most people think, they’re just not talked about it publicly. There’s not a space where one can openly question and come up with frameworks that don’t ultimately filter into an atheist or traditional framework.

What To Expect

Some of my arguments may come across as contrarian, but I’m not trying to be contrarian. A contrarian comes out against popular opinion, holds that position strongly, and demands arguments against them. It’s usually done to get a rise out of people.

My constructive skepticism, on the other hand, is more about questioning assumptions because I think those assumptions are not only false, but also lead people to negative psychological outcomes. After all, if you think that climate change will kill us all, you’re going to be miserable while waiting for it to happen. If you think Trump is trying his best to be a dictator and that he’s going to succeed, you’ll doom scroll every day and be miserable.

I don’t want you to experience that if those beliefs are based on falsehoods. I may not hold the position I’m arguing strongly, but just to offer the counterpoint because it needs to be considered. It’s likely in many circumstances that I’m wrong in what I argue, but I’m conducting the argument as a practice to make myself and others less certain about negative beliefs, so we feel better about current reality.⁷ Some negative realities are unavoidable and should be accepted with a stiff upper lip, but I don’t think we should accept as many negative realities as we do.

What’s more, I’m going to continue to engage in philosophy of religion discussions on substack, primarily as a skeptic. The reason why is because there’s a hidden political dimension to philosophy of religion. If we assume, for instance, that the arguments for classical theism are correct (that is, they are valid and sound), that’s a strong warrant to permit religion-based policymaking, even if the policymaking conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the conclusions of the God arguments.

Skepticism is always political in this sense. If we allow the religious to colonized the secular, we allow the religious to take over. We sign the secular’s death warrant, and with it, much of the unprecedented toleration and pluralism we have enjoyed over the last few hundred years. I don’t want that as a non-religious person, and I wouldn’t want that if I were religious.

This expression of skepticism is also partially my personality shining through. I’m highly agreeable, not very neurotic, (I’d like to think) balanced in how I evaluate arguments, and I don’t hold strong convictions on many things I believe (at least relative to the median person who writes about ideas on the internet - I don’t feel comfortable gambling, in other words).

Not everyone is like that, and that will fuel disagreement, on top of differences in information and in reasoning ability. But that’s fine. That’s how all disagreement has been fueled throughout history.

I hope you enjoy my upcoming posts on skepticism!

Joe

1. Part of me think it’s just a hyper-generalized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I’ll let others be the judge of that!

2. Though I find most libertarians insufferable and wrong on lots of things

3. When I say I’m influenced them, I must be clear that I don’t believe in religion or supernaturalism, but I find these traditions super interesting. If I were to become a religious believer, it would be of this nature. Subconsciously, the things I read about pyrrotheology in college or Daoism in the last 5 years influences my conception of spirituality today.

4. Funny enough, I don’t think publisher of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer, would do so!

5. There are some things I find more fun to question than others, but nevertheless!

6. From that skeptical mindset, I come to the belief that there’s better reason to think American democracy and liberalism will survive this dark time than that we’ll wake up in a Hungarian-style illiberal democracy by 2028.

7. I’m pretty sure this a Pyrrhonist practice, but I could be wrong there.