Feeling Objective Doesn’t Make You a Scout
Feeling calm and rational does not guarantee objectivity; it can actually reinforce bias by making you trust your intuitions uncritically. The illusion of objectivity leads to motivated reasoning, as seen in Lawrence Krauss's defense of Jeffrey Epstein based on personal trust rather than evidence.
THE IDEA
FEELING OBJECTIVE DOESN’T MAKE YOU A SCOUT
Describing our reasoning as “very calmly and rationally” does not establish that it is objective. We think of ourselves as objective because we feel objective. We scrutinize our own logic and it seems sound. We don’t detect any signs of bias in ourselves. We feel unemotional, dispassionate.
Feeling calm doesn’t mean you’re being fair. Being able to explain a position “rationally,” in the sense of making a compelling argument for it, doesn’t establish fairness either. Of course your argument seems compelling to you; everyone’s argument seems compelling to them. That’s how motivated reasoning works.
In fact, viewing yourself as rational can backfire. The more objective you think you are, the more you trust your own intuitions and opinions as accurate representations of reality, and the less inclined you are to question them. “I’m an objective person, so my views on gun control must be correct, unlike the views of all those irrational people who disagree with me,” we think. Or “I’m unbiased, so if this job applicant seems better to me, he must really be better.”
In 2008, the financier Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of soliciting sex from underage girls. Several years later, a journalist brought up the case in an interview with physicist Lawrence Krauss, a close friend of Epstein’s. Krauss dismissed the accusations, saying:
As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.2
This is a very dubious appeal to empiricism. Being a good scientist doesn’t mean refusing to believe anything until you see it with your own two eyes. Krauss simply trusts his friend more than he trusts the women who accused his friend or the investigators who confirmed those accusations. Objective science, that is not. When you start from the premise that you’re an objective thinker, you lend your conclusions an air of unimpeachability they usually don’t deserve.
When to use it
When evaluating job candidates, remember that feeling sure about a candidate does not mean you are unbiased.
During political debates, recognizing that calmness and logical argument do not guarantee fairness.
When interpreting scientific data, avoid assuming your perspective is purely empirical; check for motivated reasoning.
In personal relationships, question whether your feeling of being 'rational' in a conflict might be masking bias.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Lawrence Krauss’s Defense of Jeffrey Epstein
Physicist Lawrence Krauss dismissed accusations against his friend Jeffrey Epstein by claiming he judges things empirically and has never seen evidence, ignoring the investigator-confirmed accusations. This shows how feeling objective (as a scientist) can lead to biased trust and dismissal of contrary evidence.
Gun Control Debate
A person who believes they are objective might think 'My view on gun control is correct because I’m rational, unlike those irrational people who disagree.' This confidence in their own objectivity prevents them from considering opposing evidence.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
When have you felt most confident that you were being objective? How might that feeling have been misleading?
Think of a topic where you hold a strong opinion. How could you test whether your objectivity is genuine or just a feeling?
Identify a situation where you dismissed another person’s view as irrational. Could your own sense of rationality be biased?
Often confused with
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Scout Mindset (Julia Galef)