“Truth, justice and the American way” Superman’s Creed
“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator…” Thomas Jefferson
“… For in psychology, there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion.” Ludwig Wittgenstein
“You can fool some of the people some of the time — and that’s enough to make a decent living.” W.C. Fields
What is it to be “objective” and what do we mean by “objective truth”? How is this in contrast to the subjective? A reminder: every objective fact is someone’s objective fact.” “Objective”, “subjective” and “truth” are concepts that people use and not something they discover empirically in nature. Concepts are tools used for various purposes.
The question of objective versus subjective nicely gets at one of the themes in “A Call for Papers” regarding the relevance of community to the understanding of science. It matters in other domains as well.
I grew up in a community of chemists and chemical engineers and did a short stint teaching laboratory physiology so I know something about how workaday scientists talk regarding their own sense of being objective, unbiased observers and reporters. I also grew up in the Bible-belt South and am acquainted with enforced truth.
Some considerations:
Speaking for myself in contrast to speaking as an expert representative of a community is one place to get oriented. When I am objective, I am speaking as an expert representative of “us”, using the agreed upon standards of our community. Objectivity, practically speaking, depends on acting on agreed upon standards and having the competence and sensitivity to act on those standards. Competence and sensitivity are fundamental to what it takes to make an “objective” measurement or judgment. When I am being subjective I am only making the claim that I am speaking for myself. But even speaking just for myself, I may reasonably claim to be objective. It depends on the sort of claim.
A paradigm of an objective scientific act: It is very easy to get an agreement that her temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, since that requires very little skill. I look where the mercury ends and read off a number. If you think my eyesight is poor or that it hasn’t been in her mouth long enough you might double-check. This is easy. Now contrast reading a thermometer to something that requires more refined sensitivity and judgment. I recall in chemistry lab the messiness of doing titrations and thin-film chromatography and how desperately I hoped my results would at least resemble those of my bench partner. That’s why we have inter-judge reliability statistics. This requires some community.
Objectivity is a matter of what a community agrees they can reliably measure, appraise, judge and teach others to similarly accomplish. Not everyone in a community will have the required competence and sensitivity and there may be disagreements about how much variation will be tolerated. Different expert judges may also disagree about acceptable variations. It matters how judgment is enforced and this involves the distribution of power, is inherently political and potentially coercive.
What is objective for us when set in stone may have enduring consequence. Objectivity has a “more or less” quality especially when standards and competencies are in flux, are under development or review, or subject to within community disagreement. This will be amplified when the judgment and measurement is hard to achieve because it is difficult to do. And it will be especially problematic if what is treated as appropriate for objective standards involves practices that are by their basic nature developing, in flux or inseparable from vested interests. Vested interests whether professional, sexual, religious, political, tribal or national are the stuff of bias, conflict and control. Standards involve controls and who the community attempts to control. Standards set agendas for action.
The more or less quality of the objective will overlap with the subjective. It can be confused and dangerous when conflated with Truth. Personal bias is central to the subjective especially when bias creates a distortion by affecting competence and sensitivity. Or, when only in a position to speak for myself, I purport to speak for us. I may not be aware or open to my bias and my vested interest. It might not be in my interest to examine my bias or to disclose it to you.
Can the entire community share a distorting bias? I think this is especially problematic when there is coercive authority over what should be measured or appraised. This occurs when speaking for us I am now claiming the legitimacy to speak for them. It occurs when I treat the appraisal of virtue like the measurement of temperature.
Objectively I might be able to show that 37% of all Lilliputians prefer Neapolitan above other flavors of ice cream. I can also say objectively that I don’t like Neapolitan, since I am in the best position to make that call. Personally, I think straight strawberry is a better and more virtuous flavor because I don’t like to mix flavors, and believe such mixing of flavors is just plain wrong.
Notice the conceptual difference between the statistical and demographic characteristics of a community and my personal values, my bias, my matters of taste.
Here speaking for myself in contrast to speaking for us vitally matters, especially if I have the power to enforce standards of flavor, mix and virtue. This confused mix is the heart of problematic indoctrination. My community might accept these choice principles. And we might want to enforce them on you. What is required for membership in good standing in my community can be held as not just “our done thing”, but a universal truth that should hold for you, too.
There are consequences to what is conceptualized as objective, measurable, and appropriate for the establishment of standards. We can measure temperature and appraise virtue. We can establish standards and competencies for both. We can find ways to agree consistently. But if I claim that by doing so I have established some universal and enforceable truth, then I am engaged in religious, political or social fundamentalism. I am closing my mind and trying to close yours, too.
Motto: You buy your ticket and you take your chances. Read the fine print.
Written By Wynn Schwartz Ph.D
Objectivity, Subjectivity and the Gospel Truth was originally published @ Freedom, Liberation and Reaction: Lessons in Psychology and has been syndicated with permission.
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