Standard beliefs are only more likely to be correct when the cause of their standard-ness is causally linked to its correctness.
That takes care of things like, say, pro-American patriotism and pro-Christian religious fervor. Specifically, these ideas are standard not because contrary views are wrong, but because expressing contrary views makes you lose status in the eyes of a powerful in-group. Furthermore, it does not exclude beliefs like “classical physics is an almost entirely accurate description of the world at a macro scale”—inaccurate models would contradict observations of the world and get replaced with more accurate ones.
Granted, standard opinions often are standard because they are right. But, the more you can separate out the standard beliefs into ones with stronger and weaker links to correctness, the more this effect shows up in the former and not the latter.
To determine whether my view is contrarian, I ask whether there’s a fairly obvious, relatively trustworthy expert population on the issue.
I think that’s on the same page as my initial thoughts on the matter. At least, it is a useful heuristic that applies more to correct standard beliefs than incorrect ones.
I’m sympathetic to your position. Note, however, that the causal origin of a belief is itself a question about which there can be disagreement. So the same sort of considerations that make you give epistemic weight to majoritarian opinion should sometimes make you revise your decision to dismiss some of those majorities on the grounds that their beliefs do not reliably track the truth. For example, do most people agree with your causal explanation of pro-Christian religious fervor? If not, that may itself give you a reason to distrust those explanations, and consequently increase the evidential value you give to the beliefs of Christians. Of course, you can try to debunk the beliefs of the majority of people who disagree with your preferred causal explanation, but that just shifts the dispute to another level, rather than resolving it conclusively. (I’m not saying that, in the end, you can’t be justified in dismissing the opinions of some people; rather, I’m saying that doing this may be trickier than it might at first appear. And, for the record, I do think that pro-Christian religious fervor is crazy.)
Standard beliefs are only more likely to be correct when the cause of their standard-ness is causally linked to its correctness.
That takes care of things like, say, pro-American patriotism and pro-Christian religious fervor. Specifically, these ideas are standard not because contrary views are wrong, but because expressing contrary views makes you lose status in the eyes of a powerful in-group. Furthermore, it does not exclude beliefs like “classical physics is an almost entirely accurate description of the world at a macro scale”—inaccurate models would contradict observations of the world and get replaced with more accurate ones.
Granted, standard opinions often are standard because they are right. But, the more you can separate out the standard beliefs into ones with stronger and weaker links to correctness, the more this effect shows up in the former and not the latter.
I think that’s on the same page as my initial thoughts on the matter. At least, it is a useful heuristic that applies more to correct standard beliefs than incorrect ones.
I’m sympathetic to your position. Note, however, that the causal origin of a belief is itself a question about which there can be disagreement. So the same sort of considerations that make you give epistemic weight to majoritarian opinion should sometimes make you revise your decision to dismiss some of those majorities on the grounds that their beliefs do not reliably track the truth. For example, do most people agree with your causal explanation of pro-Christian religious fervor? If not, that may itself give you a reason to distrust those explanations, and consequently increase the evidential value you give to the beliefs of Christians. Of course, you can try to debunk the beliefs of the majority of people who disagree with your preferred causal explanation, but that just shifts the dispute to another level, rather than resolving it conclusively. (I’m not saying that, in the end, you can’t be justified in dismissing the opinions of some people; rather, I’m saying that doing this may be trickier than it might at first appear. And, for the record, I do think that pro-Christian religious fervor is crazy.)