Dog blog 8 - how much do you need to know?

How much do you need to know?

As ever, Disney continues to pioneer moral and epistemological philosophy in its 2007 film Enchanted.

In one scene in the film, the (very, very fab) Amy Adams and Patrick Dempsey (I can never remember their characters' names) go for a walk in the local park. Controversially for Disney, Patrick is seeing someone else at this particular point. In a going out with another girlfriend sense. And, he has a child from an unsuccessful marriage.

Tricky stuff

Anyway, at this particular point in our story, Amy asks Patrick how does he know that he is in love with his girlfriend. Tricky and interesting stuff. Admittedly, Amy does rather make a song and dance of the whole thing:

Knowing

All this got me thinking about the epistemological classic: what does it mean to "know" something? There's a good discussion about this sort of thing by Dr Scott Sturgeon in the first chapter of AC Grayling's Philosophy. It's a good book. My copy is a nice yellow colour too, which looks cheery on a sunny day.

All that stuff is very tricky. At least for a Dog.

Are we in the Matrix?

Before looking at what it means to know, let's put a stop right here and now to the "ah-but-couldn't-this-just-be-a-dream-or-imagined-by-someone-else" brigade? You know the ones. Carrie-Anne Moss and Keanu Reeves types.

I don't think that kind of argument gets you anywhere. At all. If you really think this is all a big dream, not only are you being a tedious spoilsport, you're also ruling yourself out of the game. I'll come back to this.

So let's ignore Keanu and his pals. This is not a dream - seriously.

Justify yourself

I'm attracted to the idea that when we say we "know" something, what we really mean is that our belief in something (I am a Dog), or that something is the case (I ate chicken flavour Pedigree Chum for my tea), is justified.

So how do you justify your belief? Dr Scott suggests we need adequate evidence for it, and that evidence needs to tie in consistently with what else we know.

Dr Scott's idea is called "mixed coherence theory". Which sounds very tricky indeed. But I think that's how we think on a day to day basis. How do you know that there's a bottle of beer in the fridge? Well it was there last time I looked, and no one else is here. And on the basis of my day to day experience of sitting in my kitchen near the fridge, there is an extremely low probability that someone, or indeed magic forces, could have removed the beer.

You're either in or you're out

I said Keanu and his pals rule themselves out of the game by asking "ah but isn't this a dream?".

I think what really matters about knowing stuff, i.e. having a justified belief in things, is doing something about it. If you think it's all a dream, you lock yourself into a stalemate. Why bother trying to dodge bullets or fight Hugo Weaving?

You're either in the game or you're out. Even if it is a dream.

How much do you need to know?

All that's pretty quick Dog thinking. And really just by way of background to the main thing I've been wondering about: how much do you need to know to have justifiable grounds for doing something? How much time do you need to spend finding stuff out? How much expertise do you need to have? Is it OK to trust other people? Or Dogs even?

I was wondering about this in Dog Blog 6 (Multi-dimensional morality) in the case of ethical decision making: are some decisions (e.g. switching train tracks to save lives) more ethically defensible if you're pushed for time?

Trust

Take the moon conspiracies in Dog Blog 7 (Moonwalking). I don't have the time to invest heavily in finding out the truth about the moon landing, to go over to NASA and ask them what's what, look through photos and interview Neil, Buzz and Michael. To be quite honest, I can't really be bothered, and I suspect NASA won't allow Dogs into the Kennedy Space Center anyway.

So is it OK in cases like that to adopt the belief that Neil & Co. went to the moon in July 1969? Is it OK to look at the evidence presented by NASA, and take the view that NASA and the US Government don't usually lie about space? And that the evidence looked at by a respectable body of scientists kind of backs up the idea that the evidence hangs together and looks genuine?

I think it is. And this is really Dr Scott's mixed coherence theory in action.

What if you're wrong?

There's another part I think to justified belief: it depends what you need the belief for. i.e. what you're going to do (or not) on the basis of your belief.

Knowing whether or not man went to the moon in 1969 makes no difference to how I live my life. Living in the UK as the Dog does, it's diverting and a reasonably fun thing to look at on YouTube now and again.

But some things count much more. Such as whether or not to turn off a ventillator supporting a person the doctors claim is brain dead. How reasonable is it to rely on what someone else says? What if you're not a doctor and can't make head nor tail of what the MRI scans are showing you?

What if the truth being presented by the Government is so fundamental to a decision (e.g. WMD in Iraq)? Surely there, the Government's belief needs to be justified to those who don't have the time by those who do? And be sufficiently coherent (e.g. peer reviewed) to be defensible?

And how much time should I invest in investigating the evidence? Is it defensible to rely on the media for example?

I think trusting someone else in authority is justifiable (amongst other reasons) to the extent that you know someone has a track record on something. E.g. a particular newspaper or commentator has a reputation for being honest, balanced and thorough. And, like I was rambling in Dog Blog 6 (Multi-dimensional morality) for ethical decisions, I think there is leeway in the amount time individuals need spend investigating a claim in order to decide to take action (or decide not to) on the basis of that claim.

Thoughts and feelings

Tricky stuff. And one more tricky thing to finish off: when is your belief that you're experiencing a particular emotion justifiable? Like love for example? How do you know you're in love? What does it feel like?

I'm not really sure. I hope it feels something like this. Cue my favourite Alan Menken song (who wrote the Enchanted soundtrack), particularly between 1:48 to 2:27 mins into the track: