The Unthinkable philosophical concept of the year is ... vice-charging

Every December, various dictionaries and publications select a “word of the year” to encapsulate the previous 12 months. Terms related to Covid-19, vaccines and cryptocurrency were inevitable poll-toppers for 2021.

The Irish Times Unthinkable column reckoned it would get in on the act by choosing a philosophical concept of the year. The inaugural winner is a compound verb that captures a particularly topical intellectual phenomenon (cue drum roll!): vice-charging.

In recent times we have seen an orgy of judgmentalism in public debate. People are quick to accuse others of arrogance, closed-mindedness, dogmatism and gullibility – all known as epistemic vices to philosophers. Such vice-charging may have its uses but there’s increasing recognition that labelling people who hold unscientific views as either stupid or immoral is not very wise.

In a paper published last month, Quassim Cassam explores the "hazards of vice-charging" in the context of vaccine hesitancy, primarily surrounding the MMR triple vaccine. A scholar of epistemology, or the study of knowledge, Cassam says it is an "epistemic injustice" to represent vaccine-hesitant parents "as less than full epistemic agents".

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To guard against “elitist condescension”, there should be “a more tolerant and inclusive approach, not only to vaccine hesitancy but also to other forms of unorthodoxy or non-compliance”, he argues. It is only through a better understanding of different perspectives that “policymakers and practitioners in public services can more effectively educate a sceptical public about the risks of vaccine hesitancy”.

Cassam, who has written extensively on the dynamics of conspiracy theories, extends the argument to the coronavirus pandemic. "While research into Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy is still in its infancy, the discussion so far suggests the following: people have many different reasons for being Covid-19 vaccine hesitant, and it is not possible to make sense of their vaccine hesitancy without engaging in detail with their reasons and trying to understand why they strike some people as good reasons," he says.

The question is not whether to accept unscientific or irrational thinking but rather whether to characterise it as a moral failing.

A number of specific problems have been associated with epistemic vice-charging.

First is the problem of consensus. "Folks don't always agree on which character traits are virtues and which are vices," says Ian James Kidd, a leading philosopher on the topic. "A political activist might think that defiance or rebelliousness is a virtue – others will see it as a disruptive and self-righteous vice."

Even where people agree what are virtues and vices, there is no guarantee of consensus about whether a particular action is an instance of them. For example, “I agree dogmatism is a vice,” Kidd tells The Irish Times. “But I’m not here being dogmatic! I have bloody good reasons for sticking to my belief.”

We target the individual rather than the corrupting social conditions that made that person closed-minded

Second is the problem of responsibility. “Vice-charging is always a criticism of a person – you are attributing to them a vice, a failing of character. But we may worry that this is unfair. Our character is only partly under our control,” Kidd notes.

If our attitudes and dispositions are largely shaped by external factors then vice-charging results in “criticising the wrong thing: we target the vicious individual rather than the corrupting social conditions that made that person cruel, selfish, closed-minded, etc”.

A related concern is that vice-charging can get in the way of understanding motives. Companies opposed to climate action are sometimes accused of “arrogance” or “hubris” whereas, in fact, they are making very clear-sighted calculations about how to maximise their profits.

A third problem with vice charging is that often backfires. Citing work done by Alessandra Tanesini, Kidd says: "If you charge people with vices, most of them won't thank you for it. They will get defensive and double down. So, vice-charging can actually make the problem worse."

Are there situations where it can make the problem better?

Dr Gerry Dunne of the Marino Institute of Education, who has a research interest in the area, says "a few conditions" must be met before vice-charging can be considered good in principle? Above all, "'the shoe must fit': the charge must be accurate, clear, well-informed, considered and grounded in fact."

The charge should “potentially lead to an epistemic improvement for the agent, and by extension other inquirers, in the sense that, they shed false beliefs and acquire more true ones, and if possible, reach greater understandings”.

Another condition, says Dunne, is that the charge is made “tactfully and empathically” – so it’s “an educative exchange where truth trumps ego or my-side bias”. This is the very opposite of public shaming or the “gotcha” approach favoured by so many social media users.

A vice-charge is only likely to be effective if done within relationships of trust

Kidd believes the scope for worthwhile vice-charging is even more limited. “A vice-charge is only likely to be effective if done within relationships of trust, mutual respect, and long acquaintance – close friends, say.

“We care what our friends think of us. We want to maintain their love and trust – so we are motivated to take seriously their concerns about our character. We can also trust that they are vice-charging for good reason – to make us better, not to undermine us or hurt us.”

He adds: “We should more honest about why people vice-charge. Is it being done to help the person get better? Or is it being done to let off steam, to signal who one hates or show what side you’re on? Too much vice-charging is mere rhetoric – ‘Tory scum!’, ‘Selfish vaccine hestitants!’, ‘Stupid dogmatic theists!’ That sort of rhetorical vice-charging won’t help the person being charged to get better.”

A telling fact is that, amid all the judgmentalism, there is very little evidence of virtue-charging. Politicians who change their mind based on new evidence are typically criticised for flip-flopping rather than praised for putting reason ahead of ego.

There are more ways to fail morally than to succeed morally

Why are we quicker to charge people with vice rather than virtue?

Kidd cites several reasons. “It reinforces in/out group distinctions and so helps us build communities through exclusion of others. People clearly enjoy condemning and demeaning other people.” Also, “vices are more common than virtues. There are more ways to fail morally than to succeed morally”.

This is reflected in our everyday vocabulary. It's not hard to construct an A to Z of bad thinking habits, from bullsh**ting and knowledge resistance to confirmation bias and self-deception, but a taxonomy of epistemic virtue is not nearly as well developed.

Dunne believes highly-charged debates on issues like Brexit have something to do with it. “Polarised perspectives promote vice-charging. Where there is dissonance there is epistemic blame. So long as there are conflicting views of what we ought to believe, accept or do, there will be vice-charging,” says the academic, who is guest editing a special issue on epistemic vices in the journal Educational Theory.

Whatever about the merits of being judgy to people’s faces, Dunne says epistemic vices are a real problem. Two in particular stand out, in his view: “closed-mindedness and insouciance”.

“Closed-minded individuals systematically think in ways which are inflexible, insular, blinkered, irrationally defensive and unreceptive to any and all evidence which contravenes or threatens their pre-existing views, irrespective of the objective merits of such.”

Insouciance is a term coined by Cassam, who has defined it as “a particular form of not giving a shit. It means not caring about the facts, about what the evidence shows, or what experts think”.

Dunne says: “As an affective, involuntary posture, this pernicious casual indifference to the truth, along with a lack of concern, vis-a-vis, the obligation to ground one’s views in relevant facts, reasons, or evidence, is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing educators in our time.”