Chapter 9 Visions, Values, and Paradigms
Visions can be different in moral and intellectual ways. Social visions are not the same as scientific ones, especially regarding their values. A main moral question is how these visions show different values, while an important intellectual question is the different histories of social visions and scientific ideas. It is also useful to know if social problems come from conflicts of values, visions, or interests. Understanding these differences can help explain various social issues.
Paradigms and Evidence
Visions are instinctive understandings of how things work, while paradigms are more developed intellectual models that include theories and testable hypotheses. In science, opposing paradigms tend to replace each other over time, but in social thought, conflicting paradigms can coexist for centuries.
The key difference between science and social theory lies in the ability to test hypotheses empirically. Social experiments cannot be controlled or repeated like scientific ones, making it harder to definitively prove or disprove social theories. Additionally, people's commitment to social values can influence their interpretation of evidence.
While evidence is important in evaluating social visions, it is not always decisive. People may weigh evidence differently based on their existing beliefs. Even when evidence contradicts a hypothesis, the theory can often be modified or made more complex to accommodate the new information.
Some people may ignore or deny evidence that contradicts their vision, showing the power these visions hold. Theories can also be formulated in ways that make them difficult to disprove, reducing their empirical meaning while still being influential.
The Malthusian population theory is an example of a theory that has persisted despite contradictory evidence. Originally based on a constrained vision of human nature, it has been adapted over time to fit different viewpoints. Its survival demonstrates how theories can be protected from evidence through evasion and tautological formulations.
Misunderstandings about what constitutes relevant evidence can also lead to the persistence of theories. For example, a controversy in economics about the effects of wage increases on employment showed how evidence collected based on a misunderstanding of the theory being tested can fail to resolve debates.
Sometimes, assertions that fit a prevailing vision can be widely accepted without any supporting evidence. The claim that higher rates of broken homes among Black Americans are a "legacy of slavery" went unchallenged for years before factual studies disproved it.
Moving from a vision to a specific set of theories is intellectually and emotionally challenging. People may become committed to their theories, making it painful to abandon them in the face of contradictory evidence. This can lead to increasingly complex modifications of the original theory to reconcile it with new data.
No vision or paradigm can perfectly fit all the facts, so some level of simplification is necessary. Different visions may emphasize different factors as central or peripheral to their explanations. The constrained vision, for example, places human limitations at the center of its theories, while the unconstrained vision treats them as less significant.
While efforts to adjust visions to accommodate new evidence are not inherently dishonest, they can sometimes shelter rationalizations. The need for complexity in theories can itself become a defense against clear-cut evidence, with simple explanations dismissed as "simplistic."
Although visions can persist based on their internal logic rather than empirical evidence, this can be socially dangerous. It's important to formulate and test hypotheses against evidence, rather than assuming that the truth lies somewhere in between competing views.
Over time, the growing complexity of social theories reflects the difficulty of defending them in their purest forms. While decisive victories may be rare in conflicts between social visions, intellectual struggles can lead to gradual changes and retreats from extreme positions.
Visions and Values
Visions, which are fundamental ideas about causation, shape our understanding of social phenomena and drive our conclusions more than explicit moral values. People with identical moral principles can reach opposing views if they have different visions of reality and causation. These visions determine what we believe will work in society, based on our assumptions about human nature and social interactions.
Unlike physical sciences, social sciences cannot easily resolve conflicting visions through experiments. This makes it difficult to settle disagreements in social and political matters. Labeling beliefs as "value premises" can sometimes prevent proper examination of the underlying factual and causal assumptions.
While changing one's vision can be psychologically challenging, it does happen. Major social events or new information can cause people to reconsider their beliefs. This suggests that visions are more likely to shape values than the other way around. Propaganda and censorship often target facts and causation rather than moral values, further supporting this idea.
Despite individual changes, opposing visions persist in society over time. This is partly because all visions must develop ways to deal with contradictory facts, and because the process of changing visions takes time. In contrast, physical sciences can sometimes achieve sudden and permanent shifts in understanding due to decisive evidence and controlled experiments.
In social sciences, the lack of controlled experiments and decisive evidence means that even historical records become subjects of debate. This makes it challenging to resolve conflicts between different visions of society, politics, and economics.
Visions and Interests
Social visions and special interests play significant roles in politics, but their relationship is complex. Both constrained and unconstrained visions acknowledge the influence of special interests in political struggles. However, these visions are not directly shaped by personal gain, class bias, or corruption.
Leading figures in both visions often advocated ideas that went against their personal interests, sometimes risking financial loss or social status. There is also no consistent correlation between class positions and adherence to either vision. Instead, the consistency in views stems from assumptions about human nature rather than class background.
Special interests may use visions as rationalizations, but this does not explain the origins or validity of the visions themselves. The use of visions to recruit political allies demonstrates the limited appeal of special interests alone and the independent power of social visions in shaping political thought and action.
While class bias and special interests do influence political struggles, their impact is more about seizing upon existing visions rather than controlling those who shape them. Visions serve as a means to recruit allies who don't share specific interests but may be won over by principles or rhetoric. This highlights the enduring nature of constrained and unconstrained visions, which have remained viable for centuries despite changing special interests across generations.
Summary and Conclusions
Two conflicting philosophical visions shape views on society and human nature: the constrained and unconstrained visions. These fundamentally different perspectives influence how people approach social, political, and economic issues.
The constrained vision sees human capabilities as limited. It emphasizes social processes and institutions over direct decision-making, believing these lead to optimal outcomes. This perspective defines concepts like freedom, justice, power, and equality in terms of processes rather than results.
Conversely, the unconstrained vision believes humans can directly shape social outcomes through collective decisions. It defines key concepts based on results rather than processes. This vision perceives greater potential for intellectual and moral advancement in both individuals and society as a whole.
These contrasting assumptions result in opposing views on numerous issues. The unconstrained vision favors centralized decision-making by intellectual elites, while the constrained vision prefers dispersed decision-making. This fundamental difference manifests in debates on economic planning, judicial activism, and various policy areas.
The two visions also differ in their perception of ideological opponents. Adherents of the unconstrained vision often view their adversaries as morally or intellectually deficient. In contrast, those with the constrained vision tend to see opponents as well-intentioned but mistaken.
While ideology significantly influences political views, it is not entirely deterministic. Major events and logical arguments can prompt ideological shifts. However, these visions often demonstrate a remarkable ability to dismiss or reinterpret contradictory evidence.
Understanding these visions can clarify political debates. Conflicts often arise not from different values, but from divergent assumptions about human nature and society. Recognizing this can foster better understanding of opposing viewpoints, even if fundamental disagreements persist.
Neither vision can abandon its moral foundations simply to "win" debates. The underlying moral impulses are integral to each vision's meaning and purpose.
This framework for understanding ideological differences suggests that many political and social conflicts stem from these underlying visions. They shape how people interpret evidence and define key concepts. Grasping these visions can provide insight into the nature and persistence of long-standing societal debates.
Ultimately, while these visions conflict and evoke strong emotions, understanding their logic and implications can lead to more nuanced and productive discussions on complex social issues.
Visions can be different in moral and intellectual ways. Social visions are not the same as scientific ones, especially regarding their values. A main moral question is how these visions show different values, while an important intellectual question is the different histories of social visions and scientific ideas. It is also useful to know if social problems come from conflicts of values, visions, or interests. Understanding these differences can help explain various social issues.
Paradigms and Evidence
Visions are instinctive understandings of how things work, while paradigms are more developed intellectual models that include theories and testable hypotheses. In science, opposing paradigms tend to replace each other over time, but in social thought, conflicting paradigms can coexist for centuries.
The key difference between science and social theory lies in the ability to test hypotheses empirically. Social experiments cannot be controlled or repeated like scientific ones, making it harder to definitively prove or disprove social theories. Additionally, people's commitment to social values can influence their interpretation of evidence.
While evidence is important in evaluating social visions, it is not always decisive. People may weigh evidence differently based on their existing beliefs. Even when evidence contradicts a hypothesis, the theory can often be modified or made more complex to accommodate the new information.
Some people may ignore or deny evidence that contradicts their vision, showing the power these visions hold. Theories can also be formulated in ways that make them difficult to disprove, reducing their empirical meaning while still being influential.
The Malthusian population theory is an example of a theory that has persisted despite contradictory evidence. Originally based on a constrained vision of human nature, it has been adapted over time to fit different viewpoints. Its survival demonstrates how theories can be protected from evidence through evasion and tautological formulations.
Misunderstandings about what constitutes relevant evidence can also lead to the persistence of theories. For example, a controversy in economics about the effects of wage increases on employment showed how evidence collected based on a misunderstanding of the theory being tested can fail to resolve debates.
Sometimes, assertions that fit a prevailing vision can be widely accepted without any supporting evidence. The claim that higher rates of broken homes among Black Americans are a "legacy of slavery" went unchallenged for years before factual studies disproved it.
Moving from a vision to a specific set of theories is intellectually and emotionally challenging. People may become committed to their theories, making it painful to abandon them in the face of contradictory evidence. This can lead to increasingly complex modifications of the original theory to reconcile it with new data.
No vision or paradigm can perfectly fit all the facts, so some level of simplification is necessary. Different visions may emphasize different factors as central or peripheral to their explanations. The constrained vision, for example, places human limitations at the center of its theories, while the unconstrained vision treats them as less significant.
While efforts to adjust visions to accommodate new evidence are not inherently dishonest, they can sometimes shelter rationalizations. The need for complexity in theories can itself become a defense against clear-cut evidence, with simple explanations dismissed as "simplistic."
Although visions can persist based on their internal logic rather than empirical evidence, this can be socially dangerous. It's important to formulate and test hypotheses against evidence, rather than assuming that the truth lies somewhere in between competing views.
Over time, the growing complexity of social theories reflects the difficulty of defending them in their purest forms. While decisive victories may be rare in conflicts between social visions, intellectual struggles can lead to gradual changes and retreats from extreme positions.
Visions and Values
Visions, which are fundamental ideas about causation, shape our understanding of social phenomena and drive our conclusions more than explicit moral values. People with identical moral principles can reach opposing views if they have different visions of reality and causation. These visions determine what we believe will work in society, based on our assumptions about human nature and social interactions.
Unlike physical sciences, social sciences cannot easily resolve conflicting visions through experiments. This makes it difficult to settle disagreements in social and political matters. Labeling beliefs as "value premises" can sometimes prevent proper examination of the underlying factual and causal assumptions.
While changing one's vision can be psychologically challenging, it does happen. Major social events or new information can cause people to reconsider their beliefs. This suggests that visions are more likely to shape values than the other way around. Propaganda and censorship often target facts and causation rather than moral values, further supporting this idea.
Despite individual changes, opposing visions persist in society over time. This is partly because all visions must develop ways to deal with contradictory facts, and because the process of changing visions takes time. In contrast, physical sciences can sometimes achieve sudden and permanent shifts in understanding due to decisive evidence and controlled experiments.
In social sciences, the lack of controlled experiments and decisive evidence means that even historical records become subjects of debate. This makes it challenging to resolve conflicts between different visions of society, politics, and economics.
Visions and Interests
Social visions and special interests play significant roles in politics, but their relationship is complex. Both constrained and unconstrained visions acknowledge the influence of special interests in political struggles. However, these visions are not directly shaped by personal gain, class bias, or corruption.
Leading figures in both visions often advocated ideas that went against their personal interests, sometimes risking financial loss or social status. There is also no consistent correlation between class positions and adherence to either vision. Instead, the consistency in views stems from assumptions about human nature rather than class background.
Special interests may use visions as rationalizations, but this does not explain the origins or validity of the visions themselves. The use of visions to recruit political allies demonstrates the limited appeal of special interests alone and the independent power of social visions in shaping political thought and action.
While class bias and special interests do influence political struggles, their impact is more about seizing upon existing visions rather than controlling those who shape them. Visions serve as a means to recruit allies who don't share specific interests but may be won over by principles or rhetoric. This highlights the enduring nature of constrained and unconstrained visions, which have remained viable for centuries despite changing special interests across generations.
Summary and Conclusions
Two conflicting philosophical visions shape views on society and human nature: the constrained and unconstrained visions. These fundamentally different perspectives influence how people approach social, political, and economic issues.
The constrained vision sees human capabilities as limited. It emphasizes social processes and institutions over direct decision-making, believing these lead to optimal outcomes. This perspective defines concepts like freedom, justice, power, and equality in terms of processes rather than results.
Conversely, the unconstrained vision believes humans can directly shape social outcomes through collective decisions. It defines key concepts based on results rather than processes. This vision perceives greater potential for intellectual and moral advancement in both individuals and society as a whole.
These contrasting assumptions result in opposing views on numerous issues. The unconstrained vision favors centralized decision-making by intellectual elites, while the constrained vision prefers dispersed decision-making. This fundamental difference manifests in debates on economic planning, judicial activism, and various policy areas.
The two visions also differ in their perception of ideological opponents. Adherents of the unconstrained vision often view their adversaries as morally or intellectually deficient. In contrast, those with the constrained vision tend to see opponents as well-intentioned but mistaken.
While ideology significantly influences political views, it is not entirely deterministic. Major events and logical arguments can prompt ideological shifts. However, these visions often demonstrate a remarkable ability to dismiss or reinterpret contradictory evidence.
Understanding these visions can clarify political debates. Conflicts often arise not from different values, but from divergent assumptions about human nature and society. Recognizing this can foster better understanding of opposing viewpoints, even if fundamental disagreements persist.
Neither vision can abandon its moral foundations simply to "win" debates. The underlying moral impulses are integral to each vision's meaning and purpose.
This framework for understanding ideological differences suggests that many political and social conflicts stem from these underlying visions. They shape how people interpret evidence and define key concepts. Grasping these visions can provide insight into the nature and persistence of long-standing societal debates.
Ultimately, while these visions conflict and evoke strong emotions, understanding their logic and implications can lead to more nuanced and productive discussions on complex social issues.