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    Political skepticism is necessary in moral and political ... — Carmelics
    Home/Skepticism
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Political skepticism is necessary in moral and political life

    Democracy & GovernanceSkepticism
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Dogmatism leads to cruelty by inflating the expected utility of persecuting policies
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    • 2.Skepticism corrects the tendency to overestimate certainty
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    • 3.Correcting overconfidence reduces the justification for persecuting policies
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Democratic legitimacy requires citizens to act on substantive moral commitments, not merely probabilistic hedges about value.
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    • 2.A polity of thoroughgoing skeptics lacks the motivational resources to resist genuine injustice, as Dewey argued against Russell's own skeptical tendencies.
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    • 3.Skepticism about political values is therefore self-undermining: it erodes the normative ground on which anti-persecution arguments themselves depend.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Rawls demonstrated that overlapping consensus on political principles is achievable without requiring metaphysical skepticism as its foundation.
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    • 2.If non-skeptical citizens can converge on anti-persecutory norms through reasonable pluralism, skepticism is not necessary but merely sufficient at best.
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    Topics

    SkepticismDemocracy & Governance

    Connections

    2 topics

    Consequentialism1 linkedJustice & Punishment1 linked

    Related

    A polity of thoroughgoing skeptics lacks the motivational resources to resist ge...Correcting overconfidence reduces the justification for persecuting policiesDemocratic legitimacy requires citizens to act on substantive moral commitments,...Dogmatism leads to cruelty by inflating the expected utility of persecuting poli...
    +4 moreShow less
    If non-skeptical citizens can converge on anti-persecutory norms through reasona...Rawls demonstrated that overlapping consensus on political principles is achieva...Skepticism about political values is therefore self-undermining: it erodes the n...

    Similar

    Moral skepticism is not merely theoretical — most people genuinely dou...89%Opponents of moral skepticism must take moral skepticism seriously eno...87%Practical moral skepticism must not be confused with epistemological m...87%Moral skepticism conflicts with common ways of talking and thinking ab...87%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: russell-moral
    View source passageHide passage
    Thus despite the desirability of socialism (in Russell’s eyes at any rate) the Bolshevik program had to be rejected for utilitarian or consequentialist reasons. (See also The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, particularly Part II. ch.iv.) The Bolshevik “habit of militant certainty about doubtful matters” (Practice and Theory: xi) was not only irrational, but dangerous, since it led to pointless suffering. Hence “The Need for Political Skepticism”, the title of one of Russell’s essays, and a maj
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Skepticism corrects the tendency to overestimate certainty
    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit