Witholding Judgment - Required or Optional

[StrictlyLogical]

According to Objectivism, if there is an issue (any issue) for which, on the balance of the evidence, strictly speaking, A and B are identically equally valid propositions (again on the basis of the evidence)

 

Is it:

 

1) A requirement of logic/rationality to suspend judgement/belief in A being true as against B and suspend judgement for the converse

 

OR

 

2) Optional to suspend judgement, i.e. it is permissible logically and rationally speaking to judge or believe A is true as against B or the converse. 

 

 

Since the evidence is identically equal anything other than withholding judgement is engaging the use of "intuition", "whim", and/or "emotionalism".

 

 

Is this permissible (deemed "correct") by Objectivism ?

Edited December 8, 2013 by StrictlyLogical

[Grames]

Judge when there is a need to take an action related to A or B.  Otherwise withhold.

 

Given the way you have set up the scenario with A and B perfectly equal in evidentiary status, a judgement would necessarily involve engaging in the use of "intuition", "whim", and/or "emotionalism".  However in reality there are other reasons one may pick A over B that are not matters of evidence, such as cost, convenience, proximity, aesthetics.  Also, if one is dealing in an area of professional expertise and great amounts of experience then one's "intuition" is not to be dismissed as wholly arbitrary; in this case there is likely to be some unarticulated subconscious pattern recognition occurring.   

[Reidy]

Two questions come to mind:

 

1. Can you give some examples?

 

2. Where did you find this in the Objectivist literature?

 

Sometimes we find ourselves in the situation you describe and the question isn't important enough to us to be worth the effort of investigating and deciding.  Many scientific and scholarly questions are of this nature, because a non-specialist knows little or nothing about the field and isn't interested in it.  We lose nothing by not taking a stand.  The effectiveness of a particular surgical procedure, if one is not a surgeon or a potential patient, is an example.  To investigate every such question to the point where we can competently decide it would be impossible.

 

Rand was more interested in cases where we do know the answer and in which the answers are not equally valid; i.e. one answer is right and the others are wrong.  If somebody has asked your opinion or if speaking up is otherwise in order, she'd say that you are wrong to withhold judgement.  See the chapter in VoS on living a moral life in an immoral society.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Reidy

[softwareNerd]

... A and B are identically equally valid propositions

That's the judgement. I don't think the judgement can go any further, given what you say.

If one absolutely has to act as if one or the other is true, that's fine, but that does not change the judgement. So, if you simply have to pick a number for the lottery, any is just as good. In typical situations, the underlying (50:50) judgement will guide on to some third action, where one can hedge one's bets.

Edited December 8, 2013 by softwareNerd

[Devil's Advocate]

According to Objectivism, if there is an issue (any issue) for which, on the balance of the evidence, strictly speaking, A and B are identically equally valid propositions (again on the basis of the evidence)

 

Is it:

 

1) A requirement of logic/rationality to suspend judgement/belief in A being true as against B and suspend judgement for the converse

 

OR

 

2) Optional to suspend judgement, i.e. it is permissible logically and rationally speaking to judge or believe A is true as against B or the converse. 

 

 

Since the evidence is identically equal anything other than withholding judgement is engaging the use of "intuition", "whim", and/or "emotionalism".

 

 

Is this permissible (deemed "correct") by Objectivism ?

As softwareNerd says, "That's the judgement."  Furthermore, if the evidence is identically equal, how is this different than saying A = B?  If A & B area identical versions of the same thing, then A = A and one can only choose randomly between the two.

[Reidy]

A posible answer to question 2 in #3 (Where did you find this in the Objectivist literature?) is Rand's dictum that when you reach a contradiction, in which A and B appear to be (not are) equally sound at least one of your premises is false and you need to check said premises.  I think once again that she'd say: if the topic matters to you, you harm yourself cognitively and emotionally if you don't make an effort to resolve the contradiction.

 

What she says is not exactly true.  A paradoxical conclusion could be the product of any combination of bad (mutually inconsistent) premises or technically faulty deduction, including all of the latter and none of the former, e.g.

 

- All right triangles have three sides;

- All isosceles triangles have three sides.

- Ergo: all right triangles are isosceles triangles.

 

True premises, bad deduction, self-contradictory conclusion.  Amend her advice to "check your reasoning" and you're ready to go.

Edited December 8, 2013 by Reidy

[StrictlyLogical]

DA

 

A and B are different propositions for which there is equal evidence... the amount of evidence is what is identical not the particular propositions themselves.

[Devil's Advocate]

DA

 

A and B are different propositions for which there is equal evidence... the amount of evidence is what is identical not the particular propositions themselves.

Thank you for the clarification.  I was initially responding as though the propositions referred to the same object.  For example if the object is apples, and Prop A is, "apples are red", and Prob B is, "apples are nutritious", both propositions are true and non-contradictory, so one needn't suspend judgement in either case;  eating red applies doesn't make them less nutritious.  In this case, one might randomly choose a particular apple knowing both propositions are true.  Perhaps the choice might not actually be random so much as indifferent to the truth of both propositions because one is simply hungry.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Devil's Advocate