[Note: I think this is less interesting than my other posts. If you're still deciding whether you like me, try my posts about homophobic belief or the Catholic baptism crisis.]
In an earlier post, I described sadistic epistemology, a state of mind in which “whatever I can weaponize is true.” The sadist goes through a “seeking phase” in which they rapidly survey possible beliefs, followed by a “kill phase” in which they adopt a belief specifically because it’s a good weapon. Sadistic epistemology is a corollary to Natalie Wynn’s concept of masochistic epistemology, a state of mind in which the masochist is motivated to believe things that hurt them.
Benevolent epistemology is a pattern of thought in which the benevolent person is motivated to consider beliefs that reflect well on another person, relative to other beliefs they might have endorsed. Maybe I notice that I’ve entered the sadistic seeking phase, but I restrain myself before entering kill phase. Mean and uncharitable beliefs flash before my mind, but I refuse to endorse them until I’ve thought things through. In most cases, I’ll realize that my most critical thoughts are wrong, and I’ll settle on something which is not only gentler but also more likely to be true. (“Non-malevolent” might be a better word than “benevolent” here.) I go through a similar process when I hear uncharitable criticism of another person: Faced with a brutal interpretation of someone’s actions, I go through a benevolent seeking phase in which I rapidly consider interpretations that place that person in a more positive light.
I’ve trained myself to enter the benevolent mindset partly for ethical reasons: It’s usually worse to judge people too harshly than it is to judge them too leniently, so it’s good to be somewhat biased in favor of non-judgmental beliefs. I also think that, if you’re biased against harsh interpretations, you will actually be right a larger portion of the time. The harshest interpretations of a person’s behavior are almost never true. We like interesting explanations, and we also like inflicting pain on people we dislike, so we’re very good at finding vicious beliefs that aren’t supported by our best evidence. By training myself to resist the most vicious beliefs that occur to me (or beliefs that are widely accepted among my peers), I make it easier for myself to notice better explanations that I would otherwise have overlooked—that you acted out of ignorance rather than malice, that you thought you were helping, that what you were doing didn’t seem that bad from the inside, and so on. Often, once I’ve shut down the sadistic impulse within myself, the vicious belief seems totally incredible; it only seemed like a possibility because of my anger or my fear of being criticized.
Although I think that benevolent epistemology is usually a great tool for evaluating other people more fairly, I will note that selective benevolence can be epistemically dangerous. I used to be overly gentle with people in my political circles: If someone “on my side” was being mean and wrong, then I would invent a ludicrously charitable interpretation of their actions so that they would come off reasonably well, and then I would honestly believe that my interpretation was true. This is the point at which benevolent epistemology ceases to be a helpful tool and becomes just another kind of motivated reasoning. There’s not a completely clear line between useful and harmful uses of charity, but this is a good heuristic: If it would feel good for me to believe that you’re evil and stupid, then I should force myself to consider the possibility that you’re nice and smart. On the other hand, if it would hurt me to accept a criticism of you, then I should be a little more worried that I’m letting you off the hook too easily.
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