An Argument against Truth

Is there some marvelous realm (of truth) where liberal Democrats such as myself are right (correct) and the Republicans are wrong (incorrect)? Is there really some marvelous realm where I am right and my girlfriend is wrong? My feelings say “of course! absolutely!” The very intensity of my feeling tells me this. But so does it them, her. And so long as all of us continue to exist, we are by that very fact vindicated severally … and, collectively, refuted.

Let me expand on that with an argument for why asserting truth is misleading and mischievous and dispensable … although believing x or expressing one’s belief that x (unless x is that truth exists) is not or is less so, even granting that believing implies that one is believing that something is true. The issue is whether there can be a pragmatic theory of truth, such that beliefs can be judged true or false by the relative fruitfulness of holding them.

There is a simple and obvious fact about the world (or, more precisely, human prospects) that confounds me no end, namely, the apparent thriving to equal effect of people and communities and nations whose ideas are, in my view, utterly wacky. The ideas (and resultant actions) are also often abhorrent (to me in moral mode); but the latter fact is not the main confounding element for an amoralist or atheist such as myself, who does not expect goodness to be rewarded. (Indeed, it would not be if I were still a moralist, since I would not be a consequentialist.) So it is mainly my assumption that wacky ideas lead to imprudence, which is to say, acting in ways that are not conducive to obtaining one’s goals. And yet, looking around, I do not see that to be the case, at least on a relative basis.

As so often, how one would test such a thing “scientifically” I cannot imagine. Or rather, I can easily imagine it, but would place little faith in the “findings.” One can operationalize the notions of thriving or a good life or a healthy society in any which ways, for example, by income, life expectancy, self-reports of happiness, etc. ad inf. But in the end there will be ways to interpret the various results such that the relevant comparison remains elusive. Yes, that is an empirical claim too. I leave it to you to research it if you care to. A terrific example as I write is the extreme differential in serious illness between those who were and were not vaccinated against COVID-19. But this figure in isolation hardly captures the relative welfare of the two “communities,” which, again, I seriously doubt is very different, if they are even commensurable, or, if anything, may tell against the vaccinated.

Let me then approach the question in a different way (the question being: Can there be a pragmatic theory of truth, such that beliefs can be judged true or false or wacky by the relative fruitfulness of holding them?). I pose this thought experiment. Suppose you are a blue-state Democratic liberal (like myself), who views askance red-state Republican conservatives who believe in God and Jesus in a very literal way, think Biden stole the 2020 election, the pandemic is a hoax, and so on. And now suppose (what, in fact, conforms to my personal impression) that the red-staters are not dying off in droves (from not wearing masks or refusing to be vaccinated, etc.) or more miserable than your own cohort, but in fact are doing at least as well. Indeed, in some respects they seem to be doing better. They are more likely to have an intact family. They are more self-sufficient and self-reliant. They feel better about themselves “morally” if not always economically. Their communities are safer. And so on. And let me add for good measure that they are maintaining all of these good things without exploiting people (and nonhuman animals?) outside their (human) community any more than your community does.

My question to you, then, is this: Under these suppositions, what purpose do you think would be served by continuing to insist that (some of) their beliefs are false (or wacky)? Other than valuing truth “for its own sake,” I can’t see any. Furthermore, just as with moral assertions, proclaiming the truth of your own beliefs will, it seems to me, lead to harmful stases and heightened conflicts and arrogance and all the rest.

This then is my argument (such as it is) for alethic abolition, for abstaining from assertions of truth. It is exactly parallel to my argument for moral abolition, and in fact the two may be of a piece, moral abolition being but a subset, namely, refraining from assertions of moral truth.

That there still is such a thing as truth I need not deny, but I find the issue of little practical value. But I still have to defend this position, since one does seem to end up in paradoxes by denying the reality of truth… and, I must acknowledge, even some practical paradoxes (so to speak), since I am urging “abolition” not only of certain vocal and written (and gestural) behavior but, and most especially, of an attitude, in this case, the belief in truth, or that what one believes is true. That is whence the real mischief emanates.

Furthermore, I am not urging merely epistemic humility, since I just don’t think this works, empirically speaking. Sure, “in theory” one could maintain an abiding skepticism. But in the recesses of one’s psyche – which are read off from one’s face and tone of voice with surprising ease by others – even the skeptic tends to believe that their own beliefs are true.  Another empirical claim, to be sure, and as open to doubt as the one about no atheists in foxholes. But at any rate it is the sort of evidence I would adduce in favor of alethic abolition.

But why think the abolitionist would be any more immune from the alethic bias in the recesses? Instead of just doubting that her own beliefs are true the abolitionist is bereft of belief in truth at all. That would seem to do the trick. But it doesn’t, since that is only a definition of the ideal abolitionist. The reality of actual flesh-and-blood abolitionists is more likely to be that they harbor the same presumption in favor of truth, and specifically the truth of their own beliefs, as anyone else.

Therefore the practical paradox of abolitionism in its pure and ideal form of alethic abolition is that it is an attempt or recommendation to ignore a deep and centrally held belief – like asking someone not to think of a white elephant. This is of course a standard objection to any kind of fictionalism, whereby one “pretends” that something one believes is the case, is not the case when carrying out one’s practical affairs. It is an empirical question how effective any given fictionalism can be in such-and-such circumstances. Can an adult simply pretend Santa Claus exists in a way that will influence not only her children but also herself? I myself have been skeptical of the general approach. Indeed, that is why abolitionism is abolitionism: because it is not fictionalism.

Let me then suggest this resolution. My ethical recommendation is that we all strive to be alethic abolitionists as an ideal but in the meantime (which may last for an indefinite duration) let us muddle along as alethic fictionalists. There will be a kind of cognitive dissonance in our psyche between the practical benefits of forswearing a concern with truth and the “theoretical” appreciation of truth’s inescapability as a psychic presumption. Such is the human condition.

But of course even this “moderate” conclusion is based on an argument that is itself shaky. The argument was a thought experiment, and one might very well reject the experiment as asking us to reflect on something that could never be the case. Perhaps the suppositions of the experiment simply do not or would never obtain, namely, that two individuals or communities with wildly divergent beliefs fare equally well (and not only prudentially but even in ways that impact those outside the community). Perhaps precisely the reason I am a member of the community I belong to is that I view the other community as faring less well. And if I did have a change of heart, I would then find myself adopting the beliefs of that other community and thereby ultimately become a member of it. “The scales have fallen from my eyes! Jesus is the savior!”

But what would that show? If anything, it seems to me, it would support an argument for not believing in truth. For it is obvious that community jumping of this sort does happen. But why? Aren’t the reasons subjective? That is, a person undergoes a change of belief or a change of desire or values. But since this can go either way between any two communities, how has one of them shown itself to be better and hence sustained by true(r) beliefs?

My takeaway is that the only sensible arbiter of whether a community possesses true beliefs is that that community exists. The pragmatism of truth, if there is such a thing as truth or true beliefs, must be that precisely those beliefs that survive (are “selected for”) by helping a community of believers to survive are the true ones. But then it will turn out that truth is multiple or relative to a community, since there are existing communities with incompatible beliefs, hence incompatible true beliefs (that is, some of the true beliefs of the one are incompatible with some of the true beliefs of the other). But relative truth is tantamount to no truth at all, if it is presumed that truth is unitary or that there cannot be contradictory truths.

            (I grant that there is some weaselliness in talking about incompatible beliefs belonging to different communities since it may be more correct to think of the beliefs of two communities as mutually unintelligible. In a sort of Quinean way, I would take the beliefs of two existing communities to be “equivalent” only as total sets, each “true” enough to reality to survive. So it is unclear if any individual beliefs of the two communities would or could be judged as the same, or compatible, or contradictory, or compared in any meaningful way.)

            Of course the truthist could avoid this unsatisfactory conclusion by reverting to the scientific comparison I began by rejecting. If it really were possible to ascertain which of any two existing communities were better overall by some objective standard or a standard acceptable to the members of both (or all existing?) communities, then we might have a (pragmatic) yardstick for (unitary) truth. Surely “the West” thought this is exactly what was going on, in effect, when hordes of people kept trying to escape from behind the Iron Curtain, or when the Berlin wall fell, etc. But the judgment of history has hardly been clear since then. China today could just as forcibly sense its superiority to the West by reference to the huge gap in COVID-19 deaths between China and Western democracies.

            But might there nonetheless be some core beliefs that are universally shared? It is these that would be necessary or sufficient for the survival of a human individual or community in the world of the present or at all times, and so these would establish what is true. All the rest are just along for the ride and, although the source of endless disputes and grief, quite dispensable in themselves. Thus, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Brahma, Zeus – it hardly matters which. Nor does it even matter whether God or gods or no god. But 2+2=4? You’d better believe it! Jumping off cliffs is harmless? False!

            However, even in these cases I’m not sure the truthist can make her case. That last example makes me think of the climactic scene in Carlos Castaneda’s Tales of Power (1974), which may also lend itself to Quine’s claim that “Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system” (p. 43).

But let me take a hand at playing devil’s (or truth’s) advocate. It certainly does seem to me that the belief in truth plays a large role in my personal psyche, for it is precisely the pursuit of truth that motivates explorations such as the present one. I take definite pride in asserting that this is a primary drive of mine, and I can even adduce evidence that the boast is not a hollow one. For it a simple empirical fact, which could be backed up by the testimony of my interlocutors and by my own introspection, and indeed by my very amoralist turn from having been an ardent Kantian moralist for most of my career previously, that I take far more pleasure in discovering what is true than that I was “right” (correct) about something. I can be downright giddily happy when realizing I was wrong (that is, mistaken).

            But the counterargument to my own argument is that, here again (to echo a previous argument of the truthist’s), it may be a matter of playing games at the periphery. The truth I so avidly pursue may be as mythical as the God or god so fervently worshipped by the believer. The fact that I believe in it does not establish its reality. Let me even acknowledge that my commitment to pursuing truth may not be as whole-hearted as I profess or assume. To use what has become a common metaphor from the Matrix movie, would I really choose the red pill? I am pretty sure that my supposed commitment to truth rests on a further foundation, which is the belief or assumption (itself engendered by a “wish” or in fact very strong desire) that “the truth will make you free,” or in more blatantly mystical form, bliss consciousness awaits the seeker! Am I really prepared to accept as true something that is irredeemably awful, even just for my personal prospects? Honestly I am not able to answer that question. But I certainly cannot rule out that the belief in truth plays the role in my life that belief in God does for the believer whom I otherwise consider to be hopelessly deluded by a fervent wish for personal happiness and often to ill effect for themself and society.

            So I have put aside the question of truth’s existence as inconsequential because insoluble. Surely we can work ourselves up into knots about it, but meanwhile there are matters far more central to our happiness for us to ponder. Up to a certain point a privileged few of us may indulge in a hedonism of dialectical inquiry about it, but for the most part we are like the wounded man in the Buddha’s parable, who would be better served by shutting up about the arrow’s provenance and instead enabling discussion of how to remove it. Similarly, my concern is the “removal” of the belief in truth without becoming utterly distracted by the quest for a definitive theory of truth that would enable us to know for sure if truth exists, i.e., whether the belief in it is itself true.

            So while my heartfelt pursuit of truth does not bear on the reality of truth, that is not my main concern anyway. My main concern is whether the belief in truth is relatively net benign or net baneful to the life and world I favor. My self-report suggests that it is a source of “meaning” for my life, and so in that sense is benign. But, granting that, I think I am now also in agreement with the Buddha that this “harmless” pursuit may have its place for the fortunate few, such as metaphysical philosophers, or for the idle amusement of young men, as Thrasymachus (was it?) taunted Socrates, but is not suited to the solving of real human problems and may even distract therefrom and cause its own problems. It is something like a sport, therefore, which may be the proper preoccupation of some professionals and young people, but for most people is better treated as a pleasant distraction to do or observe. Meanwhile there is the main business of life.

            The upshot for the issue at hand, therefore, is that the personal and social value of the belief in truth is questionable even in the case of a supposed devotee such as myself. What has value for me and society is what has some promise to conduce to our rational desire satisfaction. We are not interested in problems that have no solution. Even if we become convinced that the end is nigh, we will seek a way to reconcile ourselves to that fact (or belief). (In this regard I love this statement from Guy McPherson (“Rapid Loss of Habitat for Homo sapiens” in Academia Letters, 2021, Article 498; https://doi.org/10.20935/AL498), redolent as it is of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: "Although the future of humanity might be short and unpleasant, this is no reason for despair" (p. 5).) Whether as a rule believing in truth has this kind of value for us is at best an open question, I submit, given its downsides and relative to “abolishing” it as much as we can from our verbal and psychic repertoire.