Taber and Lodge's 2006 paper provides powerful evidence that one's prior beliefs shape one's reception of new evidence in a manner that can best be described as “inadvertently dogmatic.” This is especially true for people who are well informed, which dovetails with findings going back to Converse (1964) showing political beliefs to be ideologically constrained (rigid) among the relatively well informed. What may explain the coincidence of dogmatism and knowledgeability is the very process of learning about politics, which must use (...) theories, schemas, ideologies, or Lippmannesque “stereotypes” to target certain political information as germane by putting it into an interpretive framework. This interpretive process is likely to create for each of us a growing database of information that is congruent with our extant convictions but that excludes incongruent information: in light of the data we have already processed, incongruent information seems increasingly implausible (if not incomprehensible), and is therefore rationally ignored or dismissed. But this does not necessarily mean, as Taber and Lodge follow Robert Abelson in suggesting, that people are “motivated” to be dogmatic rather than being unintentionally closed minded as a result of the plausibility they involuntarily accord to their priors. Recognizing the inadvertent (unmotivated) nature of dogmatism is essential if political science is to take seriously political actors' beliefs—and to assess the gravity of the problem posed by dogmatism. (shrink)

Proponents of epistocracy worry that high levels of voter ignorance can harm democracies. To combat such ignorance, they recommend allocating comparatively more political power to more politically knowledgeable citizens. In response, some recent critics of epistocracy contend that epistocratic institutions risk causing even more harm, since much evidence from political psychology indicates that more politically knowledgeable citizens are typically more biased, less open-minded, and more prone to motivated reasoning about political matters than their less knowledgeable counterparts. If so, perhaps epistocratic (...) institutions will perform worse epistemically than corresponding democratic institutions. Call this 'the problem of epistocratic irrationality'. This paper argues that the problem of epistocratic irrationality can be overcome. First, I argue that critics of epistocracy have overlooked several complications regarding the psychological data they claim shows that more knowledgeable citizens are less politically rational. Second, I argue that appropriately designed epistocratic institutions could overcome the problem of epistocratic irrationality even if such critics have interpreted the data correctly. I first explore whether refined selection mechanisms could allow epistocrats to avoid empowering less rational citizens, before assessing the prospects of implementing only those epistocratic institutions with a solid track record of reliable performance. (shrink)

It is widely believed among philosophers and educated people that it is virtuous to be open-minded. Instead of thinking of open-mindedness as universally or unconditionally epistemically valuable, I argue that it is vital to explicate the conditions that must obtain if open-mindedness is to be epistemically valuable. This paper critically evaluates open-mindedness given certain realistic cognitive limitations. I present and analyse a simple mathematical model of open-minded decision-making that incorporates these limitations. The results are mixed. The bad news is that (...) the circumstances where open-mindedness is epistemically valuable may be more restricted than previously thought especially if individuals are incapable of properly evaluating the trustworthiness of sources or the content of received information. The good news is that, if individuals are mildly competent in evaluating the trustworthiness of sources and the content of received information, then there are many circumstances where open-mindedness is epistemically valuable. (shrink)