I believe I can fly!
Jokes! Let's briefly discuss what it means to have 'good reason' to believe something
When I’m asked to share ‘my position’ on a given topic, I’ll often begin my response with, “Well, I think we have good reason to believe <x>”.
From here, if there’s a real shared willingness to go deeper, I ‘unpack’ what good reason means as best I can (I’m drawing on a combo of propositional, procedural and perspectival knowing, and bringing it into a participatory context in which we can explore and hopefully become slightly wiser together).
Before providing an example, let me briefly share a lesson I have learned over the years (one that likely seems super fucking obvious). Sharing, with care, humility and integrity, what you feel are ‘good reasons’ to hold a given belief, is never useful if it’s a one directional thing. The peeps you’re interacting with need to be curious, open and willing to learn through dialogue.
I can’t tell you how frequently I failed to apply this earlier in life. I do my very best now, recognising there are still times when my attempt is far too one directional (by this I mean, I REALLY care about expressing what feels like the most directionally truthful position to hold. But there is far less care on the ‘other side of the table’, far less willingness to explore, unpack and rebuild worldviews. Far less willingness to dialogically journey closer to truth. As a result, it can feel like an energetic waste, at least in a direct sense. Perhaps, over time, the effort and information has some affect / effect…). Like with all things, I still have some ways to go.
Now an example.
For a number of years, earlier in life, I intensively studied nutritional science. There were number of motivations for this, but that’s not important right now. As a result, lots of folks ask me nutritional questions (yes, to this day). I’m always cautious to offer epistemically humble / aware caveats, including those that clarify I am not providing clinical advice and that there are many excellent meta-resources and clinical possibilities available.
Let’s say they ask something super broad, like, “What’s the best diet for humans?”
Caveats aside, I’ll annoyingly respond with stuff like, “Which humans, in what specific context, and under what specific conditions?”
After a few rolls of the eyes, maybe we get a little more practical. Most folks want something like a top-level summary, not a genuine fucking deep dive.
I will then get into the the basics on different categories of evidence (observational, interventional, mechanistic, animal models… Which, of course, comes with something like an ontological and epistemological grounding. Note: I do not use these words. This grounding is embedded in my perspective and is expressed as something like confidence in a particular philosophy of science), how they might support or contradict one another etc. I’ll then describe what dietary guidance for nutrition and dietetics associations has looked like over the last few decades, how the basics have remained very consistent etc. I’ll then get into some more recent stuff (i.e. epigenetics and the things we’re beginning to learn about individual variation. I might even explore emotion, social and ecological dimensions etc. which again, we’re learning have an impact on metabolism and a bunch of other stuff. I’ll probs also cover soil health, nutrient decline, toxicity / contaminates etc.). I might then overlay this with some ethical considerations, especially pertaining to the food systems’ impact on planetary boundaries (which inevitably gets us into work for the EAT Lancet folks). I’ll probably wrap by sharing some principles that can be applied, tailored and refined at the level of a given individual (accounting for historicity, health characteristics, goals, preferences, values, cultural and / or religious nuances etc.).
Taken together, this is the backing track for my good reason to believe lyrics (no R Kelly references today folks).
Now, I’m not trying to authoritatively dictate some huge dialogical shift such that everyone converses like this. What I am suggesting is that such an approach to sharing a perspective might positively contribute to our capacity to exercise not just collective intelligence, but collective wisdom.
This capacity for collective wisdom, something I have good reason to believe is possible (not necessarily probable, lol!), is likely crucial to us (yes, the royal ‘us’) overcoming many of the HUGE challenges we face today that create a combative and unproductive context of living.
Thankfully there are many folks around the world helping create more favourable conditions for such conversations. Through the process of participating in such conversations, we often learn how to better listen and more usefully contribute.
Anyways, that’s my time for now. I’ll throw things back to you. How does all of this resonate? Do you feel like your communication of a given perspective is based on your version of ‘good reason’? What does good reason mean to you? How do you reflect on your good reasons? How do you reflect on the good reasons other share? What might collective good reasoning look and feel like in everyday contexts?
Let’s journey together.
With love as always.