If we know that we’re prone to confirmation bias, but that this bias can be neutralized by following certain scientific protocols, or by reasoning together in diverse groups, then this can lead to strategies for effectively managing and reducing the effects of this bias.
Also, if we know that we’re prone to confirmation bias, and we know that we’re also prone to overconfidence, then it helps us to identify certain attitudes, or virtues, that should be cultivated to help avoid the effects of these biases.
One of these attitudes is what I like to call epistemic humility. “Epistemic” is a philosopher’s term that means “pertaining to knowledge,” so in this respect I’m talking about humility regarding the status of our knowledge and our capacity to reason well.
Now, this isn’t the same as skepticism about knowledge—to be epistemically humble isn’t necessarily to doubt our knowledge, or to deny the possibility of knowledge. It’s rather to adopt an epistemic stance that is appropriate to, and that acknowledges, our situation as fallible, limited beings that are prone to overconfidence and error.
The degree to which we’re prone to error will vary from context to context. The key idea here is that the quality of our judgments is highest when our epistemic stance—the attitude we take toward our own status and capacities as knowers—properly matches the epistemic environment in which we find ourselves. For example, if we’re reasoning all by ourselves, this is a different epistemic environment than if we’re reasoning with a diverse group of people. Given what we know about reasoning, it’s appropriate to adopt a greater degree of epistemic humility when we’re reasoning by ourselves than when we’re reasoning with a diverse group.
And sometimes the appropriate stance is simply to not trust our own judgments at all. That’s an extreme form of humility, but in the right circumstances it can be the most rational stance to take.
A classic example of this kind of rational humility can be found in the Greek story of Odysseus and the Sirens. The Sirens were these mythic female creatures who sang these beautiful songs that lured sailors into the water ... (crashing) their boats onto the shores of their island.
Odysseus was very curious to know what the Siren song sounded like, but he understood that he may not be able to resist their song. So he did something very clever; he had all his sailors plug their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast. He ordered his men to leave him tied tightly to the mast, no matter how much he might beg to untie him.
When he heard the Sirens’ beautiful song he was overcome by it and he desperately wanted to jump into the sea to join them, and as he predicted he ordered the sailors to untie him. But they refused based on his earlier orders. So, as a result of his strong sense of rational humility regarding his own capacity to resist persuasion, Odysseus was able to experience the Sirens’ song and come out unscathed, where other men with less humility were lured to their deaths.
For critical thinkers the moral of this parable is clear. Although it may seem counterintuitive, by accepting and even embracing our limitations and failings as cognitive agents, rather than denying them or struggling against them, it’s possible to improve the quality of our judgments and make more rational decisions than we would otherwise. But to pull this off we need to cultivate the right kind of epistemic virtues that are informed by the right kind of background knowledge, and through knowledge and experience, learn to develop the appropriate judgment about the right level of epistemic humility to adopt in any particular circumstance.
From a marketer’s point of view, there is a practical problem associated with being epistemically humble—time! Events and circumstances often conspire to take away available time to ponder and research our arguments. There never seems to be enough of it to make good decisions; although marketers are forced to find time to fix the bad ones.
An example of this was when Fresh Market, a specialty grocery chain, rushed the decision to open a store in Des Moines, Iowa, in October 2015, only to close it seven months later.1 Although we’re speculating somewhat, Fresh Market did not seem to have grasped the level of competition in this market for fresh fruits and vegetables from Hy-Vee, a regional grocery store chain, or the other already established specialty grocery stores, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Statements about Fresh Market’s future competition would have formed part of the premises of their argument to open a Des Moines store.
At the heart of Fresh Market’s decision to open their Iowa location lies the remnants of a collection of poor premises—known only to its senior executives—supporting their argument’s weak and likely uncogent conclusion: “Therefore, we should open a store in Des Moines, Iowa.”
Chapter Takeaways
Epistemic humility is being “mindful of our innate reasoning shortcomings and striving to make fewer reasoning errors by using good, truth-conducive reasoning tools.”2
Epistemic humility does not mean that we are skeptical of our ability to generate knowledge—justified, true-beliefs. It just means that we are humble about our ability to do so.
A major obstacle that confronts our ability to act with epistemic humility is time. The pressures of the day-to-day business world and the various demands on our schedules conspire to force us not to take the time required, or invest the resources needed, to construct good arguments. Therefore, we too often find ourselves falling back on unreliable decision-making heuristics and undependable gut reactions to solve marketing problems.
It seems that there is never enough time to make sound and cogent arguments; yet we are forced to make time to clean up our mistakes. Find the logic in that!