“As we cannot measure the diversity of perspectives of a person directly, our best proxy for it is demographic diversity”
Demographic diversity is a useful proxy and may add something additional even if we did have diversity of general philosophy. However, we can measure diversity of perspectives directly, ie. by running surveys like Heterodox Academy has.
“The answer here is that objectivity is not something that a single person has, but that objectivity is a social achievement of a diverse community”
Feminism offers some valuable lens, but I feel it often leads to a hyperfocus on the underprivileged. Suppose we’re discussing raising taxes on the rich, it might be useful to have a rich guy in a room. They might share some useful perspectives like, “It won’t change the behaviour of my friends one bit. Most of us won’t even notice. Our accountants handled our taxes, so we have no idea how much we’re paying” or “If the California tax law passes, I’m headed to Texas”. They might lie, but that’s true of everyone. They might be biased, but the poor are likely to be biased as well.
I’m not claiming this is equally important as representing the perspectives of the poor, just that we shouldn’t be hyperfocused.
Thank you for your comment. Could you tell me which part of my post led you to the conclusion that we should leave out perspectives of privileged people? I saw my argument as “include as many perspectives as you can to challenge more assumptions”. Or are you making a general comment on your view of feminism?
I’m not aware of any details about the Heterodox Academy or their methods, but according to Wikipedia, they were founded under the premise that conservative viewpoints are underrepresented in scientific discourse. That is be a valid concern, but it also means that they might have an inherent bias in their methodology because they also want to represent the underrepresented, not establish “objectivity” in itself.
The example you’ve given with having rich and poor people have a say in tax policy is a great example that we need diverse representation and I agree with it (which is also why I disagree with leftist slogans like “eat the rich”). However, I think it’s fair to say that if a member of a more privileged group voices their worries about having to much focus on the interests of the underprivileged groups, it sounds more like someone afraid to lose their privilege disguising it by a call for balance (either intentional or subconsciously).
“They were founded under the premise that conservative viewpoints are underrepresented in scientific discourse”—that’s definitely a possibility, although I suspect that for research into underrepresented groups in general almost all research will have been conducted by people withn strong pre-existing beliefs about whether or not such a group is underrepresented.
I think there’s value in considering people’s possible psychological motivations, but I find it more helpful to consider these for all parties. In such a conversation, the rich could very well be afraid of losing their privilege and the poor could very well be jealous or resentful.
Yes, fully agreed. It’s a common cognitive bias to consider only the biases and motives of the others and not your own. I didn’t want to call out the Heterodox Academy in particular, the same could be said about practically any group or movement. It just emphasizes my point that it’s hard to guarantee inclusion of diverse thoughts through questionaires.
“As we cannot measure the diversity of perspectives of a person directly, our best proxy for it is demographic diversity”
Demographic diversity is a useful proxy and may add something additional even if we did have diversity of general philosophy. However, we can measure diversity of perspectives directly, ie. by running surveys like Heterodox Academy has.
“The answer here is that objectivity is not something that a single person has, but that objectivity is a social achievement of a diverse community”
Feminism offers some valuable lens, but I feel it often leads to a hyperfocus on the underprivileged. Suppose we’re discussing raising taxes on the rich, it might be useful to have a rich guy in a room. They might share some useful perspectives like, “It won’t change the behaviour of my friends one bit. Most of us won’t even notice. Our accountants handled our taxes, so we have no idea how much we’re paying” or “If the California tax law passes, I’m headed to Texas”. They might lie, but that’s true of everyone. They might be biased, but the poor are likely to be biased as well.
I’m not claiming this is equally important as representing the perspectives of the poor, just that we shouldn’t be hyperfocused.
I would appreciate if you could add a reference to the methods the Heterodox Academy is using to measure diversity of perspective s directly.
Thank you for your comment. Could you tell me which part of my post led you to the conclusion that we should leave out perspectives of privileged people? I saw my argument as “include as many perspectives as you can to challenge more assumptions”. Or are you making a general comment on your view of feminism?
It was a general comment how this lens is often applied in practise, even though this isn’t the only possible way for it to be applied.
I’m not aware of any details about the Heterodox Academy or their methods, but according to Wikipedia, they were founded under the premise that conservative viewpoints are underrepresented in scientific discourse. That is be a valid concern, but it also means that they might have an inherent bias in their methodology because they also want to represent the underrepresented, not establish “objectivity” in itself.
The example you’ve given with having rich and poor people have a say in tax policy is a great example that we need diverse representation and I agree with it (which is also why I disagree with leftist slogans like “eat the rich”). However, I think it’s fair to say that if a member of a more privileged group voices their worries about having to much focus on the interests of the underprivileged groups, it sounds more like someone afraid to lose their privilege disguising it by a call for balance (either intentional or subconsciously).
“They were founded under the premise that conservative viewpoints are underrepresented in scientific discourse”—that’s definitely a possibility, although I suspect that for research into underrepresented groups in general almost all research will have been conducted by people withn strong pre-existing beliefs about whether or not such a group is underrepresented.
I think there’s value in considering people’s possible psychological motivations, but I find it more helpful to consider these for all parties. In such a conversation, the rich could very well be afraid of losing their privilege and the poor could very well be jealous or resentful.
Yes, fully agreed. It’s a common cognitive bias to consider only the biases and motives of the others and not your own. I didn’t want to call out the Heterodox Academy in particular, the same could be said about practically any group or movement. It just emphasizes my point that it’s hard to guarantee inclusion of diverse thoughts through questionaires.