IS IT BETTER TO KNOW THE TRUTH?
Andy Lussier
Monday, October 24th 2016
Ideas 1B
Socrates's Theory
Modern Take
- Socrates was a very civil man who believed in strictly following the laws of society
- Recall the story of Crito - Crito comes to see Socrates in prison and attempts to convince him to escape.
- Socrates refuses to leave because he believes every man has a moral promise to the state they are in to abide by their laws.
- Also consider the Cave allegory - Socrates feels pity for those in the cave because they do not know the truth.
Bibliography
Michael Smithson PhD
On The Other Hand...
- Little, By Minot. "Ignorance Is Bliss? The Debate on Cheating and Confessing." LovePanky. LovePanky, 19 May 2016. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
- Goode, Erica. "Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss." NY Times. New York Times Company, 18 Jan. 2000. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
- Macrae, Fiona. "Ignorance Really IS Bliss: Being Unaware Gives People More Freedom and Boosts Their Creativity, Claims Psychologist." Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 10 June 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
- Vedantam, Shankar. "Why We Think Ignorance Is Bliss, Even When It Hurts Our Health." NPR. NPR, 28 July 2014. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
Dr. David Dunning
- Psychologist Michael Smithson states that ignorance is correlated with a sense of freedom and curiosity.
- "If everything is laid out for you and you know all about it, you have no freedom."
- Ignorance also inspires creativity because there is more unknown to discover.
- If you have knowledge about everything, then there is nothing more to learn.
- Smithson's allegory - imagine knowing exactly what would be in all of your birthday gifts or knowing the plots and conclusions to every book or movie. You would not feel any sense of surprise, wonder, or curiosity.
- Similar allegory - consider somehow who invents a device once thought impossible to create. The inventor themself is ignorant to this impossibility which allows them to invent the device.
- Dr. Dunning from Cornell agrees with the theory that the ignorant are, in fact, blissful.
- He highlights that the ignorant are so blissful because they are unaware of their incompetence.
- In other words, they are ignorant to their ignorance.
- Dunning considers this a significant disadvantage because the ignorant are negatively affected in two ways.
- "Not only do they reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realize it."
- What does this mean?
- Ignorant people will not only make misguided decisions, but they will also be unable to correct their decisions because they will be unaware of their wrongdoing.
Incompetent individuals were less able to recognize competence in others
Ignorance Debate: Cheating
Conclusion
College Allegory
Dr. David Dunning
- Though Socrates argues for the truth, leading psychologists can argue for both sides.
- On one hand, psychologists agree that most ignorant people are genuinely blissful because increases creativity and mental freedom.
- However, it is also argued that ignorant people are careless to their mental well-being. Ignorant people are unable to improve themselves which places them into an endless cycle of ignorance. This negatively affects society.
- A common debate on whether it is better to know the truth or not concerns infidelity in relationships.
- If your partner had an affair in your relationship, would you want to know? Or would you rather live ignorant to that?
- Initially, most will not hesitate to say "yes" because all humans feel naturally entitled to the truth.
- However, upon further analysis, the truth seems less desirable for most.
- Discovering the infidelity of your partner would only return misery, distrust in the partner, and even separation.
- Meanwhile, being ignorant to the infidelity would continue happiness and would elongate the relationship.
- Regardless, some still feel deserving of the truth.
- Dr. Dunning relates his theory to a relevant allegory.
- Consider a relatively ignorant college student who performs badly on an exam.
- Rather than analyze and learn from their answers, the student will blame the test and argue the correctness of the answers.
- Instead of learning from their mistakes, they become further ignorant.