Inquiring minds should be the ones on the U.S. Supreme Court

This was in the Ogden Standard Examiner...

Commentary: Inquiring minds should be the ones on the U.S. Supreme Court

Thursday, October 13, 2005

By Peter Vernezze

Guest Commentary

"I know her well enough to be able to say that she's not going to change, that 20 years from now she'll be the same person with the same philosophy that she is today."

-- President George W. Bush, speaking about Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers

Dear President Bush,

You just made my job a whole lot harder. By recommending a rigid, inflexible mind so impervious to competing ideologies that it

can categorically rule out altering any of its fundamental positions, you have directly contradicted everything I have been telling my philosophy students for the past 15 years about the sort of intellectual virtues they should strive to achieve.

Granted, this is not the first time you have undercut my teaching. But this incident strikes particularly close to home, given the sway you hold over young minds in the state of Utah. In response, I ask for the opportunity to present an alternate picture of the human intellect.

In contrast to a mind that is so captive to an ideology that it cannot, should not and will not ever change (for I take it there is in fact no 20-year statute of limitations on the sort of intellectual inflexibility you recommend), I dub my ideal "the free mind."

I will obviously not be able to complete my description here. But I would like to offer some of its characteristics and contrast it to the view you have put forth.

The free mind is bound to no particular system. Instead, it considers each issue on its merits and reaches its conclusions based on the rational persuasiveness of the evidence. The captive mind ascribes to a single, overarching creed and inevitably adopts positions in line with it.

Recognizing the fallible nature of the human intellect and the strength of the opposing arguments, the free mind refuses to declare its conclusions to be the final word on ethical, religious or political matters. By contrast, the captive mind readily asserts that it possesses unshakable truth on such topics and that all other opinions are in error.

The free mind respects the beliefs of those who dissent from it, admitting not only the insights offered by, but also the possible correctness of, the opposing view. The captive mind is disdainful of those who disagree with it, branding them with such terms as "evil" if the issue is a moral one, or "unpatriotic" if the point is political. The free mind readily recognizes that its opinions might change should new arguments be brought forth or old arguments reconsidered in light of new evidence. The captive mind sees neither the possibility of changing its opinions nor any virtue in doing so.

These may sound like caricatures. But I believe they represent models of intellectual maturity that many, including you, recognize as competing ideals. Your own absolute commitment to the correctness of opinions in line with your Christian conservative ideology, your ready use of such heavy theological concepts as "evil" to brand your opponents, and your criticizing anyone who changes their mind as a "flip-flopper," as well as this most recent statement, demonstrates your own preference.

As my students will tell you, I ascribe to quite another conception.

In line with my principles, I will not say your position is categorically wrong. But I do have some concerns. To begin, the ethical inflexibility your ideal encourages seems unsupported by the evidence.

If ethics were like math, you might have a point. Once you discover that 2+2 = 4, there is no reason to change your mind. But quite simply, ethics is not like math. If it were, we would have widespread agreement about its fundamental principles. But a quick glance at the world reveals instead massive disagreement on almost every issue of ethical, political and religious significance. In light of this, it does not make sense to tenaciously ascribe to opinions on matters of value with the absolute certainty with which one would hold a mathematical truth.

Second, according to your model there is no need to engage in the constant re-evaluation of one's moral beliefs. If you are already in possession of the truth, why enter into moral discourse with others and undertake the rigorous self-scrutiny that Socrates reminds us constitutes the examined life? Quite simply, the standard you have set for your nominee fails to meet the criterion for a morally developed human being.

Finally, your way simply does not allow for mutual respect between those who hold competing answers. If your views alone are "the truth," what motivation is there to listen to the others or to take seriously their views? Such a dismissive attitude toward the opposition may work well in a theocratic regime, but it is a lousy way to run a democracy.

To be sure, a holocaust is wrong, as were the Sept. 11 bombings. But most human activity (and certainly most Supreme Court cases) does not take place on such extreme moral ground. Rather it occurs in a region where people of good conscience disagree. Amid such circumstances, the claim to have unquestioningly discovered the principles that make one's philosophy immune to change is a dangerous act of intellectual hubris.

So while an inflexible mind in possession of truth and beyond alteration may indeed constitute your ideal, and Harriet Miers may embody it, I can think of another individual that fits this characterization.

Fortunately, U.S. law prevents you from nominating Osama bin Laden as a Supreme Court justice.

Vernezze is an associate professor of philosophy at Weber State University.