Judgement And The Handover Of Language

Some forms of amoebae can discriminate between different strains of their own species. Quite how they sense the difference isn't altogether clear, but what should be obvious is that  no judgements are involved. To make a judgement requires reasons and it would therefore be absurd to suppose that single celled creatures have reasons for their behaviour. If microorganisms could reason, then perhaps we too would have reason to replace some of the highest ranking members of our legal system with bewigged protozoa.

Philosophers and psychologists quite commonly talk of "perceptual judgements". Presumably they do not mean to suggest that the capacity to see the difference between ultramarine and cerulean blue relies on the exercise of reason. So one could surely be forgiven for questioning the value of their tacit support of such a misconception.

Judgements are evaluative, and value is a thoroughly abstract notion for which only humans are sometimes prepared to die. It might be argued that many creatures value things — their lives and those of their kin, for example, or the food they eat. Many animals are certainly prepared to do or a great deal to ensure their own survival and that of their offspring. But is this because they know the value of life or is it merely instinct? Are instincts judgements? Judgement must surely be the very opposite of instinct.

Judgements are deliberative and to this extent all judgements require rational grounds. Judges make assessments and take careful (usually) account of evidence. Judgement is a disciplined practice that only the well trained can perform. Nobody is born a judge, but babies are certainly born perceivers — not highly skilled perceivers granted, but perceivers nonetheless and some of their perceptual skills are remarkable. In a study of of the crying "melodies" of French and German newborns it was discovered that babies mimic the speech patterns of their mothers. And a 2009 study found that newborns develop expectations of rhythmic beats that bring about a measurable neurological response when the continuity of the beat is violated.

From where does the capacity to make judgements derive, and moreover, how did it emerge in the first place? The first answer is straightforward. In order to make judgements — to reason — we need the categories and concepts but most especially the logical structures of language. Without these sophisticated procedural techniques, reasoning is impossible. Nonverbal creatures have highly sophisticated perceptual skills but they do not manipulate concepts. We know this because we know how demanding it is to learn concept manipulation: language. Every parent knows that the judgements of infants stand in stark contrast to their perceptual skills.

The emergence of judgement — of the concepts of good and bad for example, is less clear. But here is a speculative hypothesis. Our ancestors were making stone tools as long ago as 2.5 million years. Stone tools are time consuming to produce, they require extremely sophisticated skills and their materials can only be sourced in certain places. Unlike tools, behaviours are ephemeral — they disappear in the moment of production. An utterance can be produced but it cannot be exchanged. Tools, on the other hand, are artifactual tokens that endure and as such they are fungible: they can be exchanged. 

There is nothing about exchange itself that requires anything more than perceptual skills. To be a perceiver is to be capable of offering or accepting one thing that is indiscriminable from another. What makes tools different is that they have a dual identity. A stick used as a weapon is no longer merely a stick. But when a stick is not being used as a weapon it doesn't necessarily revert back to being a stick. If it is kept, it remains as a potential weapon: a tool.

I contend that this aspect of possession of useful artefacts is the very basis of language. It is the instrumental root of all of our skills of symbolisation (as well as numerous handy metaphors). Many animals use symbolic communication, but only humans exchange artefacts and only humans attribute value to them. To value something is not simply to be disposed to protect it. To value something is to know what one would (or would not) be prepared to exchange for it. Language emerged through our practices of exchange, of transactions and betokenings. I suggest that language is a product of the hand.

Public Opinions and Reasoned Arguments

If you've spent any time communicating online, it’s likely that you will have encountered one or two expressed opinions that led you to intervene with a contrasting view. You may even have been involved in a heated exchange or an outright argument. Such public disputes rarely end amicably and the chances that later discussions with the same person will be free of antipathy decrease in proportion to the level of derision and vitriol reached.

Human psychology is shaped by attitudes and dispositions that have evolved over millions of years, yet many modern forms of communication create new forms of interaction that demand new skills, new social norms and perhaps even new ethical standards. Adaptable as we are, it might be argued that of our social skills are much less informed by deliberative debate and rational analysis than they are by more direct forms of physical interaction. In a physical conflict for instance, it would almost never be wise to switch sides, especially in full view. Such a move would be practically suicidal. Perhaps this explains why online arguments so rarely result in anyone admitting they’re wrong. The impulse is always to defend your corner, to go on the offensive or to duck out altogether but almost never to say: "Oh, I see now that you're right and I have been wrong all along."

An important factor in many disagreements is known in psychology as the "Backfire Effect", which is what happens when people become entrenched in their position when confronted with evidence that conflicts with their beliefs. If the theory is correct then the prognosis is pretty dismal. When we develop beliefs we often invest significant amounts of time, energy and, on occasion even lost friendships in the process. No wonder then that people are loath to renounce their hard-won beliefs. How often do politicians or philosophers radically change their minds and shift their views? Very rarely, yet they can't all be right in their adopted positions. On the contrary, most must be wrong in some very significant ways.

Only scientific evidence seems to exert any substantial force in overturning false assumptions and even here people show astonishing resilience in the face of the facts placed before them. Take climate change denialism or creationism for just two prominent examples.

Until very recently I assumed that it should be possible to change people's minds through reasoned argument. I was under this misconception because it seemed to me that I had experienced several instances, even very recently, where my own opinions were radically altered by the force of reason. It strikes me now though, that this wasn't quite what happened at all. I was receptive to new ideas because my thinking wasn't yet settled on these issues. I was conducting my thoughts on certain subjects in a kind of hazy but workable uncertainty that was probably relatively easy to overturn, even though the reconfiguration was far from easy on my part. Now that my mind is made up, a much greater investment of evidence and argument would be required to persuade me that my thinking needs to change once again on these issues.

But what about the many experts whose theories are based upon false assumptions? What would it take to persuade them that there are better ways to explain the issues? As it turns out, trying to persuade experts is nothing more than a vain and hopeless fantasy. Expert beliefs are simply too entrenched, and confronting people with their errors, no matter how subtly or politely, is rarely, if ever, effective and never endearing. The more successful approach is to cultivate experts by other more ingratiating means, essentially by befriending them, in the hope that that they might at least acknowledge your alternative theory and perhaps discuss it with others or cite it in their own work. But getting them to change their mind, especially in a public context, will almost never occur by force of reason alone.

If however, an expert were to encounter a well reasoned theory in private, where the stakes are significantly lower, then perhaps there is a chance that this might find them receptive enough to begin the journey of reconstituting their ideas. But, of course, they would first need to be exposed to this well reasoned theory and to recognise that it's worthy of their close attention. The likelihood of such an eventuality is actually pretty slim.

So, if I am right in this analysis, and I should say that I'm not yet entirely certain, then the only reliably fruitful application of reasoned argument in a public context is in helping people to see the flaws in other theories before they commit themselves to them, before they make their minds up. Perhaps reasoned argument has its most important place, not in changing minds but in keeping minds open long enough that they might have an opportunity to recognise the most coherent ideas available.

As far as your own beliefs go, all you can hope is that none of your mistaken assumptions are so strongly held that you can never be persuaded to change them.

Discriminating Attractiveness (Part I)

Do physical and other forms of attractiveness play a part in teaching and learning? Do the appearance, demeanour, character and behaviour of students and teachers make any difference to how they perceive one another? Does attractiveness influence evaluations made, attention given or expectations formed?

Much as I’d like to say an unequivocal “No” to these questions the evidence proves overwhelmingly otherwise. Attractiveness plays a part in all human interactions – even the purely textual.

This is clearly a taboo subject and you certainly won’t find mention of it in any university policy documents or prospectuses. Universities would be quick to distance themselves even from the touchpaper of favouritism let alone anything more incendiary.

Even though the impact of attractiveness is extremely difficult to gauge accurately, it is no doubt widespread, not just in education but in all walks of life, which is probably why it so often goes unmentioned and unacknowledged. We are animals after all and we are subject to forces that have shaped our species over millennia.

Fortunately attractiveness takes many forms and what appears superficially unattractive often turns out to have deeper qualities and subtleties – this is a lesson that art demonstrates over and over again. But this doesn’t change the fact that attractiveness has a significant influence on human behaviour, it simply shifts the emphasis to another level where judgments are made by other criteria – though criteria that are no less aesthetic in nature.

Judgements are undoubtedly influenced by aesthetics. Why else would we pay attention to beauty if it were not a strong indicator of genetic fitness? Whether it be a fertile landscape, a ripe fruit or a sunny day we are commonly drawn to things that must have provided our ancestors with survival advantages and would therefore have contributed to the gradual selection of the genes we have inherited.

Do you find your friends attractive? How could you not? You might not find them physically attractive but there must be something that draws you to them, to want to spend time in their company. No doubt they enjoy spending time with you for similar reasons.

From the very earliest schooling I can remember liking some teachers more than others, both male and female. The brusque authoritarian ones who smelt of stale cigarettes and seemed to thrive on meting out various forms of punishment were almost always unattractive to me and I know for certain that I tried less and cared less about what they had to teach. Of course there were some subjects that even the worst teachers could not entirely ruin but their adverse influence could be clearly felt and it was by no means inconsiderable.

Over the last few decades a significant amount of research has been undertaken around this subject and whilst the results have not always been in agreement there are strong indications that attractiveness plays a role in the evaluations students and staff make of one another. Other studies, in which the variables have been more carefully controlled,  claim to have found no evidence of the influence of attractiveness. However, a closer inspection of this research reveals that the predominant means of evaluating attractiveness has been through the use of photographic images: through physiognomy alone and therefore, I would suggest, the underlying assumptions need to be examined a little more critically.

Part II will discuss two of the most prominent of these studies in order to distinguish between physical and behavioural attractiveness.

The Mirror of Judgement

Perhaps the most widespread interpretation of the role of judgement is to think of it as having its discriminative intentions focussed squarely upon the experience, thing or person being judged. Nonetheless, with every judgement also comes a significant and all too easily overlooked element of social positioning. To judge - to be in the position of exercising judgement - is an expression, demonstration and consolidation of prestige. In order to maintain prestige, judgement needs to be exercised on a regular basis. But wherever judgements are made there is also a likelihood of errors of judgement and a consequent risk that one’s professional credibility may be called into question. Therefore the more incontestable those who judge can make their judgements, the better (for them). Numerous strategies for ensuring incontestable judgements have thus evolved; from obscurantism and mysticism on the one hand to the establishment of convoluted laws, regulations and elaborate evaluative criteria on the other.

So, whilst much judgement can be seen as an attempt to exercise fine-grained intellect, discernment and critical wisdom it can also be seen as a form of social segmentation, of in-groups and out-groups, of individuals who qualify and individuals who do not, of members and outsiders, of the invited and the excluded, of those who comply and those who rebel, of those who are welcomed and those who are banished, ostracised or incarcerated, of those who evaluate and those who are evaluated.

Expert Criteria

If we accept that we each apply subtly different (and sometimes radically different) criteria to the decisions that we make and to the production of our work then does it make sense to require students to comply with a one-size-fits-all set of criteria?

In 1989 artists and Turner Prize nominees Jane and Louise Wilson (sometimes known as "the Wilson twins") graduated from their respective BA courses in fine art: Louise from Dundee and Jane from Newcastle. For their degree exhibitions they decided to collaborate and to submit exactly the same work for assessment.

Unless I am mistaken, the two identical shows received unequal marks: one a 1st class honours degree, the other a 2:1 (2nd class upper). The twin who received a 2:1 subsequently appealed and her mark was raised also to a 1st class honours degree. We might be tempted to assume that the initial disparity in marking was due to either a lack of professionalism or thoroughness - which amounts to the same thing - on the part of one of the institutions awarding the marks. But there is another interpretation which we might make: each institution was employing different criteria.

All courses have criteria by which they mark student work but, in the Humanities at least, these criteria often differ quite significantly between different institutions. Thankfully this distinctiveness has not yet been overridden by a singular set of criteria to be applied to all work across all institutions. Such a move would surely make a mockery of education, even if it were to have the desired result of creating greater parity in assessment. Nonetheless, the disparity between different institutions in terms of the way that work is marked, ie: how certain outcomes are weighted and how certain activities are prioritized, may offer an insight into what we are actually evaluating when we assess student work.

During assessments it might be thought that we make evaluations based on the stated assessment criteria? We certainly strive to. But can we be so sure that these criteria really capture the full extent of our evaluative judgements? In the Humanities as elsewhere, few experts agree about exactly what constitutes the good, the great or even the deplorable, so it is no surprise that most assessment criteria are little more than stripped-down compromised rationalizations of a barely understood, complex and intangible process.

"Indeed, the history of dramatic criticism, including criticism of the plays of Shakespeare, is in great part the history of unresolved disagreement over the necessary and sufficient properties of dramatic greatness. If there are such properties, then, we must nevertheless admit that no one has ever stated satisfactorily what they are.” -Morris Weitz

When we judge a person, in no matter what aspect, is it true to say that we are judging them on the basis of that particular characteristic as an objective fact? Or isn’t it more true to say that we judge them on the basis of our own criteria of what exemplifies that characteristic? In other words, without a clear and precise universal designation of what constitute greatness in any particular form, we are limited by the frailty and capriciousness of our own judgements. Such judgements are based upon experience, experience which furnishes us with conceptual models - exemplars - that we use to compare with other experiences and artifacts. The more wide ranging and sophisticated these models, the more discriminating we become and the more elaborate and extensive become our evaluations.

Much as we may value our own hard earned criteria, it is the criteria that the students apply to their own work that matter, not their compliance with ours. If we want students to make work according to our criteria then, by extension, we wish them to make the work that we would make. What makes far more sense is that students are supported to make the very best work that they can make and in the process become as expert in their deployment of their own criteria as we are with ours. Granted, such criteria take time to develop, but far better that they should be formed through deliberate practice and experience than through conformity and compliance.