Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [70]
Colbert’s very good at making fun of this all-too-common idea that popular opinion, democratic processes, or market forces, should be extended far beyond their proper domain, so as to determine the truth or falsity of matters that can be legitimately settled only by reference to evidence and reasoning:
[S]cience is elitist. Making rules, setting boundaries, constantly telling us what is and isn’t flammable—all without input from the very people who are expected to abide by these laws. I know I never consented to Gravity Without Representation. (I Am America, p. 194)
Some say [physics] is fundamental; I say it’s a bunch of unnecessary regulations. Physics is the ultimate Big Government interference—universal laws meant to constrain us at every turn. No staying in motion if acted on by a net force. No thermodynamic systems without entropy. Hey, is it wrong that I sometimes want to act without having to deal with an equal and opposite reaction? … We’d be a lot better off if we took physics off the books and just let the free market decide what was possible for matter. (I Am America, pp. 201-02)
Objectivity
Finally, consider the journalistic ideal of “objectivity.” According to it, mass media journalists are to strive to keep their reporting “objective,” in the sense of presenting only “the facts,” while specifically avoiding the inclusion of conclusions, opinions, and value-judgments. To be sure, opinions and value-judgments are to be given their place, in letters, editorials, and commentaries. But these are to be clearly labeled as such and kept strictly separate from the main business of journalism—the straight, objective, reporting of hard news. Opinion columns, by contrast, are said to be “subjective.” Accordingly, they seem not to be held to any discernible standards of logical cogency or factual accuracy.
From a philosophical standpoint, this doctrine is open to multiple objections. For example, the distinction between facts and conclusions appears to be untenable. Facts are not simply given, but rather must be reasoned to on the basis of evidence. One must conclude that a given claim is, indeed, factual. It thus makes no sense to try to include facts while excluding conclusions. Similarly, it’s difficult to see how anyone could write an article about anything without making value-judgments about what is or is not worthy of inclusion in the article. And these value-judgments, in turn, would depend on other value-judgments concerning whether or not a given item is important or interesting or relevant or significant.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the journalistic doctrine of objectivity, however, is that it seems in practice to lead away from an engagement with evidence and reasoning. For in determining whether or not a given claim is factual, journalists tend to turn to the question of whether or not there is a consensus of opinion in the “right” circles in support of the claim. If a claim is supported across the spectrum of mainstream U.S. political opinion, it can safely be affirmed as a fact, even if the evidence, or the rest of the world, or the findings of scholars, would strongly suggest otherwise.
For example, it frequently happens that both Democrats and Republicans in positions of power favor giving diplomatic, economic and military support to governments with abysmal human rights records. Abysmal, that is, if you listen to scholars of human rights issues, and independent human rights monitoring organizations, such as Amnesty International, Americas Watch, The International Committee of the Red Cross,