Bias, Loyalty to Self, and Compromised Judgement

I know I have my own bias, my own assumptions in the way I view life, make judgments, and form opinions. No being alive is a purely rational actor, I don't believe we are capable of it. Of course, this belief in itself is no doubt in part the product of my assumptions. Since we can't trust our judgement, because we can never have a monopoly on the facts, we can never have all the information, and we can never be sure in what ways our subconscious and hidden urges and hidden wounds might nudge our opinions, and never be certain to what extent we think the way we do because we were taught to, or because we have assumed a reactionary attitude against what we were taught, in the end we must accept that every opinion and every judgement is a choice, and one which requires a small leap of faith. It is because of our unreliable intellectual capacities that I do not believe it morally acceptable to assume positions of absolute certainty. I find those who claim certainty, whether in the name of science or religion, passion or empiricism, to be fool-hardy and arrogant. If one believes one is certain then, in my eyes, one has only demonstrated that they are deluded by their own fantasies, that they are convinced by their own "superior" faculties. They merely demonstrate to me an inability to either understand or accept the inherent limitations of the human mind and the human perspective. While there are individuals who possess unique and indeed, wondrous faculties of the mind, even those most splendid and impressive of intellectual individuals, Beethoven, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Marie Curie, Temple Grandin, and other spectacular and shining individuals of astute and unique mind, are still subject on some level to the same weaknesses as everyone else. They still view the world through the lens of their own life experiences, their own emotions, their own impulses, and their sympathies lie with themselves when choosing a side in a debate, to some extent regardless of whether that debate is scientific, moral, religious, personal, or public. In other words, even the judgement of the sharpest mind is compromised by its implicit and instinctive loyalty to itself. This is also way we require massive quantities of data and evidence, and require scrutiny, before we accept things as common knowledge in fields attempting to describe fundamental elements of reality such as science and medicine. But, even in groups we can not transcend bias. Even if the group can agree and be cohesive, if science has borne out any evidence worth considering at all, it has shown us that even groups who develop cohesive agreement are still subject to that compromised perspective- they become collectively loyal to themselves, and subject to that same self-affirming bias, but on a collective level. Obviously, intensive citations and examples are needed to substantiate this opinion, and as I said, I will not be a hypocrite and claim to be above this self-oriented bias, but those substantiations will have to wait for a later, more finished draft. Right now I am just trying to get my ideas written down.