We all agree that open-mindedness is a good thing. But exactly what is open-mindedness. Conventional thinking on open-mindedness is roughly that we should consider other points of view. The open-minded person doesn’t just dogmatically assert, but also listens to other points of view, maybe without presuming other points of view are wrong. I suspect every educator who has asked this of students has seen performative open-mindedness, where a student will address opposing views, perhaps seeding them with some straw man distortions, only to eventually raise objections and revert to the cherished position.
The educator might push back on this, asking this student to consider opposing views seriously and resist the urge to dismiss them summarily. If this works, it is liable to yield a sort of performative wishy-washy relativism, where the student allows that others have “their own truth” for their own reasons and deserve to be respected even though “I still have my own truth.” Perhaps at this point we have succeeded in teaching politeness. But this remains far short of open-mindedness as a virtue of critical thinkers. So long as the shallowly reasoned foregone conclusion remains untouched, no critical thinking is really happening.
Considering other views is a good first step. but it doesn’t get us very far. This exercise alone seldom penetrates the fog of confirmation bias. Worse, open-mindedness on the conventional view is easily abused. I first started thinking about just what open-mindedness is about 20 years ago when it was fashionable for climate skeptics argue that climate scientists are not open-minded because they won’t consider the possibility that warming is caused by sunspots, or cycles, or whatever. Of course, climate scientists had considered all these possibilities and found good reason to dismiss them. But the fallacy I’ll dub “spurious appeal to open-mindedness” serves to keep debunked ideas alive in the service of casting doubt on real expertise. According to conventional thinking about open-mindedness, there is nothing wrong with this. The result is not critical thinking, but uncritical skepticism.
So conventional thinking about open-mindedness faces a couple of problems that lead students away from critical thinking and towards either wishy-washy relativism or uncritical skepticism. And indeed, many of our students go to college and wind up in one of these epistemological no-man’s lands on any number of issues. This is not critical thinking. Skepticism on some matters is a reasonable position when the best available reasons yield a toss-up. But there is nothing in conventional thinking about open-mindedness that suggests anything about seeking out the better reasons; the very thing that critical thinking is about.
So let me formulate an improved conception of open-mindedness that avoids the problems with the conventional take and integrates open-mindedness with the rest of critical thinking. On the new and improved conception, to be open-minded is to be persuadable by the better reasons, but not by the worse. On this view, open-mindedness is a virtue of critical thinkers, not just a steppingstone in that direction. Sorting the better reasons from the worse does require starting with a good inventory of reasons, so considering diverse viewpoints is included in this conception. But now there remains a next step. The open-minded person doesn’t stop at cataloging the various reasons for and against. She evaluates these reasons fairly and ultimately yields to the better argument, adopting the most reasonable view (assuming there is a clear winner). Holding the most reasonable view doesn’t mean one isn’t open-minded (as it would when this is thought to mean “open to other views”). Holding the most reasonable view is the product of being open-minded on the improved conception (where this means identifying and yeilding to the better argument). On the new view, genuine expertise (where this is actually knowing what one is talking about, not merely a matter of credentials, reputation or status) is the product of open-mindedness. Genuine expertise is not ossified closed-minded thinking, as the anti-intellectuals among us sometimes delight in suggesting.
Open-mindedness on the conception I’m recommending will not be readily discernible to people who lack developed skill at sorting the better reasons from the worse. But those who do have good reasoning skills will be well positioned to recognize when others are open minded and know what they are talking about as a result. Skilled critical thinkers can recognize genuine expertise in people who traffic only in high quality argument. Game knows game.
Exhortation to be open-minded on the conventional understanding does little for our students. The way to cultivate open-mindedness that contribute to reasonableness is to teach reasoning skills. Open-mindedness requires learning how to tell the difference between good and shoddy argument. Here, we can up our game.