The Hypocrisy-Charge Bias
There is a type of a bias that is so common in political commentary that it deserves a name. An example of this bias is exhibited by Brian Tamanaha over at the Balkinization Blog. Tamanaha notes that many Republicans in 2003 asserted strong arguments against judicial filibusters. But now that the Republicans will only have a minority of the Senate, with a Democratic President, they will have an incentive to engage in judicial filibusters. Tamanaha sarcastically writes, there is “nothing to worry about” because the Republican will no doubt continue their previous position opposing judicial filibusters. Obviously Tamanaha is charging the Republicans with hypocrisy, predicting that they will not conform to their stated principles.
So far there is no bias, just a prediction of hypocrisy. The bias occurs when one realizes that the prediction of inconsistency is equally applicable to the Democrats. If the Republicans choose to filibuster, one could equally expect the Democrats to criticize such filibusters, even though the Democrats defended judicial filibusters in 2003. So the charge of hypocrisy against the Republicans is equally applicable to the Democrats. Yet, Tamanaha says not a word about the Democrats. He can only see the hypocrisy of his opponents: hence the bias.
Once one identifies this bias – accusing one’s political opponents of inconsistency or hypocracy, but ignoring its equal application to one’s political friends – it seems to pop up everywhere. It is committed by Democrats, Republicans, liberals, and conservatives.
What is going on? Obviously, people are both good at discovering, and bothered by, the inconsistency of their political opponents. They are not so quick to discover their own team’s inconsistencies.
One way to think about this is that commentators who commit the hypocrisy-charge bias are not commenting on political events but are actually engaged in them. When Tamanaha suggests that the Republicans will not follow their stated principles, he is, as a Democrat, attacking Republicans. That his criticism also applies to Democrats does not matter. That is not his point. It is only a observer of political events who would be concerned in this situation with the fact that both parties are likely to change their principles because their interests have changed.
Posted by: Mike Rappaport
I think I smell bias here. Can't this kind of tut-tutting wait until the Democrats actually attempt to remove Republican's filibuster rights, instead of discussing some hypothetical future hypocrisy?
And if the 111th Congress comes to a close without that ever happening, can we expect a mea culpa post for the automatic suspicion of equally-bad behavior on the part of the Democrats?
Second, it is said that the Democrats on the Gang of 12 gave up something, so that distinguishes them. But the Republicans on the Gang gave up something as well. So it is equal.Uh, what? No, equality only follows if what each side gave up is of relatively equal importance.
Third, Lord says it is less likely that we will see a majority of the Democrats opposing the filibuster than a majority of the Republicans favoring it. No reasons are given. This is not an argument, just an assertion. I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where you gave your reasons for asserting that Democrats are equally likely as Republicans to reverse their 2005 stance?
Oh wait, you didn't. If only there was a word for when you require a higher standard from someone else than you hold yourself to...
I'd call your argument an instance of the "false balance" fallacy so common in journalism these days.Agreed 100%.
Tyrell,You seem to want to fit my post into a politically incorrect truth-tellers vs. hypersensitive whiners narrative. That might be because people claiming to attempt to reduce bias in society have been peddling that narrative rather than presenting our best available information about bias and bounded human rationality as natural phenomena. However, I think the literature is pretty robust now on how ordinal presentation of information can affect its interpretation by normal, boundedly rational people. That and other framings in the orginal post in my opinion are the more interesting place to go with it on Overcoming Bias.