According to the ancient philosopher Socrates, in his first dialog with an ambitious politician named Alcibiades, there is only one way in which an individual can make an error: through the compound effect of ignorance upon ignorance. The world was already a complex place during Socrates' life, with a wide variety of different types of knowledge practiced by members of the human race. Even in this ancient world, one of the greatest dangers, as Socrates points out, is to have ignorant pretenders (i.e., someone who does not know about a particular subject but thinks he does) advance to high levels of authority in a particular field.
The argument goes like this: A woman who is an expert in a particular field, craft, or art form ("techne")1 is able to help the human race by using that craft, provided that she is aware that she is knowledgeable about this craft. However, two things can go wrong to keep humanity from realizing the benefits of her skill: She may simply not have the skill and realize that she doesn't have it, or she may have the skill and not realize it. In either of these cases, humanity is not benefited, but also it is not harmed. In a worst-case scenario, this woman can actually harm humanity: She can not have the particular skill, but think that she does (see Figure 1 on page 4 for a schematic representation of this argument). It is this final possibility about which Socrates sternly warns his lover Alcibiades.
A concrete example will help to demonstrate the point. Suppose a man, Bob, claims to know a lot about bridge-building, but in fact does not. A city government makes a contract with him to build a bridge and tax dollars begin to pour into the project. Bob will do one of two things: build a faulty bridge that is liable to collapse or abscond with the money. Either way, the people of the city lose and the impostor has committed an unethical act. This problem could have been prevented if Bob had not set himself up in the engineering business in the first place (either because he knew he was no engineer, or, although it does not fit this example, because he was an engineer and did not know it).
Socrates condemns people who are ignorant victims of false pride. "This very ignorance, then, is a cause of evils and a reprehensible form of stupidity?" he asks rhetorically.2 It is true that this type of action, that comes from one with an enlarged ego, is reprehensible. I would also add that it is worse for someone who has a skill not to use it than for someone to simply not have a skill. This is because there is less waste in the latter case.
There is also the question of whether or not this ethical scheme is worse depending on the field in which it occurs. Socrates says that the more important the job being done (or not done) the greater the importance of making sure one knows how to do it. Socrates is trying to convince Alcibiades that he cannot advise the city in international affairs without the proper training, and that this task is one of the most important, and thus to deceive the people of it would be worse than if he just performed some other, more minor, job without the proper qualifications. "[I]t is most damaging and disgraceful when [a false sense of understanding] concerns the greatest things?" he asks, receiving an affirmative response.3 So it is worse to make a mistake as a pseudo-neurosurgeon than a pseudo-taxi driver.
So, it is through a two-tiered system that one can blunder and go against humanity's best interests: One must first be ignorant in a particular area of expertise and then they must also be ignorant of the fact that they are ignorant. Either one of these events alone would not result in harm being done to humanity (but would also not result in good). So, to truly be a helpful person, a value to society, someone must be genuinely knowledgeable about a subject and must know that they have this knowledge.
1Apparently this term applies to any of a wide range of fields, from the highly technical to the more abstract. Socrates himself uses the examples of a ship's captain, and then carries the analogy over to an orator who wants to guide the affairs of the city (a politician). Plato. "Alcibiades I." Trans. Carnes Lord. The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues. Ed. Thomas L. Pangle. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1987) 117d (p. 195).
The concepts discussed in this paper apply to the neurosurgeon, broadcast journalist, aerospace engineer, consultant, and archaeologist in today's world just as much as to any craft Socrates could imagine.
1Plato, 118a (p. 195). 1Plato, 118a (p. 196)
Plato. "Alcibiades I." Trans. Carnes Lord. The Roots of Political Philosophy: Ten Forgotten Socratic Dialogues. Ed. Thomas L. Pangle. Ithaca, NY: Cornell U.P., 1987. 175-221.
Click here for the matrix featured in Figure 1.
