The Role of Diversity in Conflict Resolution

Many nations are far more diverse across various metrics than ever before. Certain sociological trends have made political communities far less culturally homogenous, prompting greater reflection on both the potential upsides and challenges posed by this increase in diversity. One commonly touted benefit of diverse groups is that they possess certain epistemic advantages, including that they are more adept at problem solving than their less diverse counterparts. Similarly, some political philosophers argue that increased conditions of diversity result in discovering more effective solutions to pressing social and political conflicts. Different cultural frameworks offer different lenses for viewing complex societal challenges, which can arguably help to avoid getting stuck in a sub-optimal status-quo.

The basic thought that cultural diversity can help fuel certain kinds of epistemic progress within socio-political contexts is fairly intuitive for many. However, deeper examination of this claim elucidates certain theoretical challenges deserving of philosophical attention. While there is significant empirical data in support of the connection between greater degrees of diversity and epistemic benefits, it is less clear which kinds of diversity and under which background conditions such benefits are fostered.

The following puzzle emerges: Widespread epistemic progress as it pertains to solving complex socio-political issues seems to at least partially rely on the diffusion of certain epistemic virtues (e.g. open-mindedness, epistemic humility, epistemic curiosity, etc.) across the general population. However, which epistemic virtues are emphasized and when they are typically applied very much differs cross-culturally. Distinctive cultures conceptualize the epistemic virtues in distinctive ways. For example, many of the dominant societal cultures found within liberal democracies tend to champion the epistemic virtues of open-mindedness and curiosity in contrast with virtues like epistemic humility or any of the virtues tied to epistemically appropriate forms of deference. Contrastingly, there are many societal cultures that emphasize loyalty to established belief systems and hierarchies and which consequently discourage some of the epistemic dispositions that are more prevalent within liberal democratic contexts.

There are presumably distinctive epistemic benefits to be reaped by distinctive epistemic virtues. However, to vindicate the claim that increased conditions of cultural diversity generate epistemic progress towards solving socio-political conflicts, we seemingly need widespread convergence on particular epistemic virtues. After all, in the context of many contemporary liberal democracies, it is far from obvious that increased diversity leads to greater socio-political problem-solving abilities. This is particularly true when we recognize that increased societal diversity is often tethered to increased epistemic complexity. Seemingly in response to this complexity, many liberal democracies are plagued by epistemic pitfalls, including echo chambers, epistemic bubbles, and trends towards epistemic factionalization. Modern political communities are often filled with an overabundance of information and competing claims to epistemic authority, which are dizzying to even the most adept of epistemic agents. Thus, to reap the epistemic benefits offered by increased conditions of cultural diversity, it seems that we need convergence on the particular epistemic virtues that allow agents to cut through the epistemic complexity they are surrounded with in order to glean only that which is helpful to make communal epistemic progress.

However, requiring convergence on particular epistemic virtues (whatever those virtues turn out to be) seems to threaten the very diversity that is supposedly epistemically advantageous in the first place. Much of what cultural distinction seems to consist in is divergence regarding the relative degree of importance assigned to different values. To force homogenization along these lines is to effectively wash away much of what engenders cultural difference. Thus, there appears a tension between preserving rich conditions of cultural diversity and maximally reaping epistemic benefits from those conditions of diversity. So insofar as philosophers and theorists seek to claim that cultural diversity is conducive to problem solving and conflict resolution, they must also heed the ways in which securing these epistemic benefits threatens to erode the very fabric of cultural difference.