Is Objectivity Achievable?

Objectivity is a perspective based on the truth or facts, omitting bias or judgements (Objectivity, N.). In nearly all disciplines, having a sense of objectivity is valued as an ability to access absolute truth undisturbed by emotion. STEM subjects in particular are seen as highly objective, granting society the ability to produce fact-checked discoveries, experiments, and innovations. However, achieving objective thinking on one’s own is impossible for the human mind. Every human act or observation is filtered through an individual consciousness, grounded in that individual’s sensory perception and abstract reasoning. To reframe this problem, we could pose the question of whether objectivity is achievable in any human's perception of the world. Perception is a reconstruction of reality tailored to an individual's limited view of the world, their geographic restrictions, their sensory capabilities, or their personal biases. Scaled up, even the sciences are only able to produce an approximate understanding of the material universe, as total access to objectivity would essentially amount to total omniscience. To take an objective view would be to step out of oneself and take a third-person perspective on the human experience and material reality. In this sense, objectivity is not all in the mind; a reality independent from the powers of observation and perception may exist. However, humans are unable to directly access this independent reality due to limitations imposed by subjective perceptions and conscious experiences. 

By the standards of cognitive psychology, a core barrier to objectivity is precisely the thing that allows us to know the world at all: our senses. Human senses are the gateway to our perceptions of reality; however, these interpretive systems often distort what we perceive by restricting our knowledge of the world to what we can receive through five senses (Hendricks). Intangible or invisible concepts, such as magnetic fields, ultrasonic frequencies, non-verbal chemical communication signals, or light rays are scientifically proven to exist, but they are difficult to be perceived as specific, material concepts by the human brain. As a result, vast portions of reality remain inaccessible because of the biological limitations to detect and understand them. Thus, it also becomes impossible to access objective truth unfiltered by the perceptions we receive. A series of experiments conducted by the Perception and Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University involved coins of various rotations and shapes: a circular coin, an oval coin, and a circular coin rotated to appear to be an oval (Bird). Among these options, participants were tasked to identify an oval coin. While the distinction between the circular and oval coins was clear, distinguishing between the oval and rotated circular coin proved challenging. When both were present at the same time, participants consistently confused tilted coins with actual ovals (Hendricks). This study reveals a key finding: humans cannot separate an object's true identity from how they perceive it with their senses. Our vision is not tied to what reality is, but what we think we observe of reality. 

Notably, this finding is not exclusive to vision. As cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman indicates, things like colours, smells, and tastes are not fixed properties to the external world, but rather constructed experiences created in the brain (as cited in Hendricks). For instance, as Hoffman points out, sweetness is not an objective feature of an apple. However, given that humans' taste perceptions universally indicate that an apple is sweet, the brain's internal logic prescribes this belief to be objective. Thomas Nagel's essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” supports this claim about subjectivity in human interpretations through an analogy. He begins with the simple question: what is it like to be a bat? Whether it is catching insects or flying around freely, the human mind is able to imagine or speculate the feelings associated with the experience. However, the question lies not within what it's like for a human to be a bat, but rather how a bat experiences being a bat (Nagel). While humans can extensively study bat neurophysiology, use of echolocation, or other behavioural instincts, the objective experience of being a bat remains unknown. Even if we gradually transition to mimic bat-like behaviours, our current mental structure is unable to grasp their firsthand experience. Thus, even though there is an objective reality as to how a bat can live as a bat, humans are barred from accessing it altogether. Rather, the lens of a human's sensory capabilities inevitably distorts how we're able to perceive information, disrupting the absolute truth suggested by objectivity (Nagel). 

Beyond the limitations with accessing objectivity through our neurological sensory experiences, objectivity is unattainable due to our reception of knowledge. This can be described through the concept of morally motivated reasoning, where individuals interpret facts in ways that endorse their ethical or ideological views (Cusimano). While the knowledge we receive may be inherently true and thus objective, it enters the mind based on each person's individual values or social expectations developed from their experience. This is particularly applicable to psychological interpretations, where objective observations cannot be made without preexisting conceptual understandings. For instance, if a man is clapping his hands, the objective point of view may perceive it as a random motion of bringing two hands together to make a sound (Mascolo, “False Lure”). However, the human perception interprets a man clapping as someone with active power and agency to initiate a series of meaningful movements. These movements are automatically associated with the understanding that the man is experiencing heightened emotions which he wishes to express openly. While many people may agree with this interpretation and thus make it a likely accurate scenario, the man's agency is not visibly observable from an objective lens. This exemplifies that our preconceived notions that clapping is equivalent to expressing power and emotion is projected on the objective observations of what is originally happening (Mascolo, “False Lure”). While information itself can originate as objective statements, our minds inevitably perceive and respond to the knowledge subjectively, favouring interpretations that align with personal opinions. 

The inability to accept knowledge objectively can also be explained by the Objectivity Illusion: people’s assumption that they are less biased than others. In this belief, people often assume that anyone who possesses the same evidence will hold the same beliefs, and anyone who disagrees is considered misinformed or biased (Cusimano). Based on this framework, many individuals are unaware of their inaccurate knowledge and gain epistemic superiority, making them more likely to seek confirmation bias and support their existing views. In doing so, the mind overestimates the neutrality of its thinking. This illusion thus becomes a psychological barrier to objectivity; although people believe their impartiality, their judgements are inevitably influenced by unnoticed cognitive tendencies. This theme of epistemic distortion is reverberated in broader psychological discussions, particularly those pertaining to the nature of scientific knowledge. A recent grounded theory analysis involving interviews with 11 psychological methodologists aimed to learn about the functions of objectivity and subjectivity in psychological science (Levitt et al). Participants voiced concern that the field oversimplifies objectivity and subjectivity, stating that this false "dichotomy limits scientific understanding." Some writers have argued that "it is only through subjective perspectives that researchers are able to objectively know the nature of a given phenomenon" (Levitt et al). Even the most quantitative analyses are guided by subjective, biased decisions: which variables to measure, what to exclude, and how data is measured.

In essence, the whole of objective reality is inaccessible in its pure form to the human mind. Neurological processes like the constraints of sensory systems and cognitive tendencies to filter information based on personal beliefs distort how our minds perceive truth. Even in disciplines like science and psychology, where objectivity is valued for intellectual reliability, the processes through which knowledge is produced and communicated are saturated with the biases of the observer. However, these constraints do not imply that all knowledge is subjective, but rather that it is processed subjectively by human thought. Fully objective reality itself would exist as a separate, unmediated observer's view of everything, where every angle is simultaneously captured without favouring a perspective. With this in consideration, objectivity may not be all "in the mind" but our access to it through perception inevitably is. While many scientific claims are commonly accepted as objective due to a near-universal agreement among reputable scientists, no individual's perceptions are able to produce an entirely objective reality. In this sense, humans are unable to achieve full impartiality; however, it does not suggest that our current knowledge is inevitably faulty. Rather, it highlights the importance of acknowledging the bias that accompanies our observations of the world, the universe, and the way things work. The achievable steps we can take to approximate the truth of our knowledge include critical reflections, inquiries, and a willingness to acknowledge the boundaries of our understanding.