Moral communities are held together by idealism and vigilance. If the moral project is imperative yet daunting, a community is likely to ramp up the vigilance.
Heightened vigilance is expressed through intolerance of dissenting views. A certain categorical mindset develops: are your actions/statements compatible with our vision, or not? Are you one of Us or one of Them? Unsurprisingly, we tend to become more categorical in our opinions when they serve as markers of belonging to a moral community.
Categories are a mixed blessing – opening the doors of perception at one level, closing them at another. As Derek Cabrera puts it:
Categories give us the impression that "this is how things are" rather than "this is how someone organized these things." Consequences of blind category use include reification of perspectives and the loss of mental flexibility, along with the promotion of black-and-white thinking. Their use can stifle creativity and seeing important, systemic patterns if they don't happen to coincide with existing categories.
Scientists embrace the continuum and live the questions. For the scientist, categories are useful tools, to be discarded when their job is done. To claim one sides with science means, per Steven Pinker, one appreciates “the tentativeness and uncertainty of our understanding at any time” (Kindle p. 4112).
When we divide people into those who accept the consensus and those who do not, we are indulging in the worst sort of categorical thinking - the kind that stops further thought. Which means to stop living the questions.
So here are a couple questions: what is the consensus and what does it mean to accept it?
Reference:
Pinker, Steven (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Viking. Kindle version. ISBN 9780670022953.