Re: Why believe the truth?

From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 21:39:12 MDT

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    On 6/16/2003, Dan Fabulich wrote:
    >... You suggest, for example, that I might believe that my hypothetical
    >spouse is faithful, in order to maintain the happiness of my marriage.
    >... to the extent that you *act* as if your spouse is faithful, you
    >won't, for example, obviously withhold trust from your spouse, which may
    >(on the whole) benefit you and your marriage. ... the latter
    >benefit can be acquired simply by *acting as if* the spouse were faithful:
    >don't accuse, don't divorce, don't act any differently at all, just go
    >about your life knowing what you know. ... what you can't argue is
    >whether you could *do* it without going off the deep end and actually
    >*believing a known falsehood*.
    >Or could you? Certainly it could be the case that, despite your attempts
    >to be on your best behavior, your spouse might see through your act,
    >realize that you know, and could then ruin the marriage somehow. Sure,
    >it's possible, but this is a stereotypical case of the "rare" class ...
    >what are the odds that, in order for your goals to be accomplished, you
    >not only need to *act* on an incorrect model, but *believe* in that
    >incorrect model, to get that last 0.1% of instrumental value? ...
    >Hence, with the use of approximating models, we can get 99% of the value
    >of believing a falsehood without actually doing so. ...

    I think you vastly over-estimate the ability of most people to pretend
    to believe things that they do not actually believe. The reason that
    evolution has equipped us with biased beliefs about such things is that
    people are actually pretty good at detecting insincerity.

    > > You might tell your girlfriend that she is average ...
    >
    >I'd like to call attention to the fact that this is exactly the sort of
    >thing that a person "acting as if" the shared social model were true would
    >*not* do. The obvious disaster cases can be safely avoided 99% of the
    >time just by being aware of the flaws in our standard intuitions, but
    >still managing to be polite regardless.

    Your girlfriend will not be satisfied with your being polite and never
    bringing up the subject of what you think of her. She will ask you, if
    need be. And she will look closely to see if you believe what you say.

    Robin Hanson rhanson@gmu.edu http://hanson.gmu.edu
    Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University
    MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444
    703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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