Re: Why believe the truth? (was: Rightness and Utility of Patriotism)

From: Robin Hanson (rhanson@gmu.edu)
Date: Mon Jun 16 2003 - 11:29:37 MDT

  • Next message: Mark Walker: "Re: Rightness and Utility of Patriotism"

    On 6/16/2003, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
    >>Of course that raises the question of why believing in the truth should
    >>have such an overwhelming importance, moral or otherwise. Some
    >>plausibly argue that it is more moral to be loyal to one's group, even
    >>if this means that your beliefs will be biased, just as they believe it
    >>is more moral to give charity to members of your group, even if this
    >>means that worse off outsiders go without. I have to admit to while I
    >>think that there are few things more important than believing the
    >>truth, I can offer only disappointingly weak moral arguments to justify
    >>this.
    >
    >Here are some of my favorite answers:
    > * "Because I value the truth as a thing in itself."

    That's a statement of the position, not an argument for it.

    > * "If the sky is blue, it's blue. If I think that's true, how could
    > I believe something else just because I wanted to? That's not how my
    > mind is wired."

    Then your brain is different from most humans. As with patriotism, humans
    are in fact wired to be biased in many ways, and we have to work to
    overcome those biases. Of course we don't believe we are biased, but that
    doesn't stop us from being biased to believe things we want to
    believe. Honestly, I think it must be the same with you; you'd like to
    believe you are different, but you are not.

    > * "Because knowing the truth is the best and only means of achieving
    > the goals I care about."

    To judge whether this is true, we need to know more about the goals you
    care about.

    > * "Because even the process whereby I *decide* my goals depends on
    > finding the actual answers (as opposed to the comforting or convenient
    > answers) to logical or factual questions."

    People *can* choose comforting or convenient goals. For example, a common
    argument against moral consequentialism is that it is too much work to
    figure out the consequences of your actions for all people over all time.

    > * "Because if I wrapped myself up in a private world, severing my
    > connection to outside reality, I would destroy my potential to grow as a
    > person."

    There are clearly lots of ways to grow that do not depend on close times to
    outside reality.

    > * "Darn, I don't have enough knowledge to answer that question. I'd
    > better go get some."

    Most people answer such questions without much of any knowledge.

    > * "Because without accurate knowledge, I'd have no way of knowing how
    > dangerous it was to be ignorant."

    Most of us make most of the important decisions in our lives without
    accurate knowledge of their dangers.

    An instrumental justification of seeking truth seems bound to run into
    situations where it harms other goals more than it helps. For example, if
    you want a happy marriage you might do better to not know too much about
    how unhappy most marriages end up, or how similarly happy you might have
    been with the other spouses you could have chosen. Probably simpler to
    just declare truth-seeking as a strong primary goal.

    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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