- Whenever a group of people think they have “the truth” they become biased and evil
- Many religious groups (ex. Evangelical Christians) often claim to have “the truth”
- Therefore these religious groups are evil
- Let’s form our own group, based on our declaration of knowing that all other groups that espouse “the truth” are misguided
- Our group has “the truth” about “the truth”
- Oh wait, that makes us evil, too!

See how ridiculous this gets?

Inspired by Pascal Boyer’s latest piece in Nature, Robin Hanson reminds us that he’s a preacher’s son:We feel a deep pleasure from realizing that we believe something in common with our friends, and different from most people. We feel an…

Nancy: I think guidance about emotions being evil is pretty hard to use (this also comes up in Christian teachings, with Jesus telling people more-or-less not to get angry or lustful). What is useful for me is to see them as signposts to a bad place. For example, when I’m feeling a certain kind of self-satisfied righteous anger, I know I’m about to say or (more commonly) post something that I will later regret. It’s not that the feeling is evil–the feeling’s morally neutral. But that feeling is also a signal that I’m likely to be doing a bad job of thinking through what I say. Similarly, it’s really important to recognize that when you’re scared, angry, horny, embarrassed, etc., those feelings have an impact on how you think, and impose a certain kind of bias on your perception of reality.

One may use her recent results in any activity as a status symbol or whatever, but results are secondary to the activity itself, and somewhat contingent anyway. If one’s beliefs give her pleasure, the source of the pleasure is not any particular belief but rather her status-seeking and whatever other activities her belief enables. Even though success in, for example, swimming might similarly enable status-seeking etc., swimming is actually a potentially pleasurable activity in and of itself. Believing is not. Thinking may be a pleasurable activity, but these things are not the same. If one finds one’s beliefs to be beautiful, then perhaps contemplation of belief might be pleasurable, but that’s rather far off the track. I know several thoughtful people who profess traditional religion, and I think even they would deny pleasure in belief. Thoughtless people of course take pleasure in any number of questionable things.

I try to avoid beliefs as such. I have instead habits of mind, which I try to change on a regular basis. I try not to let “truth” distract me from method and practice. Evil is problematic in the mental context, in any case. Let’s reserve this word for actions in the corporeal realm.

Roko, don’t be defensive. Your comment was the thread-winner; the haters are just tone-deaf.

It’ll keep me coming back for more and maybe I’ll become smarter, more rational and less biased.

This reminds me of the so-called “Galileo Gambit”, the cliche that someone who disagrees with the majority opinion on a given question, is therefore virtuous and probably right. I’m sure that you can think of plenty of examples of people with unpopular ideas who wear their status as a “heretic” as a positive badge of honor. They’re prominent amongst global warming skeptics, creationists, historical revisionists, etc.

I think the “Evil Pleasure” that Robin alludes to is part of this, but there’s also the fact that the Western intellectual tradition encourages us to question everything, “think for ourselves” and “take no-one’s word for it”. That goes back to Socrates. Unfortunately it’s easy to take it too far.

I write about this here

Let’s try expanding the principle to prick the conscience of all. People project their own ideals and positions onto a politician (who indeed depends on being a sufficiently blank slate to fit the purpose). We might blithely adopt assumptions about people we date, only to discover that, months or years later, Sally does not like children or John does not appreciate the benefits of suburbia.

I don’t think that this is a conscious or deliberate ploy, but rather a tacit desire to experience camaraderie.