The Scout Mindset (’s new book) sharply distills many key ideas from the rationalist world, but the framing is unusual and (I think) better! It presents motivated reasoning as rooted in important emotional functions which truth-seeking advocates must address/provide.
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Writing about rationality often imagines that if only we could just *explain* people’s biases to them and show them some Bayesian reasoning, they’d start thinking clearly.
But JG sees that motivated reasoning provides comfort, belonging, &c; alternatives must handle these needs.
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Of the functions discussed, I found “persuasion" the most surprising. Do you have to be confident to be compelling to others? Yes… but it’s enough to be *socially* confident; you don’t also have to be epistemically confident.
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One function I’d like to see more writing/exploring about is “morale” (believing things to motivate ourselves). This can be brittle and short-sighted, and a truth-seeking mindset will likely produce better results… but can it also be made to provide strong morale?
JG suggests that a clear-sighted understanding of one’s odds can create a liberating sense of freedom, which I think is right… but it’s not *quite* the same thing as morale/motivation! Could it be?
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Strongly agree! One frame might be: It is advantageous to be strongly motivated to take an action if we're 1) confident that the action will result in benefits, 2) the benefits are large. Uncertainty about either point should make us less motivated to take the action.
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If we have good opportunities to decrease that uncertainty, those opportunities should be highly motivating! (E.g. seeking out "surprise" in ML reinforcement learners, borrowed from "The Alignment Problem"'s chapter on curiosity).
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A core idea which underlies both notions of "persuasion" and "morale," I believe, is "conviction," which to me is separate and distinct from "confidence."
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What is often required to accomplish difficult things is to persuade both others and yourself that it can be done. Here I disagree with the idea that you need "social confidence" which to me sounds like performative theatrics of how one acts in front of other people, which...
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One way to make good use of this would be keeping your identity small. Draw morale from things outside that identity so you can change those beliefs in the face of new information.
Much easier said than done, of course.