But perhaps believing the truth is against my interest. If I believe that my work is important to outcomes, I will work harder. If I believe my work has little importance, I may become lazy or seek side-hustles. Should I convince myself that my publication count and thesis quality are more important than is true?
So I think the answer is somewhat complicated, and requires unpacking a few things. The big thing is that it is possible to commit without belief, many people find this hard to do without expending willpower, and so find it instrumentally useful to lie to themselves about what they believe, only possibly to find out their beliefs are not very malleable and they can’t successfully lie to themselves to achieve this end.
The best situation would be to believe the truth and do it anyway. This requires a level of non-identifcation with the belief, though, such that you can successfully invest in an uncertain outcome and be happy with the expected returns rather than the actual returns.
If that’s not possible, next best would be setting up incentives such that you don’t have to change your belief and can maintain beliefs you believe to be true but are nonetheless incentivized to do what you want yourself to do. This is painful for a lot of people because they feel themselves fighting the incentives they themselves set up, but it’s an option.
Epistemically the worst option is to lie to yourself, but also probably the least painful if the first option is not available. It will work so long as you can maintain the lie, but you might not like having to do all the work to maintain it, and it’ll inevitably poison other beliefs by the need to maintain the network of dependent beliefs that prop up the falsehood you’re maintaining. Not recommended, and you’ll create a lot of harm for yourself to unravel later.
Limiting my comments to the question at hand, but if you asked for my general opinion, it would be to have alternatives that let you out of the frame of the situation you’ve created so you don’t have to do this.
So I think the answer is somewhat complicated, and requires unpacking a few things. The big thing is that it is possible to commit without belief, many people find this hard to do without expending willpower, and so find it instrumentally useful to lie to themselves about what they believe, only possibly to find out their beliefs are not very malleable and they can’t successfully lie to themselves to achieve this end.
The best situation would be to believe the truth and do it anyway. This requires a level of non-identifcation with the belief, though, such that you can successfully invest in an uncertain outcome and be happy with the expected returns rather than the actual returns.
If that’s not possible, next best would be setting up incentives such that you don’t have to change your belief and can maintain beliefs you believe to be true but are nonetheless incentivized to do what you want yourself to do. This is painful for a lot of people because they feel themselves fighting the incentives they themselves set up, but it’s an option.
Epistemically the worst option is to lie to yourself, but also probably the least painful if the first option is not available. It will work so long as you can maintain the lie, but you might not like having to do all the work to maintain it, and it’ll inevitably poison other beliefs by the need to maintain the network of dependent beliefs that prop up the falsehood you’re maintaining. Not recommended, and you’ll create a lot of harm for yourself to unravel later.
Limiting my comments to the question at hand, but if you asked for my general opinion, it would be to have alternatives that let you out of the frame of the situation you’ve created so you don’t have to do this.