Addendum: Why arguments that motivated reasoning is somehow secretly rational?
Once one learns to spot motivated reasoning in one’s own head, the short term planner has a much harder problem. It’s still looking for outputs-to-rest-of-brain which will result in e.g. playing more Civ, but now the rest of the brain is alert to the basic tricks. But the short term planner is still looking for outputs, and sometimes it stumbles on a clever trick: maybe motivated reasoning is (long-term) good, actually? And then the rest of the brain goes “hmm, ok, sus, but if true then yeah we can play more Civ” and the short term planner is like “okey dokey let’s go find us an argument that motivated reasoning is (long-term) good actually!”.
In short: “motivated reasoning is somehow secretly rational” is itself the ultimate claim about which one would motivatedly-reason. It’s very much like the classic anti-inductive agent, which believes that things which have happened more often before are less likely to happen again: “but you’ve been wrong every time before!” “yes, exactly, that’s why I’m obviously going to be right this time”. Likewise, the agent which believes motivated reasoning is good actually: “but your argument for motivated reasoning sure seems pretty motivated in its own right” “yes, exactly, and motivated reasoning is good so that’s sensible”.
… which, to be clear, does not imply that all arguments in favor of motivated reasoning are terrible. This is meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek; there’s a reason it’s not in the post. But it’s worth keeping an eye out for motivated arguments in favor of motivated reasoning, and discounting appropriately (which does not mean dismissing completely).
Addendum: Why arguments that motivated reasoning is somehow secretly rational?
Once one learns to spot motivated reasoning in one’s own head, the short term planner has a much harder problem. It’s still looking for outputs-to-rest-of-brain which will result in e.g. playing more Civ, but now the rest of the brain is alert to the basic tricks. But the short term planner is still looking for outputs, and sometimes it stumbles on a clever trick: maybe motivated reasoning is (long-term) good, actually? And then the rest of the brain goes “hmm, ok, sus, but if true then yeah we can play more Civ” and the short term planner is like “okey dokey let’s go find us an argument that motivated reasoning is (long-term) good actually!”.
In short: “motivated reasoning is somehow secretly rational” is itself the ultimate claim about which one would motivatedly-reason. It’s very much like the classic anti-inductive agent, which believes that things which have happened more often before are less likely to happen again: “but you’ve been wrong every time before!” “yes, exactly, that’s why I’m obviously going to be right this time”. Likewise, the agent which believes motivated reasoning is good actually: “but your argument for motivated reasoning sure seems pretty motivated in its own right” “yes, exactly, and motivated reasoning is good so that’s sensible”.
… which, to be clear, does not imply that all arguments in favor of motivated reasoning are terrible. This is meant to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek; there’s a reason it’s not in the post. But it’s worth keeping an eye out for motivated arguments in favor of motivated reasoning, and discounting appropriately (which does not mean dismissing completely).