The Process of Motivated Reasoning

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Tom Gilevich calls the process of motivated reasoning. When you want to believe something and you're presented with evidence for it, you're under this mode of thinking that he calls the can I believe it. Right? So any piece of evidence that is supportive, you just encode that one,. You use it, you store it perfect. But when you'rePresented with evidence against your belief, like the cherished belief, you are under what he calls a must I believe it mindset. And so some people will argue in favor of capital punishment even though they have all these other reasons not to do it.

Dave and Tamler try their best to do a show without guests--we talk about moral persuasion, motivated reasoning, and whether it's legitimate to use emotionally charged rhetoric in a philosophical argument. Plus, we describe how students proceed through the "Stages-of-Singer," and Tamler finally defends himself against Dave's slanderous accusation of hypocrisy about animal welfare.

Links

Thomson, J. J. (1971). A defense of abortion. Philosophy & Public Affairs,1, 47-66.

Marquis, D. (1989). Why abortion is immoral. The Journal of Philosophy, 86(4), 183-202.

Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63 (4), 568.

Ditto, P.H., Pizarro, D.A., & Tannenbaum, D. (2009). Motivated Moral Reasoning. In B. H. Ross (Series Ed.) & D. M. Bartels, C. W. Bauman, L. J. Skitka, & D. L. Medin (Eds.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 50: Moral Judgment and Decision Making. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Dawson, E., Gilovich, T., & Regan, D. T. (2002). Motivated Reasoning and Performance on the Wason Selection Task. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1379-1387.

Sam's House, an orphanage in Nepal [sams-house.org]

The identifiable victim effect [wikipedia.org]

Tamler's mediocre TEDx talk on Moral Persuasion [youtube.com]

10 Classic South Park Impressions (including Sally Struthers) [youtube.com]

*musical breaks in this episode stolen from DJ Premier and Jay Electronica. Please don't sue.

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