Double standards when judging arguments
In almost every debate about animals, certain claims come up again and again, like "animals don't feel the way we do" or "it's natural." This chapter uses these claims to talk about an important bias: motivated reasoning.
Different levels of strictness
Because of motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, we judge arguments that agree with what we already think much less strictly, and arguments that disagree much more strictly.
This bias affects everyone, including philosophers who are experts in ethics.
When people don't believe what they say
The author points out a possibility that almost never gets considered: sometimes the person doesn't believe the justification they give. They use it as an excuse. This can happen in three ways:
- self-deception: the person tries to fool themselves;
- fooling the other person: the person thinks the listener will accept it, or will have a hard time refuting it;
- mutual pretending: everyone can tell the argument is weak, but since they agree with the conclusion, they pretend it's good.
The third case is very common.
The availability cascade
A shared belief can gain more and more acceptance just because it's repeated many times, even if it makes no sense.
The consequence
This helps explain why attempts to justify speciesism, and objections to helping wild animals, are rarely examined carefully, even in academia.
In short
- Motivated reasoning makes us look for confirmation, not the truth.
- Sometimes people use arguments they don't even believe.
- Repeating an idea many times doesn't make it true.