Emotions and the search for the truth

Humans are inclined to reject truths that they are emotionally and politically uncomfortable with, instead opting for more convenient beliefs. That’s common today, just as it has been common historically. People try to make the facts fit an emotionally satisfying narrative.

A small number of “contrarians” react against this tendency, finding it intellectually dishonest. More often than not, they’re right.

But many contrarians make a corresponding error of their own. They tend to think that unlike the average person, they’re able to put their feelings aside and see the world for what it really is. They’re the impartial and intellectually honest truth-seekers. But they, too, have emotions that harm the search for truth - it’s only that their emotions are different. Many of them are too enamoured with provocation; with calling out the hypocrisies of the day. So when they encounter new claims, they will try to make them fit this narrative of hypocrisy, and show that the mainstream is wrong. They don’t evaluate them impartially. So their epistemics have more in common with the average person’s than they might want to think.

The right attitude is rather to be more emotionally distant than both of these groups. Instead of thinking of the emotional flavour of some claim, just look at the evidence. And then let the chips fall where they may. That’s the attitude of truly impartial truth-seeking.

Of course, it’s not possible to be fully emotionally distant in this sense. But you can be more or less so. Some people are much closer to this point than others. And we’re different across contexts: we typically have more of this emotionally distant attitude when we’re discussing technical problems we know well, than when we’re discussing hot-button topics. So my suggestion isn’t that we should do the impossible, but that we should dial up an attitude that’s already there.