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byrnema comments on The Fundamental Question - Less Wrong
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I think that what you do (and why you do it) follow your beliefs, and that's why interrogating beliefs is the more fundamental question.
For example, you might do 'X' because you believe 'X' matters, or, more meta -- and more fundamental -- you might believe that whether you do 'X' or not matters because you believe that what you do matters. This is only true within a particular belief structure.
I think what you do and why you do it generates beliefs and actions more than people think.
One particular example is high-powered law students joining big firms for just a little while until they end up doing [thing they like/thing they think is good for society]. Walking away from buckets of money once the buckets are coming is very, very hard and few can do it. At that point, rationalization sets in. The valuation of money increases, because that becomes a self-worth measurement.
As has been pointed out on LW, people do things that they want to do and then make up reasons in their head why that's good. (Being a jerk educates the other guy/The government's just going to waste the money if I pay the proper amount of taxes/The government uses money very efficiently, but I shouldn't pay extra because that would defeat the system/If he didn't want his money taken, he shouldn't have been so stupid as to trust me/I cheat because I should win, and only bad luck causes me not to win, so cheating brings a more just result.)
This also applies to jobs. People find reasons to value/overvalue their jobs because they've landed there. Part of this may be pre-existing belief, but this gets cemented in. I think people's actions and jobs end up morphing beliefs - which is one reason why examining actions is important.
The problem being that we often find ourselves doing things for reasons other than the ones we think we do. Robin Hanson will tell you that.
Why is this a problem? (Along the lines of, why do you need to accurately know the reasons why you do things?) I'm trying to relate. I see beliefs as something I need in order to decide what to do. As long as I'm doing what I decide to do, why would I worry about varied reasons for doing it?
One reason that comes to mind is that you might be avoiding something you should be doing.