Unnamed comments on Rationality Quotes Thread December 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: elharo 02 December 2015 11:28AM

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Comment author: Unnamed 05 December 2015 08:28:33PM 9 points [-]

I think psychologist Tom Gilovich is the original source of the "Can I?" vs. "Must I?" description of motivated reasoning. He wrote about it in his 1991 book How We Know What Isn't So.

For desired conclusions, we ask ourselves, "Can I believe this?", but for unpalatable conclusions we ask, "Must I believe this?