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Non-random examples that come to mind include public health (on covid, vaping, nutrition), bioethics, social psychology, developmental econ, climate change, vegan advocacy, religion, US Democratic party, and diversity/inclusion. My impression is that my interactions with approximately every entity that perceives themself as directly doing good outside of EA* is that they are not seeking truth, and this systematically corrupts them in important ways.

I think motivated reasoning is really common in our world. In directionally motivated reasoning, often shortened to "motivated reasoning", we disproportionately put our effort into finding evidence/reasons that support what we wish were true.Įmotionally biased reasoning to produce justifications or make decisions that are most desired rather than those that accurately reflect the evidence Motivated reasoning: What it is, why it’s common, why it mattersīy motivated reasoning, I roughly mean what Julia Galef calls “soldier mindset” (H/T Rob Bensinger):

Foster a bias towards having open, public discussions of important concepts, strategies, and intellectual advances.

Maintain or improve the current culture of relatively open, frequent, and vigorous debate.

Maybe encourage a greater number of people to apply and seriously consider jobs outside of EA or EA-adjacent orgs.Commit to individual rationality and attempts to reduce motivated reasoning.Within EA orgs, encourage and reward dissent of various forms.As a community, fund and socially support external (critical) cost-effectiveness analyses and impact assessments of EA orgs.Try marginally harder to accept newcomers, particularly altruistically motivated ones with extremely high epistemic standards.Encourage and train scientific/general skepticism in EA newcomers.I also list a number of tentative ways to counteract motivated reasoning and selection bias in effective altruism: However, I do not believe this change invalidates my argument (see Appendix B)). (I understand that effective altruism, especially outside of global health and development, has largely moved away from explicit expected value calculations and cost-effectiveness analyses. I will use the example of cost-effectiveness analyses as a jumping board for this argument. To the extent that these biases (related to motivated reasoning) are real, we should expect the harm done to our ability to form reasoned opinions to also seriously harm the project of doing good.Observed data and experiences in effective altruism support this theory they are consistent with an environment where motivated reasoning and selection biases are rampant.Moreover, there are strong reasons to believe that incentive structures and institutions in effective altruism exacerbate rather than alleviate these biases. Effective altruism should not be assumed to be above these biases.

Selection bias in who makes which arguments significantly exacerbates the problem of motivated reasoning.

Motivated reasoning inhibits our ability to acquire knowledge and form reasoned opinions.

However, as I am also a staunch defender of hypocrisy, I will now hypocritically attempt to make the case for applying a fully general critique to effective altruism. I have often been skeptical of the value of a) critiques against effective altruism and b) fully general arguments that seem like they can apply to almost anything.