Addiction to Beliefs

This phenomena is grossly underrated and under researched. We laugh at cults and mass suicide driven by these cults, 

But this belief thing is something omnipresent - slow motion version of the cult and driving addicted folks unable to shake their beliefs even at the cost of self destruction. 

Personal Identity and Willful Ignorance

Ada sits alone at a table contemplating whether she should drink the liquid from the glass in front of her.  She’s been promised that the result of doing so will be an immediate revision to her set of beliefs.  If she drinks from the glass, she will believe only things that are true.  She won’t become omniscient; she won’t know everything.  The liquid will simply replace all false beliefs she has with corresponding true ones.  Ada likes to think that she is intellectually humble.  She likes to believe that she generally acts in accordance with reliable processes for forming beliefs.  Most importantly, Ada believes that she values truth.  Nevertheless, she can’t shake the feeling that drinking from the glass would be a kind of suicide.

In The Sources of Normativity, philosopher Christine Korsgaard argues that reasons for action spring from what she calls our “practical identities.”  These practical identities are ways of conceiving of ourselves that we value and hold dear. For example, I may view myself as a friend, a mother, a lover, etc., and the reasons I have for behaving in various ways are picked out by what those identities permit or forbid.  The identities that provide us with overriding reasons are those we’d rather die than give up.  As Korsgaard says, “The only thing that could be as bad or worse than death is something that for us amounts to death—not being ourselves anymore.”

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Ada is a volunteer for a local charitable organization. Her contributions to the organization provide a great sense of meaning to her life. She met most of her friends in this capacity and they’ve put together a bowling league that meets on Wednesday nights.  One person from this group has become her closest friend.  They both have mothers battling cancer, and Ada and her friend are one another’s sources of support in difficult times.  The work of the charitable organization is predicated on three fundamental premises.  If any of the premises turned out to be false, it would shatter her faith in the organization’s work.  Where would her meaning come from then? Her friends?  Her support?

Ada is married to a man with many opinions about which he seems unshakably assured. She and her husband have different interests.  Because he is passionate about what he cares about, she trusts that he has good evidence for the things that he believes.  Nevertheless, she is worried that, if she were to learn that the propositions he so boldly asserts were mostly false, she might come to disrespect him for his many flagrant displays of unearned confidence.  What would happen to her love?  Who would be her companion?

If we’re being honest with ourselves, we must acknowledge that some of our identities not only involve false beliefs, but actually depend upon them.  We may not know which identities fall into this category, but it is probable that some, perhaps even many of them, do.

It isn’t uncommon to be mystified by the extent to which people seem unwilling to become better informed about social issues.  We wonder why they won’t critically reflect on the coherence or consistency of their positions, especially when widely known and compelling evidence provides good reason to be skeptical.  We wonder why they refuse to engage with sources that support any position other than those they were already inclined to believe anyway.  Why, we ask, do people often seem so willfully ignorant?

It’s hard work crafting oneself into a fully formed person. We adopt certain aesthetics or roles because they feel authentic.  Ohers are imposed upon us by our environment.  Still more arise out of trauma and grief.  At a certain point, for better or for worse, we’ve invested so much time and effort into our identities, we feel that there’s too much at stake to change them.  We don’t want our social lives to change.  We don’t want to feel differently about who we are and what we’ve done.  We don’t want different kind of reasons to motivate our actions.  We’d rather have stability than truth.

Ada knows she doesn’t have the best possible life, but it’s hers.  She’s comfortable.  If she is the source of the suffering of someone else, she’s not aware of it.  If her decisions prevent someone from achieving full liberation, she can’t be blamed.  If her choices put our most cherished institutions at risk, it surely couldn’t be her fault alone, or perhaps even at all.  She doesn’t want her identity as she knows it to be shattered.  She wants to go on being the person she recognizes.

She stands up, walks to the sink, and pours the liquid down the drain.