#1227 Steven Sloman - The Cost of Conviction: How Our Deepest Values Lead Us Astray

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lobs, and today I'm joined by Doctor Steven Sloman. He's professor of cognitive and psychological sciences at Brown University, and today we're talking about his latest book, uh, The Cost of Conviction, How Our Deepest Values Lead Us Astray. So Doctor Sloman, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to everyone.

00:25 Steven Sloman: Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the invitation. I'm glad to be here.

00:31 Ricardo Lopes: Sure, so, um, what is the premise of your book? I mean, uh, what is this idea about conviction and people's deepest values in the book? You, you talk about them as sacred values. I mean, what is the premise exactly?

00:49 Steven Sloman: So the basic idea is that when people are making decisions, there are two classes of decision-making strategies available to them. One of them is the class that we, uh, think that we're using all the time, namely consequentialist decision-making strategies. So these are simply strategies in which we consider the outcomes of our various options. Um, BUT it turns out that we often make decisions in a different way based on what I call sacred values. So these are values that don't apply to outcomes, but rather apply to actions. So there's certain actions that we consider correct and others that we consider incorrect, regardless of the outcomes. And the fundamental premise of the book is that we make decisions too often based on sacred values, not enough based on consequences, and that this leads to many of the world's problems.

01:52 Ricardo Lopes: OK, and we're certainly going to get into that, but what are the philosophical and psychological properties of sacred values? Please characterize them a little bit more.

02:06 Steven Sloman: So there's a long history and philosophy of the distinction between consequentialist choice versus what's often called deontological choice, right? So deontological choice is choosing by duty or obligation without regard to consequences. So there's an obvious parallel. Between the distinction between sacred values and, and consequentialist decision strategies, and these sort of ethical theories in philosophy, um, deontology versus consequentialism are often the, the sort of prototypical consequentialist theory is considered in philosophy, namely utilitarianism, right? Um. My book is not about philosophy. It's not about ethical theory. It's about psychology. So there's, there's lots to be said about the right way to make an ethical decision. Um, I say very little about that in the book. What I focus on is the fact that when people make decisions by sacred values, they tend to be more absolute. They tend to be more binary in their thinking. When they make decisions by consequences, then they're forced to engage in a lot of causal reasoning. How will this action, or how will this option lead to one set of consequences? How will another option lead to a different set of consequences? So, consequentialist thinking tends to be much more complex. Because when you're deciding by sacred values, you just use this simple rule that in some sense ignores one of the hardest aspects of decision making, which is figuring out what the consequences are. You don't have to think about the consequences, because you're Just following a particular action. Like you think abortion is wrong, so you will simply not engage in abortion. You think any policy related to abortion um should be determined by your sacred value that abortion is murder. And, and so it, it obviates a lot of thinking, essentially. And so there are a variety of other things that go along with that, like, for instance, um, when people's sacred values are violated, they tend to get outraged, right? They tend to, to get angry, sometimes they get disgusted. And um we have some evidence that this makes them more intransigent, less willing to compromise, and also more willing to act. Mhm. Right.

05:04 Ricardo Lopes: But do you think that we need sacred values, or that in some way it's inevitable that we will always have some sacred values?

05:16 Steven Sloman: Yes, I do. And that's because uh we live in a community, and sacred values are what represent a community. So my last book, um, The Knowledge Illusion, uh, which I wrote with Phil Fernbach, was, um, essentially an argument that the human mind is designed to operate within a community. We depend on others for our thinking. Um, AND it's obvious that communities are incredibly important to us socially, right? We, we couldn't survive without communities, right? So, so what we define as our community, who we accept as members of our community, is extremely important to us, and I would argue that communities are largely defined by their sacred values. So if you dissent from a particular sacred value that your community holds, then you're essentially putting your status in the community in danger.

06:30 Ricardo Lopes: And tell us more about how sacred values can be dangerous and what are their drawbacks.

06:40 Steven Sloman: Well, um, as I've already said, uh, sacred values can be dangerous because we treat them in absolute terms. And when, and, and what that means is we're not willing to make trade-offs. We're not willing to allow that there are other interests that we may have, that other people may have, and that we have to compromise a little bit. So, you know, if we believe that fighting for a piece of land is, is sacred, then we're not gonna broker any compromise. And as a result, we're gonna be willing to fight perhaps to the death. Um, WE'RE not gonna care about the, the welfare of the people on the other side of the dispute. Um, And uh so we're gonna take actions and um and be unwilling to compromise, be intransigent in a way that is just gonna increase extremism and increase polarization and lead to conflict.

07:57 Ricardo Lopes: And how does utilitarian decision making play out? How do people reason in terms of consequences?

08:09 Steven Sloman: So, so that's a huge question, and, you know, I, I, I teach a whole course on that, books and books, and there's a whole field of study, many fields of study really, that focus on that. So I, I'm, I can't give a complete answer to that question. Um, BUT the general idea, uh, that, that I try to spell out in my book is that when you focus on consequences, first of all, you're immediately faced with trade-offs, right, because any action has costs and benefits, you know, the cost may be something as simple as it uses energy. But if you're really doing a serious consequentialist analysis, you take that into account. You take all the costs and benefits into account. And it's important to understand that that's a really complex business, right? That it's really hard to consider all of the costs of what are the costs? What's the set? How confident can we be that a particular action is gonna lead to those costs. And similarly with benefits. So there's a lot of uncertainty involved in consequentialist analysis. As I said, there's a lot of causal reasoning involved in consequentialist analysis. There's a lot of internal study involved, because often the hardest thing about making a decision is knowing what you want, right? Knowing how you want to trade off costs and benefits. What's really important to you, is the thing that's most important to you, your own benefit, or is it someone else's benefit? Is it your child's benefit, or your parents' benefit, or the benefit of your community? And often we run into these conflicts, right? Uh, LIKE, commons dilemmas is, is a particular example of a kind of conflict between individual benefit and social benefit. So if we're being fully consequentialist, we have to consider all this stuff. Now, of course, Most consequentialist decision making involves simplification, right? And, you know, one form of simplification, sort of the ultimate form of simplification, is just to ask somebody else to make the decision for you, right? We, we outsource decisions. Um, BUT there are lots of things in between, lots of simplification strategies in between. So I would actually characterize Decision making by sacred values as also a form of simplification. It's, it uses different criteria than the consequentialist criteria, but it's, it's a simplification strategy, because it ignores consequences, and merely evaluates whether an action is right or wrong, which in general, could be a complicated. Thing, but the way humans do it is generally, we just get our sense of right and wrong action from our families or from our communities. Um, SO we don't necessarily engage in a lot of reasoning.

11:33 Ricardo Lopes: But is it that people generally tend to make decisions based on sacred values, or are there specific instances where they er go with decisions based on consequences?

11:48 Steven Sloman: So sacred values, I, you know, I, I think of only really applying um in an important way when uh we're, we're deciding among political options or social options. Like you could say, like, consider someone who just wears blue shirts, right? This is the way they simplify their life. I'm not gonna think about the consequences of the color of shirt that I wear. I'm just gonna wear a blue shirt. I mean, I guess you could argue that in some sense, that's a sacred value, because it's a value associated with an action, and it is absolute, right? Cause you always do it, and you don't broker any kind of um um alternative considerations. Um, BUT generally, when we're thinking about sacred values, we're thinking about values that, um, affect, uh, actions that pertain to other people, that are relevant to our community, that our community endorses. So, if we're making, uh, decisions like whether or not to cross the street, generally, that's gonna be a consequentialist decision, right? Like, what am I gonna achieve by crossing the street? If we're um purchasing toothpaste, then we're generally gonna make that based on consequences, right? Which is gonna clean my teeth teeth best, which is gonna cost me the least money, which, those are all consequences. So I would say that most everyday decisions uh certainly have a basis in, in consequentialism, and often are made on a consequentialist basis.

13:39 Ricardo Lopes: Um, AND I mean, do you think that there are, uh, apart from the instances that you referred there where people tend to go with sacred values and the other situations where they go with, uh, consequentialism, uh, do you think that there are instances where people should make decisions based on sacred values?

14:04 Steven Sloman: Sure, um, whenever I have a sacred value, I think that people should make decisions based on my sacred values, right? So, I think that, um, people should not murder. And I think people should treat others with respect. And I think that, um, you know, people should aim towards uncovering the truth. All of these things are sacred values of mine, and, uh, and I think that others should, you know, obey them too. Obviously, not everybody does. Um, SO the general point is that When our community. Holds things sacred. Then there's a strong force um impelling us to hold those things sacred ourselves. Um, EITHER because we actually think that it's the right thing to do, so we should not murder regardless of what we could gain or what anybody could gain materially from it. But beyond that, if I do murder, then I'm separating myself from my community. And that's presumably not something that I should do unless there's really good reason for it.

15:30 Ricardo Lopes: Right. Uh, SO let me ask you, because in the book at a certain point you also talk about, uh, causality. I mean, uh, why is the topic of causality important in the context of your book and how do people think about causality?

15:50 Steven Sloman: So it's important because it's the essence of consequentialist decision making. I actually feel that this has not been fully appreciated by people who study decision making. But the the First step, or the second step, I guess one has to take when making a decision, is to figure out if I, so when you're making a decision, you have a set of options in front of you. You can think of each option as an action, right? I will take this flavor of ice cream, or this other flavor of ice cream, or this other flavor of ice cream. And the way you make the decision on a consequentialist basis is to deduce what the potential consequences of each action are. And that's a matter of causal reasoning, right? If I take this, the action is a cause, and the consequences are effects. Some are good, we call those benefits, others are not so good, we call them costs. Um, YOU know, if you're thinking about a decision like whether or not to go to war, this is incredibly obvious, right? Because if you do go to war, well, you have to reason about what the causal consequences will be, right? What, where will I get the material, where will I get the weapons, where Will I get the human power to engage in war, you know, what should I do? What, what options do I have about strategy and tactics? And if I engage in one strategy or tactic, then what will happen? Those are consequences. Uh, AND, and there are consequences, not just in the short term, but also in the medium term, and also in the long term. And there are consequences of those consequences. So, there's a lot of reasoning to do. And it's all a form of causal reasoning. So, The second part of your question was, how do people engage in causal reasoning, and, you know, like other things, there, there's not a simple answer to give, um. We We're, we're able to understand and to think about the fact that causes produce effects, and what does that mean? That, you know, one thing we understand is that means if the cause were different, then the effect would be different. In other words, causal reasoning is closely associated with counterfactual reasoning, with reasoning about alternative possible worlds. You can't really engage in causal reasoning if you can't also engage in counterfactual reasoning, reasoning. Because we are the source of our actions, um, we can think about our actions as interventions in the world. In other words, um, we as agents are making decisions that we can describe as decisions made using our free will, and that has implications for what the consequences of our decisions will be. So there's a lot of sophistication in our causal reasoning. That said, it's important to understand that we actually are very limited in in our ability to to reason causally. So, We're limited in the number of causal pathways we consider. We generally only consider a single causal pathway, and neglect alternative causal pathways, right? Like, if we see that the lawn is wet, and that the sprinkler is turned on, then we assume that the sprinkler made the lawn wet, and we don't even consider the possibility that there might have been a rainstorm, while we weren't looking, right? Um, MOST of the time that's fine. Most of the time that works, but sometimes it leads us into trouble. We just assume that we understand the cause of things when in fact, there are alternative causes. Another important limitation on our causal reasoning is that um we don't understand things in great detail. We think we understand how things work better than we do. Uh, THIS, this was actually the topic of my last book, The Knowledge Illusion. So the knowledge illusion is just that, the fact that we think we understand things better than we do. Um. And there's, you know, some strong evidence to, to suggest that. But essentially what it shows is that um, Our understanding of common objects, of historical objects, of other people, of political policies, of almost anything you can name, that our understanding is, is limited. And essentially the way to discover this about yourself, or to show it in someone else, is to ask them to explain, right? Take your favorite policy, and, and And say, now why does this policy lead to any consequence that I think it leads to? Uh, AND, and try to spell out in complete detail how the policy leads to consequences. What most people discover most of the time, unless they happen to be experts on the policy, is that they just can't, that their explanations are incredibly uh weak and limited and shallow. And so this punctures their illusion that they understand things um as well as they thought. So just like everything else, causal reasoning. IS an element of a community. We depend on other people for our causal reasoning, reasoning, just as much as we depend on what's going on inside our own skulls.

22:25 Ricardo Lopes: But do you think that then because of our limitations when it comes to causal reasoning and I mean there might be even complex situations where we establish wrong causal relationships between certain behaviors and outcomes because they are very. Complicated or we might uh think that something will happen because we do something but then something unexpected gets in the way and we don't get the outcome we wanted. I mean, do you think that perhaps there are situations where a consequentialism might fail us?

23:06 Steven Sloman: Oh, absolutely, absolutely, yeah, yes, uh, great, it's, it's a great point, um. So we are definitely limited in our ability to reason consequentially. Um, I think the critical question with regard to the thesis of my book is, is that a justification for not trying, right? Is that a justification for reasoning based only on sacred values? Mhm. And look, I mean, sometimes it may be, like when it comes, you know, back to the murder example. If you think that, you know, thou shalt not murder, and that's a sacred value to you, then if you're given the opportunity to murder, I think it's perfectly perfectly reasonable to say, You know, the any consequentialist thought that I engage in is really gonna miss the point, um, because it's gonna be approximate, it's gonna be error prone, it's not gonna be able to deal with all the uncertainty in the situation. So therefore, I will just operate on the basis of this simple principle. I will not murder. And I, I actually think that makes a lot of sense. Right, um, I don't think that that sort of reasoning applies. Uh, IN most of the cases in which there is real social debate, um, you know, in any country that, that, that you choose to name. So, um, you know, pick a topic where I live in the United States. So in the United States, um, there's a question about whether we should impose tariffs on other countries. Yes. And, you know, personally, I think our president treats it as a sacred value, right, that yes, we shall impose tariffs, that's the right thing to do. I don't believe he thinks through the consequences of that imposition at all. And I think that that is very alarming, and has caused all sorts of damage, and continues to cause all sorts of damage. So If you're engaged in um in politics, if you're trying to improve society, you can't simply rely on pat sacred values that everybody accepts, or that that your community accepts. Rather, You know, particularly if there's disagreement, right? So if there's disagreement about sacred values, then there's a sense in which the only, all you have is a consequentialist analysis, right? But if you're gonna take actions, um, as a group, then I think it's your responsibility to think about what the consequences of those actions will be.

26:24 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, I, I also get the sense, and please correct me if I'm wrong, that uh consequential is more a sort of consequentialist kind of decision making also is more uh cognitively demanding, correct?

26:40 Steven Sloman: Absolutely, yes. When I earlier when I said that sacred values are a form of uh uh are a way to simplify decision making, that's, that's what I meant. Um, WHEN being able to ignore outcomes sure makes decision making easier. If you're considering outcomes, well, that's demanding. That's cognitively demanding, that can be demanding in other ways too. It's socially demanding, right? Because it requires a much more sophisticated conversation. You know, this is, this is actually relevant, uh, to, I think one of the important dynamics that that rules society, that rules the world, which is that extremists control the conversation often. And one reason that extremists control the conversation is because they deal in these simplified slogans that appeal to sacred values, rather than in the complexity that actually governs the world. Right? So if I can say, oh, abortion is, is evil because um it's a form of murder, and therefore we should never engage in it. Or if I say, well, a woman has a right to choose, and so therefore, we should make abortion legal. REGARDLESS of both of those extremist positions, ignore the fact that abortion has real consequences for real people and not just on the baby, but on the mother and on potentially on the father and on society in general. And so to have a real serious conversation about it requires not appealing to the extreme sacred values, but rather engaging in a very difficult, complicated conversation in which there are all sorts of values, consequentialist values that one might disagree about, and which have to be worked through.

28:52 Ricardo Lopes: So do you think that's probably one of the reasons why these sort of more populist narratives, particularly the ones we're seeing now on the right, tend to be more, I mean, actually popular among people and more easy to convince people of them than the more nuanced and elaborated, uh, I mean, actual explanations as to why they're going through the problems they're dealing with.

29:22 Steven Sloman: Absolutely, you know, I think uh in the states, um, attitudes towards immigration on the right, for instance, um, really don't take the facts into account at all, right? I mean, there are all sorts of implications about immigration, including Um, you know, the, the availability of farm workers, and the availability of other manual laborers, and housing construction, and the availability of academics, and, you know, the progress of our institutions of higher learning, as well as major corporations that depend on Um, great minds from around the world. So yeah, immigration is, is a very complicated issue when you seriously think about what its consequences are. But instead, the right just, no immigration, let's limit it. Let's throw them out of the country. I mean, it's obviously, in my mind, a, a ridiculous and oversimplified sacred value. But let me be clear, this isn't, I'm not, uh, I wouldn't rant just about the right. The left has its own sacred values that I think are problematic.

30:33 Ricardo Lopes: Could you give us some examples?

30:36 Steven Sloman: Um, SURE, I think that, um, Thinking that equity is the only important thing, and that all decisions should be made based on equity, um, with, without serious consideration of merit. Uh, IS, is a value on the left that, um, has, has caused a lot of problems, um, and that has weakened, uh, our institutions and made it difficult for some, you know, very, very capable people of, um, making the contributions that, that they're capable of making.

31:24 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. So let me ask you now, because I mean, the way we've been talking about this sort of decision making, uh, it might seem as though it all operates on a conscious level, but I mean, probably most of it. Actually operates on a subconscious level, right? So, uh, I mean, in what way should we deal with processes that operate at the subconscious level when it comes to sacred values and consequentialism?

31:59 Steven Sloman: Yeah, that's, that's a great question, um. So, I completely agree that the vast majority of cognitive processing is unconscious, and we're only aware of the sort of tip of the iceberg. That, that's the one sense, and I, I, I think that Sigmund Freud was correct about, about the mind, right? Um, So, I think one thing that would be helpful is for us simply to try to make each other more aware of how we're making decisions. So that my purpose, my main purpose in writing the book, was to say, look, you, right? Me, everybody around us is making these decisions without thinking through the consequences. Let's try to relax our reasoning by sacred values a little bit, in order to focus on consequences some more. And um that requires making certain unconscious processes conscious. Um, You know, it's worth understanding what triggers sacred values. So there's been a fair amount of work on this. Jonathan Haidt is very famous for some of these observations, but a variety of people have contributed to our understanding of how we respond um to certain situations with anger or disgust. And those emotions elicit sacred values, right? So. Disgust is uh a In, in the context of behavior, is sort of equivalent to outrage. When we're disgusted by an action, we're outraged by that action. Or if the action makes us angry, then we also become outraged by the action. And, and then we dig in our heels, and we become intransigent, and we're more willing to go out there and, and fight the bad guy, right, who, who caused this outrage by violating our sacred values. So I think to the extent we can become more aware of that cycle of responses, of our emotional reactions, the source of the emotional reaction, and what are um role is in that dynamic, we, we can exert a little more control. Um, YOU know, so in the book, I argue that we can think about sacred values as a kind of addiction. They're sort of like, you know, cocaine, in the sense that there's something that we need to have satisfied. And when it's not being satisfied, then we have a bodily response. And, and we react by get by focusing more and more on what it is that we want. And, you know, having stronger and stronger physiological responses that sort of demands to be satisfied in a particular way. And, you know, and I think it's, it's learned behavior in a way, in the same way that uh addiction to substances, or to gambling, or, you know, to work, um is learned behavior. So, you know, I do think that uh trying to make ourselves As conscious as we can about what it is that's governing our our behavior, can profit us, but also profit society more generally.

36:16 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so I have one last question then. Is it possible, and I'm not sure I'm going to use the correct verb here, but is it possible to cure a sacred value?

36:29 Steven Sloman: So, yeah, I mean, I think that you, we, we should be careful about use of that verb, right, to cure, because the last thing I wanna argue is that we shouldn't have sacred values. If someone who has no sacred values is often called a psychopath. Right. Um, You know, what I, what I like to say is I wouldn't have a friend who had no sacred values. Our sacred values identify us, identify our social selves, and the kind of people we wanna be, um, are, are. Captured, represented to a large degree by our sacred values. So, so I don't think cure is the right word. What I've been arguing is that we should frame issues less in terms of sacred values and more in terms of consequences, and that will lead to less conflict in the world. Um, AND less polarization. So it's certainly fair to ask, how can we do that? Um, IS it possible to reframe issues from sacred value to consequentialist frames? And I think the answer is clearly yes. So as individuals, we can do it um through the process of explanation. As soon as we engage in an effort to explain what how a behavior came to be, and what the behavior will lead to, well, you can only do that from a consequentialist frame. So we're naturally. Changing the discourse to one about consequentialism. It's really hard to do that as an individual, because, you know, we're just busy leading our lives, and we have all these pressures and things that we have to respond to, and we can't, in addition, or it's very hard in addition to tell ourselves, well, now I have to engage in a process of explanation at any moment, right? I mean, there's just not enough time in the day for that. But what we can do is try to change the discourse as a society. So that we're asking people consequentialist questions. We're asking people how they know things, and what the implications would be. And, and what the justification for what they're saying is. And, and if that became. Um, A norm, right? If it became more. Uh, ACCEPTABLE for us to ask those sorts of probing, difficult, and even boring questions, right? Rather than just engaging in sloganizing and trying to cause outrage, and trying to put everybody else's behavior in the worst possible light by demonstrating how they're violating something you really care about, which is, you know, what Uh, cable TV does in the states and, and probably around the world, and, and in fact, it's what political parties do for the most part. They try to cause outrage. If instead, we engaged in boring, tedious analysis, We might be less titillated. But we would live in a much freer and more productive society, I think.

40:24 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, BUT do you think that, uh, it would be possible looking at the sort of cognitive limitations we've been exploring here today, it would be possible for us to turn that into a social norm?

40:41 Steven Sloman: Um, SURE, I, there are all sorts of examples of how that's been turned into a social norm. So, uh, in the legal system, that's a social norm, right? Um, TO, to engage in boring analysis and weigh the evidence and think about what the consequences of actions are, and, um, in philosophy seminars, it's a social norm. In, in, in. Effective, successful engineering companies, it's a social norm. Mhm. And, you know, certain, um, Uh, political entities that have proven to be more moderate and less, uh, governed by outrage, um, I, I think it's a social norm. So, yes, I, I, not only do I think it's possible, I think it has happened. That's sort of what the Enlightenment, a couple of centuries ago, was an attempt to uh to do for everybody.

41:47 Ricardo Lopes: Great. So the book is again The Cost of Conviction How Our Deepest Values Lead Us astray. I'm leaving a link to it in the description of the interview and Doctor Sloman, uh, apart from the book, where can people. On the

42:03 Steven Sloman: internet. Oh, well, uh, I have a website. If they look up uh Sloman Lab, um S L O M A N L A B, they, they should find it. Um AND I have various uh talks and interviews and um uh editorials that I've written that you can find on, on that website. And there's also a link to uh my more academic work.

42:33 Ricardo Lopes: OK, great. I'm also leaving links to that in the description and thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show. It's been a real pleasure to talk with you.

42:42 Steven Sloman: Well, thank you. It's been a real pleasure to talk with you too. And again, I really appreciate the invitation and I hope it was uh a valuable use of your listeners' time.

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