A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “halo effect”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott reviews psychological research showing that people don't have introspective access to their own mental processes and instead guess at their reasons for behavior in the same way they would guess at others' motivations.
Scott explains that while people naturally use emotivism (the 'yay/boo' theory) for moral reasoning, this creates serious problems by lumping everything into 'good' or 'bad' categories, and argues that converting moral debates into specific questions about actions and applying utilitarianism provides a better framework for resolving complicated issues.
Scott identifies five logical fallacies in a popular anecdote about Steve Jobs rejecting Indian spirituality, arguing it succeeded through tribal appeal rather than logical merit, and uses it as a case study for why careful argument analysis must become automatic.