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Reason Seen More as Weapon Than Path to

TruthBy PATRICIA COHEN

Published: June 14, 2011, New York Times

For centuries thinkers have assumed that the uniquely human capacity forreasoning has existed to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in thesearch for truth. Rationality allowed a solitary thinker to blaze a path tophilosophical, moral and scientific enlightenment.

Now some researchers are suggesting that reason evolved for a completelydifferent purpose: to win arguments. Rationality, by this yardstick (and irrationalitytoo, but well get to that) is nothing more or less than a servant of the hard-wiredcompulsion to triumph in the debating arena. According to this view, bias, lack of

logic and other supposed flaws that pollute the stream of reason are instead socialadaptations that enable one group to persuade (and defeat) another. Certitudeworks, however sharply it may depart from the truth.

The idea, labeled the argumentative theory of reasoning, is the brainchild of Frenchcognitive social scientists, and it has stirred excited discussion (and appalleddissent) among philosophers, political scientists, educators and psychologists, someof whom say it offers profound insight into the way people think and behave. The

Journal of Behavioral and Brain Sciences devoted its April issue to debates over thetheory, with participants challenging everything from the definition of reason to theorigins of verbal communication.

Reasoning doesnt have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and makebetter decisions, said Hugo Mercier, who is a co-author of the journal article, withDan Sperber. It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convinceothers and to be careful when others try to convince us. Truth and accuracy werebeside the point.

Indeed, Mr. Sperber, a member of the Jean-Nicod research institute in Paris, firstdeveloped a version of the theory in 2000 to explain why evolution did not makethe manifold flaws in reasoning go the way of the prehensile tail and the four-leggedstride. Looking at a large body of psychological research, Mr. Sperber wanted tofigure out why people persisted in picking out evidence that supported their views

and ignored the rest what is known as confirmation bias leading them to holdon to a belief doggedly in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.

Other scholars have previously argued that reasoning and irrationality are bothproducts of evolution. But they usually assume that the purpose of reasoning is tohelp an individual arrive at the truth, and that irrationality is a kink in that process,a sort of mental myopia. Gary F. Marcus, for example, a psychology professor atNew York University and the author of Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of theHuman Mind, says distortions in reasoning are unintended side effects of blind

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evolution. They are a result of the way that the brain, a Rube Goldberg mentalcontraption, processes memory. People are more likely to remember items they arefamiliar with, like their own beliefs, rather than those of others.

What is revolutionary about argumentative theory is that it presumes that sincereason has a different purpose to win over an opposing group flawed

reasoning is an adaptation in itself, useful for bolstering debating skills.

Mr. Mercier, a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, contends thatattempts to rid people of biases have failed because reasoning does exactly what itis supposed to do: help win an argument.

People have been trying to reform something that works perfectly well, he said,as if they had decided that hands were made for walking and that everybodyshould be taught that.

Think of the American judicial system, in which the prosecutors and defense lawyers

each have a mission to construct the strongest possible argument. The belief is thatthis process will reveal the truth, just as the best idea will triumph in what JohnStuart Mill called the marketplace of ideas.

Mr. Mercier and Mr. Sperber have skeptics as well as fans. Darcia Narvaez, anassociate professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame and a contributorto the journal debate, said this theory fits into evolutionary psychology mainstreamthinking at the moment, that everything we do is motivated by selfishness andmanipulating others, which is, in my view, crazy.

To Ms. Narvaez, reasoning is something that develops from experience; its asubset of what we really know. And much of what we know cannot be put into

words, she explained, pointing out that language evolved relatively late in humandevelopment.

The way we use our minds to navigate the social and general worlds involves a lotof things that are implicit, not explainable, she said.

On the other side of the divide, Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at theUniversity of Virginia, said of Mr. Sperber and Mr. Mercier, Their work is importantand points to some ways that the limits of reason can be overcome by puttingpeople together in the right way, in particular to challenge peoples confirmationbiases.

This powerful idea, he added, could have important real-world implications.

As some journal contributors noted, the theory would seem to predict constantdeadlock. But Mr. Sperber and Mr. Mercier contend that as people became better atproducing and picking apart arguments, their assessment skills evolved as well.

At least in some cultural contexts, this results in a kind of arms race towardsgreater sophistication in the production and evaluation of arguments, they write.

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When people are motivated to reason, they do a better job at accepting only soundarguments, which is quite generally to their advantage. Groups are more likelythan individuals to come up with better results, they say, because they will beexposed to the best arguments.

Mr. Mercier is enthusiastic about the theorys potential applications. He suggests,

for example, that children may have an easier time learning abstract topics inmathematics or physics if they are put into a group and allowed to reason through aproblem together.

He has also recently been at work applying the theory to politics. In a new paper, heand Hlne Landemore, an assistant professor of political science at Yale, proposethat the arguing and assessment skills employed by groups make democraticdebate the best form of government for evolutionary reasons, regardless ofphilosophical or moral rationales.

How, then, do the academics explain the endless stalemates in Congress? It

doesnt seem to work in the U.S., Mr. Mercier conceded.

He and Ms. Landemore suggest that reasoned discussion works best in smaller,cooperative environments rather than in Americas high-decibel adversarial system,in which partisans seek to score political advantage rather than arrive at consensus.

Because individual reasoning mechanisms work best when used to produce andevaluate arguments during a public deliberation, Mr. Mercier and Ms. Landemore,as a practical matter, endorse the theory of deliberative democracy, an approachthat arose in the 1980s, which envisions cooperative town-hall-style deliberations.Championed by the philosophers John Rawls and Jrgen Habermas, this sort ofcollaborative forum can overcome the tendency of groups to polarize at the

extremes and deadlock, Ms. Landemore and Mr. Mercier said.

Anyone who enjoys spending endless hours debating ideas should appreciatetheir views, Mr. Mercier and Mr. Sperber write, though, as even they note, This, ofcourse, is not an argument for (or against) the theory.