Bad Argument Follow-Up: They Actually Believe It

In Professor Buchanan's "Veganniversary" essay yesterday, he referred to a variety of bad arguments against veganism, locating them within the larger culture that of late celebrates what many readers (and this writer) still regard as toxic masculinity. As it happens, I recently had occasion to encounter another familiar bad argument, which I'll describe as a way of making a point about the nature of strong beliefs.

I've just completed a six-day bicycle tour of Counties Kerry and Cork in Ireland. It was part of an organized trip that included me, one of my adult daughters, two guides, and seven strangers who soon became friends. We all got along very well and had a splendid time. At various shared meals, I was given different food items from the standard fare, so it quickly became known that I'm a vegan. Mostly this went unremarked but at one point during the middle of the trip, one of the other cyclists, who, I should emphasize, is a very smart person with good values, said to me, unprompted: "I feel like I shouldn't eat meat because those are animals . . . [long pause] . . . but then I think that animals eat animals."

Not wishing to be that vegan, I nodded and smiled. As gently as possible, I said "okay, but the animals humans eat tend to be herbivores." The topic didn't come up again.

Now, if I were teaching a class in which someone said it's morally unproblematic to eat animals because animals eat animals, I might have asked whether they generally take their ethical cues from the behavior of nonhuman animals. Various nonhuman animal species routinely practice infanticide, rape (including via traumatic insemination), cannibalism, and other horrors. Presumably ethical people would not think that would justify any of those practices by humans. 

I bring up this conversation only because it's very recent. I have encountered the animals-eat-other-animals justification for human consumption of nonhuman animals many times before. There's a whole chapter on this argument in Sherry Colb's 2013 book, Mind if I Order the Cheeseburger? It is such a bad argument that one wonders whether the people who make it actually believe it or if it is simply a self-serving rationalization. And that brings me to my main point: They believe it, and it is a self-serving rationalization.

When someone offers a very bad reason for holding a belief, it is tempting to think they do not really hold that belief but are simply offering an excuse. That can be true but it often isn't, especially when the belief was not adopted in response to rational argument but was inculcated through practice, social pressure, and/or indoctrination. Religious belief typically works this way but so do all sorts of other beliefs, including the belief that it is morally unobjectionable to eat animals, which hits the trifecta: in our culture, the vast majority of people: (1) are fed animal products from early childhood; (2) receive constant social cues that eating animals is normal; and (3) are indoctrinated into the belief through stories and slogans (such as the "circle of life"). Thus, for the vast majority of people, anti-veganism (or speciesism, carnism, or call it what you will), is a very strong belief that is central to their identity.

"It is well known that people often resist changing their beliefs when directly challenged, especially when these beliefs are central to their identity." That's a quote from a 2016 academic paper published in Nature and reporting on a study that looked at the neurological basis for the phenomenon using fMRI. The study compared resistance to changing political versus non-political beliefs but did not look specifically at beliefs about eating animals. That's fine for my purposes here, because I want to segué to political beliefs. The study found that people were especially resistant to changing strongly held political beliefs in response to challenges (such as contrary evidence or arguments). 

Putting all of this together, we see how people can sincerely believe very bad arguments. Suppose Peter strongly holds identity-defining belief X because it was inculcated through practice, social pressure, and/or indoctrination. Jane confronts Peter with evidence and arguments that call X into question. Peter resists Jane's evidence and arguments by constructing counterarguments that rationalize X. Peter believes these objectively bad counterarguments because of Peter's antecedent and sticky belief in X. This works whether X is Republicans will keep me safe, eating animals is morally acceptable, the Bible is a sensible source of moral guidance, or any other belief, so long as it is strongly held and identity-defining.

There is a substantial body of literature on how to overcome resistance to belief challenges. It mostly finds what one would expect: Try to present your evidence and arguments in a way that doesn't threaten your interlocutor's identity. I'm going to put that point aside today, although I think it's very important for advocates for any cause. My focus here is on the beliefs, arguments, and evidence in the first place.

Finally, I should offer an admission and a word about outliers. The confession is that I am sure what I have described applies to me as well. I like to think I subject my beliefs to rational evaluation and re-evaluation, but part of the phenomenon I've described is that it operates as a kind of filter, so I'm undoubtedly under-counting evidence that contradicts some of my own strongly held core beliefs.

Now the word about outliers: I have been considering how beliefs and resistance to belief change operate in most people. I am not addressing pathological liars, psychopaths, or bullshitters.

--Michael C. Dorf