Interdisciplinary Research Seminar in Philosophy and Economics

Motivated Reasoning

(180135-2), spring 2025

(the next seminar is planned to be offered in the fall term 2026 on a topic tba)

Purpose 

This seminar serves to discuss “motivated reasoning” from various perspectives in philosophy and economics. The basic idea behind motivated reasoning is (in the words of Epley and Gilovich, JEP 2016) that “People generally reason their way to conclusions they favor, with their preferences influencing the way evidence is gathered, arguments are processed, and memories of past experience are recalled. Each of these processes can be affected in subtle ways by people’s motivations, leading to biased beliefs that feel objective”. The course addresses theoretical arguments and empirical evidence related to this claim and discusses potential practical implications for choices in the economic, political, and social sphere.

  The seminar is co-taught by Hans Bernhard Schmid (a philosopher) and by Jean-Robert Tyran (an economist).

5 ECTS credits, English

See handout for more information.

All materials are available on moodle.

Readings (in order of discussion)

  1. Mele, A.R. (1998): Motivated belief and agency. Philosophical Psychology 11(3): 353-369.
  2. Peels, R. (2015): Believing at Will is Possible. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93(3): 1-18.
  3. Paul, S.K. (2015): Doxastic Self-Control. American Philosophical Quarterly 52(2): 145-58.
  4. Rinard, S. (2018): Believing for Practical Reasons. Noûs 4: 763-784.
  5. Roeber, B. (2019): Evidence, Judgment, and Belief at Will. Mind 128(511): 837-859.
  6. Townsend, L.C. (2020): Staying True with the Help of Others: Doxastic Self-Control through Interpersonal Commitment. Philosophical Explorations 22 (3): 243-258.
  7. Bénabou, R. and Tirole, J. (2016): Mindful Economics: The Production, Consumption, and Value of Beliefs. Journal of Economic Perspectives 30(3): 141-164.  
  8. Cefala, E., Kartal, M., Kritzinger and Tyran, J.-R. (2024): Sorting Fact from Fiction when Reasoning is Motivated. Mimeo. Nov. 2024 (work in progress, draft is provided on Moodle)
  9. Celniker, J.B. and Ditto, P.H. (2024): Of Preferences and Priors: Motivated Reasoning in Partisans’ Evaluations of Scientific Evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition 127, No. 5, 986-1011.
  10. Hagenbach, J. and Saucet, C. (2024): Motivated Skepticism. Review of Economic Studies, forthcoming. 
  11. Zimmermann, F. (2020): The Dynamics of Motivated Beliefs. American Economic Review 110(2): 337-361. 
  12. Schwardmann, P., Tripodi, E. and van der Weele, J.J. (2022): Self-Persuasion: Evidence from Field Experiments at International Debating Competitions. American Economic Review 112(4): 1118-1146.

 

Preparatory background reading:

Epley, N. and Gilovich, T. (2016): The Mechanics of Motivated Reasoning. Journal of Economic Perspectives 30(3): 133-140.  

Williams, B. (1970): Deciding to Believe. In: B. Williams, Problems of the Self. Cambridge Univ. Press.