I have mentioned previously on this blog the interesting theory of Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber that reasoning evolved -- not to nobly discern truths -- but to persuade our fellow apes to cooperate with us. Thus Mercier and Sperber argue:"Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself — in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity — is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them." -- Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.
In other words, those of us who wish in at least some cases to arrive at rational beliefs and rational decisions are somewhat in the position of a person who must drive screws with a hammer -- the tool we have available to us (reason) did not evolve for the purpose to which we wish to employ it, and only by taking the greatest care can we arrive safely at our goal."The evidence reviewed here shows not only that reasoning falls quite short of reliably delivering rational beliefs and rational decisions. It may even be, in a variety of cases, detrimental to rationality. Reasoning can lead to poor outcomes, not because humans are bad at it, but because they systematically strive for arguments that justify their beliefs or their actions. This explains the confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and reason-based choice, among other things."
I do not think Mercier and Sperber quite address Nietzsche's question of how any of us could actually have "an honest and pure drive for truth". Moreover, I'm not sure Nietzsche in his later writings maintained that any of us had such a drive. But I'm curious what you think: Do any of us -- even the rarest of us -- have what Nietzsche called "an honest and pure drive for truth", or do we always have one or another ulterior motive on those occasions when we actually seek the truth (as oppose to a mere justification for our beliefs or actions)?
