Thread by @Moshe_Hoffman

Historical discourse, & discourse surrounding current events, often conflate ‘justifications’ w/ ‘causes’.

Let me give some examples illustrating the conflation, why common methods for de-conflating don’t work, some methods that might, and why it matters.

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Of course, sometimes stated reasons are actually the the true reason.

If you asked me why I was carrying an umbrella, I would probably tell you the truth: cause I thought it would rain.

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And sometimes the truth is a mistaken belief:

People throughout the works practiced blood letting because of mistaken intuitions re bad fluids and drainage. And lack of knowledge re germ theory.

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Perhaps equally as often, stated reasons are clearly just justifications.

Hitler clearly didn’t attack the jews *because* they started ww2. Despite what he announced to the world after invading Poland and starting the war.
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And, admittedly, in many instances it’s rather hard to tell if people’s stated reasons are the actual reasons.

Did the 13 colonies rebel *because* they were taxed and not represented? Or was that just an argument for lower taxes and eventually removing British rule?

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Does trump think Mexicans are rapists *because* he is racist to the bone? Or is misinformed?

Or does he just say this as an excuse to reduce low skilled migrant, which competes with his base for jobs?

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The question is, when it’s not obvious:

How can we tell? And are current methods for telling, up to the tasks?

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Historians and journalist and the likes certainly try.

They realize people often just say things they don’t really believe. And you need to get at true beliefs.

Eg by reading private correspondents. Or seeing what people do when not in public.

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If the founding fathers wrote private letters bitching about taxation w/o representation, then they likely actually believed this.

And, therefore, it is presumed, this belief is more liable to have been an actual cause of disobedience, and not just a stated justification.

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But is that a valid argument?

Not if we come to believe our own justifications.

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(A common theme of my research and threads: ignoring the fact that we internalize what we are incentivized to do and say creates all sorts of non-sequitors. Like the one I am about to highlight.)

*Suppose* the founding fathers actually just wanted to justify reducing taxes and minimizing parliamentary control.

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And ‘no taxation w/o representation’ just made for a good excuse.

A good rallying cry. A good way to make their demand seem less self-interested and more principled. And a good way to make their demand seem obligatory under British law, precedent, and political philosophy.

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And that excuse, if said often enough, and fervently enough, starts to be believed.

What if the more evidence and arguments you can make to back up this excuse, the more compelling you become AND the more you start to believe it yourself?

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(Aside: there is *a ton* of evidence that this happens. We all see it happen everyday. You can even see it happening to yourself. And, imo, it’s rather hard to understand our deeply held convictions *withour* acknowledging this fact.)

Well then justifications will also be fervently believed. But such beliefs won’t actually be causal.

(The true cause, is the thing in need of justifying. In this example, the desire to pay less taxes.)

Making the method of checking for genuine belief invalid.

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To see that this can actually be a problem, imagine if a historian were to comb through trump’s supporter’s emails to their friends and lovers. Would they not find evidence of deeply held conviction for trump’s lies? Probably.

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Take for instance the belief that Russia didn’t meddle in our election.

Do many trump supporters deeply hold this belief? Probably.

Is *that* why Trump isn’t sanctioning Russia more? Why the senate isn’t protecting 2020 elections against further meddling?

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Does trump himself truly believe Russia didn’t meddle? Probably not. But it’s not inconceivable that he does.

What he “deeply” believes is a bit of a fine line. A jumble between what he says. And has motive to say. And what info he has access to.

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But is this line so important for determining causality? Is where his deep convictions lie crucial for determining *why* he isn’t protecting 2020 against interference?

Of course not. He isn’t pushing for protections because he benefits from such interference.

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And he denies Russian 2016 meddling, whether or not he himself believes these denial, because such meddling undermines his legitimacy, and admitting to it would require him to do something about it. Not to mention his own culpability in it.

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His and his supporters ‘actual beliefs’ are actually immaterial in determining the lack of sanctioning or protections.

Which goes to show that the currently utilized method of differentiating beliefs that are causal and beliefs that are justificatory are not up to the task.

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That’s my critique. My main message for this thread.

Deeply held beliefs can still be mere justifications. And aren’t necessarily the actual cause.

So we need to use other methods if we want to decipher actual causes from stated or even believed causes.

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OK. So how *can* we tell if a stated reason, even when believed by the stater, is no more than a justification? And not the actual cause of their behavior?

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One way to tell, imo:

Would they be stating this reason (or believing in it) if they didn’t have a need to justify their behavior, or this reason didn’t help them justify?

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Clearly trump, whether he believes his own lies or not, wouldn’t be exonerating Russia if they had aided Hilary.

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That’s a clear tell that he’s not exonerating them *because* he believes it could have been a 300 lb man on his bed in Florida. Or the Ukrainians.

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Going back to our founding fathers: would they have argued against taxation w/o representation had they been the ones w/ representation in England and someone else was being taxed? Probably not.

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Did they make this argument when they didn’t have a need to argue against taxation writ large? No. Turns out, at first they just argued against “internal taxation”. Ie they thought it was fine to tax cargo. Just not stamps.

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Why the distinction? A distinction that no one had explicitly stated before. And that no one worried about after.

Cause now their stamps were being taxed. And there was long precedent for taxing cargo.

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Did the people in colonies w/ other reasons not to be disobedient make the same arguments?

Not in the Caribbean’s where they relied on the British navy for protection and British troops to preempt slave rebellions.

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Not in british Canada, where the colonists were more dependent on British trade.

And not for most members of parliament or the crown, where they needed the tax funds and weren’t the ones being asked to pay them.

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Now you might think the justification—no taxation w/o representation—was nevertheless causal, because lacking this justification the colonists might not have been so inclined to rebel.

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Imo that’s the next thing to be asked: how essential is the justification for getting the behavior off the ground.

If you take it away, would another justification be forthcoming? Or would the outcome really change?

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For the colonists, the answer was clearly: another justification would have been proffered. And the behavior would have been much the same.

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(tbh that almost always seems to be the case. Albeit often the alternative justifications available but not utilized aren’t quite as good. So the justified behavior might be somewhat less forecoming. And other slight behavioral adjustments needed due to consistency motives.)

We can tell, because the colonists has plenty of other justifications up their sleeves, that came up as needed, and likewise weren’t bought by anyone outside the rebellion.

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Like the king being a tyrant. Interfering with their ‘liberties’—the right to steal land from the natives, enslave Africans, mistreat Catholics, etc.

Things you and I, and anyone who isn’t them, wouldn’t really count as a liberty.

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But they sure did.

To them the British were “enslaving them” by threatening to limit their ability to enslave Africans.

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(And what of the argument that the British and the Americans just didn’t see eye to eye? The war was just a sad culmination of one giant misunderstanding? A common trope in American history classes.)

(Hopefully the above discussion makes clear why that too ain’t a great explanation...The misunderstanding isn’t the cause if the misunderstanding stems from each sides seeing the world exactly the way that helps justify their behavior.)

Ok so that’s the main way in which I think we can tell justifications from causes...

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Who holds them. Do they and only they benefit from holding these justifications. Would they find another way to justify if this justification weren’t available. Do they still hold them when the justification isn’t needed.

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(Oh and fun fact: during and after the war, when the colonists were unifying and designing their own government. Lo and behold, many of their earlier justifications got thrown out the window...)

(...Turns out you don’t have the right to rebel every time the government does something you don’t like, once you become the government.)

Who cares if we conflate justifications w/ causes?

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Presumably it’s already obvious:

Mostly we will end up w/ the wrong causal models.

And to the extent that we want to actually understand the past, deal with the present, and intervene to change the future, it helps to have that right.

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Having the wrong causal models means political science, historical theories, and the likes, are all gonna be mislead

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Under-estimating the causal role of the things that beg for justifications. The self-serving behaviors that we are trying to hide.

And over-estimating the causal role of people’s fallacious beliefs and ideologies.

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Like in the above example:

By taking the founding fathers’ justifications as causal we underestimate the actual things that lead to rebellion: like the desire to enslave, steal, and pay less taxes, and control their own territory, legislatures, and populace.

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And we over-estimate the significance of Rousseau and Locke. And whatever other ideas that made for convenient justifications.

(Which admittedly makes for better nationalistic propoganda. And classically liberal propoganda?)

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When it comes to trump and his lies, reporters who focus much on what he said and believes end up unwittingly being trump’s spokesmen. Or apologists.

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Instead of calling out the nefarious schemes and selfish motives, as often as they should be.

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And how are we to prevent another trump if we don’t fully understand what’s driving him?

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Lastly, if we fail to properly see internalized justifications for what they are, we will miss out on understanding what actually drives people’s beliefs and rhetoric

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And much as I don’t think these internalized justifications are the primary causes, they certainly are worthy of understanding. As they do have some interesting effects.

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Like the fact that there are strong motives to make our justifications appear consistent. Which creates some cost from behaving inconsistent with stated justifications. Yielding *some* causal affect on behavior.

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Like the fact that the appearance of consistency isn’t the same as consistency, yielding interesting effects of logical contortions and plausible deniability on behavior and beliefs.

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Ok that’s all I have for why we should care. Hopefully that’s enough.

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And hopefully you are convinced that beliefs and talking points may just as well be internalized justifications. With some causal impact. But not the ones ascribed to them. And there are means of telling the difference. Like who and when is espousing what.

Eom