Can evolution get us off the hook? Evaluating the ecological defence of human rationality
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20409402 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maarten Boudry (0000-0003-0932-3394, Ghent University, corresponding author), Michael Vlerick (0000-0002-0664-1509, University of Johannesburg), Ryan Mckay (0000-0001-7781-1539, Royal Holloway University of London) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Pages | 524-535 |
| Publication date | 2015-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Consciousness and Cognition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1053-8100 • E-ISSN: 1090-2376 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.concog.2014.08.025 |
| PMID | 25467781 |
| OpenAlex | W2039754150 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 49 |
This paper discusses the ecological case for epistemic innocence: does biased cognition have evolutionary benefits, and if so, does that exculpate human reasoners from irrationality? Proponents of 'ecological rationality' have challenged the bleak view of human reasoning emerging from research on biases and fallacies. If we approach the human mind as an adaptive toolbox, tailored to the structure of the environment, many alleged biases and fallacies turn out to be artefacts of narrow norms and artificial set-ups. However, we argue that putative demonstrations of ecological rationality involve subtle locus shifts in attributions of rationality, conflating the adaptive rationale of heuristics with our own epistemic credentials. By contrast, other cases also involve an ecological reframing of human reason, but do not involve such problematic locus shifts. We discuss the difference between these cases, bringing clarity to the rationality debate
Cognition · Cognitive science · Ecological rationality · Epistemology · Heuristics · Irrationality · Rationality · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
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Ignorance is strength
Naturalism, tractability and the adaptive toolbox
General-Purpose Institutional Decision-Making Heuristics
The hot hand phenomenon as a cognitive adaptation to clumped resources
The subtleties of error management
Heuristics
Ecological RationalityIntelligence in the World
The Evolution of Altruistic Behavior
The Paranoid Optimist
D arwin's D angerous I dea
On the reality of cognitive illusions.
Individual differences in reasoning
Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory
Are humans good intuitive statisticians after all? Rethinking some conclusions from the literature on judgment under uncertainty
SSL
Homo Heuristicus
On narrow norms and vague heuristics
Judgment under uncertainty
Do Frequency Representations Eliminate Conjunction Effects? An Exercise in Adversarial Collaboration
Models of ecological rationality
The optimism bias
The hot hand in basketball
Judgment under Uncertainty
A perspective on judgment and choice
Explaining culture
Simple Heuristics in a Social World
The ‘conjunction fallacy’ revisited
How (far) can rationality be naturalized
Abstraction is Uncooperative
Biased evaluation and persistence in gambling
Becoming famous overnight
Error management theory
How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction
How to Make Cognitive Illusions Disappear
Costs and benefits of judgment errors
The social context of reasoning
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,82 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2026 (12) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |