Motivated reasoning is the cause of many, many miscarriages of justice. The problem is that it is a deadly sin in the sense of Thomas Aquinas, as explained in Angels Fear by Gregory and Mary Catherine Bateson:
And when this is left unchecked for centuries, then eventually, .... all hell breaks loose. Now see this:
And consider also this problem
And note that we do need to help to manage this complexity. And this was noted by Pierre-Simon Laplace over two centuries ago, in his philosophical essay on probability
Saint Thomas's definition of Deadly Sin is marked with the same latent sophistication. A sin is recognized as "deadly" if its commission promotes further committing of the same sin by others, "in the manner of a final cause." (I note that, according to this definition, participation in an armaments race is among the sins that are deadly.) In fact, the mysterious "final causes" of Aristotle, as interpreted by Saint Thomas, fit right in with what modern cybernetics calls positive feedback, providing a first approach to the problems of purpose and causality [especially when causality appears not to flow with the flow of time].
And when this is left unchecked for centuries, then eventually, .... all hell breaks loose. Now see this:
And consider also this problem
And note that we do need to help to manage this complexity. And this was noted by Pierre-Simon Laplace over two centuries ago, in his philosophical essay on probability
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