Moral confabulation: when you dislike something so much that you make up stuff

22Sep/09

Moral confabulation: when you dislike something so much that you make up stuff

I would like to coin the term moral confabulation (ok, I didn't coin it first...there are 23 google results for it...but I'd like to popularize it) and I've now added it as a category on this site. Confabulation is the formation of false beliefs or memories. In the moral realm, one confabulates when ones emotional gut reaction to some event is so strong that it causes one to posit new beliefs that may be at strong odds with reality.

I do not believe that this is just a conservative phenomenon and I hope to illustrate this phenomenon in liberals (eg. social justice may be a confabulation of empathy for the poor). However, I couldn't let this video pass without sharing it.

Sometimes you dislike a group (homosexuals) or a thing (pornography) so much, that reasons why they are bad just keep coming to mind. It's very related to this scenario which affects both liberals and conservatives. Without making any claims about the rightness or wrongness of these objects, I feel that moral confabulation is a phenomenon worth studying. And sometimes giving something a name makes it more study-able. If you know of more examples of moral confabulation, please share.

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Bill R
September 30th, 2009 - 12:25

This dovetails with the concept of “rational irrationality” popularized by Bryan Caplan. You can demonize your opponents and feel better about yourself and worldview in politics because it’s costless (i.e. a single vote). Whereas continually weighing evidence means you have to sacrifice personal feelings of certainty and self-righteous for practically zero political benefit and zero personal benefit.

Some examples I’ve come across:
Birthers- Hating the President or even liberal Democrats so much you’re willing to believe in wild conspiracy theories and see “evidence” everywhere.

Truthers- See above. Exchange Dems w/Repubs

Apocalyptics like Hagee and Bush, etc that want to see their version of the world so much that they literally lobby for Armageddon in the middle east and see “signs” everywhere. (Gog and Magog)

Other brands of Zionist Christians/Jews and hawks who believe that Al-Qaeda/Islamo-Fascism really has the possibility of dominating the world and see “evidence” everywhere.

Bircherism

Michael Moore/Paul Krugman conspiracy theories

All of these have varying degrees of attachment to reality but in many cases bits of evidence are contorted to fit the confabulater’s world view and agenda.

I believe this happens fairly regularly ala cognitive bias but it’s only a matter of degree/feverish pitch that draws most people’s attention. And as mentioned earlier there is little cost to doing so in politics and personal benefit in terms of personal righteousness.

I think it really should be studied more on the Left in my opinion as the small government right has been smeared for decades as the only perpetrator ala Hofstadter et al. Also right wingers typically aren’t in academia. I think the left has been given a free pass. The only popularized version was Krauthammer’s epithet of BDS. Also neocons I think are very susceptible to moral confabulation but overlooked as well. Probably because their biases have cover in “respectable” print venues. Check out Frank Gaffney on Obama as a Muslim sympathetic to and/or actively in favor of spreading Islamo-Fascism across the M.E. sometime). And he’s a think tank president.
Ravi
October 2nd, 2009 - 23:39

Thanks for the suggestions, Bill. Those are great examples and I completely agree that it should be studied both on the left and the right. I’ll see if I can find some of your examples to post.