Why do humans reason?

By Hugo Mercier

Abstract

What does reason help humans do? Hugo Mercier starts his lecture by explaining how reason differs from intuition. He then defines the theory of the individualistic view of reasoning and cites René Descartes and Daniel Kahneman as its defendants. Mercier continues by giving an example of a reasoning test to show that reason is not accurate but helps humans in social interactions. To conclude his demonstration, Mercier enumerates a series of predictions about the human ability to reason. First, reason has a myside bias. Second, it shows selective laziness. Third, it enables better evaluation of arguments. The fourth prediction is a consequence of the first three ones: people tend to evaluate arguments more accurately when in a group than alone.

Summary

00:00:10 – Introduction

00:00:40 – 1. What is reason?
00:01:00 – 1.1. Intuition
00:01:50 – 1.2. Reason

00:03:48 – 2. Why do we reason?
00:04:05 – 2.1. The individualistic view of reasoning
00:05:00 – 2.2. Example of a reasoning test
00:10:27 – 2.3. Interactions

00:11:48 – 3. Series of predictions
00:11:53 – 3.1. Prediction 1: myside bias
00:12:45 – 3.2. Prediction 2: selective laziness
00:23:00 – 3.2. Prediction 3: good argument evaluation skills
00:28:23 – 3.4. Prediction 4: groups outperform individuals on reasoning tasks

00:35:50 – Conclusion