Many of the processes we pejoratively call “cognitive biases” are actually true. Either in the sense of being useful heuristics for everyday circumstances, or in the sense of just being generally true (ie the prototypical grandma being right and a PhD scientist being wrong).
For example, hyperbolic discounting is completely rational in the face of uncertain risks. This is clearly the case when planning for the far future. While one might care about future beings in an abstract sense, it doesn’t make sense to include their well-being in ones decision making as it has been discounted to approximately zero. As an extreme example: I fully agree that humans outside my light-cone have the same moral worth as those inside my light-cone, but since I can never effect those outside my light-cone (assuming they exist, which is not something we will ever know) I don’t factor them into moral decisions.
Many of the processes we pejoratively call “cognitive biases” are actually true. Either in the sense of being useful heuristics for everyday circumstances, or in the sense of just being generally true (ie the prototypical grandma being right and a PhD scientist being wrong).
For example, hyperbolic discounting is completely rational in the face of uncertain risks. This is clearly the case when planning for the far future. While one might care about future beings in an abstract sense, it doesn’t make sense to include their well-being in ones decision making as it has been discounted to approximately zero. As an extreme example: I fully agree that humans outside my light-cone have the same moral worth as those inside my light-cone, but since I can never effect those outside my light-cone (assuming they exist, which is not something we will ever know) I don’t factor them into moral decisions.