The Slavery of Motivated Reasoning, According to the Ancient Greeks

Douglas C. Bates
13 min readFeb 8, 2023

Since the beginning of history, people have jumped to conclusions. Only afterward have they come up with reasons for those conclusions — all the while deluding themselves and others that the process happened in the other direction. This is what David Hume was talking about when he said “reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.”

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Douglas C. Bates

Ancient Greek philosophies of life. http://www.pyrrhonism.org Author of “Pyrrho’s Way: The Ancient Greek Version of Buddhism.”