Truth versus utility

Yesterday I said I thought religion was false but useful. This raises the question: how many other beliefs do we have that are false but beneficial, or true but harmful?
I ask because we naturally think that truth, utility and (following Keats) beauty must all coincide. But why should they? Isaiah Berlin warned us that values can and do conflict.
Certainly, some thinkers have pointed out the benefits of false beliefs. Here's Donald Davidson:

Both self-deception and wishful thinking are often benign. It is neither surprising nor on the whole bad that people think better of their friends and families than a clear-eyed survey of the evidence would justify. Learning is probably more often encouraged than not by parents and teachers who over-rate the intelligence of their wards. Spouses often keep things on an even keel by ignoring or overlooking the lipstick on the collar. ("Deception and division", in Jon Elster (ed), The Multiple Self).

And here are Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross on the benefits of over-confidence:

We probably would have few novelists, actors or scientists if all potential aspirants to those careers took action based on a normatively justifiable probability of success. We might also have few new products, new medical procedures, new political movements or new scientific theories. (Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment).

And Hayek raised this trade-off between utility and truth:

It is...a real dilemma to what extent we ought to encourage in the young the belief that when they really try they will succeed, or should rather emphasize that inevitably some unworthy will succeed and some worthy fail. (Law, Legislation and Liberty, vol II)

Here's my list of false but useful beliefs: my life has purpose and meaning; people love me; I can control my destiny; honesty is the best policy; hard work will pay off; virtue is its own reward.
But what of a list of true but dangerous beliefs, other than the opposite of these? Obviously, lots of true beliefs are damaging to some people - that's trivial. Here's a fascinating list of possibly true ideas that are more widely dangerous. To this, I'd add Walrasian general equilibrium as a true but dangerous idea. The truth is that, in theory, a free market is welfare-maximizing. The danger is that this scientistic attempt to prove the superiority of free market economics has distracted both supporters and opponents of markets from the Hayekian case for markets.
This raises two questions. First, am I ignoring the possibility that the truth is so inherently good as to outweigh any adverse effects it has? And if not, in how many other cases do truth and utility conflict?

Comments

[nik]

First, am I ignoring the possibility that the truth is so inherently good as to outweigh any adverse effects it has? And if not, in how many other cases do truth and utility conflict?

I'd like to ask commentators to refrain from replying to these questions as I doubt that knowing the answers would benefit Chris.

[John East]

Truth has one overall benefit that trumps all of the other pros and cons you've listed. In those cases where the truthful (or otherwise) fact will be used to inform some action or strategy it's pretty damned important that fact is actually true rather than perceived to be true.

Back to the religious context, I'll accept the actual truth that a blood transfusion might save my life if I've lost a lot of blood, over the perceived truth of Jehovah's Whitnesses that I will rot in hell if I follow this course of action.

[david]

Sometimes it's better to believe the truth. It helps sort through the next steps.

[david]

Okay, I went to the edge list and read Ventner, and came back feeling very burned. What a pack of dumbshit genetics fairy tales pass for dangerous ideas. Wow, and Pinker suggested the question.

So, perhaps we need another dangerous question. Why do white folks (men, really) need to believe that stories that explain why they are so great are actually dangerous truths?

[John East]

Excellent piece by Ventner on Edge,

"We attribute behaviors in other mammalian species to genes and genetics but when it comes to humans we seem to like the notion that we are all created equal, or that each child is a "blank slate". As we obtain the sequences of more and more mammalian genomes including more human sequences, together with basic observations and some common sense, we will be forced to turn away from the politically correct interpretations, as our new genomic tool sets provide the means to allow us to begin to sort out the reality about nature or nurture. In other words, we are at the threshold of a realistic biology of humankind."

Watch the liberals squirm.

[dearieme]

Do you think that the Americans and Australians gain by their patently false belief that their societies have no class distinctions? "Which Americans and Australians?" would be my reply.