Human reasoning evolved mainly to win arguments, not find truth

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 2 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Psychologists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber argue that human reasoning functions primarily to construct and evaluate persuasive arguments, rather than to uncover objective truth. Drawing on existing evidence from reasoning and decision-making research, they propose that this argumentative function makes sense of our strong reliance on communication and vulnerability to being misled.

This argumentative-function theory reinterprets well-known patterns such as confirmation bias: skilled arguers seek support for their own views rather than the truth, which can distort evaluations and let false beliefs persist. The theory also explains why people often perform poorly on abstract reasoning tasks but reason skillfully when defending opinions in a real argumentative exchange.

This is a theoretical paper that reinterprets existing psychological evidence rather than reporting a new experiment, so it does not establish the hypothesis with new data of its own.

Why it matters: This theory suggests our reasoning is built for winning arguments, which helps explain persistent biases like motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

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