Beware surprising and suspicious convergence

Abstract

Imagine this:. Oliver: … Thus we see that donating to the opera is the best way of promoting the arts. Eleanor: Okay, but I’m principally interested in improving human welfare. Oliver: Oh! Well I think it is also the case that donating to the opera is best for improving human welfare too. Generally, what is best for one thing is usually not the best for something else, and thus Oliver’s claim that donations to opera are best for the arts and human welfare is surprising. We may suspect bias: that Oliver’s claim that the Opera is best for the human welfare is primarily motivated by his enthusiasm for opera and desire to find reasons in favour, rather than a cooler, more objective search for what is really best for human welfare.