People acknowledge and condone their own morally motivated reasoning

People often engage in motivated reasoning, favoring some beliefs over others even when the result is a departure from objective, evidence-based reasoning. In many cases, people are unaware of their biases and operate under an “illusion of objectivity.” We identify an important domain of life in which people harbor no illusions about their biases – when they engage in morally motivated reasoning. Specifically, people think that moral considerations should influence what beliefs they hold (Study 1). Accordingly, even after accounting for the perceived evidential strength for their beliefs, people judge their own currently-held beliefs as more justified, and hold them with greater confidence, when they associate those beliefs with moral benefits (Study 2). And finally, when people engage in morally motivated reasoning, they exhibit awareness of this motivated reasoning and judge their motivated reasoning as ideal (Studies 3-5). These findings overturn longstanding assumptions about the nature of motivated reasoning, and demonstrate a boundary condition on Naïve Realism and the Bias Blind Spot. People’s tendency to recognize and condone their biases reveals new opportunities and new challenges for resolving ideological conflict and improving everyday reasoning.