Does the truth matter?

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Abel, Samuel; (2024) Does the truth matter? Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

The truth matters. Or so believe most people, most of the time, about most things. That is, they believe it is better to have true beliefs than false ones, to seek accuracy over falsehood. They may disagree about what is true – what the truth ‘is’ – but they all agree that they want it, whatever it may be. Nobody ever says, ‘It would be better to be wrong about this than right’. We believe the truth has instrumental value, as it helps us achieve our goals, and we believe the truth has intrinsic value, that it is valuable for its own sake. The prevailing view is that truth is one of those few ubiquitously sanctified, gold-plated, untouchably-valuable things. The way my view differs from the norm is that I do not think there is anything particularly special about the truth. In what follows I place the value of truth head-to-head with another kind of fundamental value –quality of life, or eudaimonic value. I ask the question, does having the truth improve our lives? My answer will be that the value we assign to truth, both intrinsic and instrumental, is systematically and significantly exaggerated. I argue that we are often just as well off, if not worse off, with true beliefs as we are with false beliefs. I argue that the truth has been wrongly sanctified, and we have lost sight of the many instances in our lives where we would be better off sacrificing it for more important ends, like love, community and psychological well-being. At most, the truth sometimes matters. But in many cases, our lives go better when we disregard it entirely.

Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Qualification:	M.Phil
Title:	Does the truth matter?
Open access status:	An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language:	English
Additional information:	Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification:	UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy
URI:	https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198748