MOTIVATED BELIEF AND AGENCY

Can the existence of motivationally biased beliefs plausibly be explai ned without appealing to actions that are aimed at producing or protec ting these beliefs Drawing upon some recent work on everyday hypothesi s testing, I argue for an affirmative answer Some theorists have been too quick to insist that motivated belief must involve, or typically d oes involve, our trying to bring it about that we acquire or retain th e belief, or our trying to make it easier for ourselves to believe a p referred proposition-and too quick to conclude that such exercises of agency are involved in specific instances of the phenomenon. There ave alternative ways to accommodate the data, and it is far from clear th at the ''agency view'' accommodates them better.