Thought Experiment

A Thought Experiment Is a Peek into the Counterfactual World

You can’t detect motivated reasoning in yourself just by scrutinizing your reasoning and concluding that it makes sense. You have to compare your reasoning to the way you would have reasoned in a counterfactual world, a world in which your motivations were different—would you judge that politician’s actions differently if he was in the opposite party? Would you evaluate that advice differently if your friend had offered it instead of your spouse? Would you consider that study’s methodology sound if its conclusions supported your side?

Of course, you can’t know for sure how you would have reasoned if circumstances were different. You can’t literally visit the counterfactual world. But you can do the next best thing—peek into it virtually, with a thought experiment.

Over the next few pages, we’ll explore five different types of thought experiments: the double standard test, the outsider test, the conformity test, the selective skeptic test, and the status quo bias test. But before we start, here’s an important tip to keep in mind when doing a thought experiment: Try to actually imagine the counterfactual scenario. To see why that matters, think of a six-year-old child who’s just made fun of another child. His mother reprimands him and tries to show him why what he did was wrong by posing this age-old thought experiment: “Imagine you were in Billy’s shoes and someone was making fun of you in front of your friends. How would you feel?”

Her son replies instantly: “I wouldn’t mind!”

It’s pretty obvious the child isn’t really imagining himself in Billy’s shoes, right? He’s just saying what he knows to be the correct answer, the answer that means he hasn’t done anything wrong. Thought experiments only work if you actually do them. So don’t simply formulate a verbal question for yourself. Conjure up the counterfactual world, place yourself in it, and observe your reaction.

You might be surprised at what a difference that makes. A law student I knew a few years ago, whom I’ll call Keisha, was unhappy in law school and unexcited about the idea of being a lawyer, but she always dismissed the idea of quitting. One of her friends asked, “Are you just staying in law school because you don’t want to disappoint your parents? If you knew they didn’t care, would that change your decision?”

“No, I wouldn’t stay in law school just for their sake. That would be crazy,” Keisha said firmly.

Her friend pushed her a little harder, this time making the question more vivid: “Okay, imagine that tomorrow, your parents call you up and say, ‘You know what, Keisha, we’ve been talking about it and we’re concerned that you aren’t happy in law school. We just wanted to make sure you know that we don’t care if you quit—we just want you to do something you enjoy.’”

And Keisha realized: In that case, I would quit law school right away.