Reading note 1 -- the moral landscope (chapter 3)

Do we have freedom belief

• A belief -- to be actually believed -- entails the corollary belief that we have accepted ti because it seems to be true.
• This does not mean, of course, that we have no mental freedom whatsoever. We can choose to focus on certain facts to the exclusion of others, to emphasize the good rather than the bad.
• What this shows is that people tend to be risk-averse when considering potential gains and risk seeking when considering potential losses, so describing the same event in terms of gains and losses evokes different response.
• It is startling to see the principle so clearly demonstrated: expectation can be, if not everything, almost everything. Rosenhan concluded his paper with the damning summary:"it is clear that we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in psychiatric hospital."