As countless commentators have observed, this lends to our beliefs an element of the arbitrary. Montaigne, for instance, remarked that people “are swept [into a belief]—either by the custom of their country or by their parental upbringing, or by chance—as by a tempest, without judgment or choice, indeed most often before the age of discretion.”* This claim is at once obvious and irksome, not least because it is directly at odds with the ’Cuz It’s True Constraint. If we think we believe our beliefs based on the facts, we aren’t likely to appreciate the alternative theory that we actually
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