Steven Poole at Aeon: ‘We Are More Rational Than Those Who Nudge Us.’
‘And so there is less reason than many think to doubt humans’ ability to be reasonable. The dissenting critiques of the cognitive-bias literature argue that people are not, in fact, as individually irrational as the present cultural climate assumes. And proponents of debiasing argue that we can each become more rational with practice. But even if we each acted as irrationally as often as the most pessimistic picture implies, that would be no cause to flatten democratic deliberation into the weighted engineering of consumer choices, as nudge politics seeks to do’
You’ve got to learn how to see these things coming, and use your reason:
For some, I’m guessing behavioral economics has proved an alluring form of knowledge to favor existing political philosophies, formulate legal theories, and yes, to further Leftist and liberal political ideology (not all, of course, and not overtly).
After all, if previous economic models assume you, as an individual, behave rationally in making economic choices in your own self-interest and thus leave you alone in important ways, this is much less appealing than claiming that you behave sometimes irrationally in predictable ways, possibly on the level of cognitive science, and well what a wonderful opportunity for some people to step-in and make sense of this new knowledge for you and control your life.
Lately, whenever I see a scientific claim out in the media, however banal or possibly well or ill-founded, I keep in mind the bands of wandering post-Enlightenment ideologues who seek to attach their ideological, emotional and political commitments to the sciences. Just as healthcare and education stir deep sympathies and present difficult moral, practical and institutional challenges for all of us, these fields tend to attract those who already have enough knowledge to run your life for you. or ‘just want to help’.
That’s often not really about the sciences.
And if such ideas are used to justify increasing intrusion into your life, it’s probably not really about being liberal, either.
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New liberty away from Hobbes…toward Hayek…but can you see Locke from there?: Repost-From Public Reason: A Discussion Of Gerald Gaus’s Book ‘The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom And Morality In A Diverse And Bounded World’
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Catholic libertarianism: Youtube Via Reason TV-Judge Napolitano ‘Why Taxation is Theft, Abortion is Murder, & Government is Dangerous’
Leo Strauss argued there is great danger in this approach, i.e. the problems of Europe. Political science, the social sciences, economics and the explanatory power of these products of reason and rationalism could increasingly form the epistemological foundation for explaining the world, people’s interior lives, how we ought to live and what we ought to do. This includes where our rights come from and who should be in charge: Update And Repost- From YouTube: Leo Strauss On The Meno-More On The Fact/Value Distinction?’