Fred Foldvary wrote:
> It seems to me that the concept of rationality makes sense when it is
> applied to human action, but it is not meaningful when applied to beliefs.
> Action is rational or not, based on the actor's knowledge.
This whole idea is forty years out of date. Economists have been
theorizing about and testing the rationality of beliefs for years.
> When people have false beliefs, why is this not just bad data?
It's possible. But that's an empirical claim: All false beliefs can be
explained by bad data or lack of data. And this claim is often
falsified. One person can have bad data indicating that they are a
better driver than average, even though they aren't. But how could 80%
of people have bad data that all points in this direction?
> Clearly,
> emotions play a major role both in our beliefs and in our ends. Vanity may
> make one think one is smarter, more beautiful, and more humane than one
> really is. Again, why not just label these "false"?
Because vanity isn't data. In fact, if you know you are vain then
rationally speaking you should adjust your beliefs in a more self-
critical direction to compensate.
> If false beliefs are
> irrational, then almost everything we do is irrational, and there is no
> economics.
No one says false beliefs are always irrational. The claim is that some
false beliefs are irrational - essentially the beliefs that are false
not from lack of data, but because the available data has been
improperly processed.
--
Prof. Bryan Caplan
Department of Economics George Mason University
http://www.bcaplan.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"He wrote a letter, but did not post it because he felt that no one
would have understood what he wanted to say, and besides it was not
necessary that anyone but himself should understand it."
Leo Tolstoy, *The Cossacks*
