by Bryan Caplan
November 20th, 2006
In his original reply, Jeff faulted me for failing to pay attention to how people actually form beliefs and fall into error. But now he’s switched to the much stronger claim that the very idea of irrationality is somehow philosophically incoherent:
To call people’s emotional attachment to religious beliefs irrational, then Caplan has [...]
by Jeffrey Friedman
November 20th, 2006
Caplan and I agree that markets are better than democracy. The reason I support markets is that they don’t rely on anyone having sound theoretical knowledge of the sort that seems to be so scarce among both the economically illiterate masses and the highly educated elites. Caplan and I disagree, then, about whether rule by [...]
by David Estlund
November 20th, 2006
In his post “Overruling the Majority,” Caplan says that this conversation shows “how uncomfortable people are at the idea of overruling the majority.”
Few believe that majority rule ought to be unlimited; I certainly don’t. Some think the limits can all be explained by the goal of protecting democracy itself, but I doubt that could explain [...]
by Bryan Caplan
November 19th, 2006
One thing this conversation has brought out is how uncomfortable people are at the idea of overruling the majority. Even if it’s clearly making a mistake, shouldn’t the majority be free to choose?
This line of reasoning makes libertarians uncomfortable, but for no good reason. After all, when the majority votes for protectionism, [...]
Learn more about the Cato Institute:
Stay up-to-date daily on issues at the Cato Institute:
Editor: Will Wilkinson
Managing Editor: Jason Kuznicki
Senior Editor: Brink Lindsey
Cato Unbound is powered by WordPress Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).