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Freedom and Flourishing
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The purpose of this blog is to explore relationships between freedom (liberty) and human flourishing.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'political rationality'
Do voters have a conservative bias rather than a pessimistic bias?
This post further considers the question of whether most people have a pessimistic bias, which was discussed in my last post.Bryan Caplan defines “pessimistic bias” as “a tendency to overestimate the severity of economic problems and underestim...
Do most people have a pessimistic bias?
I did not respond enthusiastically when Jim said that he wanted further discussion of Bryan Caplan’s book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter”. I told him that I was looking forward to talking about something else, like the recent research that s...
How can governments raise the quality of public debate in order to achieve worthwhile reforms?
Following from our recent discussions about Bryan Caplan’s book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter”, Jim said he wanted to ask me what I thought a reform-minded government could do to raise the quality of public debate in order to overcome proble...
What can be done to promote public understanding of complex issues?
Jim began our discussion by wishing me a happy new year and asking whether I had made any resolutions. I told him that I had not had much success in keeping new year’s resolutions, so there wasn’t much point in making them. Jim then offered to ma...
Are voters rationally irrational?
When we met next day, Jim wanted to talk more about Bryan Caplan’s book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter” (previous discussion here and here). He asked: “How original is Caplan’s stuff about voter irrationality?” I suggested that Caplan...
How good is Bert Kelly's bull story?
When I next saw Jim I had to tell him that he should have been more kind to Bryan Caplan, the author of “The Myth of the Rational Voter”. You might recall that Jim implied that Caplan did not recognise that economists bear some responsibility for...
Does voter rationality have to be a myth?
I think it was probably the sheep on the cover of the book that caught Jim’s eye. When he saw my copy of Bryan Caplan’s book, “The Myth of the Rational Voter”, Jim picked it up and asked me what it was about.I explained that Bryan Caplan cons...
