lawyerdad
Lying Dog-faced Pony Soldier
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I'll definitely be checking out more of him based on the merits of this book.Originally Posted by Pennglock
My one major beef with Myth of the Rational Voter is the title. To me, holding untrue biases and voting based on those urges does not equate to irrationality.
For one thing, the probability of ones own vote being the decisive one are extremely small, so when you use that probability to weight a favorable public policy outcome the actual actual utility derived by the voter is tiny, hardly enough to justify the effort it takes to become educated on the issue, or even make it to the polls.
Another argument against irrationality is that if the voter's choice is wrong, he rarely has to worry about the negative effects- the cost of the harm is spread across the entire society.
My point is it's not hard to imagine the pleasure a voter derives from reinforcing his preconceived/uneducated life-outlook at the ballot could outweigh the negatives, and is entirely a rational choice.
But doesn't your hypothetical voter have to be educated/sophisticated enough to appreciate the trade-off for the decision to be rational?
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