Why People Are Irrational about Politics?

●Michael Huemer, “Why People Are Irrational about Politics”

Abstract； I look for explanations for the phenomenon of widespread, strong, and persistent disagreements about political issues. The best explanation is provided by the hypothesis that most people are irrational about politics and not, for example, that political issues are particularly difficult or that we lack sufficient evidence for resolving them. I discuss how this irrationality works and why people are especially irrational about politics.

Based on the level of disagreement, human beings are highly unreliable at identifying correct political claims. This is extremely unfortunate, since it means that we have little chance of solving most social problems and a good chance of causing or exacerbating them. The best explanation lies in the theory of Rational Irrationality: individuals derive psychological rewards from holding certain political beliefs, and since each individual suffers almost none of the harm caused by his own false political beliefs, it often makes sense (it gives him what he wants) to adopt those beliefs regardless of whether they are true or well-supported.

The beliefs that people want to hold are often determined by their self-interest, the social group they want to fit into, the self-image they want to maintain, and the desire to remain coherent with their past beliefs. People can deploy various mechanisms to enable them to adopt and maintain their preferred beliefs, including giving a biased weighting of evidence; focusing their attention and energy on the arguments supporting their favored beliefs; collecting evidence only from sources they already agree with; and relying on subjective, speculative, and anecdotal claims as evidence for political theories.

The problem of political irrationality is the greatest social problem humanity faces. It is a greater problem than crime, drug addiction, or even world poverty, because it is a problem that prevents us from solving other problems. Before we can solve the problem of poverty, we must first have correct beliefs about poverty, about what causes it, what reduces it, and what the side effects of alternative policies are. If our beliefs about those things are being guided by the social group we want to fit into, the self-image we want to maintain, the desire to avoid admitting to having been wrong in the past, and so on, then it would be pure accident if enough of us were to actually form correct beliefs to solve the problem. Analogy: suppose your doctor, after diagnosing your illness, picks a medical procedure to perform on you from a hat. You would be lucky if the procedure chosen didn’t worsen your condition.

風呂上がりに読も。

（追記）

読んだ。星３つです（マチャアキ風に）。
カプランのrational irrationality論/コーエンのself deception論のわかりやすい解説となっており（単なる解説にはとどまらず、「人はなぜ不合理的な信念を持つのか」に関する説得的な仮説も提示されている）、非常によくまとまっていると思う。
ただ1点だけ反論というか難癖をつけさせていただきますと、第7節の「What to Do」において不合理的な信念から抜け出すための心掛けと方法が論じられているんだけれども、不合理的な信念を有している人が筆者の指南に従うかどうかは保証の限りではない、むしろそもそも不合理的な信念を有することが合理的であるからこそ今現在その不合理的な信念を有しているのであるから、その不合理的な信念を抱いている人が筆者の指南に従う可能性は低いのではないかと考えられる。では一体どうすればいいのだろうか？　内から変える（不合理的な信念を抱いている人が自身の信念の不合理性に気づき、自ら信念の修正に乗り出す）ことが困難であるとすれば、外から変えよ（不合理的な信念を抱くことのコストを高くする）ということになるのであろう。痛い目見れば考えも変わるさ、という一見して冷めたというか悲観的というか諦めが入っているというかあまり嬉しくはない結論だけれども、とにかくこの論説は一読の価値があるという点は保証の限りである（変な日本語だけれども）。