Rationalia

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

On 6/29/16Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted, "Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence".

Is that the ideal political system?

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

For some reason part of my post was being turned into a link to shopping.

I do not know how to stop that, so I put the date and the name together.

 

[durangodawood]

On 6/29/16Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted, "Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence".

Is that the ideal political system?

First off, "based on evidence" is not a system. Its more a guiding principle.

Second, for a guiding principle, I think we'd need to add a set of values.
Values + evidence.

Some (like me) will argue that we can derive values from anthropological and biological evidence as we study the human species. But I dont presume enough people are on board with that to make it the center of politics.

So I'm back to values + evidence.
Not sure how you enshrine respect for either in a system, tho.
People will trade either or both for power, it seems.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

A problem that I see is that "the evidence" is often conflicting.

If you are President of the United States of America and an enemy has attacked U.S. citizens, taken them hostage, etc. you probably do not have time to "weigh" all of the conflicting "evidence" before making a decision about how to respond.

 

[DogmaHunter]

A problem that I see is that "the evidence" is often conflicting.

I don't think that is a problem, as long as we are talking about the weight of evidence.
Conflicting evidence would cancel eachother out.

If you are President of the United States of America and an enemy has attacked U.S. citizens, taken them hostage, etc. you probably do not have time to "weigh" all of the conflicting "evidence" before making a decision about how to respond.

Why not?

Surely there will be a couple scenario's put on the table on how to move forward.
How will you choose one of the scenario's? Arbitrarily? Eeny, meeny, miny, moe?
Or will you look at the situation, gather data (evidence) and try and make a rational decision with the goal of resolving it asap with the least possible casualties?

 

[Strivax]

I'm all for pragmatic politics. We tried it, here in the UK, with Tony Blair. And it actually worked quite well. The only problem is, it tends not to be very exciting, and people lose interest quite quickly. What they seem to want, to encourage them to get off of their backsides and go out and vote, is a great clash of ideologies, so they don't actually have to do their homework and find out what really makes people's lives better.

Cynical? Maybe. But evidence based policy will never be as sexy as simply villifying the opposition for being scum.

Cheers, Strivax.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

I'm all for pragmatic politics. We tried it, here in the UK, with Tony Blair. And it actually worked quite well. The only problem is, it tends not to be very exciting, and people lose interest quite quickly. What they seem to want, to encourage them to get off of their backsides and go out and vote, is a great clash of ideologies, so they don't actually have to do their homework and find out what really makes people's lives better.

Cynical? Maybe. But evidence based policy will never be as sexy as simply villifying the opposition for being scum.

Cheers, Strivax.

Political pragmatism and "evidence-base policy" are not the same thing.

Political pragmatism is doing whatever works.

This Rationalia, the way that I understand it, would mean that every political actor would have act like a juror in a trial is supposed to: make a decision based on the weight of the evidence presented and absolutely nothing else.

Things like ideals, values, traditions, etc. would be prohibited from influencing policy in Rationalia. Practical considerations, such as political strategy, would be prohibited in Rationalia.

A good illustration would be minimum wage policy. In Rationalia an authority would be limited to making a decision based on the projections that economists make. Saying, "Increasing minimum wage will increase morale in the working class and restore the public's faith in government looking out for their interests", would probably be prohibited.

 

[durangodawood]

....values....would be prohibited from influencing policy in Rationalia....

Then what is policy even for? Whats the point?

 

[WolfGate]

Not the ideal governing system. Values have to play a roll. Evidence is meaningless outside the context of values.

For example, data would show that per capita health care increases as people get older. You can graph it easily. Now, what do you do with that evidence?

 

[Strivax]

Pragmatic politics is doing the things that work, when the evidence shows that they work. Ideological politics is doing things you happen to believe in, whether they work or not. That is the distinction it seems necessary to clarify. As for prohibiting values; well, you do need some kind of guiding moral compass to decide on the policies to pursue, and determine what a working policy would achieve, and the difference between that and a not working policy. If you wish to reduce economic inequalities, for example, or provide an optimum health-care regime, those desires rest on moral choices, value judgments, despite the fact they can be measured and render your ground-floor, actively political policies accountable.

I guess I'm saying political objectives depend on values, and only then, once those objectives are democratically agreed, should the political policies implemented to achieve them be determined by the evidence at hand.

Cheers, Strivax.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

Pragmatic politics is doing the things that work, when the evidence shows that they work...

The way that I understand it, political pragmatism is doing what works, period. The only "evidence" needed to support a policy/action is that it works.

How do you find out if a policy/action works? You try it.

Gathering evidence, analyzing it, and saying, "The evidence shows that Policy A works, therefore we will make Policy A the law" is not political pragmatism. At least not the way that I understand political pragmatism.

And "the evidence shows" that something will work does not necessarily mean that it will work. Evidence can be false. Evidence can be incomplete. We learn when the outcome is not what we predicted. Probably at the most evidence shows us what will not work.

 

[quatona]

On 6/29/16Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted, "Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence".

Is that the ideal political system?

Well, in somewhere between the weight of evidence and policies you need to solve the is-ought problem.

 

[Eudaimonist]

On 6/29/16Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted, "Earth needs a virtual country: #Rationalia, with a one-line Constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence".

Is that the ideal political system?

It's not a political system. There's no such thing as a "virtual country".

durangodawood makes an excellent point that evidence by itself doesn't provide normative advice. There is a need for some sort of political or ethical standard on which to apply evidence to make political decisions. That standard may itself be based on evidence, but it has to exist before any sort of political decision-making may proceed.


eudaimonia,

Mark