The author also needs to work on his own rationality. The car example is just bad start to finish. You need a lot more information to even estimate net deaths from the car in question.
Which has nothing to do with the point being made.
Also, in the car example, the second version names the American car and says that it is 8 times as likely to injure another car’s occupants as a typical family car. The readers would probably take this to mean “a typical American family car”. Combined with the fact that the other car is named and that the reader knows that this named car is considered safe enough for American roads, this provides the information that a spread of 8 times is not dangerous. This information is absent when a German car is compared to an American car, especially when the German car is not named.
He was trying to make a point about bias undermining rationality, and so was completely sloppy in asking a question that didn’t have an answer determined by rationality.
The point isn’t that the Yes/No answer is determined by rationality but that the nationality shouldn’t matter. Do you think the nationality should matter?
The point isn’t that the Yes/No answer is determined by rationality
So ask a question not determined by rationality, then complain that dispositions other than a will to rationality and ability to execute rationally determine the answer?
I don’t see that as accomplishing the intended end here, or any end, but making the author look extremely intellectually lazy, at best.
Do you think the nationality should matter?
Sure. Government action should be dependent on the nationality of the parties involved, with a particularly relevant distinction between foreign and domestic.
Of course, my answer isn’t determined by rationality, but context, preferences, and a theory of government, among other things.
Which has nothing to do with the point being made.
Also, in the car example, the second version names the American car and says that it is 8 times as likely to injure another car’s occupants as a typical family car. The readers would probably take this to mean “a typical American family car”. Combined with the fact that the other car is named and that the reader knows that this named car is considered safe enough for American roads, this provides the information that a spread of 8 times is not dangerous. This information is absent when a German car is compared to an American car, especially when the German car is not named.
Showing that they were sloppy even in their sloppiness.
He was trying to make a point about bias undermining rationality, and so was completely sloppy in asking a question that didn’t have an answer determined by rationality.
The point isn’t that the Yes/No answer is determined by rationality but that the nationality shouldn’t matter. Do you think the nationality should matter?
So ask a question not determined by rationality, then complain that dispositions other than a will to rationality and ability to execute rationally determine the answer?
I don’t see that as accomplishing the intended end here, or any end, but making the author look extremely intellectually lazy, at best.
Sure. Government action should be dependent on the nationality of the parties involved, with a particularly relevant distinction between foreign and domestic.
Of course, my answer isn’t determined by rationality, but context, preferences, and a theory of government, among other things.