Friday, September 25, 2009

Friday Dinner Party Conversation Stopper

"...every political decision of any importance is intertwined with questions of social causality on which very diverse positions can be defended with a certain degree of plausibility. Whether it is a question of the effects of the minimum wage, unemployment benefits, or tax rates, we see professors of economics defending entirely opposed ideas. Thus an agent would have to be either very inept or very unfortunate not to be able to find some combination of normative principles and causal chains that would allow him to present his passion or his particular interest in an impartial light."
- Jon Elster, Reason and Rationality (2009)

1 comment:

MT said...

He concedes that, then rattles on for the length of a book? Or was this some kind of jacket-flap disclaimer?