Talk:Rational ignorance

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Additional information: Related task forces (core areas): Epistemology Logic

The word cost can be used in different ways. At first glance here it would seem to mean the effort of learning, and this may be the way it's intended to be used. However it could also refer to some disadvantage which learning might bring. Normally learning is not considered to bring disadvantages, but David Rumelhart has described situations in which knowledge can lead to a disadvantage. Example - suppose my wife has cancer, and you are a debt collector suing me for failing to pay for something. If I let you know that my wife is ill, and the nature of her illness, you may be more willing to let me run the debt for a few more months. However, suppose also the debt collector gets paid a proportion of the debt which is repaid. It is to his/her advantage not to know about any possible rational reason why I should not pay.

Apparently this kind of situation is quite common in bargaining situations - so some parties sometimes deliberately keep themselves ignorant of all the facts. I'm not sure if this is relevant to the current article, but it may be.

David Martland 16:12, 22 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] "Categorical Imperative"

Being an educated person, I understand that the person who added the "Categorical Imperative" link is probably suggesting that a Kantian democrat would hold voting to be an absolute duty, and therefore it is irrelevant that one vote is extremely unlikely to influence an election. However, the parenthetical as written does not refer to voting or rational ignorance, nor do the words "vote", "voting", or "ignorance" appear in the "Categorical Imperative" article. Therefore it is very confusing and arguably not the correct approach for enforcing NPOV on this article. user Jjb, 2006/03/14

- Perhaps changing the note to something like: This uses the term "rational" to mean providing a greater benefit than cost purely to oneself and does not show that such ignorance is rational in any other sense. - This provides additional information and neutralizes the POV.

[edit] Links and references

I've come across some noteworthy papers on the subject, if someone would like to read through them and make the article better, it'd be in wikipedia's spirit. Thanks! 128.6.175.10 20:51, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism

"This suggests that voters' interest in political information increases with the importance of political choices. "

How on earth is this a criticism? Isn't this exactly what rational ignorance theory predicts? --83.150.90.58 (talk) 22:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)