Winning Votes by Abusing Reason: Responsible Belief and Political Rhetoric

(Hardback)

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Over the past few decades, psychologists have discovered that human reasoning is defective in surprising ways. We are beset by numerous biases and heuristics, which lead us to reason poorly about things that matter to us. And while there are illuminating evolutionary explanations for how these biases and heuristics may have benefited our species in its phylogeny, psychologists are unanimous that these cognitive dispositions largely corrupt rather than aid our belief-forming practices. In Winning Votes by Abusing Reason: Political Rhetoric and Responsible Belief, Jamie Watson argues that political rhetoric, rather than helping us overcome these defects, exacerbates them. And standard attempts to address this problem, such as deliberative democracy and paternalism, tend to either exclude citizens from important decisions or give them the illusion of reasoning well, perpetuating poor and irresponsible political beliefs. This book concludes that, rather than attempt more political solutions, the most promising approach to forming and preserving responsible political beliefs is to adopt individual principles of epistemic caution. The author brings together insights from political philosophy, social epistemology, behavioral psychology, and agnotology to suggest how we might protect our belief-forming behavior from the corrosive effects of political rhetoric. Recommended for scholars of philosophy, rhetoric, political science, and communications.

Reviews

If there is anything that characterizes contemporary political discourse it is that everyone is so confident about almost everything. Jamie Watson shows us why this is a mistake and how we can fix it. -- Brandon Warmke, Bowling Green State University
The problem of political ignorance is pervasive and stubborn. It affects political discourse, political behavior, and voting, and it negatively affects political outcomes. Jamie Watson's book is original both in its diagnoses and its recommendations. Without any doubt, this is a valuable contribution to the literature. -- Fernando R. Tesn, Florida State University College of Law

Author Bio

Jamie Carlin Watson is assistant professor of philosophy at Broward College.