“It may not be desirable for the individual roles to be rational.”
Exactly! Group rationality may be easier to achieve by encouraging “irrational” verbal positions. Of course, playing a role doesn’t mean believing it; so the actual people behind the roles would have more rational, less one-sided beliefs.
Okay, point taken. Individual behavior would become irrational, even if the thought processes behind the actions were perfectly rational. I will note that our beliefs tend to follow our actions. Trying to act irrationally likely has corrosive effects on our capacity to be rational unless we’re very careful.
Now the question is: are there any benefits to this sort of group rationality, as opposed to simply encouraging everyone in the group to become more individually rational?
I don’t know, but I think the legal system might be (some) evidence in favor of using roles.
If cases were judged by professionals encouraged to be individually rational, it’s not clear how the cases would turn out differently, but there don’t seem to be as many corrective mechanisms against small biases. It would be something like open-loop control.
at the same time, if you’re a lawyer defending someone likely to be innocent and your goal is to have him exonerated, the most rational strategy is to use whatever lawyerly wiles you have at your disposal to convince an irrational jury of his innocence. an airtight bayesian argument may not be understood or it may be understood but disregarded, whereas a persuasive story vividly told can convince a jury of almost anything.
you cannot win the game if you refuse to accept the rules, and one of the implicit rules in almost every social game is that almost all of the participants are irrational almost all of the time.
“It may not be desirable for the individual roles to be rational.”
Exactly! Group rationality may be easier to achieve by encouraging “irrational” verbal positions. Of course, playing a role doesn’t mean believing it; so the actual people behind the roles would have more rational, less one-sided beliefs.
Okay, point taken. Individual behavior would become irrational, even if the thought processes behind the actions were perfectly rational. I will note that our beliefs tend to follow our actions. Trying to act irrationally likely has corrosive effects on our capacity to be rational unless we’re very careful.
Now the question is: are there any benefits to this sort of group rationality, as opposed to simply encouraging everyone in the group to become more individually rational?
I don’t know, but I think the legal system might be (some) evidence in favor of using roles.
If cases were judged by professionals encouraged to be individually rational, it’s not clear how the cases would turn out differently, but there don’t seem to be as many corrective mechanisms against small biases. It would be something like open-loop control.
I tend to view any system in which rhetoric is emphasized to be a great example of how not to be rational.
Speech and debate competitions in high school only solidified that belief.
at the same time, if you’re a lawyer defending someone likely to be innocent and your goal is to have him exonerated, the most rational strategy is to use whatever lawyerly wiles you have at your disposal to convince an irrational jury of his innocence. an airtight bayesian argument may not be understood or it may be understood but disregarded, whereas a persuasive story vividly told can convince a jury of almost anything.
you cannot win the game if you refuse to accept the rules, and one of the implicit rules in almost every social game is that almost all of the participants are irrational almost all of the time.