Understanding Reasonable Actors

An excerpt from "Overcoming Ideology: Bridging the Divide Between the Secular Left and the Religious Right"

Is it reasonable to believe that Man-made Global Warming is vast hoax propagated by the Chinese in order to subvert the American economy and promote Communism?

When trying to determine what is “reasonable,” we first must realize that reasonableness has nothing at all to do with rationality. Despite what classical economic models posit, most of the time, people don’t behave rationally. According to Hersh Shefrin, professor of behavioral economics and Chair in the Department of Finance at the Leavey School of Business, people make 95% of their decisions based on heuristics, mental shortcuts or “rules of thumb” (Shefrin, 2012). Each day, a person is required to make hundreds of individual decisions some mundane and some important. By relying on heuristics, people can make decisions and feel confident that their choices are correct. This confidence is rooted in the fact that their decision conforms to some internal logic. However, one does not have to be rational to be reasonable.

Imagine you are planning a trip from D.C. to New York, and your initial plan was to fly. Before booking the flight, however, you begin to recall news articles questioning airplane safety. You begin to feel anxious, and so, you decide to drive instead. True, it will take longer, but the decision to drive puts your mind at ease, and you decide that is worth a few extra hours of traveling time.  You are confident in your decision because you are sure that you’d made the safest choice. Unfortunately, you’d be empirically wrong: the likelihood of dying in a car crash is 73x higher than dying in a plane crash. Flight safety records are not secrets hidden from the public. The airline industry, the National Transportation Safety Board, and the Federal Aviation Administration frequently tout the unparalleled safety of commercial flights. Nevertheless, it is common for people to feel that driving is safer than flying. If someone believes something to be true, simply offering them some facts isn’t going to change their mind. This is because most decisions are not the product of rational calculations; they are the products of belief.

When a person makes a reasonable decision, they are simply acting according to what they believe in the way makes sense. In majority of instances acting according to beliefs results in successful outcomes. You drive to New York, arrive safely, and pat yourself on the back for being precautious. But that doesn’t mean the decision is correct, and often they are irrational. They are, however, reasonable.

A rational operator calculates decisions according to data. This puts a premium on verifiable knowledge.  Rational actors strive to make predictions that are as accurate as possible that stem from a set of information that is as complete as possible. Unfortunately, as much as we might wish otherwise, this describes a computer, not a person. People are mostly reasonable actors. 

A reasonable actor makes decisions that make sense to them, according to what they believe to be true. A reasonable actor’s beliefs work as a framework for understanding and navigating the world successfully. That framework is created through the accumulation of information that the individual deems to be true. When presented with a new piece of information, a reasonable actor works to find a way to add it to the existing framework, reinforcing older beliefs and shaping how the next piece of information will be viewed. For an individual who is confronted with a fact that seems to contrary to what is already believed, it is easier to find an alternative interpretation of the evidence (or reasons to ignore the information) than it is to 1) verify the truth of a claim, and then 2) identify and reject the previously accepted beliefs which run counter to the new information.

Because people are reasonable actors, understanding behavior is messy; people respond emotionally, intuitively, and habitually. People make decisions based on partial, or even hoped for, information, and they are more inclined to operate according to how they believe the world should be ordered, as opposed to how it actually is. The key, however, is that decisions always make some sort of sense to the individual. The internal beliefs of a reasonable actor are not predicated on any external validation. For most people is reasonable to take their doctor’s recommendations or to believe what’s reported in the Wall Street Journal. And so most people do. When everyone has the same set of beliefs, all reasonable actions look the same. But when these beliefs vary, what seems reasonable to one appears unreasonable to someone else.

For example, in 2016, a smear campaign was started the claimed that Hillary Clinton and the DNC were running a satanic human trafficking ring out of the basement of Comet Ping Pong, a pizzeria in Washington, DC. Most of those who heard this claim dismissed it as slanderous, bizarre, and didn’t invest a second in considering its credulity. Others, like Mr. Edgar Welch, took it to be true. On December 4, 2016, Mr. Welch drove to D.C. from North Carolina armed with an assault rifle.  He then stormed into the restaurant in order to free the children he believe were being sold on the black market by the former Secretary of State. He was arrested. Later in an interview, Mr. Welch said that he’d heard about the child sex ring on the Alex Jones show, and was outraged. He said his heart broke at the fact that no one was willing to protect these children.

The two separate responses to the #pizzagate conspiracy—instant dismissal on the one hand and acceptance on the other—seem to be very different processes. Those who dismissed the claim had a set of beliefs that were based in truth. They dismissed it without further examination because:

    Anonymous tawdry rumors are usually false

    It didn’t comport with what was known about Hillary Clinton

    It seemed impossibly far-fetched

Mr. Welch also acted according to his belief set. The claims that he heard did in fact fit into what he’d been taught about Hillary Clinton, Washington, D.C., and the Democratic Party in general. What he heard made sense to him. He was not acting out of malice; he was acting in good faith on information that he believed to be true. Unfortunately for him, he believed a lot of things that were untrue.  If Mr. Welch were a rational actor, he likely would have behaved differently. However, both Mr. Welch and those who dismissed the claims were acting reasonably, not rationally.

If we can accept that people primarily base decisions in a reasonable fashion, it might change how we viewed our political opposition. Our current representatives typically take a reasonable, and not rational, view of the issue of climate change. When debates arise over issues like crime or poverty, all members of Congress have the same basic set of beliefs regarding the nature of the problem’s existence; only the solutions—which extend from their individual belief sets—vary. However, the issue of man-made global warming is different. Individual members have fundamentally opposing views of not only the issue itself, but even of the scientists who warn of its danger. It’s clear then why the fight is over whether to acknowledge if a problem even exists. What is less clear is what reasonable means to those who claim that man-made global warming is a hoax.

In analyzing the claim “Man-made global warming is a hoax,” the rational actor focus on data specific and general. To conclude that the statement “man-made global warming is a hoax” is true from a data-driven perspective, one of the following would need to be true:

    The entire scientific community must be deliberately deceptive, scientifically inept, or plagued with a pervasive yet overlooked flaw that compromises the data, or

    Critical data is missing, or

    Alternate interpretation exists that offers more explanatory power

Lacking any of these, the rational actor will conclude that the statement is false.

The typical reasonable actor isn’t worried about any of that. The conclusion they draw are entirely dependent on what the individual holds to be true. The process is not one of questioning, but rather one of reaffirming. A Harvard scientist who claims, “Global warming is true because we can look at core samples of during the Last Glacial Maximum (40,000-60,000 years BP) and compare carbon levels then and now,” might be generally deemed credible by a secular liberal. But to someone who adheres to an evangelical framework that includes Biblical creationism, the scientist in question is undoubtedly lying. Their framework dictates that:

     Any scientific results that say the earth is over 6,000 years old is clearly flawed, and the data is false.

    Scientists who believed the earth is more than 6,000 years old are likely atheists,

    Atheists have an anti-god agenda

    Scientists at secular universities spread un-godly ideology

    If their arguments make sense, it’s because they are skilled at twisting the facts; any evidence presented is only going to support their anti-god agenda.

The reasonable evangelical layperson, then, doesn’t need to examine the data. They know it’s false, biased, and aren’t troubled that they can’t disprove it (because they are a not Harvard-trained climatologists). This way of thinking is apparent when you listen to Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX-13), for example, who said,

"Any decisions we make should be based on sound science rather than political, social or personal profit agendas.")

or White House spiritual advisor Pastor Ralph Drollinger, who said,

 

“To think that man can alter the earth’s ecosystem—when God remains omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent in the current affairs of mankind—is to more than subtly espouse an ultra-hubristic, secular worldview relative to the supremacy and importance of man…Whereas scripture clearly teaches that man is the apex of God’s purposes and creation, the primary belief of radical environmentalism is the preservation of the earth.” (Drollinger, 2018)

Pastor Drollinger can reject all evidence presented by scientists because it contradicts his own inflexible beliefs. Creationist Ken Hamm agrees with him. During the 2014 debate on creation v. evolution, creationist Ken Ham was asked by an audience member, “What if anything would ever change your mind?”

Ham: Well the answer to that question is, I'm a Christian…And so, as far as the [literal 6-day creation story] is concerned, no one's ever going to convince me that the Word of God is not true. (Transcript of Ken Ham vs Bill Nye Debate , 2014)

His goal, as a reasonable actor is to figure out how the data fits into what he already has decided is correct. For Hamm, if you begin with the premise of a 6,000-year-old earth, any contradictory data relying upon “billions of years” theories are, to him, patently false. Thus, it is reasonable for him to conclude that secularists are all in a conspiracy to “outlaw the supernatural” and “force the religion of naturalism onto a generation of students.” (Transcript, 2014)

When engaging with someone whose political beliefs differ it is tempting to argue facts. Our own minds see the evidence that we ourselves find convincing, and we begin to believe that if only the other side were exposed to the right argument, surely they would come to the same conclusion. But this rarely works. Unless we are starting from a place of common belief, facts that one person deems reasonable, another will find absurd. Still, there is hope. Reasonable people can disagree, and still work towards the same goals. The solution is not better arguing, however. The key is in understanding what it will take to make your proposal seem reasonable.