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Murray Gell-MannThe Quark and the Jaguar324 |
The weight of qualitative values
Many economists and political scientists have recommended leaving fragile values to the political process. But if that is done, all the quantitative studies, with their careful calculations of what happens to easily quantified values, have to wieghed by decision makers against qualitative arguments that are not similarly bolstered by impressive numbers. Nowadays the idea is gaining ground of actually polling people to see what kind of value they would assign to such things as a given improvement in air quality or the preservation of a park or neighborhood. In economic theory, people’s preferences are often treated as well defined, fixed, and given. That is a point of view in harmony with democratic ideals. But is the fate of the planet just a matter of untutored opinion? Doesn’t science have some insights to offer?