To This “Rationalist” Economist, Rabbis Are the Most Reasonable People Around

In a wide-ranging conversation, the distinguished economist Tyler Cowen addresses, among many other topics, religion and his own connections to an intellectual community of “rationalists.” A professed agnostic, Cowen is also a strong believer in the importance of religion and religious values in shaping human behavior, and believes that many of the virtues that have defined American society have religious roots. He has some thoughts about Judaism as well. (Interview by Lydia Laurenson.)

I once sat down as an exercise and tried to ask myself, “Of all the different classes of people I know, who are the most rational?” I think my answer was rabbis. Now, I’m not Jewish. I don’t intend [that answer] as religious commentary. Rabbis have people come to them all the time with their problems, and they have to give advice or help people solve those problems. That makes them very rational. You could say, “Well, rabbis, by a rational standard, have all kinds of beliefs that wouldn’t pass muster.” Maybe that’s true. I don’t even believe in God myself, but at the same time, isn’t it odd that rabbis are perhaps the most rational people as a class?

That kind of point, it seems to me, has not sunk in enough with the rationalist community. They think they are the most rational people, and somehow I doubt that. I’d love to see a study measuring the decisions people who identify as rationalist make in their romantic [and] personal lives, for example—how rational those decisions are, compared to other individuals. I suspect they’d come out slightly below average.

It seems to me there’s something about common-sense morality, and an understanding of the imperfections in real-world institutions, that should be refined in [religious] communities. In that sense, I’m more influenced by Adam Smith and David Hume. Tradition has embedded wisdom, even though you can’t always defend or justify it.

Read more at New Modality

More about: Economics, Judaism, Rabbis, Rationalism, Tradition

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF