MOTIVATED reasoning—ignoring inconvenient truths on a cognitive path toward conclusions that match our pre-existing beliefs or commitments—afflicts all of us from time to time. The phenomenon has been demonstrated in abundance in the wake of the election of 2016, an event that has provoked unusually strong emotions in just about everybody. So it is perhaps not surprising that even an illustrious intellectual aghast at the prospect of Donald Trump assuming the presidency might talk himself into an ill-advised proposal.
That is what happened last week when Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard law professor, proposed in the Washington Post that members of the electoral college should ignore the November 8th vote in their home states and choose Hillary Clinton when they meet on December 19th to officially elect America’s 45th president. Mr Lessig’s main argument proceeds in two steps. First, he says, there is no rule in the constitution compelling electors to vote for the candidate who received the most votes in their respective states. In fact, nothing in the document suggests “that electors’ freedom should be constrained in any way”. True...Continue reading
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