Russ Roberts: evaluation

Transcript context

…Is it useful? I’ve never heard that quite that way. By the way, I think there’s a wide range of views about what the role of the state should be in the country, and whether the government should be more sympathetic or less sympathetic to the religious currents here. Jerusalem tends to be a more “religious” city than Tel Aviv, but there are plenty of Orthodox people and religious people in Tel Aviv, and there’s plenty of nonobservant people here in Jerusalem. They tend to have different rules about how Sabbath is kept in terms of public services. Cultural norms also, of course, play a role. I don’t like that idea. As a Jew, I don’t like that idea. As religious person, I don’t like the idea that this implicit bargain that somehow the ultra-Orthodox are, what, carrying the water of the ballast — I don’t know what you would call it — anchoring the Jewishness of the country. I don’t think it’s an issue for most Israelis to think about it that way. I don’t think it would come natural. I think that’s definitely a Riker-esque — a reference to William Riker, who I got to be a colleague of for about five years at the University of Rochester. He was a wonderful, wonderful man — very insightful and credible, twinkle in his eye. His work — I think you’ve probably read it, Tyler — he was applying a lot of economics tools in his day long before other folks. He’s forgotten among our colleagues, but I like him a lot. Does living in Israel, and being a citizen there, make you more or less utilitarian in your moral philosophy?…

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