Rational Ignorance: A Double-Edged Sword

Rational ignorance is a concept that was coined by the economist Anthony Downs in his treatise An Economic Theory of Democracy. It refers to cases in which a person decides to act without having all the information that they could collate about a decision they must make. This is because the cost of acquiring that knowledge is higher than the benefit it generates. Rational ignorance is said to be a double-edged sword. That’s because, on the one hand, it often actually saves unnecessary time and effort. Because sometimes it isn’t possible or convenient to want to know absolutely everything or to…