#102 How To Tame Your Elephant?

This newsletter is really a public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question:&#160;how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?<br/><br/>PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration on all podcasting platforms courtesy the good folks at&#160;<a href="https://www.ad-auris.com/">Ad-Auris</a>. If you have any feedback, please send it to us.<br/><br/>A Framework a Week: The Basis of Morality<br/><br/>Tools for thinking public policy<br/><br/>- RSJ<br/><br/>The other day at a dinner with a few friends (in our &#8216;bubble&#8217;) the topic of farm laws came up. The usual argument followed. Farmers need to be freed from the overbearing power of the state that has kept them poor for so long versus Ambani/Adani will take over and control food prices in future leaving nothing for the farmers or the consumers. Things were going according to the script till the issue of morality came up. Both sides were convinced they had the stronger moral argument to support them. Luckily, the dinner was served and good food quietened things down. <br/><br/>This set me thinking about how we think about morality. Regardless of how we define political axes in India (left vs right, liberal vs conservative, statist vs free marketer), each side arrives at their ideology based on what they believe is morally right for the society. What&#8217;s the basis for our inherent self-righteousness and why does it differ among people?<br/><br/>About Morality<br/><br/>Jonathan Haidt in his superb book <a href="https://righteousmind.com/">The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion</a>goes deep into this question. When he was at graduate school, Haidt learnt about <a href="https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/