Human Judgment and Social Policy

Research on social policy typically focuses on the content of various policies: will they do what the authors want them to do in the way they want it done. This book has a very different focus: how does social policy grow out of the policymaker's judgment about what to do, what can be done, and what ought to be? Answers necessarily emerge from human judgment, and from human error and the unavoidable uncertainty in the world. Using fifty years of research in decision theory, Hammond examines the possibilities for wisdom and cognitive competence in our social policies.