Rational Choice and Rational Cognition

Legal Theory ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-203
Author(s):  
Jules L. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Folk Psychology ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Legal Problems

There is a close but largely unexplored connection between law and economics and cognitive psychology. Law and economics applies economic models, modes of analysis, and argument to legal problems. Economic theory can be applied to legal problems for predictive, explanatory, or evaluative purposes. In explaining or assessing human action, economic theory presupposes a largely unarticulated account of rational, intentional action. Philosophers typically analyze intentional action in terms of desires and beliefs. I intend to perform some action because I believe that it will (is likely to) produce an outcome that I desire. This standard “belief-desire” model of action invokes what philosophers of psychology and action theorists aptly refer to as a “folk psychology.”

Davidson's Conceptual Argument for Rational Cognition

Legal Theory ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-210
Author(s):  
Wayne A. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Conceptual Argument

According to Jules Coleman, Rational Choice (RC) Theory holds that human action is both intentional and rational. “The rationality of intentional action is evaluated along the two dimensions corresponding to the two elements of the belief-desire model.” On the belief-dimension, RC Theory assumes that people are “able to draw appropriate inferences from the information (or truths) they possess.”

Rational Choice and its Limits for the Solution of Social and Legal Problems

2021 ◽  
pp. 37-54
Author(s):  
Simon Deakin
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Collective Learning ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Third ◽  
Legal Problems ◽  
Alternative Approaches

This chapter addresses a number of methodological issues arising from the behavioural turn in law and economics and its claim to have established more realistic foundations for both positive and normative analysis. The first is whether models are necessarily better for being more realistic. Friedman’s proposal that the less realistic a model, the more useful it is as a basis for the identification of hypotheses, is rejected on the grounds that this is liable to direct research down fruitless or even erroneous paths. However, models such as the rationality axiom remain approximations of reality, not revealed truths. This leads on to a consideration of the second issue which is whether behavioural research should lead us to reject the rationality axiom. The claim that human beings are systematically wrong in their decision making is shown to be theoretically unsound and empirically unproven. Rather, theory and empirics alike suggest that rationality has a basis in social learning and institutional framing. The third issue concerns the normative conclusions to be drawn from behavioural law and economics. It is suggested that empirical research does not justify privileging ‘libertarian paternalism’ over alternative approaches to law and regulation. In the era of surveillance capitalism and the panoptic state, it is more than timely to reflect on the merits of collective learning and participatory decision making, democratic practices with adaptive qualities neglected by behavioural law and economics.

Economic Models of Law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Miceli
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Analysis ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Economic Analysis Of Law ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Incentive Effects ◽  
The Relationship

This article discusses the use of economic models for understanding law. It begins by describing the nature of economic models in general, and then turns to the specific application of economic models to law. It distinguishes between ‘economic analysis of law’, which concerns the use of economic theory for describing the incentive effects of legal rules (positive analysis) and for prescribing better rules (normative analysis); and ‘law and economics’, which concerns the relationship between law and markets as alternative institutions for organizing economic activity. The article concludes with some comments on the actual process of building economic models of law.

Kornai, Schumpeter, and Economic Theory

2012 ◽  
pp. 145-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Maevsky
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Mainstream Economic ◽  
Level Of Analysis

The author claims that J. Kornai in his paper Innovation and Dynamism (Voprosy Ekonomiki. 2012. No 4) ignored the understanding of socialism as a specific type of culture and not just as an economic system. He also shows profound differences between Schumpeters theory and mainstream economic models. Evolutionary theory, he claims, may itself become mainstream if Schumpeters legacy is not interpreted straightforwardly and if evolutionary economists consider not only micro-, but also macro-level of analysis in studying macrogenerations of capital of a different age.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Nisenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Human Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Fundamental Tension

The concluding chapter draws on the story of Rosenzweig’s near conversion to Christianity and return to Judaism to explain why, for Kant and his heirs, what is at issue in reason’s conflict with itself is our ability to affirm both the value of the world and of human action in the world. The chapter explains why Rosenzweig came to view the conflict of reason as the manifestation of a more fundamental tension between one’s selfhood and one’s worldliness, which could only be dissolved by understanding human action in the world as the means by which God is both cognized and partly realized. To make Rosenzweig’s ideas more accessible, the chapter compares them with contemporary interpretations of Kant’s views on the nature of practical knowledge and (intentional) action. It also shows how the book’s take on the issues that shaped the contours of post-Kantian German Idealism can help us see that the conflict of reason can be regarded as the underlying concern that recent competing interpretations of this period share.

scholarly journals From Polytheism to Monotheism: Zoroaster and Some Economic Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Ferrero
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Third Way ◽  
Greco Roman

AbstractThe prophet Zoroaster founded the first monotheistic religion in history, which once rose to great imperial status and still survives unchanged today despite centuries of Muslim pressure. Unlike the founders of other monotheistic religions after him, he achieved this not through the overthrow of the original Iranian polytheism but through its deep reform—a strategy that made acceptance easier and ensured a continuing role for the priests. Monotheistic reform is thus a third way out of ancient Indo-European polytheism, besides extinction in the Greco-Roman case and mutation into sectarian theism in the Indian case. This paper surveys the Iranian story and offers two economic models to account for the two key factors that made the transition to monotheism possible: the theological structure and the role of the priesthood.

Moral Norms, Adaptive Preferences, and Hedonic Psychology

2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
Jonathan S. Masur
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Moral Norm ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Adaptive Preferences ◽  
The Government ◽  
Behavioral Law And Economics ◽  
Hedonic Approach

Abstract In a series of important papers published roughly twenty years ago, Professor Robert Cooter developed a comprehensive economic theory of moral norms. He explained the value of those norms, described the process by which norms are adopted, and offered a set of predictions regarding the circumstances under which an individual will choose to adopt a particular moral norm. This brief Article applies behavioral law and economics and hedonic psychology to expand upon Professor Cooter’s path-breaking theory. In particular, understanding welfare in hedonic terms — rather than preference-satisfaction terms — suggests a multitude of further situations in which individuals will justifiably seek to internalize moral norms. The hedonic approach to welfare then further suggests an enhanced role for the government to play in encouraging the adoption of welfare-enhancing norms. Cooter’s theory, combined with modern understandings of welfare and human behavior, thus offers powerful predictive and prescriptive possibilities.

The Causes and Consequences of Terrorism in Africa

2014 ◽  
pp. 723-738
Author(s):  
Juliet U. Elu ◽  
Gregory N. Price
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Economic Agents ◽  
The Past ◽  
Rational Choice Model ◽  
Economic Good ◽  
Counterterrorism Policy

African countries have experienced relatively high levels of terrorism. Terrorism has been linked to the theory of deprivation, but the extent to which terrorism is an economic good can be explained using a rational choice model of economic agents. Terrorism is also possibly motivated largely by existential other-worldly goals. If terrorism reflects a solution to a problem with identifiable costs and benefits that accord with the behavior assumed in economic theory, then it may be possible to contain terrorism by altering those costs and benefits. Terrorism as a manifestation of conflict could be a historically persistent phenomena with roots in the past. This chapter examines the causes and consequences of terrorism in Africa, and considers the extent to which existing evidence rationalizes the various explanations for it, and its implications for counterterrorism policy in Africa.

scholarly journals The Uneasy Case for Parsimony in (Law and) Economics: Conceptual, Empirical and Normative Arguments

Global Jurist ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Cserne
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Intellectual Honesty ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Parsimonious Models ◽  
Economic Analyses ◽  
Conceptual Difficulties

Abstract Taking Guido Calabresi’s discussion of preferences and value judgements in The Future of Law and Economics as a starting point, this paper analyses some conceptual difficulties, epistemic benefits and normative uses of parsimonious economic analyses of “tastes and values.” First, the paper shows that it is not only possible to analyse and model all the richness of “tastes and values” in terms of rational choice theory with intellectual honesty and epistemic benefit. In fact, economists and economically inspired legal scholars have been doing this for a while. Second, it discusses three arguments that economists can mount in support of parsimonious models. Third, it shows that in spite of these benefits the merits of such an exercise in parsimony do not always clearly outweigh its drawbacks. In doing so, the paper distinguishes three types of limits of such parsimonious modelling.

Support for the System

1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie Green
Keyword(s):  
General Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Empirical Research ◽  
Political Sociology ◽  
Research Programme ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Empirical Theory ◽  
Conception Of Man

So-called ‘general theory’, or ‘systems theory’, is now nearly friendless among political scientists. The charm it once held as an ordering framework for empirical research has given way to that of the economic models of the rational choice school. While the successor paradigm was self-consciously reacting against the ‘over-socialized’ conception of man underlying systems theory and political sociology in general, much of its broader appeal was founded on similar claims: the promise of a testable, empirical theory, and an aspiration to complete generality. Perhaps these two goals will turn out to be irreconcilable; there is some plausibility in the view that, in practical affairs anyway, the idea of a general empirical theory is a contradiction in terms. In this article, however, I wish to examine a problem for systems theory which is not due to this tension, one which has gone unnoticed, and which has survived the decline and fall of the research programme.

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