On the Idea of the Moral Economy

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-667 ◽  
Author(s):  
William James Booth
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Moral Economic

The moral economic school, which has flourished among anthropologists, economic historians, and classicists, has received only limited attention from political scientists. This is perplexing, since at its core is to be found an intersection of debates over rational choice theory, the character of modern and premarket societies, and the normative standing of the market—in other words, over issues of formidable importance to our discipline. I seek to correct that neglect by mapping out and critically analyzing the moral economists' conception of modernity, their critique of the economic approach to human behavior and institutions, and their attempt to formulate an Aristotelian theory of the economy. These projects, though flawed, together are more than rich enough to provide fertile ground for political scientists and philosophers. I conclude with a discussion of the moral economists' effort to develop a normative theory of the economy together with a related critique of the market.

Explaining Economic Change: The Interplay Between Cognition and Institutions

Legal Theory ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack Knight ◽  
Douglass North
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Economic Change ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Explanation

Economic theory is built on assumptions about human behavior—assumptions embodied in rational-choice theory. Underlying these assumptions are implicit notions about how we think and learn. These implicit notions are fundamentally important to social explanation. The very plausibility of the explanations that we develop out of rational-choice theory rests crucially on the accuracy of these notions about cognition and rationality. But there is a basic problem: There is often very little relationship between the assumptions that rational-choice theorists make and the way that humans actually act and learn in everyday life. This has significant implications for economic theory and practice. It leads to bad theories and inadequate explanations; it produces bad predictions and, thus, supports ineffective social policies.

The Importance of Behavioral Law

2014 ◽  
pp. 92-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Ulen
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Law And Economics ◽  
Policy Options

The chapter begins with several general policy examples that demonstrate how the empirical findings of cognitive and social psychology lead to very different predictions of human behavior and different policy options from those of rational choice theory. The chapter then turns to the topic of law and economics so as to contrast how some familiar conclusions of law and economics that were premised on rational choice by contract parties, potential injurers and victims, and others must be altered in light of the behavioral findings that undermine rational choice theory. The chapter also considers (and rejects) criticisms of behavioral law by economists, legal scholars, and philosophers. Finally, the chapter seeks to point to the next research steps in behavioral law.

scholarly journals Normative rational choice theory: Past, present, and future

2015 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 49-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bojan Krstic ◽  
Milos Krstic
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Economics ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Utility Theory ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Expected Utility Theory ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Economic Literature ◽  
Economic Psychology ◽  
The Third

In this paper, we have tried to explain the normative turn in more recent work on experimental economics and behavioral economics. In section two, we discussed the various arguments that philosophers have offered in related to a normative interpretation of rational choice theory. We used the Friedman-Savage work on Expected Utility Theory as an example of the differences between the way that economists and philosophers see rational choice theory. We concluded that economists have traditionally equated the normative with ethically. In the third part, we examined the results of experimental and behaviorial economic literature with emphasis on the influence of experimental psychology. We presented a number of empirical anomalies and we agreed that representatives of economic psychology tend to view rational choice theory as a normative theory of rationality. In the last part, we examined some of the causes and consequences of the normative turn.

Irrational Workers: The Moral Economy of Labor Protest in Egypt

1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marsha Pripstein Posusney
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Supporting Evidence ◽  
Collective Actions ◽  
Real Wages ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
Labor Protest ◽  
Rational Choice Theories

After comparing the predictions of Marxist, moral economy, and rational-choice theories concerning collective actions by workers in Egypt in the period since the 1952 Free Officers coup, this article concludes that a moral economy perspective is best able to explain the nature and frequency of these protests. The supporting evidence is the correlation between labor protest and violations of workers' feelings of entitlement, as manifest in declining real wages or disruptions to established patterns of wage differentials. The targeting of state institutions, combined with the fact that workers have eschewed actual production stoppages in favor of symbolic protests, indicates a view of reciprocal rights and obligations between themselves and the state. The latter reinforces the moral economy by combining significant concessions with its repressive response to labor protests. Marxism proves unable to explain the largely defensive and reactive nature of labor protest, while rational-choice theory is reduced to efforts to quantify workers' reactions to this repression.

scholarly journals Rationality, preference satisfaction and anomalous intentions: why rational choice theory is not self-defeating

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roberto Fumagalli
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Philosophical Debate ◽  
Normative Foundations

AbstractThe critics of rational choice theory (henceforth, RCT) frequently claim that RCT is self-defeating in the sense that agents who abide by RCT’s prescriptions are less successful in satisfying their preferences than they would be if they abided by some normative theory of choice other than RCT. In this paper, I combine insights from philosophy of action, philosophy of mind and the normative foundations of RCT to rebut this often-made criticism. I then explicate the implications of my thesis for the wider philosophical debate concerning the normativity of RCT for both ideal agents who can form and revise their intentions instantly without cognitive costs and real-life agents who have limited control over the formation and the dynamics of their own intentions.

Normative Rational Choice Theory: Past, Present, and Future

2012 ◽  
pp. 52-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Hands
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Experimental Economics ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Adequate Description ◽  
Descriptive Theory ◽  
Normative Issues

The paper shows that the theory of rational choice should be better understood as a normative, prescriptive, and not as a descriptive theory of human behavior. Such an interpretation amounts to claiming that there is a «normative turn» in economics. This turn means that the majority of economists no longer regards rational choice theory as an adequate description of economic activity. The author also tries to free the normative issues from ethical meanings that are commonly attributed to it in economic theory. Perspectives of the normative turn in the context of a recent development of behavioral and experimental economics are also discussed.

One rationality to rule them all

2020 ◽  
pp. 053901842096335
Author(s):  
Peter T. Leeson
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory

The claim that rationality is ‘limited, falsified and unhelpful’ for explaining norms is false, for it does not apply to rationality as conceptualized by rational choice theory. Rationality as conceptualized by rational choice theory is not limited: it can be used to develop explanations of any observed human behavior. Rationality as conceptualized by rational choice theory has not been falsified: indeed, it is not falsifiable. Rationality as conceptualized by rational choice theory is not unhelpful for explaining norms: it is often used to develop explanations of observed norms, including norms that seem most puzzling. Rationality as conceptualized by rational choice theory provides a universal framework for developing explanations of human behavior.

The Biological Justification of Ethics: A Best-Case Scenario

1990 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Rosenberg
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Structure ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Case Scenario ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Normative Implications

Social and behavioral scientists — that is, students of human nature — nowadays hardly ever use the term ‘human nature’. This reticence reflects both a becoming modesty about the aims of their disciplines and a healthy skepticism about whether there is any one thing really worthy of the label ‘human nature’.For some feature of humankind to be identified as accounting for our ‘nature’, it would have to reflect some property both distinctive of our species and systematically influential enough to explain some very important aspect of our behavior. Compare: molecular structure gives the essence or the nature of water just because it explains most of its salient properties. Few students of the human sciences currently hold that there is just one or a small number of such features that can explain our actions and/or our institutions. And even among those who do, there is reluctance to label their theories as claims about ‘human nature’.Among anthropologists and sociologists, the label seems too universal and indiscriminant to be useful. The idea that there is a single underlying character that might explain similarities threatens the differences among people and cultures that these social scientists seek to uncover. Even economists, who have explicitly attempted to parlay rational choice theory into an account of all human behavior, do not claim that the maximization of transitive preferences is ‘human nature’.I think part of the reason that social scientists are reluctant to use ‘human nature’ is that the term has traditionally labeled a theory with normative implications as well as descriptive ones.

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