The Meaning(s) of Structural Rationality

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 314-321
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gutwald ◽  
Niina Zuber ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bounded Rationality ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Social Roles ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Instrumental Rationality ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Practical Impact ◽  
Patterns Of Interaction

Julian Nida-Rümelin’s philosophical approach to rationality is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions exist which are carried out in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions that are oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational just because no underlying maximizing heuristics are found. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still situated within the realm of cost-benefit reasoning. The idea of social preferences (e.g. Rabin, Fehr and Schmidt) or meta-preferences (Sen) is insufficient to reflect the plurality of human actions. According to Nida-Rümelin, those concepts ignore the plurality of reasons which drive agency. Hence, they try to fit agency into a theory which undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges daily patterns of interaction and meaning.

scholarly journals Doing good vs. avoiding bad in prosocial choice: A refined test and extension of the morality preference hypothesis

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben M Tappin ◽  
Valerio Capraro
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Dictator Game ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Judgment And Decision Making ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Right ◽  
Human Social Life

Prosociality is fundamental to human social life, and, accordingly, much research has attempted to explain human prosocial behavior. Capraro and Rand (Judgment and Decision Making, 13, 99-111, 2018) recently provided experimental evidence that prosociality in anonymous, one-shot interactions (such as Prisoner’s Dilemma and Dictator Game experiments) is not driven by outcome-based social preferences – as classically assumed – but by a generalized morality preference for “doing the right thing”. Here we argue that the key experiments reported in Capraro and Rand (2018) comprise prominent methodological confounds and open questions that bear on influential psychological theory. Specifically, their design confounds: (i) preferences for efficiency with self-interest; and (ii) preferences for action with preferences for morality. Furthermore, their design fails to dissociate the preference to do “good” from the preference to avoid doing “bad”. We thus designed and conducted a preregistered, refined and extended test of the morality preference hypothesis (N=801). Consistent with this hypothesis, our findings indicate that prosociality in the anonymous, one-shot Dictator Game is driven by preferences for doing the morally right thing. Inconsistent with influential psychological theory, however, our results suggest the preference to do “good” was as potent as the preference to avoid doing “bad” in this case.

Social Preferences as an Individual Difference in Offender Decision-making

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chae M. Jaynes ◽  
Thomas A. Loughran
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Ultimatum Game ◽  
Future Orientation ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Self Interest

Objectives: We examined the relationship between social preference game behavior and offender status and tested whether this relationship was attributed to genuine prosocial preferences or confounded by individual differences in future orientation, sensation seeking, and risk-taking. Methods: Offender and nonoffender samples played the dictator and ultimatum games. Ordered and generalized ordered logistic regression models were used to test the hypothesis that when compared to nonoffenders, offenders would demonstrate increased self-interest, while also considering competing theoretical mechanisms. Results: Offenders appeared to be more self-interested as indicated by smaller offers in the dictator game. This relationship, however, was attributed to differences in future orientation between the two groups rather than differences in social preferences. Net of demographic controls and competing theoretical mechanisms, however, offenders made smaller offers in the ultimatum game. We argue this finding revealed differences in strategic decision-making between the two groups. Conclusions: Results suggested that offenders were not distinguishable from nonoffenders by individual differences in social preferences. While nonoffenders made larger offers in both games, this finding was attributed to differences in temporal orientation and risk-taking rather than differences in prosocial preferences. This supported the rational choice assumption of self-interest and highlighted differences in strategic decision-making between offenders and nonoffenders.

Interests and Ethics in Politics

1992 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 369-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Stoker
Keyword(s):  
Social Roles ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Conflicting Interests

I examine the place of self-interest in political life as given by a conception of politics that invokes ethics. This conception portrays each citizen as an individual with unique hopes and desires who is at the same time joined with others—part of, and continually giving shape to, a shared social and political life. It sees in political diversity and controversy not just conflicting interests but also competing claims about what “we”—unique individuals, linked to particular others through social roles and relationships, and together forming a single citizenry—ought to do or seek. Research that simply adopts a broad conception of utility or interest to admit nonselfish preferences or that employs typologies contrasting self-interested with non-self-interested motives will reveal neither the significance nor the limits of self-interest in this politics. Rather, we must explore how citizens' interests are both championed and challenged by the understandings of “good” and “right” to which our politics gives voice.

scholarly journals Risk Tolerance, Self-Interest, and Social Preferences

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy F. Ackert ◽  
Ann B. Gillette ◽  
Jorge Martinez-Vazquez ◽  
Mark Rider
Keyword(s):  
Social Preferences ◽  
Risk Tolerance ◽  
Self Interest

scholarly journals Ratio legis of special minimum limit regulation in narcotics law

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 423-431
Author(s):  
Indra Kusuma Haryanto ◽  
Sudarsono Sudarsono ◽  
Bambang Sugiri ◽  
Abdul Rachmad Budiono
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Policy ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Form Of Life ◽  
Criminal Sanctions ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
The Government ◽  
Materials Used ◽  
Policy Systems ◽  
Maximum Minimum

Narcotics crime in society (especially in Indonesia) shows an increasing trend both quantitatively and qualitatively with widespread victims, especially among children, adolescents, and the younger generation in general. Based on this, the government must increase efforts to prevent and eradicate narcotics crimes by any means, whether reforming the Narcotics Law, imposing strict sanctions and so on. The purpose of this research is to find out how the legal ratio of the Special Minimum Limit Regulation in the Law on Narcotics. This research is normative legal research with a conceptual approach and a philosophical approach. The legal materials used are primary and secondary with the technique of analyzing legal materials using the interpretation method. The results of the study indicate that the Ratio legis regulation specific minimum criminal provisions in the three laws studied, namely: the Narcotics Law and the Supreme Court Circular Number 03 of 2015, is intended to prevent disparities in the sentencing of crimes by judges. The regulation of types of criminal sanctions in legislation is one of the functions of the State to protect legal interests, in the form of life, property and dignity. The regulation of criminal sanctions is one of the criminal policy systems that can be seen from several aspects, namely the criminal system, namely: types of sanctions, alternative and cumulative forms of sanctions and their duration, namely the maximum-minimum of the punishment threatened.

Bounded Rationality in Public Administration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
JoBeth Shafran ◽  
Bryan D. Jones ◽  
Connor Dye
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Bounded Rationality ◽  
Policy Change ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Formal Organization ◽  
Policy Environments ◽  
Organizational Scholarship ◽  
Problem Solve

Bounded rationality is the notion that while humans want to be fully rational beings and weigh the costs and benefits when making a decision, they cannot do so due to cognitive and emotional limitations. The role of human nature in the study and design of organizations can be examined through three general approaches that are explained using metaphors: organization as machine, organization as hierarchy, and organization as canal. The organization-as-machine approach ignores the principles of bounded rationality by assuming the organizational members perform straightforward cost–benefit responses to the incentives put forward by the operators. Later developments in organizational scholarship incorporate elements of bounded rationality and allowed researchers to link human cognitive capacities to the basic organizational features, giving us two new conceptions of organization: organization as hierarchy and organization as canal. Organization as hierarchy focuses on the organization’s use of subunits to create divisions of labor to expand the capacity to process information and problem-solve. Organization as canal recognizes that the weaknesses of human cognition are still channeled into the organizational structure, making it difficult for organizations to update their preferences and assumptions as they receive new information. These principles of bounded rationality in organizational theory can be applied to policy-making institutions. Hierarchical organizations delegate information processing to the subunits, allowing them to attend to the various policy environments and process incoming information. While the collective organization attends to many issues at once, the rules and procedures that are present within the organization and the cognitive limits of decision makers, prevent proportional information processing. Political institutions are unable to respond efficiently to changes in the environment. Thus, organizational adjustment to the environment is characterized as disjointed and episodic as opposed to smooth and incremental. Punctuated equilibrium theory applies these tenets of bounded rationality to a theory of policy change. Congress has been a vehicle for studying bounded rationality in organizations and theories of policy change, as it is a formal institution with bureaucratic elements and is subject to the constraints faced by any formal organization.

A Cooperative Species

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Bowles ◽  
Herbert Gintis
Keyword(s):  
Prosocial Behavior ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Group Members

This book examines the cultural, biological and other processes that explain how humans evolved into an exceptionally cooperative species. It advances two propositions, the first of which deals with proximate motivations for prosocial behavior and the second is concerned with the distant evolutionary origins and ongoing perpetuation of these cooperative dispositions. It argues that cooperation arose because it was highly beneficial to the members of groups that practiced it, and humans were able to construct social institutions that minimized the disadvantages of those with social preferences in competition with fellow group members, while heightening the group-level advantages associated with the high levels of cooperation that these social preferences allowed. The book explains why altruistic social preferences supporting human cooperation outcompeted unmitigated and amoral self-interest.

scholarly journals Bounded Rationality in Principal-Agent Relationships

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-443
Author(s):  
Mathias Erlei ◽  
Heike Schenk-Mathes
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Data ◽  
Moral Hazard ◽  
Agency Theory ◽  
Bounded Rationality ◽  
Social Preferences ◽  
Principal Agent ◽  
Rational Behavior ◽  
Quantal Response ◽  
Boundedly Rational Behavior ◽  
Hidden Action

Abstract We conducted six treatments of a standard moral hazard experiment with hidden action. The behavior in all treatments and periods was inconsistent with established agency theory. In the early periods, behavior differed significantly between treatments. This difference largely vanished in the final periods. We used logit agent quantal response equilibrium (LAQRE) as a device to grasp boundedly rational behavior and found the following: (1) LAQRE predictions are much closer to subjects’ behavior in the laboratory; (2) LAQRE probabilities and experimental behavior show remarkably similar patterns; and (3) including social preferences in LAQRE does not better explain the experimental data; (4) LAQRE cannot explain the contract offers of some players who seem to choose some focal contract parameters.

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