Morality and the Theory of Rational Choice

Kraus, Jody S.; Coleman, Jules L.

doi:10.1086/292886

Cited by 20 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Of course, the costlessness assumption is unrealistic: In real life, prolonged bargaining will turn out to be costly in a number of ways. Still, even though this situation is unrealistic, I don't think the idea of rational choice in this situation is incoherent in the way Kraus and Coleman (1991) argue it is. They argue that without there being any cost of bargaining, there is no basis for choice anymore.…”

Section: The Contractarian Bargaining Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bargaining and the impartiality of the social contract

Thoma

2015

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The question of what a group of rational agents would agree on were they to deliberate on how to organise society is central to all hypothetical social contract theories. If morality is to be based on a social contract, we need to know the terms of this contract. One type of social contract theory, contractarianism, aims to derive morality from rationality alone. Contractarians need to show, amongst other things, that rational and self-interested individuals would agree on an impartial division of a cooperative surplus. But it is often claimed that contractarians cannot show this without introducing moral assumptions. This paper argues that on the right understanding of the question contractarians are asking, these worries can be answered. Without relying on moral assumptions, the paper offers a novel derivation of symmetry, which is the axiom responsible for the impartiality of the most famous economic bargaining solutions appealed to by contractarians.

show abstract

Section: The Contractarian Bargaining Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bargaining and the impartiality of the social contract

Thoma

2015

Philos Stud

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This prediction is, of course, demonstrably wrong. Originally explained away as a paradox (e.g., Olson, 1965; see also Dekel & Gul, 1997, for a particularly nuanced analysis), the fact that people do indeed forgo personal gain for the good of the group has been attributed by rational choice theorists variously to moral behavior ultimately being a rational strategy (Kraus & Coleman, 1987), rational analysis prescribing that one should expect a variety of behavioral approaches across group members (Kreps et al, 1982; Ostrom, 1997), or that rationality prescribes behavior for ongoing social relationships that differs from how one should behave in one-time interactions (Buskens & Raub, 2013; Granovetter, 1985). Which of these perspectives has the greatest amount of support is irrelevant for our purposes.…”

Section: Expert Versus Lay Perceptions Of Cooperationmentioning

confidence: 99%

What does it mean to cooperate? Expert and lay perspectives.

Parks¹

2021

Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective: "Cooperation" is a construct for which there are a variety of definitions. This makes it a challenge to identify when cooperation has occurred and when somebody performed a behavior with cooperative intent. Complicating matters is that social and behavioral science experts tend to define cooperation in ways that differ from lay conceptions of the construct. The objective of this article is to review these definitions, contrast the expert and lay perspectives, and discuss how this difference presents problems for resolving real-world issues that require collective action. Method: Literature is selectively reviewed across psychology, sociology, economics, anthropology, environmental science, and medicine. The findings are used to analyze the global problems of climate change, contagious disease, and water conservation. Results: The expert view of cooperation is grounded in theory based on behavior patterns across individuals and suggests that cooperation results from some combination of evolved tendency, learned associations, social instigators, and physiological activity. By contrast, the lay view is driven by life experience and personal theory about human behavior. Conclusions: Whether a behavior is "cooperative" will often be a function of who is evaluating it. This poses a challenge for the solution of chronic problems that require coordinated action. This is demonstrated through analysis of expert approaches to greenhouse gas emissions, vaccination, and reduction of water consumption that have each failed to resonate with the public. Highlights and Implications• Scientists and nonscientists have differing views of what it means to be a cooperative person.• Scientists define cooperation as a behavior that results when a person analyzes what they need to do if the group is going to succeed, while nonscientists define it in terms of their personal theory of appropriate behavior for situations like this.• These differing views can result in disagreement over how to resolve chronic social problems that require large-scale behavior change.

show abstract

“…The success of Gauthier's argument is a matter of dispute (e.g., [13]), but even if sound it does not serve the cause of morality unless rational individuals (or firms) negotiate a social contract with some kind of moral content. Gauthier maintains rational individuals will strive to minimize the relative concession they must make to obtain an agreement.…”

Section: Social Contract Argumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Moral Implications of Rational Choice Theories

Hooker

2013

Handbook of the Philosophical Foundations of Business Ethics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Rational choice theories assert that human beings behave rationally, either in the narrow sense of rational self-interest, or in the broader sense that decisions are rationally based on preferences. These empirical theories make no direct ethical claims, but they may have relevance to ethics. Social contract theorists have maintained, for example, that rational individuals can assent to a social arrangement that promotes general welfare in some sense. In particular, self-interested business owners can, under the right conditions, rationally consent to regulation. Social choice theorists have argued in a mathematical mode that if we rationally derive social policy from individual preferences, we will adhere to certain ethical norms, perhaps a utilitarian or Rawlsian maximin principle. However, these arguments are based on strong assumptions, particularly with respect to interpersonal incomparability of utilities. Certain rational bargaining procedures, such as Nash bargaining or Raiffa-Kalai-Smorodinsky bargaining, have been shown to lead to outcomes that likewise have ethical content. The former has seen practical application in industry, and the latter results in a minimax relative concession principle similar to that derived by some social contract theorists.

show abstract

Morality and the Theory of Rational Choice

Cited by 20 publications

References 0 publications

Bargaining and the impartiality of the social contract

Bargaining and the impartiality of the social contract

What does it mean to cooperate? Expert and lay perspectives.

Moral Implications of Rational Choice Theories

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About