Abstract
The widespread use of the rational choice model (or rational-choice methodology) in various fields outside economic theory, such as politics and sociology, is often understood and described as an import from the methodology of economics. The associated ideas about the “imperialism” of economic methodology cannot be taken for granted; neither should we leave the equation of rationality and end-means association unquestioned. The core of the optimizing model of rationality is consistent decision-making, when the guiding values are assumed to be given or somehow accessible. Interpretative issues can be important in economic matters, even though the role of interpretation is often masked in economics as a discipline because the goals are taken to be obvious. Indeed, it is argued that modeling tasks are at root closely connected with interpretative tasks. The role of interpretation is even more conspicuous outside economics, whenever complex motivational guidelines are in operation. Interpretation can hardly be separated from modeling tasks when human action is understood or explained, starting from good reasons or the availability of appropriate reasoning. This has implications for the understanding of norm-based choices of actions in methodological individualism.
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Notes
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I would like to thank Alicia Dorothy Mornington-Engel for her very helpful comments.
- 2.
For an in-depth discussion which takes recent developments in cognitive psychology into account, see: Bonnay and Cozic (2011).
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Fénelon, La Nature de l’homme expliquée par les simples notions de l’être en général. In Oeuvres, vol. 2, Paris, Gallimard, «La Pléiade» series, p. 851
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Picavet, E. (2018). Rationality and Interpretation in the Study of Social Interaction. In: Bronner, G., Di Iorio, F. (eds) The Mystery of Rationality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94028-1_15
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