The Complementarity of Means and Ends: Putnam, pragmatism, and the problem of economic rationality (original) (raw)
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A failure to communicate: the fact-value divide and the Putnam-Dasgupta debate
Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics
This paper considers the debate between economists and philosophers about the role of values in economic analysis by examining the recent debate between Hilary Putnam and Sir Partha Dasgupta. It argues that although there has been a failure to communicate there is much more agreement than it seems. If Dasgupta's work is seen as part of the methodological tradition expounded by John Stuart Mill and John Neville Keynes, economists and philosophers will have a better basis for understanding each other. Unlike the logical-positivist tradition, which treats facts and values as two mutually exclusive concepts, the Mill- Keynes tradition recognizes that facts and values are intertwined. Unlike the Smithian tradition, which blends the study of facts and normative rules, it divides economics into a science that studies "what is" and an art which considers "what ought to be done".
Philosophy and Social Criticism, 37, 7, 2011: 743-57
This article deals with how to talk about the political. After the introduction (I), I show, first, that Putnam’s arguments against the root dichotomies between facts and values (II), and between values and norms (III), are valid. I then discuss Putnam’s resistance to drawing skeptical lessons from these negative arguments, a fight that is largely successful (IV). I go on to sketch his own middle position, looking at the way he expands cognitive meaning in the practical sphere (V). I end by addressing Putnam’s specific stance towards the political, arguing here that a relative distinction between facts, values and norms allows us to speak about the political both in a more direct and a balanced way. This means reopening the case of representation (VI).
Reconstructing the Concept of Rationality in Economics
“Rational Choice Theory is taken as the only form of rationality and has resulted in many deficiencies in economics. Economics, through rational choice theory, has reduced individuals to means-end rational alone. Rationality has a world of contradictions within itself and by incorporating the different forms in which rationality manifests itself improves our understanding of the economic sphere. The purpose of our paper is to critique the orthodox understanding of rationality and use a variety of literature to enrich the concept of rationality in economics in the multiplicity of ways it manifests itself.”
Chapter 1 The Success and Failure of Rational Choice
The rational choice approach, despite widespread criticism, has reached a point of unrivaled prominence among general theoretical approaches for explaining human action. This prominence extends across the entire range of social sciences. In economics, rational choice remains unchallenged as the dominant, if not defining, theoretical paradigm, and is sometimes referred to simply as the "economic approach ." 1 In political science, largely under auspices of the public choice school, the rational choice approach has grown to the point where it has more adherents than any other, and its threatened dominance has set off an intense debate that has polarized the discipline. 2 In psychology, rational choice can claim close ties to a wide variety of theories located under the broad rubric of expectancy-value analysis. 3 Furthermore, the rapidly-growing subfield of decision theory, while often rejecting the economist's optimizing version of rational choice, uses it as the standard against which to compare its own bounded rational choice models. 4 In sociology, rational choice has risen from obscurity to become a major theoretical approach in both Europe and the United States, benefiting from the strong support of some the most prominent names in the discipline. 5 While anthropology is less interested than other social science disciplines in grand theories, rational choice has nonetheless been at the center of perhaps the main ongoing theoretical debate in cultural and social anthropology, that over whether interpretation of unfamiliar cultural practices should always proceed on the assumption that participants in such practices are rational. 6 Furthermore, it could
Rational Choice in political science is about applying the microeconomic rules to politics. The economic definition of rational choice is that an agent makes a decision based on scarce resources available to him for the best result and outcome. Since Arrow's work, Social Choice and Individual Values (1951), Downs' An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957), and Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action (1965), there has been an explosion of scholarly works on this issue. This book provides a critical survey of these theories. There is significant progress in "the theoretical elaboration of rational actor models," and the successful "empirical applications of rational choice models have been few and far between," writes the authors in their preface. They try to fill the gap in this book. Shapiro and Green attempt to write an appraisal that would explain rational choice scholarship to a broader audience. They also develop their critique of these works as well. Finally, the authors expand their search and cover most of the scholarship.
“Putnam and Cavell on the Ethics of Democracy”
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