IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/theord/v74y2013i3p383-409.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Norms and rationality. Is moral behavior a form of rational action?

Author

Listed:
  • Karl-Dieter Opp

Abstract

This article addresses major arguments in the controversy about the “rationality” of moral behavior: can moral behavior be explained by rational choice theory (RCT)? The two positions discussed are the incentives thesis (norms are incentives as any other costs and benefits) and the autonomy thesis claiming that moral behavior has nothing to do with utility. The article analyses arguments for the autonomy thesis by J. Elster, A. Etzioni, and J. G. March and J. P. Olsen. Finally, the general claim is discussed whether norm following and norm emergence are utility maximizing. The conclusion is that the autonomy thesis is not tenable if one applies a wide subjectivist, social psychological version of RCT that includes the assumption of “bounded rationality.” The autonomy thesis is only compatible with a narrow version of RCT that excludes internal outcomes and that refers to norms that do not have external outcomes. It is argued that such a narrow version is not capable of explaining many forms of behavior social scientists are interested in. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Karl-Dieter Opp, 2013. "Norms and rationality. Is moral behavior a form of rational action?," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 74(3), pages 383-409, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:74:y:2013:i:3:p:383-409
    DOI: 10.1007/s11238-012-9315-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11238-012-9315-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11238-012-9315-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2000. "Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 159-181, Summer.
    2. Fehr, Ernst & Falk, Armin, 2002. "Psychological foundations of incentives," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(4-5), pages 687-724, May.
    3. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    4. Hirschman, Albert O., 1985. "Against Parsimony: Three Easy Ways of Complicating some Categories of Economic Discourse," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(1), pages 7-21, April.
    5. Etzioni, Amitai, 1986. "The Case for a Multiple-Utility Conception," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 159-184, October.
    6. Linda Babcock & George Loewenstein, 1997. "Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 109-126, Winter.
    7. Falk, Armin & Gachter, Simon & Kovacs, Judit, 1999. "Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic incentives in a repeated game with incomplete contracts," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 251-284, June.
    8. Clemens Kroneberg & Meir Yaish & Volker Stocké, 2010. "Norms and Rationality in Electoral Participation and in the Rescue of Jews in WWII," Rationality and Society, , vol. 22(1), pages 3-36, February.
    9. Herbert A. Simon, 1991. "Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 2(1), pages 125-134, February.
    10. Henrich, Joseph & Boyd, Robert & Bowles, Samuel & Camerer, Colin & Fehr, Ernst & Gintis, Herbert (ed.), 2004. "Foundations of Human Sociality: Economic Experiments and Ethnographic Evidence from Fifteen Small-Scale Societies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199262052.
    11. Viktor J. Vanberg, 2002. "Rational Choice vs. Program-based Behavior," Rationality and Society, , vol. 14(1), pages 7-54, February.
    12. Bruno S. Frey & Reto Jegen, 2001. "Motivation Crowding Theory," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 589-611, December.
    13. Nicolas Olsson-Yaouzis, 2010. "Revolutionaries, despots, and rationality," Rationality and Society, , vol. 22(3), pages 283-299, August.
    14. Denise Anthony & Sean W. Smith & Timothy Williamson, 2009. "Reputation and Reliability in Collective Goods," Rationality and Society, , vol. 21(3), pages 283-306, August.
    15. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, 2003. "The nature of human altruism," Nature, Nature, vol. 425(6960), pages 785-791, October.
    16. Elster, Jon, 1989. "Social Norms and Economic Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 99-117, Fall.
    17. Brennan, Timothy J., 1989. "A Methodological Assessment of Multiple Utility Frameworks," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 189-208, October.
    18. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    19. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    20. Federico Varese & Meir Yaish, 2000. "The Importance Of Being Asked," Rationality and Society, , vol. 12(3), pages 307-334, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yin, Xile & Li, Jianbiao & Li, Dahui & Chen, Siyu, 2023. "When emotional responses conflict with self-interested impulses: A transcranial direct current stimulation study of cognitive control in cooperative norm compliance," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    2. Xile Yin & Siyu Chen & Dahui Li & Feng Zhang, 2021. "Social norms for fairness and board voting behavior: An experimental investigation," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 110-133, March.
    3. Thieme, Lutz & Winkelhake, Olaf, 2018. "Zur Wirkung moralischer Appelle als Nudging? Ergebnisse aus verhaltensökonomischen Experimenten," Working Papers of the European Institute for Socioeconomics 22, European Institute for Socioeconomics (EIS), Saarbrücken.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Popp, Alexandru W. A., 2009. "Efficient coalition formation and stable coalition structures in a supply chain environment," MPRA Paper 18277, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Agnès Festré, 2010. "Incentives And Social Norms: A Motivation‐Based Economic Analysis Of Social Norms," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 511-538, July.
    3. Houser, Daniel & Xiao, Erte & McCabe, Kevin & Smith, Vernon, 2008. "When punishment fails: Research on sanctions, intentions and non-cooperation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 509-532, March.
    4. Alexandru W. A. POPP, 2012. "Foundations of Team and Cooperation Management," Economia. Seria Management, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 15(1), pages 5-18, June.
    5. Marc Deschamps & Julien Pénin, 2014. "La construction d’une sanction. Le cas des pénalités de retard dans les centres de loisirs de la commune d’Asnières-sur-Seine," Working Papers of BETA 2014-20, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    6. Barr, Abigail & Packard, Truman & Serra, Danila, 2014. "Participatory accountability and collective action: Experimental evidence from Albania," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 250-269.
    7. Simon Gaechter & Benedikt Herrmann, 2008. "Reciprocity, culture, and human cooperation: Previous insights and a new cross-cultural experiment," Discussion Papers 2008-14, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    8. S. Abu Turab Rizvi, 2001. "Preference Formation and the Axioms of Choice," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 141-159.
    9. Xiao, Erte & Houser, Daniel, 2011. "Punish in public," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 1006-1017, August.
    10. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polanía Reyes, 2009. "Economic Incentives and Social Preferences: A Preference-based Lucas Critique of Public Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 2734, CESifo.
    11. Midler, Estelle & Pascual, Unai & Drucker, Adam G. & Narloch, Ulf & Soto, José Luis, 2015. "Unraveling the effects of payments for ecosystem services on motivations for collective action," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 394-405.
    12. Simon Gaechter, 2014. "Human Pro-Social Motivation and the Maintenance of Social Order," CESifo Working Paper Series 4729, CESifo.
    13. Xiao, Erte & Houser, Daniel, 2006. "Public Implementation Eliminates Detrimental Effects of Punishment on Human Cooperation," IZA Discussion Papers 1977, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Mengyuan Zhou, 2022. "Does the Source of Inheritance Matter in Bequest Attitudes? Evidence from Japan," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 43(4), pages 867-887, December.
    15. Mengyuan Zhou, 2019. "The Effect of the Source of Inheritance on Bequest Attitudes: Evidence from Japan," Keio-IES Discussion Paper Series 2019-018, Institute for Economics Studies, Keio University.
    16. Esser, Hartmut, 2005. "Rationalität und Bindung : das Modell der Frame-Selektion und die Erklärung des normativen Handelns," Papers 05-16, Sonderforschungsbreich 504.
    17. Gächter, Simon & Herrmann, Benedikt, 2011. "The limits of self-governance when cooperators get punished: Experimental evidence from urban and rural Russia," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 193-210, February.
    18. Alexander Field, 2008. "Why multilevel selection matters," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 203-238, December.
    19. Joan Esteban & Laurence Kranich, 2003. "The Social Contracts with Endogenous Sentiments," Working Papers 71, Barcelona School of Economics.
    20. Tünde Paál & Tamás Bereczkei, 2015. "Punishment as a Means of Competition: Implications for Strong Reciprocity Theory," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-14, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:theord:v:74:y:2013:i:3:p:383-409. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.