IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rmm/journl/v0y2009i3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why Bayesian Rationality Is Empty, Perfect Rationality Doesn't Exist, Ecological Rationality Is Too Simple, and Critical Rationality Does the Job

Author

Listed:
  • Max Albert

    (Justus-Liebig-Universitaet Giessen)

Abstract

Economists claim that principles of rationality are normative principles. Nevertheless, they go on to explain why it is in a person's own interest to be rational. If this were true, being rational itself would be a means to an end, and rationality could be interpreted in a non-normative or naturalistic way. The alternative is not attractive: if the only argument in favor of principles of rationality were their intrinsic appeal, a commitment to rationality would be irrational, making the notion of rationality self-defeating. A comprehensive conception of rationality should recommend itself: it should be rational to be rational. Moreover, since rational action requires rational beliefs concerning means-ends relations, a naturalistic conception of rationality has to cover rational belief formation including the belief that it is rational to be rational. The paper considers four conceptions of rationality and asks whether they can deliver the goods: Bayesianism, perfect rationality (just in case that it differs from Bayesianism), ecological rationality (as a version of bounded rationality), and critical rationality, the conception of rationality characterizing critical rationalism. The answer is summarized in the paper's title.

Suggested Citation

  • Max Albert, 2009. "Why Bayesian Rationality Is Empty, Perfect Rationality Doesn't Exist, Ecological Rationality Is Too Simple, and Critical Rationality Does the Job," Rationality, Markets and Morals, Frankfurt School Verlag, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, vol. 0(3), November.
    • Handle: RePEc:rmm:journl:v:0:y:2009:i:3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/004_albert.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anand, Paul & Pattanaik, Prasanta & Puppe, Clemens (ed.), 2009. "The Handbook of Rational and Social Choice," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199290420.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jonas Hedlund & Carlos Oyarzun, 2018. "Imitation in heterogeneous populations," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(4), pages 937-973, June.
    2. Franz Dietrich & Christian List, 2013. "Propositionwise judgment aggregation: the general case," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(4), pages 1067-1095, April.
    3. List, Christian & Polak, Ben, 2010. "Introduction to judgment aggregation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 145(2), pages 441-466, March.
    4. Ana B. Ania & Andreas Wagener, 2021. "Laboratory federalism with public funds sharing," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1047-1065, July.
    5. Felix Brandt & Patrick Lederer & Warut Suksompong, 2022. "Incentives in Social Decision Schemes with Pairwise Comparison Preferences," Papers 2204.12436, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    6. Mariateresa Ciommi & Ernesto Savaglio, 2015. "On multidimensional diversity orderings with categorical variables," Department of Economics University of Siena 711, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    7. de Clippel, Geoffroy & Eliaz, Kfir, 2015. "Premise-based versus outcome-based information aggregation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 34-42.
    8. Takuya Sekiguchi & Hisashi Ohtsuki, 2023. "Aggregation of Correlated Judgments on Multiple Interconnected Issues," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 233-256, February.
    9. Tanguiane, Andranick S., 2022. "Analysis of the 2021 Bundestag elections. 4/4. The third vote application," Working Paper Series in Economics 154, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    10. Aureli Alabert & Mercè Farré, 2022. "The doctrinal paradox: comparison of decision rules in a probabilistic framework," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(4), pages 863-895, May.
    11. Paola Manzini & Marco Mariotti & Luigi Mittone, 2010. "Choosing monetary sequences: theory and experimental evidence," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 69(3), pages 327-354, September.
    12. Sandro Casal & Nives DellaValle & Luigi Mittone & Ivan Soraperra, 2017. "Feedback and efficient behavior," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(4), pages 1-21, April.
    13. Jimena Galindo & Levent Ülkü, 2020. "Diversity relations over menus," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(2), pages 229-242, August.
    14. Dorian Jullien, 2013. "Asian Disease-type of Framing of Outcomes as an Historical Curiosity," GREDEG Working Papers 2013-47, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    15. Nehring, Klaus & Pivato, Marcus & Puppe, Clemens, 2014. "The Condorcet set: Majority voting over interconnected propositions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 268-303.
    16. Nehring, Klaus & Pivato, Marcus & Puppe, Clemens, 2011. "Condorcet admissibility: Indeterminacy and path-dependence under majority voting on interconnected decisions," MPRA Paper 32434, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Jose Apesteguia & Jörg Oechssler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2020. "Copy Trading," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(12), pages 5608-5622, December.
      • Apesteguia, Jose & Oechssler, Jörg & Weidenholzer, Simon, 2018. "Copy Trading," Working Papers 0649, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
      • Jose Apesteguia & Jörg Oechssler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2018. "Copy trading," Economics Working Papers 1615, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 2019.
      • Jose Apesteguia & Jörg Oechssler & Simon Weidenholzer, 2018. "Copy Trading," Working Papers 1048, Barcelona School of Economics.
    18. Herzberg, Frederik & Eckert, Daniel, 2012. "The model-theoretic approach to aggregation: Impossibility results for finite and infinite electorates," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 41-47.
    19. Mohammed Abdellaoui & Han Bleichrodt & Olivier l’Haridon, 2013. "Sign-dependence in intertemporal choice," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 47(3), pages 225-253, December.
    20. Marcus Pivato, 2013. "Voting rules as statistical estimators," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 40(2), pages 581-630, February.

    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:rmm:journl:v:0:y:2009:i:3. 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: Friederike Pförtner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hfbfide.html .

    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.