Rationality in Economics from Shaun Hargreaves Heap

Résumé du document

The purpose of the book is to single out the different kinds of rationality throughout the social sciences utilities: the desires (goals, preferences, ends), the beliefs (knowledge, information), and the action framework. Rationality in an economic perspective is how we make a choice or preference, and what makes us prefer one thing to another. Let's see what Shaun Hargreaves Heap has to say on this issue.

Extraits

[...] Because of the meaning of norms and procedures, we can act in a very specific way in order to attain a goal that represent the best ourselves and not merely the most efficient way to reach a simple preference. Consequently the author writes the action is no longer a means to a given end. Action is implicated in the choice of ends activity and action may become its own end in this manner. To my point, Shaun Hargreaves Heap is going beyond the simple macroeconomic framework. In fact, he is bestowing a lot of interest in the sense of all of our action. [...]

[...] To conclude, I would say that is a very interesting approach, because it takes into account the why and not only the how That is maybe what Edmond Husserl was asking for in his Crisis of the Sciences when he was bewailing of the lack of sense in sciences and the shortage of interest in the why and in the meaning of the analysed object. Finally, we can at least thank Hargreaves Heap to have attempted to renew the approach of rationality. [...]

[...] The author singles out rationality, the procedural rationality. This type of rationality conveys an individual who is rule follower, a person who follows norms, recipes or procedures for action". To be more specific, I would say that if the instrumental rationality says to the individual that the best means to reach his goals is to do something illegal or to be outlaw, individual may start to be procedural and abides by the rules of the society. This is why Hargreaves wrote, "The optimising calculations of the instrumentally rational person are simply not practicable". [...]

[...] Thus, the origin of this rationality is to be found in the social sciences and more precisely in sociology. Because procedures, norms, all behaviours are drawn by historical and social background, and by what we call the process of socialization. It means that sometimes we do not think and act in order to achieve a specific goal in the best way (understand rational) as we can, but more in a very classic and definite way which is imposed by society. [...]

[...] Let's see what Shaun Hargreaves Heap has to say about this issue. He wants to discern three kinds of rationality: of course the instrumental rationality, a procedural rationality, and an expressive rationality. Firstly, we have to define what the instrumental rationality assumption is. To be short we can describe the instrumental rational agent like the classic maximiser in macroeconomic studies. This is the individual who "acts so as to satisfy these preferences best". What we call the rationality is "located in the means-end framework as the choice of most efficient means for achievement of given ends". [...]