Rational Sociopath
Zadnja beseda citiranega odstavka mi pride na misel vse pogosteje ob spremljanju zgodb o podvigih slovenskih “podjetnikov” (ne vseh, da ne bo pomote) in – zanimivo – tekstih, ki jih v medije mečejo nekateri provincialni ekonomisti.
I believe that the “economic way of thinking,” as the textbooks have it, destroys the world we have in common, because that world is a world constructed in a normative, not a natural, space and rationality, as economists understand it, is inconsistent with, indeed makes nonsense of, the notion of normative authority. In effect, this point was made 30 years ago by Amartya Sen in “Rational Fools,” where he argued that while the economic conception of rationality can make sense of “sympathy,” – preference structures that made the utility of others part of the agent’s objective function – it cannot make sense of what Sen called “commitment,” which he defined as “counter-preferential choice.” The idea that we sometimes sacrifice something – lower our utility – to do what is right is absolutely inconsistent with rational choice. I don’t doubt that there are people who are well described as rational choosers – and more of them, unfortunately, than there would be had rational choice theory never been invented – but they are damaged humans, sociopaths. Identity & Interests
