Christiano - Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory SelfDefeating? Author(s): by ThomasChristiano Reviewed work(s): Source: Ethics, Vol. 115, No.
1 (October 2004), pp. 122-141 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/421979 . Accessed: 30/11/2012 16:09
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Ethics.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.82.217 on Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:09:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
REVIEW ESSAY
Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?* Thomas Christiano

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY AND POLITICS Rational choice approaches to politics have, in the main, been concerned to pursue two principal aims. First, they attempt to explain and predict the operation of economic and political institutional structures on the basis of a conception of human beings as homo economicus. Public choice theory, game theory, neoclassical economic theory, law and economics, and some of social choice theory all share this explanatory aim. Second, rational choice theories attempt to justify and criticize institutional structures by showing that when in place, the institutions are likely to bring about outcomes that are for the common good or not, under the assumption that they operate in the way that the explanatory theory says they do. This evaluation and justication are done with an eye to justifying policy proposals for the reform of those institutions and in some cases even the total transformation of economic and political institutions. This is the practical aim of rational choice theory. In the pursuit of the explanatory and practical aims, these approaches conceive of rational agents as pursuing their own interests understood broadly in conictual terms (that is where the interests are not inherently harmonious).1 The rational choice theorist then argues in favor
* This is a review essay of Russell Hardin, Liberalism, Constitutionalism and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999) and Geoffrey Brennan and Alan Hamlin, Democratic Devices and Desires (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). References to these books will be in parentheses in the text under the authors names. I thank Charles Larmore and John Deigh for their helpful comments on a previous draft. 1. For the most part, rational choice theorists think of the mainstream approach as committed to the thesis that agents are self-interested, and I will simplify the discussion in what follows by using this account. But some theorists have used the idea that the agents are nontuistic in the sense that they are not inherently concerned with the interests of those they strategically interact with, for example, people in another society Ethics 115 (October 2004): 122141 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0014-1704/2004/115010001$10.00
122
Christiano
Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?
123
of those institutions that tend to bring about good outcomes given these assumptions. The explanatory and practical aims are at odds with one another, or so I shall argue. Mainstream rational choice theory, as I shall conceive of it, adheres strictly to the thesis of homo economicus. In other words, it explains the operation of institutions and justies the reform of those institutions under the assumption that individuals normally maximize their own utility in every action they undertake. This need not entail that individuals always and everywhere deliberate in terms of maximization of utility, but it does require that their actions nearly always display utility maximization (with allowances due to irrationality). By contrast, revisionists think of individuals, at least in a large set of cases, as not maximizing utility in every action but as adopting dispositions to act that maximize utility for the person on the whole. Some have thought, for example, that a person who has the disposition to act cooperatively in prisoners dilemma situations is likely to do better in the long run than the person who maximizes utility and thus defects in all such situations. The mainstream approach is still the dominant approach to rational choice theory, though the revisionist approach has acquired many allies over the years.2 Geoffrey Brennan and Alan Hamlin have more recently made the revisionist approach a cornerstone of their approach to political institutions and democracy in particular. Russell Hardin, by contrast, follows the mainstream approach to rational choice theory. These two books display the diversity of ideas that rational choice theory has given rise to in the past twenty years. Anyone who wishes to learn about the power and complexity of rational choice theory and its potential for subtle and illuminating analyses of the development and maintenance of political institutions can do no better than to read these works. What is striking about these two books is that they both notice a central problem with taking the mainstream approach and are concerned to overcome the problem, but they do so in opposite ways. Hardin and Brennan and Hamlin notice that if we are to conceive of rational agents as for the most part self-interested, the practical aim of the rational choice approach may be undermined at least to a signicant degree. They note that the mainstream approach to the explanation of the operation of economic and political institutions tends to result in a highly deterministic approach to those institutions and that this tends
or possibly animals. The differences between these two types of motivations are important, but the mainstream approach treats the nontuistic motivation as if it operated in the same way as the purely self-interested motivation that takes little or no account of the interests of others. 2. See David Gauthier, Morals by Agreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), for the most ambitious philosophical effort to ground morality in the revisionist way.
124
Ethics
October 2004
to undercut the practical aim of rational choice theory of proposing reforms for those institutions. Hardin sides with the mainstream view and expresses considerable skepticism about the prospects for reform of economic and political institutions even when these reforms would bring about signicant improvements in the economic performances of the societies in question over the long term. Rational choice theory all but loses its practical aim in this context while maintaining its explanatory aim. Brennan and Hamlin attempt to preserve both the explanatory and practical aims of rational choice theory by jettisoning the mainstream approach to human behavior and adopting a revisionist view. In this article, I want to go into some depth about this feature of rational choice theory. It has seemed to me that it has gone mostly undiscussed in the literature even though it represents a profound set of problems in rational choice theory. Though they notice the problem, Hardin and Brennan and Hamlin do not take the full measure of the problem as seriously as they should, and the consequence is that their approaches remain mired in paradox. Or so I shall argue. BASIC STRUCTURE DETERMINISM What I mean by basic structure determinism is the thesis that the development, maintenance, and decline of basic structural institutions in society is determined by forces that are beyond the capacity of human beings to guide and design. Political institutions do not develop the way they do because human beings think that this is the best way for them to develop. Political institutions and arrangements are largely the result of the unintended cumulative consequences of many human actions. They do not develop in accord with the ideals that human beings develop for their lives together. Their development is guided, to use Brennan and Hamlins expression, by an invisible hand. Basic structure determinism is a bit like determinism with regard to individuals. But unlike some forms of individual determinism, basic structure determinism is a hard kind of determinism. It is not merely the case that agency is determined by external forces; in basic structure determinism, there is no agency at all, in the sense that the development of these institutions is not guided by human design. Political and social institutions are the product of the cumulative effects of many people acting with a great variety of different purposes, and the development of the institutions overall cannot be said to be determined by any kind of design, choice, or plan. The development of political institutions is not up to human beings. It is important to note the distinction between basic structural institutions and other kinds of institutions. By basic structural institutions I have in mind the basic institutions of the market, the political system,
Christiano
125
and the basic informal institutions of society such as the family and religious institutions.3 Though these are formed, maintained, and destroyed by forces that are beyond the control of human beings, human beings do have the capacities to shape their lives to some degree within the framework set by these institutions. The basic structural institutions set the parameters for individual choice, and basic structure determinism does not imply that individuals are not free within the parameters dened by these institutions. While the basic structure is not subject to human control, it provides limited opportunities for people to take some control of their own lives. The thesis of basic structure determinism does not imply a thesis of determinism with regard to individual action, nor does it imply that all social institutions are beyond the intelligent design and control of human beings. Individuals can still freely and intelligently design associations within the context of the basic structural institutions. The fact that basic structural institutions are not subject to human design or agency is compatible with those institutions changing as a result of intentional human actions. Political, economic, and social institutions normally do not change without being the result of intentional human actions. But the changes that occur in the basic structural institutions are the unintended consequences of the accumulation of many actions, according to this form of determinism. The actions that are designed to bring about intended changes in the basic structure of society almost always fail to achieve their goals. When they do achieve their goals it is more a result of happenstance than the will of a particular person or group of persons. The thesis of basic structure determinism is also compatible with people making marginal changes to the basic structural institutions. One might attempt to change aspects of the committee system in the United States Congress, for example, and in some cases succeed. And to this extent, there is still some room for rational choice theorists to make practically effective recommendations for change. But it is a highly limited space and is certainly much more limited than rational choice theorists normally have in mind for the practical purposes they pursue. Furthermore, incremental changes, when added up, usually do not produce the intended overall effects that they may have originally been designed to produce. As soon as ones ambitions turn to larger scale institutional changes and effects, the rule of unintended consequences takes over. This implies an inevitable vagueness in the thesis of basic structure determinism since it is going to be difcult to determine exactly when
3. See John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), chap. 6, for a discussion of this notion.
126
Ethics
October 2004
a change is marginal or incremental and when it is a change to the institutions overall. But even so, the thesis has enormous implications for our understanding of the legitimate purposes of rational choice theory. Russell Hardins book defends a roughly deterministic conception of politics. He says: For most people in the United States most of the time, the order that the US Constitution brings about is a part of the necessity of the world in which they live (Hardin, p. 313). And this latter claim is an understatement of the view that he holds. Brennan and Hamlin assert this kind of determinism when they say: Invisible hands are the only kinds of hand that are allowable in this world of unrelieved egoism (p. 40). Control is not exerted by any human agent over the basic structure of the social and political world if agents are purely rational egoists; only an invisible hand controls the system. HARDINS BASIC ARGUMENT The thesis of basic structure determinism is grounded in a number of factors pertaining to human choices and their cumulative impact. The most important component is the thesis that individuals are primarily rational egoists. Hardins claims for his approach are modest, as many rational choice approaches have come to be. In one of many caveats for his approach, Hardin states: Neither moral commitment nor terror seems likely to induce widespread creativity and innovation, but if either of them or if some other system not dependent on stable expectations and incentives could be made to work, then much of what I will say here might be irrelevant (p. 232). In addition to the thesis of rational egoism, there are four basic components to the argument as I understand it. (1) The basic structure of any society is made stable only by being a coordination point for all of its members that serves the interests of a few well-situated and powerful minorities. (2) Each person has negligible impact on the development of the basic structure. (3) There are severe cognitive limitations to the capacities of individuals for understanding how society works. (4) When people do consider change, there is substantial disagreement about how to do it and where to take it. THE COORDINATION ACCOUNT OF POLITICAL ORDER The most explicit aim of the arguments of the book is to defend a coordination theory of political order (Hardin, p. 12). Hardin claims that the two criteria of workability that distinguish the successful workings of liberalism, constitutionalism and democracy are the acquiescence of most people most of the time in the political order established by these and the mutual advantage of the politically effective groups of society (p. 316). The coordination account of political order asserts
Christiano
127
that a constitution must be a coordination point for the members of society in order to succeed. A coordination point is a social arrangement, institution, or even a convention that is such that no individual has an incentive to defect from the arrangement. In this sense, constitutions that serve to coordinate the members of society are self-enforcing. They structure the incentives of individuals so that those individuals have reasons to stick to the rules for the most part. The most obvious examples of coordination points are the rules of the road. If the rule is to drive on the right-hand side, it is in each persons interest to drive on the right-hand side. The coordination account of political order is distinct from the contractarian account of political order. The latter states that constitutions solve large-scale prisoners dilemma problems and advance the common good in doing so. In these problems individuals prefer that others undertake the burdens of an arrangement while they free ride and receive the benets of the arrangements. Prisoners dilemma accounts of political order start with the observation that society faces large-scale prisoners dilemma problems, such as the need for public order and a system of property and contract, which can be solved only by introducing enforcers who punish defectors from the collectively desirable behaviors. As Brennan and Hamlin and Hardin point out, the main trouble with these accounts is that they fail to take account of the enforcers incentives, which are often different from the interests of the rest of society (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 39; Hardin, p. 87). Hence, these solutions are not stable. By contrast, in a coordination point each person has an incentive to stick to the coordination to the extent that others do, and so the arrangement is self-enforcing. Hardins point is not that economic or political liberalism, democracy, or a constitution is necessarily a coordination point. It is that for these institutions to be workable, they must coordinate the members of the society. Much of the book consists in detailed accounts of the conditions under which these institutions have been coordination points for the members of the society in which they occurred and when they failed (Hardin, p. 194). Also, liberalism and democracy are not necessary conditions of coordination. Hardin gives a number of examples of nonliberal and nondemocratic arrangements that coordinated the actions of the members (p. 284). The most basic condition under which these institutions are coordination points is when they serve the mutual advantage of the most efcacious groups in the society (Hardin, p. 3). Then the powerful groups can coordinate on the institutions (assuming they have preferences in favor of mutual accommodation as opposed to preferences that place the pursuit of glory or the religious conversion of others above all other concerns), and then the less-powerful groups must go along.
128
Ethics
October 2004
The less-powerful groups must acquiesce in the scheme that is to the mutual advantage of the powerful. This mutual advantage account is not meant to provide a normative underpinning of the institutions that are sustained by it. Hardin repeatedly reminds us that the stability provided by institutions that coordinate individuals actions is only a necessary condition of the normative justication of those institutions (p. 38). It can be the case that the institutions on which a society is coordinated are such that the great majority of subjects would be better off coordinating on other institutions. The trouble is that individuals cannot depart from the coordination individually or in small groups without harming themselves. The only way that a superior coordination point could come about for most of the society is if there were massive recoordination on new institutions. But this is nearly always impossible to achieve because the individuals who might desire this change face massive collective action problems as well as uncertainty, and so individuals go along with the institutions even if most of them would be better off under alternative arrangements (Hardin, p. 15). With the coordination account of political order in place we can see how the other three elements of the argument t in. The second element is that individuals rarely have much impact on the social and political institutions in which they live. So individuals do not have incentives to try to change the constitutional order under which they live. The expected value of their actions is so low in this area that the selfinterest of individuals inclines them to concern themselves with other issues. Third, ignorance about the nature and workings of social and political institutions ensures that whether constitutions work or not is largely a matter of chance and happenstance (Hardin, p. 234). The U.S. Constitution worked, Hardin argues, largely because it didnt take a stand on what the best economic structure for society is. It failed to take such a stand not as a result of the wisdom of the framers but as a result of the fact that the two main powers in the society, plantation agrarians and commercial interests, could not agree on one (Hardin, p. 237). As a consequence, the constitution merely enabled trade to occur between the states without interference between them. This was something that beneted the main interests in society in ways they didnt envision. The lack of knowledge about how institutions work in general is a function of the general limits to human cognitive abilities. The development and workings of large societies are extremely complex and are far beyond the capacities of individuals to understand. For most people the ignorance is the result of the division of labor of any complex society. Under these circumstances, people will focus on their individual tasks
Christiano
129
and not on the whole. Ignorance also results from the fact that since individuals have very little impact on the basic institutions under which they live and their basic concerns are to advance their own interests, they have little incentive for coming to understand the whole society. This is the thesis of the rationality of ignorance argued for by Anthony Downs.4 A fourth reason for the deterministic thesis is that people disagree about the proper ideals for society. As a consequence, even when a person attempts to realize some ideal in practice, others are likely not to help him in this to the extent that they have different ideals and, what is more likely, when most are acting principally in their self-interest. While one person might set in motion a vision of a certain kind of society, the thousands of other people on whom this person depends to realize this vision are likely to carry things in very different directions from the one originally intended. Needless to say, none of them will get his or her way for long.5 BASIC STRUCTURE DETERMINISM AND DEMOCRACY Democracy has traditionally been one of the main supports for the idea that human beings can have some control over their own collective destiny. The thought is that in democracy the people take control of the political institutions under which they live by debating the merits of different institutions and choosing them through voting. Hardin argues against this sanguine view of democracy by invoking the view that individuals in a democracy have minimal impact on the outcomes of democratic decision making, and as a result they have little incentive to have informed opinions about what ought to be done. As a consequence, the outcomes of elections are for the most part not very edifying (Hardin, p. 166). In addition, given the amount of disagreement in society, the idea that a society can determine its future in accordance with its own preference is undermined by Arrows theorem, which says essentially that there is no rational social preference over outcomes under the normal circumstances of politics (Hardin, p. 154). Hardin moderates this conclusion by noting that in times of crisis citizens do have a heightened awareness of political matters and play a
4. See Anthony Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper & Row, 1959). 5. Hardins estimation of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century progressive and teleological accounts of history and society is made evident by the fact that he never mentions them. The utilitarian tradition he comes from, however, is strongly attached to the idea of progress. For example, Sidgwick argues that commonsense morality is guided by an unconscious utilitarianism (in The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. [Indianapolis: Hackett, 1981], p. 454), and Mill argues something quite similar in Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979), p. 22.
130
Ethics
October 2004
larger role in politics (p. 157). In these circumstances citizens do control some important aspects of the societies in which they live. Hardin seems to pin some hope on this possibility. But it is not clear to me that this can preserve any real popular control. The knowledge that people have about how institutions work is very poor even when they do make efforts to acquire it. There is also normally a sufcient diversity of ideas among the major players about how to direct the society to make it unlikely that anyone can predict in advance the outcomes of these moments of collective decision. THE THESIS OF INCOMPATIBILITY The puzzle that Brennan and Hamlin and Hardin notice is that basic structure determinism is incompatible with the normative aspirations of most (perhaps almost all) rational choice theorists. And I include here public choice theory, neoclassical economics, law and economics, as well as some versions of social choice theory. But let us see exactly what this incompatibility is. I shall call it a practical incompatibility. To the extent that the rational choice approach to politics is the right one and entails the kind of determinism that I have described, it will simply not be possible intentionally to reform the basic structure of society in accord with standards of assessment. Whatever inefcient institutions we live under, the likelihood that self-interested individuals are going to undertake the sustained sacrices necessary to transform these institutions into efcient ones is very low. And when the reformers do gain the upper hand, the conicts of interests and opinion between them and the generally high degree of ignorance about the consequences of institutional change ensure that the results of their activities will rarely correspond to their initial aims. None of this means, of course, that desirable institutions cannot come about; it implies only that these institutions will come about regardless of the intentions of the participants or by luck. Here we must distinguish between three possible normative concerns in the rational choice approach. The rst is an evaluative concern to determine which institutions are Pareto efcient and which are not, which institutions are likely to be the most productive, and which institutions are workable or reasonably stable. From these assessments we may determine which would be the best institutions to have. This aim is normative, but it need not have any practical import in the sense that we may know which institutions are best but not be able to do anything about it. The second is a practical concern, which tells us that we ought to do what we can to enhance the welfare of human beings. What I have in mind here is a completely general exhortation to do what will enhance human welfare. This exhortation may require an individual to help another person in need. Even if basic structure determinism is true, I might still be able
Christiano
131
to help a person in need, and the injunction to enhance welfare may direct me to do this. The third enjoins us directly to bring about the kinds of institutions that would bring about optimal states of affairs. This approach determines what institutions we ought to bring about. This concern is action guiding. But the actions it enjoins are institutionbuilding actions. It is meant to tell policy makers and legislators what kinds of institutions they ought to bring about. It is this last practical aim of most rational choice theorists, I claim, that is incompatible with the determinism implied by rational choice theory. The second and third concerns are both practical. They enjoin us to act so as to bring about human welfare. The second concern just tells us to do whatever we can to bring about more welfare. But the third concern picks out a particular set of actions and enjoins us to perform them for the sake of human welfare. It says that one must engage in institution-building actions to enhance human welfare. Logically, one can abandon the third concern while holding on to the second. But as we will see below, utilitarians may have some difculty actually adopting the second concern without the third. Brennan and Hamlin argue that the rst concern is incompatible with the mainstream rational choice approach: in an egoistic universe agents are committed to a language in which good can only mean good for me or more particularly, in my interests. . . . In that world there is simply no meaningful possibility of distinctively moral or justicatory argument (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 26). In effect, they assert that the commitments of rational choice theory are metaethically incompatible with any kind of moral or even welfare economic approach to economic and political institutions. This seems to me to be overstated. Though this observation may hold for some rational choice theorists such as James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, it need not hold for most rational choice assessments of political institutions.6 While James Buchanan and many other public choice theorists are what we might call normative individualists in the sense captured by the above quotes, many theorists are not. Most theorists in this tradition, including Russell Hardin, are utilitarian even though they hold that self-interest is the mainspring of human motivation. They deny the incompatibility of the view that human beings are motivated nearly exclusively by considerations of self-interest and the existence of moral principles that imply that, for example, some kinds of institutions are better than others are. So the evaluative concern need not be undermined by the commitment
6. See James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962). The metaethical claim is stated and defended explicitly in James Buchanan and Geoffrey Brennans The Reason of Rules (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
132
Ethics
October 2004
of mainstream rational choice theory to direct rational egoism. And, for many utilitarian thinkers, it is consistent to hold both that human beings are morally required to bring about the greatest amount of happiness and that human beings are nearly exclusively motivated by selfinterest. The reason for this is that what makes an action the right action for the utilitarian are the results of action and not the motives behind the action. And moral requirements need not, as a matter of logic, be springs of human motivation, or so many consequentialist theorists maintain.7 But the third institution-building concern that is characteristic of mainstream rational choice theorists is in trouble if the difculties I have outlined above cannot be overcome. The combination of the assumption of homo economicus and the exhortation to bring about the best basic structural political institutions seems to be a self-defeating approach to politics if basic structure determinism is true. And the reason for this is that it is simply not within the power of human beings voluntarily and by design to bring about desirable basic structural change given the thesis of basic structure determinism. The development of basic structural institutions is guided only by an invisible hand. DETERMINISM AND NORMATIVE POLITICAL THEORY Though Hardins book is not primarily a work of moral philosophy, it is intended to have a signicant impact on moral and political debates. Its contribution stems from its resolute adherence to the claim that when the social sciences were detached from philosophy, social philosophy became unmoored and the claim that political philosophy must be closely attached to social science (Hardin, p. 318). The commitment to this idea derives from a strong version of the maxim that ought implies can. The idea of possibility behind the doctrine of ought implies can as it is used by Hardin is dened by the motivations and knowledge of human beings and the constraints imposed by the circumstances in which they nd themselves. The explanatory part of rational choice theory tells us what human beings will do under various circumstances and thereby denes the limits of what is possible in human social and political interactions. But there are two different ways in which we can understand the limitations on the possible imposed by rational choice theory. The rst is the workability limitation. Hardin often writes as if the limits of work7. See David Brink, Moral Realism and the Foundations of Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), for a statement of this view. His argument for the claim that moral requirements do not give reasons for action is grounded in the observation that one can imagine a perfectly amoral person who is not irrational.
Christiano
133
ability are the same as the limits on the possibility of social arrangements. Hardin argues, for instance, that an egalitarian society is not a workable society (p. 206). It will be unstable and cannot survive. And he takes the maxim of ought implies can to imply that it is not true that we ought to bring about an egalitarian society. More generally, self-enforcing institutions are workable for rational choice theorists, and others are not. But a second way of understanding the limits of the possible is also present in Hardins work. This concerns the limits on what can be brought about under the circumstances and given the facts described by rational choice theory. A society could be perfectly workable in the sense that it would be stable if it were to exist, but it cannot be brought about under the circumstances. And here too there are two different ways in which a society can be brought about. It can be brought about by design or can simply come about. What the thesis of basic structure determinism denies is that a society, any society, can be brought about by design. Let us call this the basic structure determinism limitation on the possible. Hardins invocation of ought implies can is meant to be a criticism of much of the project of political philosophy, but there are two ways in which traditional political philosophers can respond. First, they can and do often respond by denying the truth of rational choice theory. Usually this starts with a denial of the basic thesis that individuals pursue primarily their own interests.8 Second, many political philosophers think that it is worthwhile arguing in favor of certain political ideals, which may not be fully realizable in practice but can nevertheless serve as ideals to be approximated. Since these ideals can be approximated they can serve as standards against which societies are to be measured even if no society can ever fully satisfy them. To the extent that a society fails to realize the appropriate ideal it is deemed unjust. Now if rational choice theory were true and basic structure determinism were also correct, then it is unclear what the point of articulating social and political ideals would be. The reason for this is that even the attempt to approximate the ideals would be, for the most part, futile. Whether a society approximates an ideal or not would be beyond the capacities of human beings to control. There might be a kind of theoretical interest in this activity, but it would not satisfy the aspirations of most people who engage in this activity. So basic structure determinism, while not completely defeating the traditional activities of political philosophy, would certainly be a real threat to the purposes of political philosophers.
8. The most prominent and well-developed position on this is in John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), chap. 8.
134
Ethics
October 2004
DOES HARDIN ESCAPE THE PROBLEM? Hardin thinks that these arguments show the power and relevance of utilitarian argument (p. 319) and refute many of the rival moral theories to utilitarianism. It might at rst blush appear that Hardins utilitarianism can escape the puzzle of basic structure determinism and the problem this poses for the aim of institution building. After all, it is still possible for a utilitarian to say that one ought to try to maximize utility within the context of institutions that cannot be changed by design. Act utilitarianism survives the critical edge of basic structure determinism because it can direct us to maximize utility even when we cannot expect to be able to build institutions. Here, the second normative concern might appear to survive even if the third normative concern is defeated. Unfortunately this approach will not save most utilitarians or Hardin from the problem of basic structure determinism. The reason for this is that most utilitarians have been defenders of the claim that it is institutions that make the main contribution to utility, and Hardin has been the most eloquent spokesman for this tradition in contemporary moral and political philosophy.9 Classical utilitarians such as Bentham, Mill, and Sidgwick all argued that the formal and informal institutions of society play the major role in bringing about human happiness. Bentham thought that people were simply hedonistic egoists. Mill argued that individuals ought to pursue their own interests and the well-being of those closely related to them if they wish to bring about the most utility.10 The right kinds of political and social institutions could channel these motivations so as to bring about the most human happiness. One might think that the institutionalist aspect of utilitarianism need not undermine the utilitarian injunction to act to bring about more utility. But this possibility is not obviously open to utilitarian thinkers. The reason for this has to do with the rationale for institutions on the utilitarian account. The rationale for institutions is precisely the claim that efforts at maximizing utility within the context of institutions may bring about locally good outcomes, but the conjunction of many such actions may, in the context of problematic institutions, bring about worse outcomes overall. And the implication of this for many utilitarians is that if one wants to bring about greater utility one must change or reform the institutions within which people act. This conclusion is strengthened by the mainstream rational choice claim, accepted by many utilitarians, that individuals are primarily self-interested and institutions are necessary to channel that self-interest to bring about greater utility. And one must not in general attempt to bring about
9. See Russell Hardin, Morality within the Limits of Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). 10. See Mill, p. 18.
Christiano
135
greater utility except by bringing about changes in institutions. Utilitarians have been the most important champions of the thesis that the common good comes about through an invisible hand. So we can see that the problem that basic structural determinism poses for many political theories also arises for most variants of utilitarianism because of the institutionalist bent of most utilitarian views. Basic structural determinism is incompatible with the practical aims of most variants of utilitarianism. Many rational choice theorists miss this conclusion because they dont always see that the theory that establishes the limitations on the workability of a society also establishes limitations on the possibility of bringing about institutional change by design. The theory with which they determine the limits of the workable implies basic structure determinism and so defeats the practical aim of the theory itself. RATIONAL CHOICE MADE MORAL Brennan and Hamlins approach can be read as an attempt to avoid the kind of determinism we nd in Hardins approach to rational choice. They are concerned with the implications of the hypothesis of homo economicus for the viability of efforts at reform that constitutes the aim of many public choice theorists. The problem of determinism arises in their discussion of the mechanisms of enforcement necessary to ensure that rational egoists behave in a way that promotes Pareto optimal outcomes in prisoners dilemmalike situations. The problem is that the enforcement mechanisms must be manned by self-interested maximizers. They argue that if the enforcer is herself a rational egoist, the simple fact that the act of enforcement benets the two original players does not provide her with a reason to act in that way. If the enforcer is granted powers sufcient to ensure compliance by B, she must be assumed to use those powers to maximize her own pay-off, regardless of the impacts on A and B. There is nothing to show that the enforcers pay-offs are connected to As and Bs in the relevant way (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 39). In general, the idea is that while some enforcement may be possible within an institution, the institution as a whole must be self-enforcing in the sense that it operates only by channeling the self-interest of the individuals who act within it. Invisible hands are the only kinds of hand that are allowable in this world of unrelieved egoism (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 40). Unlike Hardin, Brennan and Hamlin argue that there is a solution to this problem. They argue that there is no reason to put away the aim of reform. Their solution is to argue that in fact rational agents are likely to develop moral dispositions that regulate their behaviors and political institutions. In particular, they argue that in the context of
136
Ethics
October 2004
political institutions the motivations of individuals are likely to be morally virtuous, at least given certain kinds of institutional structure. The thought seems to be that once rational agents become moral agents in the political system, society will then be ruled by the visible hand of the agents. This is possible because they assert that there is a roughly shared moral code in terms of which moral agents will guide the society (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 64). To the extent that the society is guided by individuals who are disposed to act morally in their political actions and share the same moral dispositions, the society is likely to be guided by the shared moral code of the society. Given this roughly shared moral code, Brennan and Hamlin argue that there are a variety of mechanisms that are likely to induce people to adopt dispositions to act in accordance with that code. First, individuals will be induced to adopt dispositions to be trustworthy. Second, voting is likely to express adherence to that code of morality. Third, certain kinds of political institutions give political elites incentives to adopt those dispositions in their political behavior. Let us take a look at each one of these claims in turn. Brennan and Hamlin argue that self-interested agents have incentives to become morally virtuous (p. 36). The most fundamental virtue that self-interested agents have reason to acquire is the virtue of trustworthiness. Rational egoists are not trustworthy as a rule; they are inclined to defect from agreed-upon courses of action when those situations are structured like prisoners dilemmas. Let us call someone who attempts to maximize utility in every action a straightforward rational maximizer. Brennan and Hamlin, following David Gauthier, argue that if people are reasonably translucent (meaning that their dispositions are somewhat transparent to others), then straightforward rational maximizers will not be accepted as participants in mutually benecial exchange because of others awareness of the likelihood that they will defect (p. 41). On the other hand, those who have a disposition to cooperate, and whose dispositions are apparent to others, will be accepted as participants in mutually benecial exchanges. As a consequence, those who are cooperators will end up better off than the straightforward rational maximizers. So it will be to the benet of individuals to abandon the trait of straightforward rational maximizing in favor of a disposition to be trustworthy or to engage in what Gauthier calls constrained maximization.11 One major worry about this approach is that it does not actually show why people have reason to be moral; at best it shows only that they have reason to be reasonably cooperative with at least some others.
11. For the use of the terms straightforward and constrained maximization, see Gauthier, p. 167.
Christiano
137
Whether that cooperation is moral or not will depend on what they are cooperating about. They may well cooperate on criminal schemes with those who are like-minded. As long as they have the power to carry out their designs with others, they may not care whether the outsiders know what their dispositions are. A second worry is that the assumption of general translucency seems quite unmotivated, especially in many of the contexts in which it will be needed. Many of the transactions in which people engage in any complex society are with strangers. The thought that one is likely to be able to detect the motives of strangers seems a bit stretched. We will see that this assumption becomes particularly implausible in the most important context in which Brennan and Hamlin wish to use it. The second thesis in opposition to the hypothesis of universal rational egoism is the thesis of expressive voting. Brennan and Hamlin argue that in the context of voting in large-scale constituencies, voters do not have incentives to vote on the basis of a calculation of self-interest, because the chance that ones vote will make a difference is very near zero (p. 175). Brennan and Hamlin argue that in this context, the rational agent will vote in an expressive way. They will express their moral opinions or their emotional states. The reason for this is that there is no opportunity cost for this expression. The idea is that when people are in circumstances where their actions have no consequences for their interests, they no longer regulate their actions by rational selfinterest. When ones self-interest is no longer in question, Brennan and Hamlin claim, a person acts merely expressively. And one circumstance in which a persons action has no impact on his interests is the circumstance of voting in the polling booth. Here the connection between what I have called the problem of basic structure determinism and expressive voting is quite clear. They say: If expressive voting cannot operate as an in visible hand it could, at least in principle, operate as a visible hand. That is, voters might systematically vote their views of the public interest (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 176). Brennan and Hamlin give two kinds of arguments for the expressive voting hypothesis. First, they argue that anything other than expressive voting would be irrational. Second, they argue that the thesis that voters vote strategically yields a number of odd implications. They claim that if voters vote strategically, voter turnout in two candidate elections should be zero or near zero. The reason for this is that candidates will seek out the median voter and thus will usually end up at the same position in the issue space or very close to one another. Strategically minded voters will see very little difference between candidates and thus not turn out at all (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 133). This second argument relies on a number of assumptions that are
138
Ethics
October 2004
usually not satised in ordinary politics. First, the argument relies on the assumption that candidates know where the median voter stands. But surely this is not something about which candidates have precise knowledge. Such knowledge is hard to come by. Moreover, the preferences of the voters in the middle are likely to shift with changing circumstances as are the preferences of most voters. So candidates will likely have different estimates of where the median voter is. Second, candidates cannot stray too far from the political party positions they have taken in the past; otherwise instrumental voters will think of them as not reliable for bringing about outcomes they want. And if they stray too far from the political party that supports their electoral efforts, they are likely to lose the support of their parties. And the political parties are likely to display some inertia in making changes. So candidates for election are not likely to be quite as exible in deciding what positions to take as the Brennan and Hamlin argument above requires. There is another serious difculty with the expressive voting hypothesis. Brennan and Hamlin recognize that expressive voters may not express moral attitudes when they are in the polling booth; they may rather express more sinister attitudes or attitudes of vengefulness and hatred. Rational choice theorists think that normally actions that express these attitudes are ltered out in the processes of economic exchange and other activities because acting on them is not usually optimal and because the opportunity costs of acting on these attitudes are high. But, since the opportunity costs of voting on the basis of these attitudes are near zero, voting on the basis of sinister or simply irrational motives is in no way ruled out by the rational choice approach. Indeed, it is precisely the hypothesis that voters would act on the basis of childlike motives in the polling booth that Joseph Schumpeter made the centerpiece of his highly skeptical conception of democracy. Schumpeter argued that since this kind of voting would be prevalent in democratic societies, the role of citizens ought to be reduced to the merely formal role of selecting elites to rule. The process of elections was for him merely a formal device by which rulers could be chosen peacefully. He completely rejected the view that the voters ought to be the ones in the drivers seat.12 The thesis of expressive voting, as it is outlined by Brennan and Hamlin, therefore involves two separate hypotheses. First, they claim that voters do not vote strategically, or in a way that is calculated to bring about the best outcomes. Second, they claim that voters are likely to vote morally. The rst hypothesis seems to me to be highly questionable from an empirical standpoint. There is a lot of evidence that
12. See Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 3d ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1950), p. 262.
Christiano
139
voters do vote strategically in presidential primaries in the United States. Voters tend to vote for candidates they think will win, and thus we see the occurrence of bandwagon effects in presidential primaries. There is evidence that voters vote strategically in presidential elections when there are more than two candidates. And when voters vote for thirdparty candidates that have little chance of winning, they usually justify this on the basis of the claim that the two main parties are not different from each other.13 This kind of justication only makes sense if voters are thinking strategically. Expressive voters, as Brennan and Hamlin note, would vote for obviously losing candidates as long as the candidates present something with which the voters can identify (p. 137). Another worry about the expressive voting hypothesis is that it is unclear on this hypothesis why voters would ever go to the voting booth in the rst place. That decision does have opportunity costs, and the costs are usually thought, by rational choice theorists, to outweigh the benets. The benet would be the good of expressing ones attitudes. But, rst, it is unclear how this benet is to be weighed against the opportunity costs of voting, and second, it is also unclear why voters would choose this particular way to express themselves. On the rst point, the hypothesis of expressive voting is based on the thought that the reason why people express their attitudes in the polling booth is that there are no opportunity costs to voting. That suggests that the value of expressing the attitude is very low and that it could be easily outweighed by the opportunity costs of going to the polling booth. If this is so then the hypothesis cannot explain why voters vote at all, and since the rest of the theory cannot explain this, the whole account suffers from a terrible explanatory defect. The second point merely magnies this problem. Brennan and Hamlin suggest that voters would vote on the basis of a sense of civic responsibility (p. 155). But how this sense is acquired by rational agents is left entirely unexplained. My aim is not primarily to reject the expressive voting hypothesis. It is to call into question the thesis that it is compatible with the rational actor model or that it could be used by a rational actor model to remedy some of the defects of that model. The third thesis is that some democratic political institutions can select for politicians who are morally virtuous and will thereby have the effect of encouraging virtue among some of the participants. The central idea is that to the extent voters are voting expressively, they will vote
13. See Samuel Popkin, The Reasoning Voter: Communication and Persuasion in Presidential Campaigns (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), for the evidence. Admittedly, on the mainstream rational choice view, it is hard to see why voters would vote at all and why they would think strategically about their voting. So some kind of amendment to the mainstream approach seems necessary here.
140
Ethics
October 2004
for politicians who appeal to them, morally speaking. Thus a system of political representation will tend to select for morally motivated politicians and will also give incentives to other politicians to be morally motivated (Brennan and Hamlin, p. 180). I have a fundamental worry about this approach. If voters are primarily self-interested they are not likely to be well informed about what the parties or politicians have to offer in the rst place. This is a straightforward consequence of Downss thesis of the rationality of ignorance, which Brennan and Hamlin accept (p. 175). The thesis of expressive voting does not deal with this issue at all. It merely says that if voters happen to be in the polling booth, they will vote in a way that expresses certain attitudes because there are no opportunity costs to doing this. But, as I pointed out above, there are opportunity costs to going to the polling booth and there are serious opportunity costs to becoming informed about political parties and platforms as well as about the characters of politicians. The thesis that in this context politicians motivations will be translucent is simply not plausible because voters do not have the incentives to look into their characters or their past. As a consequence, politicians will not have incentives to be upstanding or to remain faithful to their platforms. They will at most have incentives to appear to be upstanding and supportive of desirable goals only for brief periods of time. Of course, other elites will try to uncover the unseemly aspects of the politicians activities, but to people who pay very little attention to politics, the negative campaigning will likely not offer a particularly edifying picture of who is preferable to whom. The upshot is that, contrary to Brennan and Hamlins argument, politicians will not be chosen on the basis of their upstanding characters or on the basis of the quality of their political platforms. They will be chosen on the basis of supercial displays of virtue and crude political appeals at best. And so they will have little incentive for going beyond any of this. The voters will simply not have the necessary information to evaluate the real characters or platforms of politicians. So it is not clear to me that the institutional mechanisms that Brennan and Hamlin describe will have the morally transformative effects for which they hope. And if they do not have the morally salutary effects hoped for, then it is unclear how they can avoid the conclusions of basic structure determinism they desire to avoid. CONCLUSION I conclude that the explanatory apparatus of rational choice theory seems to be committed to basic structure determinism and that this commitment is incompatible with the practical aim of rational choice
Christiano
141
theory. The two books reviewed in this essay are written by three of the foremost exponents of the approach and by people who have a very sophisticated appreciation of the theory, yet they seem unable to spring loose from the trap of determinism laid by the theory.

Christiano - Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating

Transféré par

Informations du document

Description originale:

Copyright

Formats disponibles

Partager ce document

Partager ou intégrer le document

Options de partage

Avez-vous trouvé ce document utile ?

Ce contenu est-il inapproprié ?

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Christiano - Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating

Transféré par

Droits d'auteur :

Formats disponibles

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory SelfDefeating? Author(s): by ThomasChristiano Reviewed work(s): Source: Ethics, Vol. 115, No.

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?* Thomas Christiano

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Is Normative Rational Choice Theory Self-Defeating?

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi