--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> by the way, why does "rational" choice theory have
> to (1) assume that
> people are totally individualistic
It does, which is why people apply it to states, bureaucracies, classes, and other groups
and (2) assume
> that "tastes" --
> including the degree of individualism -- are
> "exogenously given" (by
> some act of God or Genes)?
Elster tried to incorporate modern cog sci insights about endogenousg preference formation into RCT in his early works Sour Grapes and Ulysses and the Sirens. Others have done likewise. Hobbes, btw, cleary thinks that preferences are subject to endogenous changes. However, for lots of purposes it is a useful abstraction to take preferences as given, doesn't change things much and simplifies the analysis.
For an alternative view,
> see
> http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/hlr/HLR.pdf .
>
> On 2/17/06, Michael Hoover <hooverm at scc-fl.edu>
> wrote:
> > >>> andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com 02/17/06 5:09 PM
> >>>
> > These aren't the same thing.
> > Virtually every
> > person I have named here is worth reading and has
> > things to offer the left.
> > <<<<<>>>>>
> >
> > aware that rat choice, public choice, social
> choice are separate
> > schools of thought, have read folks you mention (i
> suggested
> > that there were exceptions to my general point),
> will hold on to
> > view that individualist/egoistic assumptions make
> for built-in
> > conservative (conservative in way terms is used in
> contemporary
> > politics) value-bias no matter proponents' claims
> to neutrality... mh
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
> --
> Jim Devine / Bust Big Brother Bush!
>
> "There are no whole truths; all truths are
> half-truths. It is trying
> to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil."
> -- Alfred North
> Whitehead
>
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