Rationality

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Rationality

• Philosophical concepts of rationality
• Instrumental vs. Principled rationality
• Utilitarianism
• Economics and rational choice
• Assumptions and ambitions of rational choice
  theory
• Game theory
• Applications of rational choice in politics
• Voting
• Collective action
• Heresthetics
• The Art of Political Manipulation

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Definitions

• Reason
• The intellectual ability to apprehend the truth
  cognitively, either immediately in intuition, or
  by means of a process of inference.
• Cognition
• The portion of human experience comprising
  thought, knowledge, belief, and inference (as
  opposed to sensation, volition, or feeling).
• Logic
• Branch of philosophy concerned with the
  distinction between correct and incorrect
  reasoning. It commonly comprises both deductive
  and inductive arguments.
• Rationality
• the quality of being consistent with or based on
  logic
• the state of having good sense and sound
  judgment "his rationality may have been
  impaired" "he had to rely less on reason than on
  rousing their emotions"

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Rational behaviour

• A theory of rational choice presupposes that
  choices can be influenced by reason
• That implies that
• not only are we reasoning beings
• possessing cognitive abilities
• applying principles of logic (deduction/induction)
  to comprehend the world
• but also do we let reasoning guide
  behaviour/decisions/choices
• In that sense, RC theory proposes that reasoning
  is not an abstract human ability, but applied in
  behaviour, which allows it to be explained and
  predicted

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Instrumental rationality

• David Hume (1711-1776)
• Reason alone can never be a motive to any action
  of the will
• reason is, and ought only to be the slave of
  passions
• Instrumental view of rationality
• Human actions/choices are ultimately driven by
  passions, desires
• Action determined by psychological states
• Rationality of action consists of acting in a way
  that promises to achieve the desired goal
• Passions or desires themselves cannot be
  irrational
• Only irrational if based on false judgment, and
  then the judgment is the irrational element, not
  the evoked passion
• Irrational can be the choice of means to satisfy
  the passion/desire

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Principled rationality

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• Hypothetical imperatives
• Effectively Humean instrumental rationality
• If you want to achieve Y, and this can only be
  accomplished by the course of action X, then it
  is (instrumentally or hypothetically) imperative
  to do X
• Categorical imperatives
• Do X regardless of your wants
• Reasoning about what actions to take requires
  that we conceive of ourselves as able to
  determine our actions autonomously
• Passions are alien influences that should not
  affect our reasoning
• Categorical are imperatives recognised by any
  agent possessing the faculty of reason
• Act only on that maxim which you can at the same
  time will that it should become a universal law

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Utility

• Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832)
• Principle of utility
• approves or disapproves of every action
  whatsoever, according to the tendency which it
  appears to have to augment or diminish the
  happiness of the party whose interest is in
  question
• Utility property of an object to produce benfit,
  advantage, pleasure, good, happiness
• Consequentialism rationality of action is
  determined by the results those actions provide
• Allows for reason to override passion, if
  long-term balance of happiness is maximised by
  foregoing current passionate urge
• Social choices (utilitarian principle of justice)
• A social state is preferable to another if it
  provides a net increase in utility for the
  members involved (more tend to gain than to lose)

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Economics and rational choice

• Marginal utility theory
• Mathematical modelling of utility functions
• Material self-interest as psychological
  underpinning of theories of market and consumer
  behaviour
• Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923)
• Pareto optimality
• Thin rationality Utility as a mere
  representation of preference-orderings
• The theory of economic science thus acquires the
  rigour of rational mechanics it deduces its
  results from experiences, without bringing in any
  metaphysical entity
• Revealed preferences observed choice as
  indicator of reasoning behind choice
• Expected utility

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Core assumptions of RC

• Utility maximisation
• Consistency
• Rank-order of preferences
• Transitivity (if A is preferred over B and B
  preferred over C then A must also be preferred
  over C)
• Expected utility
• Choices are made under uncertainty
• The calculus of choice not only entails the
  consideration of preferences over a set of
  options, but also consideration of the relative
  likelihood of an action producing the desired
  outcome
• Radical individualism
• Collective action is nothing more than the
  action of individuals when they choose to
  accomplish purposes collectively rather than
  individually (Buchanan and Tullock, 1962)

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Explaining the world

• Rational choice theory
• Universal aims to explain all economic, social
  and political outcomes as caused by intentional
  acts of individuals
• Deductive deriving law-like statements,
  predictions, explanations from theoretical axioms
  (whereas inductive theories aim to derive
  generalities from observation of many comparable
  occurrences of events)
• Deterministic search for equilibria (given
  institutional structures and preference
  orderings, outcomes are causal consequences)
• Positivist explaining what is, not explicating
  what ought to be
• Parsimonious (high-leverage theory) aiming at
  universal explanations on the basis of few
  assumptions, little complexity
• Lack of realism (thick or thin) rationality
  assumed to be dominant if not sole driving force
  of human behaviour also assuming homogeneity
  between individuals perfect information
• Theoretical legitimacy derived from predictive
  power modelling the world AS IF everyone were a
  ulitility maximiser

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Game theory

• Neumann/Morgenstern
• The Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
• Game theory defines rationality as
• Maximising expected utilities
• Based on concept of instrumental rationality
• But contingent upon other players strategies
• Modelling how individuals interact directly, and
  not through markets
• Game theory shows choices are constrained by the
  behaviour of others, and how rational strategies
  can lead to subobtimal, perverse outcomes

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The Prisoners dilemma

• Assume two burglars, Al and Bob being captured
• Given two options by police
• Confess and implicate the other in the burglary
• Dont confess
• Outcomes
• If both confess, implicating the other, both get
  10 years in jail
• If neither confesses, each gets 1 year in jail
• If one confesses, implicating the other, and the
  other does not, the confessors goes free, the
  other gets 20 years in jail
• Dominant strategy is for both to confess
• Perverse outcome 10 years for each
• Nash equilibrium no one can gain from changing
  strategy
• Applications
• Hobbes social contract theory
• Realist paradigm in international relations
• Israeli-Palestine conflict

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Collective action

• Mancur Olson (1965)
• The Logic of Collective Action
• Predominant view that he challenged
• Organized groups are basic units of politics
• Group membership and participation based on
  shared values and beliefs
• Sociological explanations of political processes
• Rational choice approach to collective action
• Radical individualism
• Requirement of separate and selective incentives
  to engage individuals
• Groups do not have preferences, neither do states
  or society just machines allowing collective
  action to take place
• Problem of free-riding

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Paradox of turnout

• Anthony Downs (1957)
• An Economic Theory of Democracy
• Voting as a collective action problem
• Costs and benefits of participation
• Costs of acquiring and benefits from information
• Calculus of voting expected utility of voting
  for preferred candidate
• Costs of voting correctly (i.e. information
  about policy differences)
• Costs of turnout out
• Expected benefits from election of preferred
  candidate
• Expected likelihood of affecting outcome
• Observed turnout as a predictive dilemma
• Post-hoc rationalizations (democratic duty,
  expressive voting, etc.)

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Paradox of voting

• Assuming instrumental rationality in voting and
  party competition
• Transitivity of preferences
• Voter X prefers candidate A over B
• Voter X prefers candidate B over C
• ?Voter X prefers candidate A over C
• Condorcet winner
• Option/Candidate winning every pairwise vote
  against any competitor
• Kenneth Arrows impossibility theorem
• Transitive individual preferences can aggregate
  to intransitive social preferences (electoral
  cycles)
• Raises question about the extent to which
  outcomes depend on election procedure

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• Transitive individual preference orderings
• Voter X abc
• Voter Y bca
• Voter Z cab
• Intransitive social preferences
• a beat b (with votes of X and Z)
• b beats c (with votes of X and Y)
• c beats a (with votes of Y and Z)

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Spatial models of voting

• Downs
• Market analogy party platform a means to win
  office not simply a list of party objectives
• Office-seeking parties/candidates adaptive to
  voter preferences
• Spatial analogy derived from Hotellings theory
  of the firm
• Proximity model of issue voting
• If political competition is unidimensional, with
  two parties, it will always generate an electoral
  equilibrium
• Parties will converge on the median voter
  position
• In multidimensional space equilibrium unlikely

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Heresthetics

• William H. Riker (1920-1993)
• The art of political manipulation
• Social outcomes are largely the product of the
  method of vote aggregation
• Herestheticians aim to ensure that the social
  outcome of a voting process is their preferred
  one
• Heresthetical means
• Agenda control
• Strategic voting
• Manipulation of dimensions