Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:12:30.406Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Are there limits to rationality?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Margaret Levi
Get access

Extract

Sociologists have traditionally tended to overstate the role of norms in explaining human behavior. Economists, on the other hand, have tended to downplay the role of norms. Increasingly, rational choice theorists have begun to explore the interaction between normative and instrumentally rational motivations. There are at least two major points at issue in these discussions. First, how does one conceptualize norms, especially in relation to rational action? Second, how does one go about studying the variation in the reliance on norms? Jon Elster's paper offers a controversial answer to the first question. Ralph Turner's paper offers some guidance for answering the second (1). Building on both Elster and Turner, I shall bring a somewhat different perspective to bear on both these issues.

Type
The puzzling scope of rationality
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , May 1991 , pp. 130 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Axelrod, Robert, 1984, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York, Basic Books).Google Scholar
Axelrod, Robert, 1986, An evolutionary approach to norms, APSR, LXXX (4), 1095–1111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braithwaite, John, 1985, To Punish or Persuade (Albany, State University Press of New York).Google Scholar
Brennan, Geoffrey & Lomasky, Loren E., 1989, Large numbers, small costs: the uneasy foundations of democratic rule, in Brennan, & Lomasky, (eds), Politics and Process: new essays in democratic thought (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 42–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, James S., 1964, Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (New York, Free Press).Google Scholar
Coleman, James S., 1990a. Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, Harvard Belknap Press).Google Scholar
Coleman, James S., 1990b. Norm-generating structures, in Cook, Karen Schweers & Levi, Margaret (eds), The Limits of Rationality (Chicago, University of Chicago Press), pp. 250–273.Google Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai, 1961, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations (New York, The Free Press of Glencoe).Google Scholar
Elster, Jon, 1989, The Cement of Society (New York, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elster, Jon, 1990, When rationality fails, in Cook, & Levi, (eds), op. cit. pp. 19–51.Google Scholar
Hardin, Russell, 1982, Collective Action (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hardin, Russell, 1990, The Social evolution of cooperation, in Cook, & Levi, (eds), op. cit. pp. 358–378.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael, Principles of Group Solidarity (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Klosko, George, 1987, The principle of fairness and political obligation, Ethics, XCVII (01), 353–362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Jack, 1989, Institutions and distribution: a reconceptualization of the ‘New Institutionalism’ (St. Louis, Washington University Department of Political Science, Unpublished paper).Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret, 1988, Of Rule and Revenue (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret, 1990, A logic of institutional change, in Cook, Karen Schweers & Levi, Margaret (eds), op. cit. pp. 402–418.Google Scholar
Lind, E. Allan & Tyler, Tom R., 1988, The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice (New York, Plenum Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Majeski, Stephen J., 1990, An alternative approach to the generation and maintenance of norms, in Cook, & Levi, (eds), op. cit. pp. 273–281.Google Scholar
Mansbridge, Jane J., 1990, On the relation of altruism and self-interest, in Mansbridge, Jane J. (ed.), Beyond Self-Interest (Chicago, University of Chicago Press), pp. 133–143.Google Scholar
Margolis, Howard, 1984 [1982], Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality (Chicago, University of Chicago Press).Google Scholar
Margolis, Howard, 1990a, Equilibrium norms, Ethics, C, no. 4 (07), 821–837.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Margolis, Howard, 1990b, Dual utilities and rational choice, in Mansbridge, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 239–253.Google Scholar
Nelson, Douglas & Silberberg, Eugene, 1987, Ideology and legislator shirking, Economic Inquiry, XXV, 15–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
North, Douglass C., 1990, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (New York, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olson, Mancur, 1968, The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, Harvard University Press).Google Scholar
Ostrom, Elinor, 1990, Governing the Commons: the evolution of institutions for collective action (New York, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, Roger, 1988, Rationality, ethnicity and military enlistment, Paper submitted to the Department of Political Science, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Scharpf, Fritz W., 1990, Games real actors could play: the problem of mutual predictability, Rationality and Society, II, no. 4 (10), 471–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scholz, John T., 1984, Cooperation, deterrence, and the ecology of regulatory enforcement, Law and Society Review, XVIII, no. 2, 179–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott, James C., 1985, Weapons of the Weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Haven, Yale University Press).Google Scholar
Taylor, Michael, 1987 [1976], The Possibility of Cooperation (New York, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Taylor, Michael, 1982, Community, Anarchy, and Liberty (New York, Cambridge University Press).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Michael, 1989, Rationality and revolution, in Taylor, Michael (ed.), Rationality and Revolution (New York, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Thibaut, John, Friedland, Nehemia & Walker, Laurens, 1974, Compliance with rules: some social determinants, Journal of Personality and Psychology, XXX, no. 6, 792–881.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., Rasinksi, Kenneth A. & McGraw, Kathleem M., 1985, The influence of perceived injustice on the endorsement of political leaders, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, XV, no. 8, 700–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., 1988, What is procedural justice?: criteria used by citizens to assess the fairness of legal procedures, Law and Society Review, XXII, no. 1, 103–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., 1990, Justice, self-interest and the legitimacy of legal and political authority, in Mansbridge, (ed.), op. cit. pp. 171–179.Google Scholar
Ullmann-Margalit, Edna, 1977, The Emergence of Norms (Oxford, Clarendon Press).Google Scholar