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THE EARLY MODERN ORIGINS OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 January 2021

Richard Boyd
Richard Boyd*
Affiliation:
Government, Georgetown University, USA
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Abstract

For all the recent discoveries of behavioral psychology and experimental economics, the spirit of homo economicus still dominates the contemporary disciplines of economics, political science, and sociology. Turning back to the earliest chapters of political economy, however, reveals that pioneering figures such as Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith were hardly apostles of economic rationality as they are often portrayed in influential narratives of the development of the social sciences. As we will see, while all three of these thinkers can plausibly be read as endorsing “rationality,” they were also well aware of the systematic irrationality of human conduct, including a remarkable number of the cognitive biases later “discovered” by contemporary behavioral economists. Building on these insights I offer modest suggestions for how these thinkers, properly understood, might carry the behavioral revolution in different directions than those heretofore suggested.

Keywords

Behavioral psychologyhistory of economicsrational choiceearly modern philosophyFrancis BaconThomas HobbesAdam Smithcognitive biases
Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 37 , Issue 1 , Summer 2020 , pp. 30 - 54
Copyright
© Social Philosophy & Policy Foundation 2020

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Footnotes

Earlier versions of this essay were presented to audiences at Bard College-Berlin and the IPE and Public Policy Workshop at the London School of Economics. The author thanks Ewa Atanassow, James Morrison, Israel Waichman, the other contributors to this volume, and an anonymous referee for criticisms and suggestions that greatly improved the essay.

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