Bounded Rationality

"Malgré bien des réductions journalistiques, la rationalité économique fondée sur l'idée de l'homo oeconomicus - un individu atome qui maximise son propre intérêt à travers un calcul utilitariste de coûts et de profits - est aujourd'hui l'objet de nombreuses critiques. L'article analyse ainsi deux types de critiques : une critique externe (philosophique au sens large) et une critique interne (propre à la science économique). Les deux soulignent que pour comprendre la rationalité économique, nous avons besoin d'un horizon anthropologique plus vaste, apte à mettre en discussion l'image de l'homme à l'oeuvre dans les diverses déclinaisons de l'économie. L'article met alors l'accent sur les recherches de l'anthropologie philosophique portant sur la nature humaine, qui montrent le caractère intrinsèquement méthodologique de l'homo oeconomicus. Finalement, en décrivant la rationalité en termes de r(el)ationalité, et en mettant l'accent sur la catégorie de biens relationnels développée par l'approche fondée sur "l'économia sociale", l'article met en avant une façons possible de repenser la rationalité économique.

Against several journalistic reductions, the economic rationality founded on the idea of homo oeconomicus -an atomistic individual that maximises his own interest through an utilitarian calculus of costs and benefits- is subjected to many criticisms today. Thus, the paper analyses two kind  of criticism, an "external" one (latu sensu "philosophical"), and an "internal" one (proper of economic science). Both stress that in order to deeply understand the economic rationality, we need a wider anthropological horizon, able to discuss the image of man underlying the different declinations of economics. Then, the paper focuses on the research on the human nature of the Philosophical Anthropology, which shows the intrinsic relationality of human beings and may discuss the methodological individualism of the homo oeconomicus' approach. Finally, describing rationality in terms of r(el)ationality and emphasizing the category of "relational goods" developed by the "civic economic" approach, the paper points a possible rethinking of the economic rationality."

"Malgré bien des réductions journalistiques, la rationalité économique fondée sur l'idée de l'homo oeconomicus - un individu atome qui maximise son propre intérêt à travers un calcul utilitariste de coûts et de profits - est aujourd'hui l'objet de nombreuses critiques. L'article analyse ainsi deux types de critiques : une critique externe (philosophique au sens large) et une critique interne (propre à la science économique). Les deux soulignent que pour comprendre la rationalité économique, nous avons besoin d'un horizon anthropologique plus vaste, apte à mettre en discussion l'image de l'homme à l'oeuvre dans les diverses déclinaisons de l'économie. L'article met alors l'accent sur les recherches de l'anthropologie philosophique portant sur la nature humaine, qui montrent le caractère intrinsèquement méthodologique de l'homo oeconomicus. Finalement, en décrivant la rationalité en termes de r(el)ationalité, et en mettant l'accent sur la catégorie de biens relationnels développée par l'approche fondée sur "l'économia sociale", l'article met en avant une façons possible de repenser la rationalité économique.

Against several journalistic reductions, the economic rationality founded on the idea of homo oeconomicus -an atomistic individual that maximises his own interest through an utilitarian calculus of costs and benefits- is subjected to many criticisms today. Thus, the paper analyses two kind  of criticism, an "external" one (latu sensu "philosophical"), and an "internal" one (proper of economic science). Both stress that in order to deeply understand the economic rationality, we need a wider anthropological horizon, able to discuss the image of man underlying the different declinations of economics. Then, the paper focuses on the research on the human nature of the Philosophical Anthropology, which shows the intrinsic relationality of human beings and may discuss the methodological individualism of the homo oeconomicus' approach. Finally, describing rationality in terms of r(el)ationality and emphasizing the category of "relational goods" developed by the "civic economic" approach, the paper points a possible rethinking of the economic rationality.""""

For over fifty years, successive waves of critique have underscored that the apolitical character of much of Political Science research betrays the founding mission of the discipline to have science serve democracy. The Caucus for a New Political Science was originally based on such a critique, and the Perestroika movement in the discipline included a call for more problem-driven as opposed to theory- or method-driven work that would better connect Political Science research to ongoing political struggles. In recent years, movements for a public Sociology and public Anthropology as well as dissonant movements in Economics and related fields have added to the insistence that social science research was too often disconnected from the real world. Phronetic Social Science has emerged out of the ferment for change in the social sciences, starting with the much-debated book by Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter (Cambridge 2001). Flyvbjerg critiqued the social sciences for mimicking the natural sciences while proposing an alternative approach that focuses research on helping people address the problems they are facing in the context they are facing them. Today, Phronetic Social Science goes beyond the call for an alternative approach to social inquiry and its growing adherents are providing evidence that this alternative approach to doing research can enrich the social sciences by more effectively connecting research to efforts to address real world problems as people experience them. This essay provides a genealogy of efforts to connect Political Science to politics, a review of the major critiques of mainstream research, an explication of the rationale for more problem-driven, mixed methods research, a specification of the key principles of the phronetic approach, and examples of its application in the public realm. The essay concludes with implications for realizing a more political Political Science by way of taking a phronetic approach.

""In the present paper we analyze two prominent global distributive justice theories, i.e. Pogge’s Global Resource Dividend theory (1994) and Dorsey’s maxificing welfarism (2005) under an assumption of bounded rationality. We consider that the agencies responsible for distributing resources are informationally constrained in regard to the assessment of economic positions in society and cognitively constrained in regard to the decision making process within the agency. We argue that under these conditions the distributive patterns prescribed by both theories can be severely distorted. Further, in Dorsey’s case bounded rationality can even lead to a complete failure of the theory, since not only are the resulting distributions sub-optimal if we introduce the possibility for a single mistake in the identification process, but they can also be completely redundant by prescribing distributions which are not capable of lifting a single citizen to the minimum level required for the fulfillment of basic needs. We further show that for both theories the identification problem becomes more severe and that the agencies are more susceptible to make mistakes in circumstances of extreme poverty, i.e. the circumstances primarily targeted by the theories. Aside from this main result, we also obtain three secondary results: 1. we extend the ongoing debates in political philosophy between ideal and non-ideal theories and in particular between fact-insensitivity and fact-sensitivity, 2. we provide a preliminary defense of a proportional distributive principle for global justice and 3. we provide a new starting point for the construction of arguments regarding the nature of the agency (e.g. global government, national governments, UN institutions, international NGOs) entitled to distribute resources in global justice theories.
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