Out of Habit. Notes toward a General Theory of Deliberate Action

Samenvatting

A distinction is drawn between rationality or efficiency and their pursuit, in that the latter may not necessarily produce the former. While economists have generally preferred an absolute measure of rationality -- utility maximization -- because of the predictive determinacy it is thought to provide their explanatory model, it is argued here that the highly variable pursuit of rationality is a more viable criterion, even if it entails an apparent loss of determinacy. Both rational choice theorists and advocates of more normative-cultural modes of explanation have insisted on the theoretical primacy of their preferred approaches and on the derivative nature of the opposite camp's model of social action. It is contended that neither claim to theoretical primacy can be sustained; instead, the status of a principle of natural order should be accorded to thoughtless habit or routine. Finally, it is suggested that taking habit as the explanatory baseline, and the pursuit of rationality or the explicit (re)assertion of normative validity as the phenomena to be explained, offers the prospect of bypassing old disputes in favor of trying to explain when, why, and to what extent either purposive rationality or normative commitment is most likely to motivate action. 114 References. Adapted from the source document.