This post is basically just some intellectual housekeeping, spelling out some obvious implications of previous posts. Level 1 is purely philosophical. The question here is: how is it possible to get non-instrumental normativity out of an explanatory apparatus that treats instrumental normativity as its only initial resource for analysing normative practice?
My guides here are a Adam Smith, and b Hegel. I take it that both Smith and Hegel are interested in the institution of non-instrumental norms by instrumental norms. Then assuming task 1 can actually be pulled off, and the basic commitment to a ground-level instrumentalism about normative action can be justified, we move on to level 2.
This is: how do you formalise this basic Humean approach? There is, obviously, a vast tradition that formalises instrumental reason: decision theory; rational choice theory. So my first task at this level of analysis is simply: spend a lot more time studying this tradition. But then there are also nagging doubts, of the kind that I discussed in my previous post.
Are the standard tools of decision theory actually the best resources for the job? However, maybe I can find people, more skilled and knowledgeable than me, who are already addressing some of my concerns? Then finally, level 3. That is, you can just do economics or political economy.
Regrettably, it seems like I still have a long road to travel before I get there β but so it goes. Another common critique of RCT is that it presupposes that social actors exhibit narrow self-interest. A fourth common critique of RCT is that the decision principles it proposes do not capture real decision-making. For example, prospect theory argues that expected utility theory is a bad decision-making model, because in reality agents are loss averse in a way that significantly influences behaviour.
