ABSTRACT
Economists had supposed that they were well on the way to turning belief/desire explanations of human action into a quantitative scientific theory: rational choice theory. The problem of distinguishing taste changes from violations of the principle of rationality is a rarefied theoretical one. By adding the individual supply curves and demand curves, economists can derive supply and demand curves for an entire market and, ultimately, the economy. In the nineteenth century, economists known as marginalists systematized economic activity based on a theory of utility. The implicit excuse is founded on a self-consciously behaviorist interpretation of rational choice, the "theory of revealed preference". Rational choice theory is thus to be viewed as a calculating device, a convenient model that helps us systematize expectations about markets, industries, and economies. The result was the explicit surrender of behaviorism as a philosophy of experimental psychology.
