ABSTRACT
Economics is criticized from two directions. Moralists and moral philosophers scold it for its stunted conception of normativity. Psychologists and philosophers of mind and action chide it for its unrealistic models of practical rationality. The confluence of these two critiques lies within the domain of moral psychology, that part of the philosophy of mind that concerns itself with the question how norms (moral and otherwise) are realized in the psychology of those subject to them. In this chapter I want to explore these two lines of critique, with a view toward determining whether they are mutually reinforcing or dissonant. In particular, I will argue that the “maximizing conception” of rationality that economists are criticized for employing is one that moral philosophers cannot well do without. But the maximizing conception, though essential to identifying what reason requires that we choose, seems unsuited to the task of explaining why we choose what we do – even when we do choose as reason requires. In practice, the maximizing conception seems as unenlightening as an explanation of choice as it is hopeless as a decision strategy. I will conclude by suggesting that the two-system model of practical rationality that Kahneman and Tversky have pioneered (Tversky and Kahneman 1971) can be seen as a step toward reconciling the normative and positive aims of economics (compare Hausman and McPherson 1993 with Friedman 1953).
