ABSTRACT
This chapter revisits the debate about rational choice theory and attempts to resolve this dilemma by adopting a cultural and historical perspective. Its argument is that the social science approach to human motivation is correct in general, that people respond to a wide and varied range of motivations. In our society, however, one of the most powerful motivations is the one that microeconomists have identified, that is, people's desire to maximize their material self-interest through rational action. The microeconomic theory of rational choice has powerful explanatory value for us, but that is not because rational choice is the dominant norm of all societies. Rational choice theory is not irrelevant to prior periods of history, of course. To begin with, the social norms of most earlier societies have endorsed or allowed the behaviors that this theory describes within limited domains. In addition, human psychology generates a wide range of individualized variation.
