Rationality, Markets, and Morals (RMM)

Studies at the Intersection of Philosophy and Economics

 

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Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)

Article

Testing and Modeling Fairness Motives

  • Axel Ockenfels, Gary E. Bolton
The advent of laboratory experiments in economics over the last few decades has produced an enormous literature devoted to describing, testing and modeling economic and social behavior. Measured by publications and citations, the development of social preference models to capture decisions motivated by fairness and other social criteria, is one of the success stories in this literature. But with this success, and maybe even because of it, controversies have arisen about what the models can and cannot do. In this note, we comment on some of these debates. Our main theme is that descriptive models of behavior should be judged with respect to their usefulness. This is often neglected, partly because there are no accepted measures and tests for the usefulness of a model, while standard procedures to test whether a model is true are readily available. A model that does not capture a grain of truth‘ is unlikely to be useful; however, the relationship is not monotonic in that a truer‘ model is not necessarily a more useful model.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

If Not Only Numbers Count: Allocation of Equal Chances

  • Marlies Ahlert
It is assumed that medical guidelines specify the appropriate amount of a divisible good which each individual should receive. Individual requirements and probabilities that the treatment is successful if an appropriate amount is received differ. The same applies to the success probabilities if individuals are inadequately treated. If supply is insufficient to serve all with appropriate amounts an allocation decision is necessary. We define probabilistic allocation rules that allocate chances of successful treatment to all individuals. We analyse a specific random allocation rule that assigns maximal equal gains of chances. We characterize the equal gain rule axiomatically.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Awards: A Disregarded Source of Motivation

  • Bruno S. Frey, Susanne Neckermann
Awards are prevalent in all societies and at all times. So far, however, they have escaped the attention of economists. This paper presents a first analysis of awards, distinguishing them from purely monetary forms of rewards. Additionally, popular notions about the use and prevalence of awards are addressed with descriptive statistics from the International Who’s Who.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Bygones Are Bygones

  • Alan Hamlin, Geoffrey Bennan
Bygones are bygones‘ might seem to be an analytic truth, lacking any substantive content. Yet, economists think that, when they state that bygones are bygones, they are asserting something interesting and important. Furthermore, others would argue that the statement bygones are bygones‘, when read appropriately, is false. By interrogating the statement `bygones are bygones‘ we identify a number of key issues relating to rational choice theory and the treatment of intentions, habits and promises. The more philosophical discussion of the things that economists say (and what they might mean) is particularly appropriate in honoring Hartmut Kliemt, much of whose work has brought philosophy and economics into closer proximity.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Economists Have No Clothes

  • James M. Buchanan
Why have economists had so little meaningful to say about the 2008 crises? Where and when did the `science‘ get off the track? Can anything be done to restore respectability to Economics as a useful area of inquiry? This short essay examines these questions.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Meinungsbildung in Gruppen

  • Rainer Hegselmann
The article describes a radically simplifying model of opinion formation processes. The model abstracts away almost everything. A very common reaction to such an approach is the objection that important factors are not included. The article anticipates ten objections of this type and tries to show how to cope with them without giving up the radically simplifying approach. The strategies that we use can be summarized to a certain heuristics. Following the principles of this heuristics will often allow at least a partial qualitative understanding of real world phenomena. In many areas we probably cannot hope for more.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Die dualistische Metaphysik von Jürgen Habermas

  • Hans Albert
In contrast to traditional philosophy, Habermas does not view his ‘postmetaphysical thought’ as a conception of reality that claims to be true. Actually, however, his ‘postmetaphysical thought’ is a metaphysical dualism, which stands in opposition to the metaphysical naturalism proposed by other contemporary philosophers. In a specific way, he draws upon the Kantian idea of the constitutive function of reason. He holds, as other constructivists, an idealistic metaphysics that leads him to the construction of an epistemic dualism, contrasting the objective world of the natural sciences with the ‘Lebenswelt’. It turns out that he is unable to solve the problems connected with this view. Metaphysical realism, which avoids these problems, is rejected by him. His ‘postmetaphysical thought’, Habermas tells us, does not presume to decide what is reasonable or not in religious teachings. The core of religious experience, he suggests, is ‘opaque’ and therefore immune to criticism. Faith and knowledge are, as it seems, incommensurable, so that a reasonable critique of religion is impossible. Thus, he consents to an arbitrary restriction of the use of reason, as proposed also by Joseph Ratzinger.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Weak-willed Animals?

  • Thomas Spitzley
The aim of this paper is to contribute to answering the conceptual question whether there can be weak-willed non-human animals. After some preliminary clarifications concerning the phenomenon of weakness of will three different accounts are examined for the conditions a being has to fulfill in order to be in a position to display weakness of will. It is argued that these conditions are very strong and that there are good reasons to assume that, e.g., only language users can be weak-willed. This is taken as an independent argument for Davidson’s thesis that non-human animals which are not language users cannot act intentionally.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Wir-Absichten in der individualistischen Sozialontologie

  • Axel Bühler
An individualistic social ontology attributes mental states merely to individuals, and denies the existence of collective attitudes such as we-intentions. Furthermore, if collectives cannot be bearers of minds, then collective mental states cannot serve as explanatory factors. In my paper, I first show that we-intentions do serve considerable explanatory purposes within developmental psychology. I then propose an account of weintentions as complexes of intentions of different individuals. These intentions are of a distinct kind: de-re-intentions, grounded in external objects in a specific situation. This grounding is achieved by embodied cognition, through appropriate senso-motoric activities. I conclude that my account of we-intentions is compatible with an individualistic social ontology.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
Article

Hypothetical Justifications

  • Bernd Lahno
A basic conviction in moral non-cognitivism is: only hypothetical norms may be justified. Hartmut Kliemt argues for a moderate variant: there are only hypothetical justifications of norms whether the norms are hypothetical or categorical in kind. In this paper the concept of `hypothetical justification‘ is analyzed. It is argued that hypothetical justifications are not of the kind that we should look for in normative ethics.
  • Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)
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Journal Information

RMM is an interdisciplinary open access journal focusing on issues of rationality, market mechanisms, and the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects. It provides a forum for dialogue between philosophy, economics, and related disciplines, encouraging critical reflection on the foundations and implications of economic processes.

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Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 0 (2009)

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 1 (2010)

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 2 (2011)

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 3 (2012)

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 4 (2013)

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 5 (2014)

Rationality, Markets, and Morals: RMM Band 6 (2015)