Rationality and the compatibility of preferences

In political science, there are a huge number of models of individual and group behaviour that are predicated on the assumption of rationality: basically, that people have a set of preferences about how the world and their lives should be and they make choices that raise the odds of outcomes they favour while reducing the odds of outcomes they oppose.

There is probably an even larger literature pointing out the flaws in this categorization. People don’t know everything, and even the information they do have is costly to acquire. It can be empirically demonstrated that people sometimes have sets of preferences that are not neatly ordered (they may prefer A to B and B to C, yet somehow prefer C to A). Many quirks of human psychology have been demonstrated, in which small or irrelevant details affect the choices people make.

Another important challenge to rational accounts is uncertainty about the compatibility of objectives. Wanting to live an open and flamboyantly homosexual lifestyle may be obviously incompatible with wanting to run for office as a conservative Republican in some jurisdictions, but there are many possible preferences for which it isn’t clear if achieving objective X necessarily requires sacrificing objective Y. That uncertainty is overlaid upon uncertainty about which objectives you actually can achieve (you may be unable to become an international swimming champion, even if you do sacrifice your aspiration to go the medical school in order to raise the odds). In many cases, outcomes could go either way. Maybe implementing an ambitious climate change agenda will doom your odds of re-election… or maybe it will improve them.

None of this is to say that rational models of decision-making are necessarily useless, or that they have no place in political analysis. Nonetheless, bearing these limitations in mind may contribute to a useful form of humility.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here. View all posts by Milan