Mathew D. McCubbins and Michael Thies (University of California, San Diego – Political Science and University of California, Los Angeles – Department of Policy Studies) have posted Rationality and the Foundations of Positive Political Theory (Rebaiasan [Leviathan], Vol. 19, pp. 7-32) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
In this paper, we discuss and debunk the four most common critiques of the rational choice research program (which we prefer to call Positive Political Theory) by explaining and advocating its foundations: the rationality assumption, component analysis (abstraction), strategic behavior, and theory building, in turn. We argue that the rationality assumption and component analysis, properly understood, can be seen to underlie all social science, despite the protestations of critics. We then discuss the two ways that PPT most clearly contributes to political science (i.e., what distinguishes it from other research programs), namely the introduction of strategic behavior (people do not just act; they interact) and PPT’s more careful attention to the theory-building step within the scientific method. We explain the roles of theory-building and of empirical “testing,” respectively, in scientific inquiry, and the criteria by which theories should and should not be judged.
And a bit more from the paper:
Our conception of rationality begins with animal physiology at a fundamental level and goes as follows.3 All living creatures, from humans to inchworms to politicians, experience pleasure and pain. Assumptions about the subject’s beliefs concerning the sources of pleasure and pain lie beyond the scope of the rationality assumption. Rationality simply posits that all behaviors are directed toward the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. At times, this behavior seems reflexive, such as the instinct to pull one’s hand away from a flame.4 Other times, it becomes quite complicated, as when a voter undertakes a cost-benefit analysis ove multiple issues to arrive at the decision to support some political party or candidate. At heart, in our non-normative view, the assumption of rationality accepts that everyone has a different conception of what is pleasurable and what is painful, but asserts that everyone makes decisions in the same way.
I am a huge fan of McCubbins important work, but this account of rationality seems philosophically naive. It cannot be the case that "all behaviors are directed toward the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain," unless "pleasure" is defined as that towards which bheavior is directed and "pain" is defined as that which behavior avoids. Moreover, it is flatly wrong to postulate that "everyone has a different conception of what is pleasurable." Pleasure and pain are objective phenomena–not contested concepts.
But this paper is interesting and revealing–and certainly worth reading if you are interested in the foundations of PPT.