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This essay attempts a theoretical assessment of the rational choice perspective, a central tenet in economics that has received wide application in recent decades in the other behavioral and social sciences. The analysis proceeds by several steps: (a) a specification of the historical contexts (economic, political, and ideological) of the rise and consolidation of the perspective in economics, (b) a description of the theoretical essentials of the perspective, (c) an outline of the major theoretical objections and criticisms of the perspective, (d) an identification of the major responses to the criticisms on the part of economists and others, including orthodox defense, aggrandizement, qualification, and theoretical extension and refinement, and (e) a concluding assessment of these several trends, which advances the proposition that rational choice theory—like psychoanalysis, Marxism, and funtional analysis—has experienced a kind of theoretical degeneration.
Neil J. Smelser (Thu,) studied this question.
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