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Show Rationality and the Structure of the Self, Volume I: The Humean Conception 97 greater length the thesis that the universalized version of the utilitymaximizing model of rationality is vacuous, by addressing several different interpretations of the Humean claim that utility theory has explanatory universality. For the most part, my criticisms of this claim address the purported scope of the model, not its substance; and therefore have no bearing on the model's validity within the context of free market economics for which, in its formalized version, it is intended. Similarly, I do not try to specify which final ends should be excluded from the scope of a suitably restricted version of the utility-maximization model of rationality; nor, therefore, which areas of human action may lay entirely outside it. So my conclusions here do not imply that the utilitymaximizing model may not have important applications to such areas as making financial investments, purchasing lottery tickets, or buying insurance. My argument is merely that the utility-maximizing model of rationality must incorporate some such restrictions, in order to avoid vacuity. However, the argument does, therefore, imply that Max U. (as some economists fondly refer to the quintessential utility-maximizer) cannot do just anything to maximize utility. So if you agree that, for example, Max U. should not be allowed to harvest body parts from the poor at 50¢ a piece and sell them at $50,000.00 to the rich for organ transplants, you should have some sympathy for my thesis. Whereas Chapter IV focuses on formal decision-theoretic interpretations of the utility-maximizing model, the present chapter focuses primarily on its informal philosophical arguments. Section 1 specifies the formulation of the basic principle of utility-maximization (U) that I target both here and in Chapter IV. Sections 2 and 3 develop in detail the criticism that if (U) is formulated so as to have universal application as an explanatory social theory, then it is either vacuous, in that it is confirmed by all instances of behavior; or else its detailed formulation is internally inconsistent, in that it implies that utility-maximization itself both is and is not an intentional end, subject to costbenefit analysis like any other. The argument begins with the simplest and most commonsense rendering of (U); and proceeds by examining increasingly complex and sophisticated formulations of it. I show in Section 2 that this David Gauthier, "The Social Contract as Ideology," Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977), 130-164. Some philosophically inclined jurisprudes are also guilty. Mid- to late twentieth century work in the economic analysis of law applied the utility-maximizing model of rationality to the legal sphere. See Ronald Coase, "The Problem of Social Cost," Journal of Law and Economics 3 (1960); "Durability and Monopoly," Journal of Law and Economics 15 (1972); and Richard Posner, The Economic Analysis of Law (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 1975). For a critical view, see Staffan B. Linder, The Harried Leisure Class (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970); Tibor Scitovsky, The Joyless Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); and Robert Paul Wolff, "Robert Nozick's Derivation of the Minimal State," in Jeffrey Paul, Ed. Reading Nozick (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allenheld, 1981), 77-104. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
