Hi all -- Earlier this year, we had a dicussion on the list about definitions of rationality. I have just seen a recent book by Amartya Sen, winner of the 1998 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, entitled, <Rationality and Freedom> (Harvard UP, 2002), relevant to this debate. Sen argues for a broader definition of rationality than is usual in economic theory, namely, rationality "as the discipline of subjecting one's choices -- of actions as well as of objectives, values and priorities -- to reasoned scrutiny." (p. 4). His book includes a sustained critique, on both theoretical and practical grounds, of the narrow notions of rationality which pervade contemporary mainstream economics, such as rationality as internal consistency of choice, or rationality as maximization of some quantity.
-- Peter McBurney University of Liverpool
