Functionalism and the role of psychology in economics

Abstract

Should economics study the psychological basis of agents' choice behaviour? I show how this question is multifaceted and profoundly ambiguous. There is no sharp distinction between 'mentalist' answers to this question and rival 'behavioural' answers. What's more, clarifying this point raises problems for mentalists of the 'functionalist' variety [Dietrich, F., & List, C. (2016). Mentalism versus behaviourism in economics: A philosophy-of-science perspective. Economics and Philosophy, 32(2), 249-281.

Causal Explanation and Revealed Preferences

“…This article contributes an explanatory defense of revealed preference approaches to those debates. The defense is very much in the spirit of Guala (2019) and Clarke (2020), who argue that the scientist's explanatory or epistemic task ought to determine the interpretation of "preference" at play.…”

New functionalism and the social and behavioral sciences

“…In other words, preferences are just the choices that agents make. Yet, even in this case, what counts as a choice is arguably individuated on functional grounds (Clarke, 2020). There are also more subtle positions that sometimes get classified as behavioristic.…”

“…That is, while choice theoretic models can explain by showing how particular patterns in behavior result from different types of agents having certain preferences in often highly different circumstances, it is far from obvious that they, thereby, are also meant to serve the purpose of informing us about what would happen if an agent's beliefs or preferences were changed (cf. Clarke, 2020). Hence, the loss of counterfactual power that comes with reification may not affect many of the models in which preferences are frequently employed given their explanatory purpose.…”

Revisiting the criticisms of rational choice theories

“…As aforementioned, there are different ways in which concepts such as the concept of a preference have been interpreted, which has provoked a debate about whether and if so how they should be interpreted in light of economic practices (see, e.g., Angner, 2018; Clarke, 2016, 2020; Guala, 2019; Hausman, 2012; Okasha, 2016; Thoma, 2020). Protagonists in this debate indeed attempt to bridge the gap between conceptual discussions in philosophy with how the concept is used in economics, a gap which has so far been partly responsible for some of the confusions about RCT.…”

“…As aforementioned, there are different ways in which concepts such as the concept of a preference have been interpreted, which has provoked a debate about whether and if so how they should be interpreted in light of economic practices (see, e.g., Angner, 2018;Clarke, 2016Clarke, , 2020Guala, 2019;Hausman, 2012;Okasha, 2016;Thoma, 2020).…”