ENGLISH

Solomonic Judgements: Studies in the Limitation of Rationality

By Jon Elster

Book information

Year
1989
ISBN
0521376084, 9780521376082, 052137457X, 9780521374576
LCC
HB846.8 .E47 1989
Open Library ID
OL2055689M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
10 MB (10598237 bytes)
Pages
244\248
Topic
Education
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

This volume of essays is very much a sequel to the two earlier collections by Jon Elster, Ulysses and the Sirens and Sour Grapes. His topic is rationality--its scope, its limitations, and its failures. Elster considers rational responses to the insufficiency of reason itself and to the "indeterminacies" in deploying rational choice theory, and discusses the irrationality of not seeing when, where, and what these are. A key essay that gives the collection its title examines disputes in cases of child custody that are paradigmatically indeterminate. Leaving aside cases where one parent is patently unfit and assuming that protracted dispute is against the immediate interests of the child, Elster argues that three options present themselves: a strong presumption in favor of the mother, a strong presumption in favor of the primary caretaker, and tossing a coin. Though the first two options may be preferable in the short term, Elster argues that there is a case for randomization in the long term.

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