Reason in Action

Did Adam and Eve act rationally in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree? That can seem to depend solely on whether they had found the best means to their ends, in the spirit of the 'economic' theories of rationality. Martin Hollis respects the elegance and power of these theories but judges their paradoxes endemic. He argues that social action cannot be understood by viewing human beings as abstract individuals with preferences in search of satisfaction, nor by divorcing practical reason from questions of the rationality of norms, principles, practices and ends. These essays, focused on the themes of 'rational choice', 'roles and reasons' and 'other cultures, other minds', make the point and explore alternative approaches. Culled in revised form from twenty-five years' work, the essays range across periods and disciplines with a philosophical imagination and vivid prose, which will engage philosophers and social scientists alike.

ISBN 0521447798   DEWEY edition DC20 ISBN13 9780521447799 (What's this?)   Pages 296 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Volumes 1 Imprint Cambridge University Press   Weight (grammes) 380 Format Paperback   Published in Cambridge Publication date 07 Dec 1995   Height (mm) 216 Non-book description ix, 283 p. :   Width (mm) 138 Library of Congress H61 .H666 1996   Spine width (mm) 17 DEWEY 300.1   Academic level Professional / Scholarly

		Acknowledgements
1		Prologue: reason in action		1
2		Three men in a drought		19
3		Rational preferences		40
4		The Ant and the Grasshopper		60
5		Moves and motives		62
6		A rational agent's gotta do what a rational agent's gotta do!		80
7		Of masks and men		91
8		Honour among thieves		109
9		Dirty hands		131
10		Friends, Romans and Consumers		150
11		A death of one's own		170
12		The limits of irrationality		191
13		Reason and ritual		199
14		The social destruction of reality		221
15		Hook, Line and Sinker		242
16		Say it with flowers		250
17		Reasons of honour		263
		Index		282

'... this book presents an elegantly argued and forcefully stated counter-challenge to the naturalists.' British Journal of Sociology

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