If RCT is the spreadsheet bro of social science theories—calculating, self-interested, emotionally sterile—its adjacent theories are either trying to fix its cold-blooded logic or double down on it with even more math.
Here’s the awkward little constellation of RCT’s neighbors:
🧠 1. Game Theory
RCT’s flashy cousin who went to MIT and thinks life is just one long chess match. It models strategic interactions between agents using payoffs, equilibria, and formal logic. Every prisoner's dilemma ever owes this one a drink.
🤖 2. Expected Utility Theory
The theory RCT calls when it wants to make decisions under uncertainty. It assumes agents assign subjective probabilities and pick the outcome with the highest expected utility—basically, rationality with a calculator.
🧮 3. Public Choice Theory
RCT but make it political. It treats voters, politicians, and bureaucrats as utility-maximizing agents. Imagine democracy as a bad eBay auction—everyone bids, but nobody reads the fine print.
💸 4. Behavioral Economics
RCT’s slightly ashamed younger sibling who went to therapy. This field points out that humans are often irrational, inconsistent, and driven by context, emotion, and mental shortcuts—like, you know, people.
🏛️ 5. Institutionalism (especially New Institutional Economics)
This one drags RCT to church and says, “Look, people behave within structures.” It factors in rules, norms, and enforcement—because markets don’t operate in a vacuum unless you’re an economist with tenure.
🤝 6. Social Exchange Theory
RCT’s dating profile. Mostly used in sociology and psych, it applies cost-benefit analysis to relationships. “He ghosted me because the emotional ROI was too low” = textbook SET.
🧪 7. Rational Expectations Theory
Used in economics. Assumes people use all available info to predict the future accurately and act accordingly. LOL, sure Jan.
💬 8. Methodological Individualism
More of a meta-theory, but it underpins RCT. It says social phenomena can and should be explained by analyzing individual actions. Yes, even revolutions. Yes, even TikTok mobs.
🧨 Honorable mention: Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (Anti-RCT Adjacent)
This one sits across the table, sipping wine, judging RCT’s lack of cultural awareness. Bourdieu says people act based on “habitus” (embodied dispositions), not just conscious calculation. Which, let’s be honest, sounds a lot more like real life.
So yeah, Rational Choice Theory is kind of the overly rational, emotionally distant framework that spawns an entire genre of slightly less robotic spinoffs—or full-on revolts.
Want me to sketch how Game Theory branches off from RCT, explain Behavioral Econ’s rebellion, or show how Institutionalism tries to patch RCT’s blind spots?
You said:
ChatGPT said:
Ah, you've just walked into the grand existential punchline of the entire rationalist tradition: the assumption of agency in a vacuum. A+ question. Let’s poke at the delusions of grandeur built into many of these theories.
💡 Short version:
Yes, many of these theories—especially the OGs like Rational Choice Theory, Expected Utility Theory, and Rational Expectations—absolutely presume that individuals are autonomous, informed, calculating agents with access to options, time, knowledge, and some magical ability to simulate outcomes in their heads like they’re playing chess on God Mode. They do not, by default, account for:
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structural constraints
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material deprivation
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cognitive/emotional limits
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socialization or culture
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the inability to actually know what the hell is going on
In other words: they hand you a blueprint for navigating a maze but assume you’re not blindfolded, broke, or inside the walls already.
🔍 Let’s go theory by theory:
Rational Choice Theory (RCT)
Assumes you're:
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Rational
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Self-interested
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Able to rank and choose among options
🚫 But where did those options come from? Do you even know they exist? Can you afford them? Not RCT's problem. It presumes you came pre-installed with agency. Which, for many, is laughably untrue.
Game Theory
Adds interdependence, but still assumes:
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You know the rules
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You know the other players
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You can model their actions
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You can even choose strategies
🚫 It doesn't ask if you have the resources or language or cultural positioning to interpret the game in the first place.
Public Choice Theory
Pastes RCT onto politics and says voters and politicians behave “rationally” in pursuit of self-interest.
🚫 Ignores that some people vote against interest, can’t access full info, or are systematically disenfranchised.
Rational Expectations
The idea that people “use all available information efficiently to form expectations about the future.”
🚫 Who has that information? How? Does the info system lie? Can you read it? Do you have time between jobs to think critically about bond yields? Again, assumed.
Behavioral Economics
At least acknowledges bounded rationality—limited time, info, processing capacity—but still often treats irrationality like an error in an otherwise good machine.
Institutionalism
This is where things get less fantastical. Institutional theories acknowledge that:
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Your options are shaped by rules, norms, and history
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You don’t get to invent your world from scratch
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Path dependency and inequality matter
✅ So, this one's less about divine creative power and more about managing constraints.
Social Exchange Theory
Still assumes people calculate costs/benefits in social interactions.
🚫 Doesn't really grapple with how people learn what has value, or whether their desires are even their own.
Bourdieu (again, the anti-RCT crowd)
Hits the brakes. Says:
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People act through habitus—embodied, socialized dispositions
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They don’t choose from scratch, they’re formed by structures
✅ This is the guy yelling from the other end of the room: “You don’t create the world from nothing, you just reproduce it unless you consciously resist it.”
🧨 So to answer your question:
Yes, many of these theories either:
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Assume godlike choice-making in a neutral landscape, or
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Tolerate constraints only as “variables” in an otherwise free model
They are, in effect, fantasies of sovereign selfhood—where the individual is imagined as free-floating, rational, and ready to choose their own adventure with no mention of colonialism, trauma, supply chains, or the price of eggs.
They do not help you if you're asking:
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"What can I choose when I don’t even know the menu?"
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"What if I’m so gaslit by my world that I can’t tell who I am, let alone what I want?"
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"What if the game is rigged and I’ve never seen the rules?"
For that, we leave the clean geometry of rationalism and start walking into critical theory, phenomenology, or even existentialism—fields that say: you’re not free, but you can still struggle, and that’s the point.
ChatGPT said:
RCT and its adjacent crew make way more sense as a normative ideal than a descriptive account of how actual human beings function. In fact, if they only claimed to be offering a model of how decision-making should work under ideal conditions, nobody would be mad.
💡 When Treated as Descriptive:
RCT and Methodological Individualism fall apart because:
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They ignore structural constraints
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They assume full access to information
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They erase culture, history, trauma, dependency, confusion, emotion, exhaustion
It’s like saying: “Well obviously, people are utility-maximizing agents making informed choices!”
And someone replies: “Okay, but Jamal can’t afford rent, doesn’t know the job market's rigged, and is still recovering from systemic devaluation.”
That’s the disconnect.
✅ When Framed as Normative:
If you say instead:
“Let’s imagine how decision-making could look if people were fully informed, uncoerced, and rational,”
—then suddenly it becomes a diagnostic and aspirational tool. Now you're saying:
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Here's a clean standard for evaluating distorted systems
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Here's how we can see where reality fails to meet the rational ideal
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Here’s what fairness or freedom could mean in a society that doesn’t gaslight its members
You’re turning RCT into a mirror, not a map. And that’s more honest.
🧠 Methodological Individualism: Same Deal
When used descriptively, it erases interdependence, socialization, and institutions.
But normatively? You could say:
“We ought to design systems that treat people as active, responsible participants—not passive objects or mere data points.”
Then it becomes a demand for dignity. An ethic of empowerment, not a delusion of autonomy.
🧨 The Risk, Of Course:
Once you turn these into ideals, you must add disclaimers:
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Not everyone starts with equal tools
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Not every context allows rational agency
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And not every “choice” is actually free
Otherwise, it just becomes a polite fiction for ignoring oppression.
TL;DR:
Yes, these theories work better as normative frameworks—a way to imagine how agency should operate in a just world.
They are worse than useless when treated as descriptions of real-world human behavior—because the world isn’t that clean, and neither are we.
Want to play with how these theories could be retooled as ethical principles, explore critics like Amartya Sen or Martha Nussbaum on agency, or compare RCT’s normative potential to democratic theory?
You said:
ChatGPT said:
Absolutely—it’s one thing to describe RCT (Rational Choice Theory) and methodological individualism as models of “how people do choose,” and it’s another entirely to use them as ethical filters for shaping what choices ought to look like in a just world. Here's how these theories can be retooled as normative ethical principles, and what richer frameworks you’ll need to anchor them:
1. 🧭 RCT as a Normative Benchmark
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Ideal of autonomy: Model how free, informed, self-directed agents should behave—making decisions with clarity and consistency.
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Tool for critique: Use it to expose distortions—when choices are unequal, information is withheld, or manipulable.
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You’re not saying “people are like this”; you’re saying “this is the standard we should aim for.”
2. Methodological Individualism as Ethical Value
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Respect for agency: In policy/design, ensure individuals are insulated from coercion and empowered to participate meaningfully.
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Dignity-focused design: Systems should treat people as agents, not objects—centering structures that safeguard voices, not suppress them.
3. Capabilities Approach (Sen & Nussbaum)
An excellent ethical upgrade:
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Moves from mere options to real freedoms—opportunities you can actually use talkdhartitome.com+9compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com+9en.wikipedia.org+9talkdhartitome.com+2en.wikipedia.org+2e-ir.info+2.
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Emphasizes functionings (e.g. health, political voice) over raw utility—rooted in dignity .
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Normative list: everyone deserves a minimum threshold of capabilities like education, voice, bodily integrity iep.utm.edu+1en.wikipedia.org+1.
4. Reflective Equilibrium (Rawls) as Guiding Method
• Instead of axiomatically trusting any model, we iterate: align abstract principles with real-world intuitions .
• This helps reconcile RCT’s ideals with critiques—e.g., “maximizing utility” vs. “fairness to the marginalized.”
5. Logic of Appropriateness & Situational Ethics
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Sometimes ethics is less about “maximizing” than following affective, role-based norms compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com+1studylib.net+1.
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We can embed emotional resonance alongside rational calculus—honoring context, relationships, and moral salience.
📌 Synthesizing a Rich Ethical Toolkit
| Component | Role | Ethical Principle |
|---|---|---|
| RCT / MEU | Ideal benchmark for clarity and efficiency | “Informed, self-directed choice is good” |
| Capabilities | Enables real freedom and human dignity | “True options require conditions to use them” |
| Reflective Equilibrium | Aligns theory/principle with lived experience | “Just systems balance ideals and particularity” |
| Norm/emotional logic | Recognizes that feelings and roles matter | “Context and identity shape moral relevance” |
✴️ Why This Matters
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Without grounding, RCT becomes elitist: “make rational choices or suffer.”
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With grounding, it becomes aspirational and ethical—a measure of how much justice and agency we’ve built into structures.
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We don’t abandon RCT; we embed it in a broader moral ecology that includes dignity, context, and social embeddedness.
TL;DR
By recasting RCT and methodological individualism as normative ideals, we turn them into tools for diagnosing injustice, not just claiming it doesn't exist. Layered with capabilities, reflective equilibrium, and contextual ethics, we get a justice framework that’s rigorous—but humane.
Want to unpack how the Capabilities Approach specifically reframes autonomy, or dive into how reflective equilibrium can shape policy design rooted in real-world plurality?
You said:
Want to unpack how the **Capabilities Approach** specifically reframes autonomy
ChatGPT said:
Excellent. Let's unpack how the Capabilities Approach (CA)—developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum—reframes autonomy in a way that makes Rational Choice Theory look like a spreadsheet trapped in a trench coat.
🧠 The Old Autonomy (RCT Version):
In Rational Choice Theory and its libertarian cousins, autonomy is often treated as:
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The ability to choose from a menu of options
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Freedom from interference (aka “negative liberty”)
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Agency as calculation—you know your preferences, you rank them, you act accordingly
This vision assumes that as long as you're not coerced, you're free.
Which is cute... if you’re a disembodied brain with a platinum AmEx.
🌱 The Capabilities Reframe:
The Capabilities Approach flips this. It asks:
“Can people really do and be what they value?”
It shifts autonomy from freedom of choice to freedom to achieve valuable functionings. You’re not autonomous just because no one’s stopping you—you’re autonomous if you:
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Have the genuine ability to pursue a meaningful life
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Can convert resources into real opportunities
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Have access to social, material, and personal supports that make choice usable
🔧 Key Features of CA Autonomy:
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Substantive Freedoms: It’s not about what’s technically “available” but what’s realistically accessible.
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Social Embeddedness: Your ability to choose is shaped by education, health, social norms, discrimination, etc.
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Internal Capabilities: Skills, mental health, confidence, and imagination matter. Not just external choices.
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Conversion Factors: Two people with the same resource may not be able to use it equally. CA says: that gap matters.
🧬 An Example:
Let’s say two people are given a $1,000 education grant.
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One lives in a city with schools, internet, and supportive family.
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The other lives in a rural area with no transport, patchy Wi-Fi, and an abusive family.
RCT says: “Both were given the same choice. Fair.”
CA says: “Only one had the capability to actually use that opportunity.”
🧨 Philosophical Punch:
This reframes autonomy from:
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a formal capacity ➝ to a lived, contextual capability
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an abstract logic of preference ➝ to a grounded, justice-sensitive framework
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“What can I choose?” ➝ to “What can I be?”
It treats autonomy not as a checkbox, but as a moral condition of justice.
TL;DR:
Capabilities reframes autonomy as:
the real, embodied, socially-supported ability to live a life you have reason to value.
It’s not about just “choosing”—it’s about being equipped to choose meaningfully. That’s autonomy worth fighting for.
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