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The economic approach, and its natural limits

In Economics is a social science Bruno S. Frey describes human beings as basically rational beings, to maximize that in his so called ipsative possibility space tries its benefits. This homo economicus respond to incentives, which are its preferences and its limitations, which are mediated by institutions and in turn determine the potential space created. In the center of the economic approach is thus neither the group or even the company, the object of observation is also not on the subpersonal level, but it is based on a methodological individualism, which is primarily made by individual actors in the field of view. Frey describes convincingly how this approach can be fruitful for many problems of social and even the humanities. At the same time closes Frey is not that other disciplines can lead to insights. He also points out that the findings of behavioral psychology in the tradition of Simon and Kahneman and Tversky have to be considered by the economy. since

In the twenty years of publication of Frey's book, different disciplines have developed, of which I wonder if they need to be considered by the economy, whether they can be synthesized with the economic approach, or whether they even show the limits of this approach.

VIEWING about behavioral economics and experimental game theory, that many people can be explained in simplified market situations of cooperative behavior than the models of Eigennutzmaximierung and reciprocal altruism. Whether it is postulated by Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt "social preferences" or whether the recently by James Woodward worked out in detail the concept of "conditional cooperation" - we have a phenomenon that is explanatorily more fundamental than the concept of homo economicus ? Do these phenomena, even the economic approach? Similar issues arise in the research of recent Nobel Prize winner in economics Elinor Ostrom, which comes in a natural setting to similar findings as the behavioral economists.

One of behavioral economics complementary approach to the question of the foundations of human cooperation is found in primates and infant researcher Michael Tomasello. By drawing on the philosophy of the act theorist Margaret Gilbert and John Searle, co-developed concept of "shared agency" said Tomasello, it is the capacity of establishing common goals of action and the realization of the intentions are different, which confirms the uniqueness of humans in the animal kingdom, the condition not only the social and cooperative elements of human society, but also of human language and cultural skills. In the light of a critical assessment of the economic approach and its methodological Individualism raises for me the question whether Community acts of any kind from the individualistic approach of the economy without recourse to the evolutionary phylogeny of the people on the one hand and social norms as constitutive elements of the action (rather than the action limits) can be fully captured. I am inclined to answer in the negative. Therefore, I suspect that in addition to the philosophical theory of action and the work of Tomasello possibly the cognitive scientific debate to our ability to recognize foreign intentions, and therefore the discussions between the represented by Alison Gopnik, "theory theory" and by Vittorio Gallese and Alvin Goldman represented "simulation theory" in a comprehensive picture of human social behavior must be integrated.

Literature:

Fehr, Ernst and Klaus M. Schmidt. 1999th "A Theory Of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation", in: The Quarterly Journal of Economics 114 (3), pp. 817-868.

Frey, Bruno S. 1990th Economics is a social science , München (Franz Vahlen).

Gallese, Vittorio und Alvin Goldman. 1998. „Mirror Neurons and the Simulation Theory of Mind-Reading“, in: Trends in Cognitive Sciences 2 (12), pp. 493-501.

Gilbert, Margaret. 1989. On Social Facts , Princeton (Princeton University Press).

Gopnik, Alison und Henry M. Wellman. 1992. „Why the Child's Theory of Mind Really Is a Theory“ in: Mind and Language 7, pp. 145-71.

Ostrom, Elinor. 1990. Governing the Commons. The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action , Cambridge (Cambridge University Press).

Searle, John R. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality , New York (Free Press).

Tomasello, Michael. 1999. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition , Cambridge, Mass. (Harvard University Press).

Tomasello, Michael. 2009. Why We Cooperate , Cambridge, Mass. (MIT Press).

Woodward, James. 2009. „Why Do People Cooperate as Much as They Do, "in C. Mantzavinos (ed.): Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Philosophical Theory and Scientific Practice , Cambridge (Cambridge University Press), pp. 219-266.