Rationality

People often make bad decisions that makes them regret afterwards. For example, People gamble and lose all of their money, make bets on things that they are not a hundred percent sure of. We can see such examples from people’s life experience and from many movies and various literatures. In the short story “The Bet”, Anton Chekhov wrote about two gentleman who make bet on whether life imprisonment or execution is more moral than the other. The lawyer, who went to prison tried to prove that going…

1) A $100 bill is lying on the ground in the middle of campus. No one is close to it and there are few people outside. Is the money taken? - I chose rational choice theory because the money is lying on the ground, and no one is out asking if they have found a specific amount of money. He is making a conscious decision as to whether pick up the money or not. He is not stealing the money from anyone, and no one is questioning him about finding any money. The money is just lying on the ground. No,…

Ever wonder why criminals commit the inhuman acts of violence that they do, or why large quantities of people are involved in drug usage despite knowing the negative consequences to themselves? Well sociology is a field where professionals consider why people do things rather than focusing on the who, what and when questions when gathering information. Max Weber was a German theorist in sociologist who also produced works in economic, law, philosophy and history fields. He lived from 1864 to…

Dandan Zhang PHI 3633 Case A Response Paper In the case of the 19-year-old patient X seeks to get a vasectomy, strong paternalism is evident in the urologist’s refusal to perform the surgery. Paternalism is defined as overriding someone’s actions and decision-making for his own benefit (71). In patient X’s case, his autonomy and ability to make his own rational decision were undermined by the urologist, who stated he was too young to make such a decision. The benefits of this paternalistic act,…

Rationality in the terms of human behaviour can be seen as the act of doing something within reason set by social norms. Rationality can be seen as being logical especially when linked to human behaviour. To be rational in terms of human behaviour indicates the person is making certain decisions to reach the most optimal level of benefit/utility, whether that be to save the most money by getting off-peak trains or to work a part-time job to have more time for family. In this essay, I am going to…

What are the key elements of Rational Choice Theory? • Beeson and Firth (1998) ‘Neoliberalism as a political rationality: Australian public policy since the 1980’s’, Journal of Sociology, Vol 34. Pp 215-231 In Beeson and Firth’s article, I gain a further insight into the conception of liberalism and the implementation of rational choice theory, specifically focusing on economic gain and wealth. The authors thoroughly researched the introduction of liberalism in the 1900’s and the resurgence…

scientific validation and falsification? Is critical relativism appropriate for scientific research (marketing or consumer research in particular)? Those are some critical questions raised by this week’s readings that centered on the topic of rationality and relativism. Several authors provide different insights on answering those above questions as follows: Initially, the debate between Cooper and Anderson introduced the controversial issue of whether scientist or consumer researcher should…

During the many years of carefully analyzing the theories of crime, questionings have challenged whether or not sociology can illustrate and help understand the causation of crimes. The theories of crime and delinquency are used to explain the principle of the crime committed and provides a supportive argument into the motive and compensation of the individual’s actions. Sociological theories of crime focus’ on a macro level around three of its leading theories: strain theory, social learning…

rationally stems back to the seventeenth and eighteenth century intellectual movement: The Enlightenment. The term rational is defined as “based on or derived from reason or reasoning, esp. as opposed to emotion, intuition, instinct, etc” (Oxford). Rationality was heralded as the answer to all problems and the path to a perfect society; while these views are considered extreme in today’s culture, reason is still viewed as mostly infallible. In The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne…

1.3 Rationality Assessing rationality is relatively difficult, to begin with, this section will thus attempt to assess and define rationality in terms of (1) the performed actions and what makes it rational and (2) what makes an agent rational. The assessment of the act and the agent though done distinctly, are connected, and thus necessary for the wholesome analysis of rationality. A rational act might be executed by an irrational agent or an irrational act might be executed by a rational agent…