Optimally Irrational

The seemingly irrational, puzzling aspects of human behaviour are not bugs, but features. Improving our navigation of the real world.

For a long time, economists have assumed that we were cold, self-centred, rational decision makers – so-called Homo economicus; the last few decades have shattered this view. The world we live in and the situations we face are of course rich and complex, revealing puzzling aspects of our behaviour. Optimally Irrational argues that our improved understanding of human behaviour shows that apparent 'biases' are good solutions to practical problems – that many of the 'flaws' identified by behavioural economics are actually adaptive solutions. Page delivers an ambitious overview of the literature in behavioural economics and, through the exposition of these flaws and their meaning, presents a sort of unified theory of behaviouralism, cognitive psychology and evolutionary biology. He gathers theoretical and empirical evidence about the causes of behavioural 'biases' and proposes a big picture of what the discipline means for economics.

Among the many practical failures that threaten us, weakness of will or akrasia is often considered to be a paradigm of irrationality. The eleven new essays in this collection, written by an excellent international team of philosophers, some well-established, some younger scholars, give a rich overview of the current debate over weakness of will and practical irrationality more generally.Issues covered include classical questions such as the distinction between weakness and compulsion, the connection between evaluative judgement and motivation, the role of emotions in akrasia, rational agency, and the existence of the will. The also include new topics, such as group akrasia, strength of will, the nature of correct choice, the structure of decision theory, the temporality of prudential reasons, and emotional rationality. Because these questions cut across philosophy of mind andethics, the collection will be essential reading for scholars, postgraduates, and upper-level undergraduates in both these fields.

"Hatred: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion The first in-depth philosophical analysis of personal hate and group hate, Hate: Understanding Our Most Dangerous Emotion explores how personal hatred can foster domestic violence and emotional abuse, how hate-proneness is a main contributor to the aggressive tendencies of borderlines, narcissists and psychopaths, how seemingly ordinary people embark on some of history's worst hate crimes, and how cohesive groups, subjected to spontaneous forces of group polarization, can develop extremist viewpoints of the sort that motivate hate crimes, mass shootings, and terrorism. The book's first part explores hate in intimate relationships, looking for an answer to the question of why our intimate relationships can survive hate and resentment, but not disrespect or contempt. Berit "Brit" Brogaard shows that where contempt creates an irreparable power imbalance, hate is tied to fear, which our brains may reinterpret as thrill, attraction and excitement. But this can also make hate a dangerous emotion that convinces people to hang onto abusive relationships. When tied to vengeance and the dark triad of personality, hate is not only dangerous but also dehumanizing. Vengeance and the dark personalities are not essential to hate, however. Without them, hate can have more admirable ends. The book's second part explores the polarizing forces that can bias cohesive groups of like-minded individuals and contribute to what is effectively a hate crisis. Drawing on history, politics, legal theory, philosophy, and psychology, Brogaard shows how cultural myths about femininity, ethnic groups, and the land of opportunity perpetuate misogyny, white supremacy and anti-Semitism. But, she argues, politicians and policymakers have it in their power to address the hate crisis through legislation that preserves the original incentive behind the first-amendment right to free speech"--

The world we live in presents plenty of tricky, impactful, and hard-tomake decisions to be taken. Sometimes the available options are ample, at other times they are apparently binary, either way, they often confront us with dilemmas, paradoxes, and even denial of values.In the dawn of the age of intelligence, when robots are gradually taking over most decision-making from humans, this book sheds a bit of light on decision rationale. It delves into the limits of these decision processes (for both humans and machines), and it does so by providing a new perspective that is somehow opposed to orthodox economics. All Economics reflections in this book are underlined and linked to Artificial Intelligence.The authors hope that this comprehensive and modern analysis, firmly grounded in the opinions of various groundbreaking Nobel laureate economists, may be helpful to a broad audience interested in how decisions may lead us all to flourishing societies. That is, societies in which economic blunders (caused by over simplification of problems and super estimation of tools) are reduced substantially.

Philosophy involves a criticism of scientific knowledge, not from a point of view ultimately different from that of science, but from a point of view less concerned with details and more concerned with the h- mony of the body of special sciences. Here as elsewhere, while the older logic shut out possibilities and imprisoned imagination within the walls of the familiar, the newer logic shows rather what may happen, and refuses to decide as to what must happen. Bertrand Russell At any particular stage in the development of humanity knowledge comes up against limits set by the necessarily limited character of the experience available and the existing means of obtaining knowledge. But humanity advances by overcoming such limits. New experience throws down the limits of old experience; new techniques, new means of obtaining knowledge throw down the limits of old techniques and old means of obtaining knowledge. New limits then once again appear. But there is no more reason to suppose these new limits absolute and final than there was to suppose the old ones absolute and final.

Originating from the International Network for Economic Method conference, hosted by the Erasmus Institute for Economics and Philosophy (EIPE) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2013, this book chooses key themes that reflect on fascinating new developments in the philosophy of economics. Contributions discuss new avenues and debates in important and upcoming areas, such as the philosophy of economic policy making, decision theory, ethics, and new questions in economic methodology. The book offers an excellent insight into cutting edge research in these fields that are about to shape the future of the philosophy of economics. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Economic Methodology.