The Paradox of Social Order: Linking Psychology and Sociology (Sociological Imagination and Structural Change)

THE PARADOX OF SOCIAL ORDER

SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION AND STRUCTURAL CHANGE An Aldinede Gruyter Series of Texts and Monographs SERIES EDITOR Bernard Phillips, Boston University

Lawrence Busch

The Eclipse of Morality

Science, State, and Market

Leo d’Anjou

Social Movements and Cultural Change

The First AbolitionCampaign Revisited

Frank Hearn

Moral Order and Social Disorder

The American Search for Civil Society

Pierre Moessinger

The Paradox of Social Order

Linking Psychology and Sociology

The Paradox of Social Order Linking Psychology and Sociology

PIERRE MOESSINGER

Translated by Stephen Scher Francesca Worrall

ALDINE DE GRUYTER New York

About the Author Pierre Moessinger is professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the Department of Psychology at the University of Friof bourg. H e has servedas a visiting professor at Columbia University, the University Minnesota, and the University of Montreal. H e has published in English-language journals in several fieldsand is the editor ofNew ldeas in Psychology.This is his first book published in English.

Originally publishedas lrrationalit6 individuelleet ordre social,edition publishedby Droz, CH-l206 Geneva Copyright 0 1996 by Librairie Droz S.A., Geneva, Switzerland Copyright 0 2000 by Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmittedin anyformorbyanymeans,electronicormechanical,includingphotocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. ALDINE DE GRUYTER A division of Walter de Gruyter, Inc. 200 Saw Mill River Road Hawthorne. New York 10532 This publication is printedon acidfree paper63 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Moessinger, Pierre. [Irrationalite individuelleet ordre social. English] / Pierre The paradoxof social order:linking psychology and sociology Moessinger ;Stephen Scher, Francesca Worrall, translators. (Sociological imagination and structural change) p. cm.Includes index. :alk. paper)ISBN 0-202-30576-7 (pbk. :alk. ISBN 0-202-30575-9 (cloth paper) 1.Individualism. 2. Socialpsychology. 3. Social values. I.Title. II. Series HM1276.M6413 1999 302.5’4-dc21 Manufactured in the United States of America 10987654321

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Contents Preface

vii

Acknowledgments

xi

1

1

Rational Choice and Rationality The Excesses of Rational Choice Abstract Models and Real Choices Rationality as Means-Ends Appropriateness

2

for Coherence

Preferences, and

3

27

Desires, 27 Will Autonomy Methodological Individualism and

Subjective Rationality

Internal Disorder: Subselves and Multiple Personalities Subselves and Personality Dissonance and Identity

4

and

43

51 52 64

Social Order and Disorder a

1 7 20

73

The Problem with Viewing Social Order from Rational Choice Perspective 73 Nonrational Social Conduct and Order Order Emergent Effects, Resultant Effects, and Constraints

81 92 107

Conclusions

133

Bibliography

135

Index Author Subject

149 150 V

Preface The idea of disorder, in the sense of absence of order,is then what must be analyzed first. "Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution

This work is first and foremost a trial, a first attempt.O u r knowledge of society is limited, fragmented,and scattered. In the social scienceswe often have to be content with a few pieces (hypotheses,theories) of a provisional construction, pieces that will be quickly modified or replaced, if not immediately abandoned. In this precarious situation for thesocial sciences,what we can do better, what we must try to do better, is differentiate and generalize ourhypotheses and integratethemintothebest-establishednetworkof knowledge, in orderto ensure that they continue to develop. Inother words, we have to articulate and systematize the social sciences, in particular to reunite sociology and psychology. the nonrational-it is primarily a If I emphasize the irrational-or rather reaction against models that postulate individual rationality, and that serve social sciences.I am as thefoundation for the great theoretical systems of the thinking primarilyof neoclassical economicsand of economic thinking (psychological, sociological, or political) that depends upon rational choiceespecially gametheory, decision theory, and the theoryof collective choice. If sociology and political science, as well as neoclassical economics, had not been taken over by models of rational choice, talking about nonrationality would be pointless.W e would then talk about real individual behavior and real social facts, or simply about individual behaviorand social facts. Some behavior would beconsidered, at least by hypothesis,relatively rational-or rather relatively coherent. Other behavior would be considered less so, or not at all. These suggestions would seem eminently reasonable, even obvious, if the social sciences had not been distorted by a priori assumptions about rationality; it's as if it were impossible to think about socialreality outside the postulates of rational choice. In this work I will therefore be stressing the ubiquity of nonrationalbehavior.Indeed, the morecloselyyou examineindividualbehavior, thefarther removed it is from models of rational choice.

vi i

...

VIII

Preface

Knowledge tends to obscure disorder.A s writers such as Leibniz, Bergson, and Piaget have observed, we perceive order before we perceive disorder. But to perceive order does not mean that we understand it. The social sciences are no exception. If thinkers as diverse as Spinoza, the philosophers of the Enlightenment, the English utilitarians, as well as Compte, Marx, and Weber, identified modernity with rationality, it was not only because they rejected religious and romantic conceptions of man. It was also, in part, because they had difficulty even in conceiving ofthe nonrational, and because they weredrawn to, and obscurely fascinatedwith, whatwas rational. Today these understandable difficulties are compounded because rational choice modelstheoretically obscure the nonrational.As wewill see, these models, which boildown to the concept of economic rationality, actually serve as postulates, not hypotheses. M y position is that sociology ultimately has to explain social reality. But I should say right away that we do need models (whichare indeed rational) to provide explanations. Nevertheless, a model alone doesnot explain much, perhaps becauseit always explains something.As Piaget said (Apostelet al., 1973), there is no explanation except when a model is "attributed" to reality; that is, reality itself it supposed to function like its model. Of course, even the idea of reality is vague. It suggests some sort of limit, which we can approach in various ways. Whatever approach we take, however, there is no excuse for oversimplifications or for hiding behindabstractions. W e need to be constantly improving our explanations by challenging arguments and testing hypotheses. M y thesis is simple, if somewhat counterintuitive. Social order (or thestabilityof social structures) emergesfromnonrationalindividualbehavior (which social order, in turn, upholds). This thesis is a reversal of the position of rational choice theorists, according to whom rational individuals produce an irrational society (Hardin,1982).To express it otherwise, social order and individual nonrationality together make up a whole. The thesis is, strictly speaking, incompatible only with the extreme, rarely expounded, positions of radical reductionism and radical holism. These two currents of thought reject emergence. According to radical reductionism, all the properties of a social system are already properties of its members. A rational society is nothing but the result of rationalindividual action. Social contradictionsare reduced to individualcontradictions, and macrodisorder is reduced to microdisorder,just as macro-order is reduced to micro-order (orrationality). According to radical holism, social facts have nothing to do with individual behavior.Therefore, there cannot be, strictly speaking, a link between individual (non)rationalityand social (dis)order. This thesis rests on a monistic point of view according to which sociology-or socioeconomics-cannot be separated from psychology. To a certain extent thesocial sciences today neglect orignore psychology, field a that

Preface

ix

has been supplanted by postulates ofrationality (or, sometimes, by ideal types or by conventions). Social scientists are not taking into account current psychological knowledge. Contemporary psychology has abandoned both behaviorism and subjectivism. Individual behavior, which includes behavior, intentions, reasoning, beliefs, feelings, and so on, i s seen as nonrational.This evolution in understanding raises the question of social order, which can no longer be looked at from the perspective of a postulated individual rationality. Nor can social order simply be attributed to individual intentions. Societal metaphors such as “machine” or ”organism” are no longer adequate. Finally, social order can no longer be conceived in terms ofa dualistic frarnework. For example, social order is not some magical equilibrium that is justified(in advance) by the satisfactions it produces-to all, to the most capable, or only to those in power, depending upon the justification. Nor can social order be considered eitherthe product of either an ”invisible hand,” as Adam Smith maintained, or of an omnipresent secretary “who balanceseveryone’saccount,” to quote the late-nineteenth-century French economist L6on Walras.

Acknowledgments

In the course of my work, I have benefited from numerous discussions and suggestions. 1 would like particularlyto thank G. Balandier, G. Berthoud, G. Busino, R. Fantasia, J. Kellerhals, C. Lalive d’Epinay, D. Schulthess, 1. Widmer, and U.Windisch. Several colleagues took the trouble to read my manuscript and made many useful and fruitful comments. I thank B. Burgenmeier, Y. Fricker, C. Schmidt, E. Widmer, and R. Yessouroun for their attentive and critical reading.

xi

Chapter 1

Rational Choice and Rationality

THE EXCESSES OF RATIONAL CHOICE What I call here the theory of rational choice corresponds to a multitude of approaches based on the principle of rationality, which Popper (1957) expressed as follows: ”Agents always act appropriately to the situation in which they find themselves.” Such a principle, apparently so simple, is itself problematic(forexample,what does ”appropriate”mean?),which is reflected in Popper’s own ambivalence about the principle. It is difficult to say if he took this principle for ageneral fact or for anorm of rational behavior.’ He said that it was a question neither of theory norhypothesis, and that “the principle of rationality ...is, in fact, false, although it constitutes a good approximation of reality” (Popper, 1967, p. 146). But itis difficult to see why a good approximation of reality does not also constitute a good hypothesis (or at least a hypothesis that would not immediately be considered false). In any case, to say that individuals who appear to be behaving appropriately are trying to maximize something is a normative viewpoint, not a descriptive one. Such a viewpoint describes the rational agent, not the real agent. Thus, the theory of rational choice reduces choices to maximization. Neoclassical economists and now also many social scientistsno longer take rationality as fact. They consider it to be a postulate, a norm, or a ”good description of rational individuals” (but do such individuals exist?), thus avoiding any serious questioning of thefacts. In brief, the theory of rational choice assumes that (1) to choose i s at the center of social life, (2) there is no interaction between individuals’ choices or preferences, and (3) all choices are reduced to personal interest or, to be more precise, guided by the principleof economic rationality or utility maximization. These theses, which are thebasis of neoclassical economics, have spread throughout the socialsciences, from psychology to history, by way of political science and sociology.

2

Rationality Rational Choice and

O n e area of sociology that has completely embracedrational choice theory is economic sociology, or what I refer to as sociological economics in order to distinguish it clearly from socioeconomics (Etzioni, 1991 ).At the center of this field of sociological economics is Gary Becker’s new home economics and the sociology of rational choice, which is championed by such authors as Coleman, Hechter, and Olson.Their work, which claims to be sociological,is sometimes hardto distinguish fromthat of theeconomists who want to embrace sociology and who are moving-albeit very tentatively-into the domain of real choices.2 Within the framework of rational choice, preferences or choices are neither vague nor contradictory. To be sure, a person attempts, in general, to maximize some ultimate satisfaction, and the calculation of maximization must take uncertainty about the future into account. As Becker said, behaving rationally is /’’maximizing’ consistent behaviorthat tries tolook forward and to anticipateas far as possiblewhat the futurewill bring.”H e adds, ”this is common to all versions of rational choice that I know of” (Becker interview in Swedberg, 1990, p. 40). Such anticipation takes into account limits, or constraints (physical, economic, social,and so on). There are sometimes, in addition, constraints imposed indirectly by aperson’s difficulty inprocessing information and, moregenerally, by the limits ofa person’s own knowledge, experience, beliefs, and emotions.

Gary Becker Gary Becker’s work is normally situated within the mainstream of classical rationalism. H e is a leading proponentof rational choice, and his recent award of a Nobel Prize is an indicationthat rational choice theory still serves asa criterion of excellence among internationalcommittees of experts. (Herbert Simon, another rational choice theorist, also received the Nobel Prize.) Becker shows us a homo oeconomicus grappling with his problems-let us callthemsociological-so what weendup with is an economicosociological man. Hisapproach, as presented in The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (1976), is to apply postulatesofrational choice toall or imputed shadow human behavior, ”beit behavior involving money prices prices, repeated or infrequentdecisions, large orminor decisions, emotional or mechanical ends, rich or poor persons, menor women, adults orchildren, brilliant or stupid persons,patients or therapists,businessmen or politicians, teachers or students” (p. 8). His methodology, which comes directly from economics, ”is the combination of maximizing behavior, market equilibrium, and stable preferences, applied relentlessly and inflexibly.” Becker himself has absolutely no criticism to make of the postulates of rational choice and is unconcerned about the numerous criticisms of those

Excesses

The

of Rational Choice

3

postulates that have been presented in the economics literature itself. In an interview with Swedberg (1990), where he discusses his critics, one gets the impression that for him the most important thing is to have atheory. Accordingly, rather than responding to those who criticize the highly abstract nature of his ideas, he reproaches them for not having atheory.As wewill see later, such an attituderests on an epistemology thatisat once rationalist and unrealistic. Some Comments on Becker’s Work. O n e of Becker‘s best-known contributions concerns marriage ( A Treatise on the Family, 1981), which he views like a market.The contract of marriage is the result of a process of trial and error on the market of marriageable individuals. It represents the partners’ utility maximization under certain constraints. Nothing in marriage occurs outside the framework of rationality, the maximization of gain. For example, what a woman loses in libertythrough marriage, she gains gain backin qualof Becker’s critics-put it: for Becker, such ity of life.As Bunge(1995)-one things as love, chance, moral considerations, feelings, and love at first sight, play no role (see also Berthoud, 1994). Moreover, he ignores the dynamics of relationships (for example, changes in the perception of the [ideal] partner, interpersonal adjustment,and the development of trust or jealousy). Becker’s 1960 article on fertility is just as unrealistic. First of all, he considers children to be durable consumer goods, with “shadow prices” (that is, the prices that would prevail if there were a market for children). H e also believes that ”the number of children is relative to their quality” (p. 17)“that is, with the investment in their education (the more children on the market, the less education they get). Apart from the above, the model contains reasonable hypotheses such as the size of the family depends on its income, the cost of educating the children (child-rearing costs), and the parents’ knowledge (of contraception, in particular).Then Becker proposes to calculate the expected utility of having a child. Consider another example. For Becker, crime is a career choice like any other, and it is purely a matter of expected utility. H e says nothing about social circumstances, such as poverty, ignorance, anomie, and so on. Indeed, Becker explicitly refusestotakethese variables into account. According to him, whether to engage in crime depends only upon the benefits and the expected costs of the punishment. The idea of addressing the problem of crime by attacking its roots or by rehabilitating the criminal is completely rejected. H e is not interested in studies of crime or in statistics. His a priori disregard of the factsis inappropriate, even pseudomathematical (Bunge, 1995). I could cite many other examples, either from Human Capital (Becker, 1967) or The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Becker, 1976), but I will conclude by outlining Becker’s concept of political man, which appears in his article ”Competition and Democracy” (1958).

Rationality 4

and

Choice

Rational

For Becker, a good democratic citizen is not an individual who makes an effort to keep abreast of politics or who votes. The good citizen is someone who reasons as follows: “Given that I only have one vote, it does not pay for me to be involved in politics or to act like a good citizen; there are much more interesting things to do, such as trying to control a big business or to earn money in one way or another, money which it would then be rational for me to spend on efforts to corrupt politicians.” In sum, Becker‘s rational citizen is politically indifferent or corrupt. An AbstractConstruction. In the critiques that follow, I will attempt to show that Becker’s economico-sociological man has no correspondence to actual persons (who are animated by passions and ideals, have moral needs, make manifest their attachments and concerns, andso on). Morethan just a simplification, Becker’s position is a complete abstraction. If it were only a question of simplification, one could say: let us add a few variables here or a few constraints there. But proceeding in that way does not make sense in the case of Becker’s conception of homo rationalis, which serves as a postuvariables to postulates. late, because thereis no justification for adding more is to providethe foundation for a theory Since the very purpose of postulates rather than to be an adequate theory by themselves, postulates cannot be changed under the pretext that are not, by themselves, an adequate theory.

The Sociology of Rational Choice James Coleman is, without doubt, the principal theorist of what i s called the sociology of rational choice. His ideas are summarizedin Foundations of Social Theory (1 WO), in whichhe attempts to place the concept of exchange at the center of sociology and even at the center of social theory-that is, the theoryofthesocial sciences.The book revitalizesthetheory of social 1964; Gouldner, 1960; exchange (exchange theory) insociology(Blau, Homans, 1961), which had fallen out of favor. For some time, at least since his lntroduction to Mathematical Sociology, Coleman has been attempting to formulate a new foundation for contemporary sociology. His idea is that sociological theory has not changed for fifty years, and that it is time to provide it with a new groundwork (see Swedberg‘s [19901 interview of Coleman). Such an ambitious endeavor is bound to attract attention. The Linear System of Actions. The heart of Coleman’s theory is exchange, and it is illustrated by the case of two boys, Tom and John, who exchange baseball and football cards. To put this exchange within a more theoretical framework, Coleman sees them as having different indifference curves. As shown in the figure below, Tom i s much more interested in football cards than in baseball cards, whereas John is equally interested in both types of cards.

5

The Excesses of Rational Choice

John

Baseball Cards

Tom

FootballCards

The initial position for the exchange is, for Tom, on the lower left, and for John, on the upper right. Any displacement toward the upper right represents an increase in Tom’s utility, whereas any displacement toward the lower left represents an increase in John’s utility. All points within the box denote a division of cards between Tom and John. The line joining the points of tangentbetweenthe two players’indifferencecurves is thecontractcurve, which represents the optimal (in the sense of Pareto optimality) division of cards betweenTom and John.That is, along this contractcurve, the marginal rates of substitution of the baseball against the football cards are equal for both Tom and John, respectively.(For more information, check any introductory textbook of microeconomics.) We can imagine, based on the geometric illustration, that the process of exchange or division takes place i n several stages. Let us suppose that the S ofthe two types ofcards first exchangeproducestheredistribution between Tom and John. All the points within the RSTarea are(equal or)superior to S for both individuals. Of course, one cannot say on that basis how the individuals will arrive at the optimum, nor exactly where they should situate themselves along the contract curve; we are creating an abstraction of the negotiation or exchange process in order to be able to establishthe optimum,takingintoaccountcertain postulates concerningindividual

Rationality Rational Choice and

6

preferences. Nevertheless, we must imaginewithin this framework (or in this box) a process by whichTom would transfer football cards to John and John would transfer baseball cards to Tom. Tom tries to move toward 7; and John toward R, and the negotiatingprocess is represented by a line (here, a zigzag line) that stops at the contract curve, here the segment RT. If they went beyond, either Tom or john would move onto a lower indifference curve. Thus, at each starting point for the negotiation is a corresponding optimum, i s silent on the zigwhich is a part of the contract curve. Note that this model zags-that is, on the negotiation process. Of course, if one of the two boys, let ussayTom, always takes the initiative, and John becomes passive, the "negotiation" will lead them to point T (which i s on the best indifference curve for Tom); in turn, if John takes the lead and Tom remains passive, the contract will end up at R. Conceptual Limitations.

Coleman thus made use of the Edgeworth Box.

Of course, he then adds norms and proceduresin the form of constraints, but that does not change the basic problem.This method of analysis dependson a number of postulates, six of which are especially important.

1. It says nothingaboutthe process throughwhich persons cometo arrive at the optimum, nothing about the interpersonal process of negotiation and bargaining, and nothing about relationships involving seduction, power, preemption, extortion, promises, and so on. 2. Since each agent has a defined utility function that is independent of the utilities of others, the social character of the exchangeis ignored. Abstraction is made of (real) processes and (real) interactions. 3. The exchange rate is fixed from the start. In the real world, exchange rates arethe resultof competition, collusion, power plays, bargaining, and so on. Bunge (1995) observes maliciously that treating exchange rates as fixed and given precludes their being the result of individual actions (no processes), which is contrary to Coleman's methodological individualism. 4. The initialdistribution is fixed (here,at point S), andone has to assume that the individuals have property rights over their shares. Thus, the exchange involvesnothing except quantifiable private property. Since it is assumed that the initial holdings are private property, the institution of property i s also assumed. 5. There is nothing that allows one to pinpoint exactly where the individuals should situate themselveson the contract curve.The optimum excludes any consideration of equity. 6. Tosay that each agent maximizes his utility is an a priori claim5 that obscures reality and precludes the consideration of individual intentions, beliefs, and feelings. Coordination of values (see Piaget, 1970)

Abstract Models and Real Choices

7

andconsiderations on ends(seeWeber‘s Economy a n d Society, 1921/1979) do not makesense within this framework. It is informative to think about the concept of optimality in relation to the problem of establishing standards for distribution or welfare. No better standards can be established without giving meaning to interpersonal comparisons. Indeed, allprinciples ofequity assume these comparisons are possible. Suppose, for example, that two individuals have to divide up a cake; any division is optimal inthe Pareto sense (although intuitively itseems that some divisions are more equitable than others). In effect, any division is such that there is no better division that would allow one person to gain something and the other to lose nothing. For each new division, whatever loses.The one person gains in relation to the previous division, the other Pareto principle does not tell us where to divide or cut the cake; the principle has no “cutting power.“ What is interesting about Pareto optimality, that is, its generality, is also what disconnects it from morality. Itis not that Pareto optimality rests on no values, but that it rests on the very general value that it is always better to have more (for oneself). Strictly speaking, such a principle is amoral.

ABSTRACT MODELSA N D REAL CHOICES Rational choice models-oftengroupedunderthe rubric oftheory of rationality-obscure both internaldisorder and the social context of choices. The notion of rational choice is a collection of postulates that serves primarily to protect a mathematical construction. Sincethese theories treat rationality as apostulate,they serve as static “guardians of rationality,” to use Arrow‘s (1970) phrase. Although many believe that these theories “have too high a degree of abstraction” (Williamson, 1975) andfocus on idealized mechanisms, most critics of rational choice models do not know what to replace them with. The “new institutional economics,” for example, only proposes models of limited rationality, which is still a form of rationality. It seems to me that, rather than attempting to replace rational choice models with newabstractmodelsand with ambitioustheoriesthat are equally abstract, we wouldbe betteroff focusing onreal conduct and proposing general hypotheses that are based on systematic observations. Pareto (1896/1964, 1906/1971)sometimes gave the impression thatit was the rationality of behavior that provided the criterion for separating economics and sociology, with the former dealing with rationalchoices and the latter dealing with irrational ones.6 If taken seriously, however, this distinction would surely have left sociology to deal with real choices and economics to deal with nothing butabstract purity of rational choices.No such thing

8

Rationality Rational Choice and

has happened, however.There is, instead, a certain rapprochement between the two disciplines,with some economists becoming more concerned about explanation' (and consequently aboutreality) and some sociologists-fascinated, as we have seen, with theelegance of mathematical models-moving toward theoretical abstraction. Nevertheless, at the intersection of economics and sociology, there are very few systematic approaches. Predominant is sociological economics (of which Becker's work is an example).Practiced as much by economists as by sociologists, it is essentially an extension of neoclassical economics into sociology. Economists' preoccupation with sociological issues raises questions concerning boththe division of labor between sociologists and economists, and the relative intellectual domains of the two disciplines. There is also a central ontological problem. If sociology, in the final analysis, deals with all social systems, then economics deals with particular social systems. Ontologically, therefore, economics is included in sociology and not the reverse. O n e might therefore ask why economicsis not considered a subdiscipline (or rather a monstrous outgrowth) of sociology. This suggestion presents an institutional problem: much more sociology is done in economics departments than economics in sociology departments. It is therefore economics that is absorbing sociology, rather than the reverse. O n reading Swedberg's interviews (1990), one might reasonably take this process of absorption to reflect the greater prestige of economists. Indeed, this prestige, apparently recognized by both parties,puts sociologists in a position of intellectual submission, which is hardly compatiblewith acknowledging the inclusion of economics in sociology. These reflections bring us to the sudden appearance of sociology in academic institutions in the first third of the twentieth century, and to the discussions :hat tookplacethenbetweeneconomists and sociologists. According to Swedberg (1994), economists did not want to leave to sociologists the study-even the sociological study-of economic facts. It was a waste of effort, they said, to "do the same thing twice." Since sociologists were in no position to resist this pressure, they simply had to accept "the rest"; that is, the family,deviant behavior, religion, social movements, and a few other subfields. Undoubtedly, it is still difficult today for some sociologists to forget that their fieldwas foundedon the remnants of economics. W e know that neoclassicaleconomicssubsequentlyevolvedtoward models that wereconsiderably removed fromreality. Sociologists, paralyzed by the restrictions on which the discipline was founded, did not respond, however, and economists proclaimed rather emphatically that their discipline involved the scientific study of reality (though without its being clear whetherthisrealityexisted outside their own minds). During this same period-as economics was becoming more abstract-an ad hoc ontology

Abstract Real Models and

Choices

9

was taking shape, one in which the notion of reality itself became ambiguous. This ontology is related to an epistemological theory dictating that the postulates of a theory must not correspond with reality. It is interesting to note that one finds no such theory of explanation anywhere outside of neoclassical economics.

The Unreality of Assumptions* The theory of the unreality of assumptions, developed by Milton Friedman, is still widely accepted by neoclassical economists. According to Friedman, “the more significant the theory, themore unrealistic the assumptions.” The reason, he says, issimple: a hypothesis “is important if it ’explains’ much by little” (1953, p. 14). Here, the word little means necessarily “inadequate,” because it is approximate and abstract. To understand Friedman better, we must take aclose look at his examples, of which he gives two. First, there is the example (from physics) of falling bodies. As we know, the acceleration of a body falling in a vacuum is constant. This law can be applied, he says, to a compact ball falling from a roof by imagining it to be falling in a vacuum. The truth of this law can be verified, at least as a first approximation, and it can be verified, adds Friedman, in several ways. Nothing prevents us from taking a closer look at reality.The problem is, however, that inproposing histheory of the unrealityof assumptions, he was doingeverything he could to discourage us from doing so. Friedman refined his ideaina second example thatis “analogous to numerous hypotheses in the social sciences” (1953). It is worth reproducing it here: Let us turn now to another example, this time a constructed one designedto be an analogue of many hypotheses in the social sciences. Consider the ofdensity the leaves arounda tree. I suggest the hypothesis that the leaves are positioned as if eachleafdeliberatelysoughttomaximizetheamountofsunlight it receives, given the position of its neighbors, as if it knew the physical laws determining the amount of sunlight that would be received in various positions and could move rapidly or instantaneously from any one position to any other desired and unoccupied position. Now some of the more obvious implications of this hypothesis are clearly consistent with experience: for example, leaves are in general denser on the south than on the north side of trees but, as the hypothesis implies, lessso or not at all on the northern slope ofa hill or when (1 pp.19-20) the south sideof the trees is shaded in some other way.” 953,

*Whereas, in general, the author speaks of “postulates,” here we follow Professor Friedman in using “assumptions” instead.Trans.

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Rationality Rational Choice and

Friedman notes that the hypothesis (or rather, the assumption) that the leaf calculates the optimal position, taking into account the constraints imposed by the presence of the others, is obviously false; nevertheless, it leads to accurate predictions. Everything happens, according to Friedman, as i f the leaves were calculating; in the same way, he adds, everything happens as if persons were attempting tomaximize their expected utility. Let us look first at the example of the falling body. In applying the law to the case of the ball falling from a roof, Friedman was neglecting one parameter (air resistance),fully aware that he was doing so. Applied to the hypothesis of rational choice, Friedman’s reasoning comes down to saying that the any case, hypothesis about rational choice often corresponds to reality-in that it often allows one to make satisfactory predictions; that it corresponds within a closeparameter, and that this parameter is known. However, it is not clear what this parameter might be, any more than it is clear what would be the ideal conditions under which t’lis possible parameter could be ignored. What seems to support Friedman’s idea, thus creating confusion, is that the choices of a perfectly rational, perfectly informed individual appear to correspond to a model of rational choice. However, this claim is tautological and unreal. It is tautological tothe degree that one defines a perfectly rational individual on the basis of the very notion of rational choice; it is unreal in the sense that such an individual does not exist. In other words, rational choice is an a priori concept. As for the example of the leaf that engages in all kinds of calculations, it raises-more explicitly than the previous example-the question of knowing what constitutes a good explanation. Undoubtedly, one could be satisfied with such a model as a first approximation if it led to interesting predictions or fruitful research. But the model’s being temporarily useful does not mean the that it explainswell. All explanation should sooner orlaterreveal processes or the mechanisms (via a model) of the thing to be explained (Bunge, 1983).To explain the orientation of the leaves,we have to study the biological and chemical mechanisms at work that determine that orientation. Even though we do not completely understand the phenomenon, we know that the explanation can be foundin the irregulardistribution of auxin to the stems, which is more dense in the parts of the stem that are in the shade. These parts tend to grow more quickly, which makes the stem curve in the direction of the light source. It stands to reason that the biological explanation (which I have only touched on here) is better than Friedman’s; theformer, unlike thelatter,refersto the mechanisms of what is being explained. By the same token, therational choice hypothesis must be replaced by one that results from a study of the psychological and sociological mechanisms of choice. In studying the process of choice, attention would have to be given, of course, to the conditions (physical, psychological, and social, in particular) under which choice are made.

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A Semantic Problem The way that economists, or proponents of sociological economics, conceived of the role of models is thus linked to their conceptions about the unreality of assumptions. It is as if the unreality of theassumptions exempted them from correctly defining the forces or functions at work in particular economic systems (for example, relating to problems of economic growth). This criticism applies to thefunction of utility,in which n o procedure is given for determining the value of x and f(x). We know that {(x) is monotonous, increasing, and concave. W e know nothing else, however, and we do not know how to obtain more information, either. There isno way, for example, to determine the optimal value. This way of "half" posing the question (as Blatt [l9831 puts it) is unique to economics.8 In all the other theoretical scientific disciplines, each functionis defined; that is, theconditions (for example, the equations) that the function must satisfy are specified. Bunge (1 990) takes up this criticism with regardto thecompletely arbitrary manner of selecting numbersin constructing the matrices ofgame theory. As such, the games cannot explain reality. Granted,to provide such explanations is not thegoal generallyattributed to game theory. Binmore (1990), for example, considers the games to be mindexperiments, and Schmidt (1991)regards their role asthe exploration of therationally possible (which comesto say that game theory does not deal withsocial interactions). But whatinterest is there in such mind games?O n e thing is clear, however: assoon as the premises of a theory about real choices emerge, game theory will haveto be abandoned. At that point, atheory that isso impervious to reality could not sustain much interest-from the perspectiveof either explanation or prediction.

Maximization under Arbitrary Constraint According to sociological economics, one always considers individuals to be maximizing something undercertain constraints. For example, in choosing a course of training, individuals maximize their expected salaries plus their "psychological gains," both under the constraint of the time available (Becker, 1967). Similarly, they choose their spouses by maximizing a complex function within acertain group of functions (Becker, 1976).And so on. But it is important toexamine how such modelsare created.Suppose that on the first attempt the model does not apply, or applies only in part. At that point the sociological economists-and in this respect they do not differ from economists-would prefer to look at imposing additionalconstraints to account for the behavior in question rather than to consider the possibility that individuals are maximizing something else-that is, something other than what themodel envisions.There aretwo reasonsfor this approach:first, it gives them theimpression of being closerto reality, ofdoing sociology, and to believe that individuals second,as Solow observed, it is "tooeasy

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maximize something else" (Swedberg, 1990, p. 277). T h i s remark i s tantamount to the position that if individuals behave in manner x, it is because they prefer behavior x to any other. Such a conception is a priori; the problem i s "resolved" before it has even been posed. It i s customary to distinguish between economic constraints (available time, resources, and so on) and sociologicalconstraints (practices, rules, social norms). To those one could add psychological constraints (cognitive limits, beliefs, and so on). W e consider homo oeconomicus to be a maximizer under economic constraints and homosociologicusto be a maximizer under simultaneous economic, sociological, and psychological constraints (Boudon, 1977/1981). Homo psychologicus, in turn,might be seen as a maximizer under psychological and biological constraints. Homo psychologicus is thus a special case in that his constraints are "internal." Since all these homines are maximizers, however, they have all the flaws associated with theories of rational choice. Let us use the example of homo psychologicus to illustrate how manipulating the distinction between a maximizing entity and a constraint allows one to avoid reality. Consider the case of a psychologist of rational choice who realizes that his model of the maximizer does not correspond to reality. H e therefore introduces a psychological constraint (such as a defense mechanism) that he considers to be external to an entity that he calls, for example, "the self," which is otherwise unconstrained and is also a single-minded maximizer. Now, if he were persuaded by a critic that this "self" is not really a maximizer, our specialist wouldeither postulate a new constraint or decide that another entity, apparently more restrained than this "self," i s the maximizer. Such a specialist, to the extent thathe postulates a new, arbitrary entity each time he needs to overcome a limitation of his model, will ultimately enmesh himselfincircular conceptions that demandanabstract entity to be postulated as the maximizer. To seek any more precise characterization of this entity would be futile; it i s defined a priori in terms of maximization, which can no longer be tested against the facts. (For mure on this topic see "A Dormitive Principle.")

The Compound Individual Recent studies have portrayed the individual as a collection of selves that can interact or communicate, that are more or less cohesive, and that are either more or less integratedt9 or, alternatively, more or less discordant (Elster, 198913; Minsky, 1986). To be sure, these descriptions are only models, perhaps even just metaphors, and they still have to be corroborated. Nevertheless, they are plausible. Consider the example ofadvance cornmitment, a phenomenon long studied by Elster (1983, 1986). Advance commitment occurs when individuals impose a constraint on themselves in order to

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protect themselves from an anticipated change in their preferences. One example is Ulysses, who had himself tied to the mast of his boat in order to be able to listen to the song of the sirens (Elster, 1983). Another is the inveterate gambler who signs an irrevocable casino ban, which w i l l prohibit him from entering any casino in France for an entire year. Still another i s Svevo’s narrator (1930/1978), who has himself locked up in a room in order to quit smoking. Such individuals have no real confidence in their own preferences, which they know maychange. It is as if the individuals were inhabited by various subsystems that are poorly coordinated and poorly informed about each other. Since the self-regulation and thus the stability of the global system-the individual-are compromised, discontinuities appear (for more on thisissue, seechapter 3). I mention the problem ofmultipleselves here because it is sometimesanalyzed in terms of a maximizing under a constraint; for example, when an impulsive self i s interpreted as a constraint on a central self that i s intentional and maximizing. Rationality is thus introduced a priori into the world of the selves. Rather, I consider that the central self may change, that it may not always be the same. In that case, the very notion of individual maximization loses its sense.

A Dormitive Principle Elster, despite his interest in what he refers to as ”irrational” behavior, goes so far as to reject the notion that behavior can be irrationa1:’O Now let us suppose someone says, ”1 am irrational” and points to the fact that he consciously and deliberately does not choose the best meansto realize his ends. Well, this kind of reaction would makeme question if that indeed is his imputing ends to end.Because it seems to methatthecentralevidencefor other people is their actions. And if they choose means that are not conducive to a givenend,that’sthebestevidence to think thattheydon’thavethat in order to imputeends end. . ..W e have to assumethatpeoplearerational and goals to them.” (Elster interview in Swedberg, 1990, p. 242) Elster’s position i s relevant, if onlyemblematically, to the theory of rational choice. In effect, if Elster i s postulating rationality, he does not address the question of whether the postulate i s true or false. It is therefore not a case of an inadequate “assumption” (which might lead to good predictions) such as that presented by Friedman. Instead, it is a case of a postulate in bad faith, a protective postulate. It protects the hypothesis of rationality from any possible refutation. This postulate canbe expressed as follows: O n e always chooses in accordancewith one’s goal.Given that it i s not a question of fact here, to ask why one always chooses in accordance with one‘s goal would be pointless. On thisconception of behavior, questions concerning either the types of justifications people give or the coherence of their behavior would

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be deprived of any interest. Indeed, such a conception” has nothing to do with a theory aboutthe real world. For Arrow, many socioeconomic phenomena are explained in terms of the 1990, p.142),which, he says,simply “dormitiveprinciple”(Swedberg, repeats the phenomenon being explained. (In spite of that, the economic study of social facts has recently made considerable progressin the past few years. W e should therefore conclude that sociological economics has no use for dormitive virtues.)Thoughwe might askhow the triviality ofsuch explanations has been unnoticed by so many eminent thinkers, we should also recognize that the dormitive principle has a long and distinguished history. In MoliPre’s Le Malade lmaginaire [The Hypochondriac], theeffects of explained in opium-in particular, its tendency to make people sleep-are terms of the substance’s virtus dormitiva. Another exampleof explanation via the dormitive principle can be found in Le Me‘decin rnalgre‘ lui [The Physician in Spite ofHimself], wherewe find the following dialogue: “There, this test shows that your daughter is mute.” When Gronte,the father, asks what the cause of this mutism is, Sganarelle replies, “It originates in the fact that she has lost her speech” (MoliPre,[l 6661 1957, p. 308). The problem here is thatno onesays what this dormitive principleis, and the explanatory question is not posed in a way that would enable us to be any more specific. As for the ”explanation” of the daughter’ssilence, its genesis can be summarized as follows. The physician begins by inferring that, since the daughter is not speaking, she cannot speak. To explain why the daughter cannot speak, the physician asserts that she has lost her power of speech. But he has obviously explained nothing, and we know nothing more than we did before. H e is confusing explanation and description. W e could play the devil’s advocate and ask why the dormitive principle does not explain whyopium makes one sleep. The problem is that we donot know what a dormitive principleis and how it works. Of course, one could believe-with a certain amount of imagination-that the ”dormitive” property in opium interferes with an individual’sability to control his consciousness. W e would thereby have startedthe process of identifying the mechanism (as some kind of interruption), butwe would not be saying very much. If we then propose that what is ”dormitive” in opium has some relation to a physiological process such asthe inhibition of certain networks of neurons in the frontal cortex, we would be hypothesizing that “dormitive” relates to the properties neurons of and the networks of frontal neurons. Thus, we would have not only the beginning of a process (neural inhibition), but we would also know what we were talking about. W e could evaluate the hypothesis and try to improve it. Of course, we would undertake this task only if the hypothesis was interesting and plausible. Returning to ”Doctor” Sganarelle, he very solemnly provides other reasons forthe young girl’sfailureto speak. For example, he pompously

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explains that she has ”lost the use of her tongue.” Though MoliPre is, of course, primarily satirizing the medical profession, let us proceed as if we took this explanation seriously.If we take ”tongue” asreferring to theorgan in themouth (rather thanas part ofsome idiomatic expression), we couldsee Sganarelle has provided the seed of an explanation.W e could verify this parthe young girl is capaticular hypothesis(for example, by determining what ble of doing with her tongue, her ability toproduce sounds throughdifferent movements or positions of the tongue, and so on), conductfurther research (for example, by studying more closelythe movements of the tongue in the production of sounds, or the connections between the tongue and other organs in differentgroups of individuals), and thus arriveat new hypotheses. Alternatively, if “tongue” is taken to be idiomatic, Sganarelle’s explanation (or hypothesis) could still give rise to relevant observations and extend our knowledge. O n e could investigate,for example, whetherthegirl could speak another language (or “tongue”).In short, whatis lacking in Sganarelle’s explanation is precision and a clear reference to what he’s talking about. W e are thus beginningto get an ideaof the conditions that need to be met for explanation and research. Theproblem must berelatively precise (that is, posed literally or mathematically) and be specified (that is, we must know what it is we are talking about).The dormitive principle is tautological and remains unspecified (wedo not know where to find it and cannot discover what it is composed of), whereas the explanation in terms of losing the use of the tongue lacks precision (although the problem could be examined more closelyto clarify the terms use, loss, and tongue). In the absence of precision and specification,no mechanism can be researched. Elster’s explanation is certainly different from that of Moliere’s doctors. However, hispostulate, like the explanations above,tends to obviate further research. O n e cannot question the rationality of individuals (”we have to assume that individuals are rational,” he says [Elster interview in Swedberg, 19901), even less their nonrationality (because he has decreed that an individual who behaves in an irrational manner is rational without knowing it).l2 Of course, it is not justa questionof d e f i n i t i ~ n .What ’~ is at issue here is that rationality and irrationality do not refer to any specificparts of real individuals; in order for them to do so, the notions would have to be constructedout of psychological mechanisms. Such behavioral and mental processes could then be studied and evaluated, and our hypotheses could be continually improved. Elster does not distinguish between real rationality and formal rationality,between nonrationality and irrationality, hence an ontological confusion. Thus,he ascribes a formal property (rationality) to real individuals, which circles in a tautology. I have tried to show that the theory of rational choice and the various models that have been basedon it do not refer to realityand to what is actuis that such ally possible,but only to what is rationally possible.The problem

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models cannot refer either to individual rationality or social rationality. Of course, one could arguethat rational choice models are useful as models. But useful for what? According to Schmidt (1991), they are useful for exploring the logic of choice. But again, what i s the use of exploring the logic of choice? In any case, the models are not useful for explanation since they say nothing about either the causes of choices or the mechanisms of social interactions (Moessinger, 1991).

A Question of Method The psychological criticisms presented above hold little interest for proponents of sociological economics. Like neoclassical economists, they start from postulates whose only purpose i s to be used in the construction ofmodels. Solow describes the way economists work: Precisely becausemathematicalmodel building is the natural mode of doing theory, I suspect that it is much easier for an economist to say,”Let’s try this; let’s try that; let’s try something else! Let’s try one modification after another of the conventional Walrasian market-clearing model to see what set of assumptions, what set of postulates or axioms will give us a story which looks as if it corresponds a bit better to the things we are trying to understand.” (Solow interview in Swedberg, 1990, p. 279) Later, Solow gives the example of an article that he is writing onthe labor market. In the article, he shows that the labor market does not function like the market in classicaleconomics because, in a labor market, the actors (both employees and employers) are supposed to be concerned about equity. H e attempts to introduce parameters so that his model corresponds with global data on labor markets. But he does not say whether the actors are, in reality, concerned about equity or not, and howthis concern i s possibly reflected in their behavior. In fact, this question does not seem to interest him. Not only does he not try to make his parameters correspond to reality, but he does not even seem to be concerned about such matters. Sociologists of rational choice have adopted economists’ research methods; there are many examples of this methodological borrowing. Many sociologists who subscribe to other schools of thought, and undoubtedly the majority of psychologists, would consider it surprising to attribute the properties of coherence to individuals without ever testing them, or proposing to do so, or even hoping that someone else does so. There i s a methodological and epistemological barrier that tends to isolate the proponents of rational choice from other social scientists, the same barrier that isolates neoclassical economists from sociological economists. In an article on the philosophy of economics, Gibbard and Varian (1 978) summarize the economic process in a way that illuminates a central point:

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“a large part of the theoretical activity of economics consistsnot of research proving economic laws, nor of the elaboration of hypotheses followed by tests, but in investigating economic models.’’ This remark captures the fundamental difference between economics and sociology: even if some sociologists would agreethat much ofthetheoreticalactivityin sociology consists ininvestigating sociologicalmodels,whatsociologistsmeanby investigation and model is quite different from what economists mean by them. Let us look, first of all, at the question of models, which is at the center of the misunderstanding between sociology and economics. Gibbard and Varian (1978) distinguish between models as estimations and modelsas caricaturesor fictions. The former rest on hypotheses that can be continually improved, that can be modified after they have being tested against reality. Thelatter rest on hypotheses whose goalis not to be testable and improvable, but simply to provide models,to provide the foundations of a construction.The reality or unreality of themodel or of thefoundation on which it rests is not central. Thesemodels are for model’s sake. Thoughthey they often are notexplanacan be consideredor used as forecasting models, tory. The emphasis is on the solidity of the conclusions, on the rigor of the theoretical construction.The more solidthe construction, the less interesting the hypotheses from which the construction has beeninferred.14 Seen from the outside,this approach appearsabstract, cutoff from reality. But for the economists who work with such models,it is quite the opposite. A s Favereau (1992) said, it is their way of ”experimenting,”of confronting reality. Economists cannotexperiment; it would bevery difficult to create an ”economic laboratory,’’ simulating companies and markets, while isolating important variables. Thatis, sinceeconomistscannot experiment,they manipulate variables in a model, and if Favereau is right, that is what gives them the impression of confronting reality. Economics has thus become imprisoned in the logic of model construction, and it is by constructing models that economists have reacted to the absence of experimentation and thelackof confrontation withthereal world. Historically, therationale behind this construction of models has been as follows.“Let us try to give clear and coherent answers(the kind that reality never provides); to do so, we have to stylize reality. W e will thereby obtain clear answers to the questions we ask. If the models do not correspond to reality, we will change a variable or introduce a constraint. And since the coherence of the model takes precedence, we will no longer try to make the hypotheses or postulates stand up to reality. W e will abandon the explanatory ambitionsof the economists of the nineteenth century.” I have said that, for Gibbard and Varian, the theoretical activity of economics consistsin investigating models.These abstract models, and this type of investigation, are whatSolow described asthe modification of models by trial and error, through the introduction of variables and constraints. And it

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is such investigations that, foreconomics, play the role of experimentationa very different manner of confronting reality than that of sociologists and experimental psychologists. In the discussion of the unreality of assumptions, we saw that the theory of rational choice is based on an epistemology of its own, onethat is unconnected to the epistemologies of the sciences of reality.W e are also beginning to see, thanks to Favereau, that this theory leads to an ad hoc methodology. To that we must add that rational choice rests on a somewhat subjectivist ontology, on an insistence on the representations (particularly models) of reality. That said, even if we apprehend reality only through the representations that we have of it, we certainly must assume reality existsif we want to speak about discovery, ignorance, truth, or error. All scientific undertakings rest on a realistic ontology. Granted, the question of the truth of facts is not well elucidated. Even if one could say that the truth of facts rests on empirical tests, the notion of correspondence (or of the degree of correspondence) with reality presents a pr0b1em.l~This shortcoming does not by itself, however, support a subjectivist viewpoint.

Abstract Models and Ignorance of Psychology W e have seen that there are several modes of explanation in the social sciences. Rather than reviewing all the theories of explanation, I have attempted to show that the status, role, and significance of the model in explanation vary according to the author and, above all, the discipline. To me, the essential distinction here is between models conceived as pure fiction, and models whose purpose is to account for the facts, and that are always subject to improvement. I am not saying that all theorists of rational choice consider their models to be pure fiction, but,paradoxically, that those who doare the fiercest defenders of rational choice. Machlup (1967) is one such fierce defender. H e mentions Gottl-Ottilienfeld-who describes classical theory as “a great circus of goods with the price and value as acrobats on a mathematical trapeze and with homo oeconomicus as theclown” (p.42)-in order to point out that more than one epistemologist (for example, Schutz, Sombart, and Weber16) would agree with this chara~terization.’~ What he means, I believe, is that Gottl-Ottilienfeld is saying loudly and lyrically what many epistemologists have been saying more quietly in the language of radical rationalism. I am dwelling on Machlup because in order to defend this epistemological break (between fictitious and realistic models), whose profile we are beginning to see, he adds an argument that is taken straight from behaviorism. H e states that the role of homo oeconomicus is not to help us understand what we observe of people. We do not observe gestures and actionswe and do notlisten to con-

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versations. On the contrary, his role is to help us understand ...the results of people’s actions and reactions. We can practically never observe the actions we can observe ourselves changing our minds themselves (with one exception: about what thingsto buy, what things to keep).(1967, p. 43) Thus, it is Machlup’s view that we cannot observe actions themselves, but only their results. What we have here, in effect, is a “black box”; we can study only what goes into and what leaves a system (in this case, an individual), not the system itself, which remains opaque.That is, we can study only stimuli and responses (the results), not the individual himself. This position is tantamount to a rejection of contemporary psychology. In contrast to what Machlup thinks, however, psychology studies conduct, that is, the process and not just the results, and it did so even at the time when Machlup wrote his article. Behaviorist ideas are, tobe sure, compatible with the use of the“fictional” models that pervade modern economics. Sincethere is no attempt to understand reality itself, the explanations presented tend not to reveal its mechanisms (or the connections between its parts). Superficial models are satisfying (and numerousteaching models have been designed along behaviorist lines),but they are very general,easily interchangeable, and difficult to refute. Machlup‘s example shows very well how the epistemological position ofrational choice theory-thatis, radical rationalism-meshes with behaviorism. According to these rationalists,since reality itself isdefinitively inaccessible, one can only produce models that do not enable one to determine if they adequately represent reality.What matters, above all, is the precision of the model. Of course, such a viewpoint leads directly to the idea that reality can be viewed only through representations and not directly (by who knows what transcendental method). But this viewpoint obscures the fact that theultimate goal of thescientific enterprise is toincrease our knowledge, specifically by providing better and better explanations, ones that are more adequate, more general, and deeper.This goal is impossible to achieve without testing our hypotheses against reality and systematizing our knowledge. Such an undertaking is, to be sure, a long-term one, during which we will falter and perhaps even regress, but we must not allow problems and obstacles to deter us from continuing forward. Let us summarize. Rationality (in the sense of maximization) is, in the framework of neoclassical economics andthe disciplines that were inspired by it, an a priori notion. As such, it eludes experience. It therefore cannot be invalidated by psychological or sociological criticisms of rational choice, and it cannot be confirmed by any results (forexample, observations of maximizing behavior). The postulates of rational choice obscure reality and retard the progress of research. It is therefore up to psychology and social psychology to examine the mechanisms of individual and social behavior

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and to find the models that apply to it. The problem is not so much that rational choice is a gross simplificationof reality; it is that, like Moliere’s virtus dorrnitiva, it is not a part of thisworld. To put it another way, rationality and reasonable behavior are often confused, just as irrationality (logical) and nonrationality (of behavior) often are. It is as if logical contradiction and real contradiction were being confused. Of course, in order to explain anything, one needs to apply a rationally or scientifically constructed model to what is real; but this process should not obscure the distinctionbetween the modeland therealityto which it applies, beit only because a modelis rational and perfectible, whereas reality is neither.

Rationality as Means-Ends Appropriateness A s we saw in our discussion of Popper at the beginning of this chapter, rationality is often defined as means-ends appropriateness, without necessarily emphasizing maximization. That was Pareto’s view; for him ”logical” actions were appropriateones. According to thisline of thought, nonrational actions are actions that are inappropriate (to the goal being pursued). Consider some examples: The prisoners’ dilemma can be considered a paradigmatic case: two individuals who are trying to spend the least possible time in prison end up, following perfectly a rational decision, in choosing asolution that enables neither to spend the least amount of time in prison. Along similar lines, there is the case of collective panic. The fact that individuals rush toward anexit when they are in danger can be considered individuallyrational (Coleman, 1990); however, everyone suffers when the exit becomes blocked. Ten thousand French people lose their lives every year in road accidents because of the inadequacy of theroads. Nonetheless, most people consider accidentsto be a fact of life, which shows the extent to which inadequacy itself is accepted. Two candidates from the same party run in an election, but in doing so each is reducing the chance he would have of being elected if there were only one candidate. Buridan’s Ass, who acts in a manifestly inappropriate way by hesitating between a peck of wheat and a peckof oats, dies of hunger. The construction of complex artificial systems is not always easy to master. Gall (1975) mentions numerous examples of malfunctioning systems. For example, at Cape Canaveral there is an enormous hangar that shelters the rockets being constructed. It is so large that it produces its own climate, including clouds andrain. Thus, the very struc-

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ture that i s supposed to shelter the rockets and people sprinkles them with its own rain. There are many otherexamples of means-ends inappropriateness; for example, in the writingsofBoudon(1990/1994),Dupuy (1982),Elster (1986, 1993), and Schelling (1979), and in the psychologicalliteratureon hypothesis formation, problem solving, and decision making. Comical examples canbe found i n Gall (1975), Parkinson (1955), Peter (1986), and Peter and H u l l (1969). Means-ends inappropriateness i s often a comic ploy, especially in stories about fools (”hold on to the paintbrush; I’m going to take away the ladder”) and in clowns’ entrances. There i s the gag by clown Grock, who, noticing that his stool i s too far from hispiano, and instead of bringingthe stool closer, tries to push the piano closer to the stool. As Escarpit (1960) observed, we laugh at this comic inappropriateness because we know the correct solution; some means are so inadequate to their intended ends that we can easily see what we would have done instead. W e also realize we sometimes may make similar mistakes. The inappropriate is thus a large subject. It ranges from a simple breakdown of an artificial system (acar breaking down, for example) to problems relating to individual behavior (nonrationality, uncoordinated goals, poor evaluation of means, and lack of information, will, or coherence), to the perverse or emergent effects of social and political institutions. The immensity of the subject certainly accounts for part of its interest, but the subject also has limits inthat the notion of means-ends inappropriateness i s difficult to clarify. The main problem here is that the concept of rationality itself i s unclear. If a solution i s inappropriate whenever there i s a better means to obtain the desired end, then all solutions are inappropriate: all solutions canbe improved. If there is a better means of achieving the desired end, itis because the currentsolution i s (at least somewhat) inappropriate. In this sense, inappropriateness is an inescapable part of making a choice. It i s a characteristic of all means-ends relationships. In addition, considering the progress of knowledge, many solutions that are considered appropriate today w i l l surely be considered inappropriate (or even comically inappropriate) tomorrow. Here we are touching upon a problem that Pareto and Popper faced. Both attempted to define the rational through means-ends or means-situation appropriateness, but without studying intentionality, subjective rationality, or, most importantly, the behavior that aims at such appropriateness. Recall Popper’s (1967) case of the individual who tries to park in a space that i s too small-behavior that Popper says i s ”inappropriate to the situation” (see my

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discussion in note 1). Popper did not ask, however, whether the individual believed that the space was big enough or thought it was too small, and he did not ask about the reasons why this individual tried to park the car in that place. By the same token, Pareto (1916/1963), when he cited the context of magic as an example of illogical actions, did notask whether the people believe i n magic. Because their conceptualizations lead to the depsychologization of rationality, Popper and Pareto place rationality entirely within the unreal framework of means-ends appropriateness. Since rationality i s a property of bath individual and social behavior, any analysis of rationality needs to be broad enough to encompass both types of behavior. Pareto tried to separate intentionality from rationality. He thought that if one introduced the subject’s viewpoint,no actions would be nonlogical; individuals always have a good reason for doing what they do. (He did not see, however, that even the study of these good reasons was part of the study of rationality.) Wanting, like Popper, to avoid giving a psychological meaning to rationality, Pareto ended up eliminating the problem of the rationality of behavior by obscuring the need to study rationality empirically. Pareto and Popper were interested in the problem of a posteriori means-ends appropriateness (that is, after individuals had already acted), but not in the reasoning of individuals who are trying to coordinate their means and ends. Nor did they seethat means-ends appropriateness i s always problematic since all solutions are always subject to improvement. Thus, they gave much prominence to what was problematic or inadequate, without examining the cognitive, interpersonal, and social mechanisms for which a type of behavior or a solution i s inappropriate. They forgot that ultimately, it is individuals who produce the ends and try to achieve them. In the next chapter, we w i l l see how individuals actand decide, which w i l l enable us to see why they are nonrational, even if they often try to transcend their nonrationality. Rationality: Notes and Definitions. Bunge, after noting thatthe term rationality designates a dozen different concepts, adopted the five that are most frequently used in the social sciences.

1. Principle of rationality: Agents always act i n a manner that i s appropriate to the situation in which they find themselves. T h i s definition i s Popper’s (1967). 2. Principle of instrumental rationality: Agents always choose the means that allow them to attain their desired goals. 3.Principleof economic rationality: Agents always act in a waythat maximizes their expected utility. 4. Principleof the least effort: Agents always choose the least costly ways to reach their goals.

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5. Principle of subjectiverationality: Agentsalways act according to their own beliefs and their "good reasons.'' Bunge observed that Popper's principle of rationality is so vague that it applies equally well to an electron and a human being. In effect, nothing moves, or even exists, independent of its environment, independent of the situation inwhich it finds itself. Seeing that this principleis always true, it has no place in the social sciences. The principle of instrumental rationality isevidently false, since it assumes (or,in anycase,remarkably intelligent, individuals to beomniscient informed, and willful). W e spoke of the principle of economic rationality above. Atthe very least,it is much too ambitious.I have tried to show that it is neither true nor false, and that it is both useless and sterile. The principle of the least effort is false for the same reasons as thosethat apply to instrumental rationality.As for Boudon's principle of subjective rationality, Bunge I will arguelater thatthis principle is at once saw it as somewhat tautological. too restrictive and too general:it is too restrictive in the sense that an action is not guided exclusively by the good reasons of the agent, and too general in the sense that (almost) everyone has good reasons (especially after the action) for doing what he does. Thesefive principles can be roughly regrouped around two interconnected ideas,maximization and situation appropriateness. Principles(21, (3), and (4) come down to maximization; principle(1)expresses the principle of appropriateness; and principle (5), although it includes something of both maximization and appropriateness,addsapsychologicaldimension to them. Theconcept of maximization has produced, as we have seen, abstract its part,situation appropriateness is a very vague and unrealideas.For notion. It could, however, be made more precise and thus lead to the study of the adaptability of organizations (including their goals and intellectual capacities)to their environments-which is what Boudon, followingthe lead of cognitive psychologists,started todo in the field ofsociology. H e stopped too soon, however, looking only at individuals' own justifications (or "good reasons"). W e have to go furtherinthestudyof psychological and psychosocial mechanisms of nonrationality, which is the subject of the next chapter.

NOTES 1. We could try to understand what he means when something is not "appropriate to the situation." As an example of inappropriate behavior, Popper cites the case of a motorist whois desperately trying to park in a space thatis too small, though withoutdistinguishingbetweenthemotoristwhobelieveshehasenoughspace

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(subjectively appropriate behavior)and the onewho knows that there is not enough space. Popper seemsto be interested exclusivelyin whether behavior is “objectively appropriate.” Like Pareto, he did not see that,when one takes the progress ofknowledge into account, what seems today tobe objectively appropriate (forPareto, “logical actions”) may not seem so tomorrow. Above all, he did not distinguish clearly between irrationality (logical) and nonrationality (factual). Insisting on the logical perspective, he had both to adoptan a priori conceptionof rationality and to reject psychology. On Popper’s antipsychologism, see Sabooglu and Villet (1992). For a general criticismof rationality accordingto Popper, see Bunge, 1996, 1998; Nadeau, 1993. See also the lastsection of this chapter. 2. Sociologists who are inspired by economics, such as Coleman (1990) and Hechter (1987), base their work on the notion of rational individual behavior. In this sense, they differlittle from economists, such asBecker (1976) or Olson (1965), who analyze sociologicalproblems or from those,such as Williamson (1975), Barney and Otichi (1986), and Schotter (1981), who come under the banner of the new institutional economics.There are two types of reaction against these trends, one on the microlevel and the other on the macrolevel.Thefirst takes the position that economic choices are not always rational (Ackerlof, 1970), and the second, that institutions cannot be reduced to economics (Bell, 1981;Granovetter,1985;Stinchcombe, 1983). This latter response (at the macrolevel)constitutes what iscalled the new economic sociology (which is principally interested in networks of social relationships that interact with the economy [seeGranovetter, 19851). Thisnew economic sociology has, in turn, merged with socioeconomics (Etzioni, 1991), an interdisciplinary expansion of economics. Some writers, such as Schelling (1960, 1979) and Elster (1986, 1989),continue to ally themselves stronglywith the sociologicaltradition and emphasize the limitsof rationality. 3. Bunge(1995)citesthe following example of thispseudomathematical aspect of Becker’s (1976) work. In his treatment of social interaction, Becker postulates that R, an opinion held by some individuals regarding another member of their group, can be broken down into two parts: h, which is the effect produced by the D, which is produced bythat individual when efforts of thatparticular individual, and he does not make anyeffort; that is, R= h+D. But the problem is that he says nothing about the forms ofh and D, not to mentionhow they are measured. Thevalue of R is thus undefined. As Bunge rightly said, Becker adds up words, not functions. 4. It has often been remarked that the term optimum, as a superlative, is not appropriate. Guilbaud (1968) prefers the term extremum. 5. A priori in relation to psychological knowledge; thatis,theideaof utility maximization is established independently ofsuch knowledge andis not affected by it (in the same way that knowledge is not affected byexperience). 6. This idea is as prevalent among sociologists (for example, Homans, 1967) as it is among economists (Knight, 1921/1971; Samuelson, 1947). However, thereis much disagreement over the question of the relationship between economics and sociology.Durkheim(1908)wantedeconomicsto be absorbedbysociology, whereas Parsons (1934) rejected whathe called the “straightjacket” imposed byeconomics on sociology. Schumpeter (1954) deplored the “primitive” oversimplification of the rational-irrational distinction. But undoubtedly Weber (1949) was the most passionate advocate of the coordination of thetwo approaches (as socioeconomics).

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7. I am thinking primarily about the tendencies that are now emerging within the field of socioeconomics (Etzioni, 1991), although the desire to explain economic systems goes beyond this framework. 8. This problem is not specific to the utility function. It is also found in macroeconomics (in the production function). 9. Integration (or systemic cohesion) refers to the binding energy that unites the components of a system (Bunge, 1979). 10. We could say that he is interested in rational behavior under psychological constraints, which, since it is not specified, is the same as saying that we are not exactly sure what he is talking about. 11. One could think that it is a question of definition; that is, according to Elster, an individual who chooses x has goal x (by definition). But definitions can only be used to define concepts, and “goal x” cannot be considered a concept (see Bunge, 1983a). Such a definitional postulate is strangely reminiscent of Samuelson’s (1947) revealedprelerences, which were equally a priori . 12. Nevertheless, Elster haslooked into nonrational behavior for so long, whether it be the double bind(of e‘verge‘tisme [see chapter 411, altruism, envy, the irrational behavior described by Zinoviev(1979), or poorly integrated selves, that it is the essence of his work. Thus, one of the great specialists in irrationality said that irrationality does not exist. O n e has to assume that Elster did not distinguish between irrationality and nonrationality, that is, between logical contradiction and real contradiction. In fact, likening a real contradiction to a logical contradiction is ultimately to consider it an impossibility. 13. Imagine someone defining intelligence by decree, as Elster did with rationality. It is immediately obvious what the reactions would be. 14. I believe that the difference between postulated models and plausible models is what separates rational choice and microeconomics, on the one hand, from psychology andsociology, on the other.Whether one calls it the sociology oi rational choice (Coleman, 1990; Lindenberg, 1983), the new home economics, or the new institutional economics (Williamson, 19751, it is rational behavior that is being postulated. Where the new institutional economics differs somewhat from Becker and Coleman is in its focus on institutions, negotiations and contracts, friction, and the role of history. The new institutional economics is,first and foremost, a reaction against neoclassical economics, which it criticizes for its abstraction. The new institutional economics is in many ways more critical of neoclassical economics than is Becker. Socioeconomics (Ackerlof, 1970; Etzioni, 1991; Granovetter, 1985; Stinchcombe, 1986), in contrast, tries to integrate psychology, sociology, and economics, and it denounces rational choice as a form of imperialism. A n interdisciplinary approach, socioeconomics is less ambitious than the new institutional economics (with its grand models) but also more revolutionary in that it stresses the need for a paradigm change. See note 2, above. 15. The only attempt, to my knowledge,to elaborate a theory of the truth of facts is that of Bunge (1 983). 16. The question of what distinguishes a model from an ideal type has received much attention in the literature. Even if it were possible to agree that an ideal type resembles a model, the question of the usefulness and the role of these two types of representation in research and explanation would still be controversial. Since the

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notion of the ideal type remains unclear, the above-mentioned discussion focuses essentially on what Max Weber “really meant” (von Mises, 1960). 17. W e could add ].S. Mill ( A System ofLogic, 1875/1952), who said that ”political economy reasons on the basis of hypothetical premises-premises that maylack any foundation and that are not assumed tobe matters of universal agreement.”Here, we revisit this famous riftbetween psychology and economics.

Chapter 2

A Quest for Coherence An overheated intellect, in all its dimensions, appearsto the Buddhist to be the quintessential non-Buddhist characteristic. This is connected, according to this view, to the fact that the non-Buddhist is not in controlof his intellect and his mental processes, nor generallyof himself. "Serge-Christophe Kolm, L'homme pluridimensionnel

DESIRES, PREFERENCES,WILL The Repudiation of Psychology Strictly speaking, maximizing rationality is atemporal, it is meaningful only "in the instant." A n individual who changes his mind from one instant to thenext, is still rational in the strict economic sense, as it is postulatedthat he remains coherent in each instant. When we deal with real choiceswhether it is the choice of consumer objects, of candidates in an election, jobs, or spouses-we have to consider that making such choices takes time, and not slice this time into instants. Rationalitycannot be defined as transitivity "in the present": any nontransitivity observed in an individual could be interpreted as a change of mind and the individual nevertheless considered transitive in a short-enough hypothetical moment. Rational conduct would no longer be separable from nonrational conduct. Such a viewpoint makes the psychological study of choices irrelevant. It is in view of the above considerations that some economists consider that rationality should be seen to include enduring choices or preferences. Arrow said asmuchwhen he defined rationalityasthe consistency of choices "under different circumstances" (Arrow interviewin Swedberg, 1990, p. 148). Kolm (1986) said something similar when heinsisted that "the stability of preferences over timeanisinteresting and important aspectof the concept of rationality."

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The Nonrationality of Preferences The Absence ofAutonorny. Let us first discuss a general psychological problem. For an individual to be consistent in his preferences, he must be the subject of his own values. T h i s statement may seem a surprising one. H o w canan individual not be the subject of his own values?’ Such an absence of autonomy is usually seenas submission or as unthinking obedience. The individual i s not really the subject of his values any more; they are entirely controlled from the outside. Blind conformity i s also a manifestation of the absence of autonomy. There are, however, two poles to conformity: reasoned choice,and unreasoned, unthinking, blind conformity.Nevertheless, it not always easy to differentiate between these two poles. Whatcomplicates matters i s that individuals sometimes believe their choices to be very personal and autonomous even though they are following a trend and do not believe that they would follow a different one in a different social setting. Such individuals do not see that their autonomy i s limited-which i s often the case in social determinations (where individuals act as members of social systems). Similarly, anyone who follows a guru, relies on an expert, or allows a politician to guide his political choices i s more or less unconsciously giving up a certain amount of autonomy. Perhaps one is giving up a little less when one gives a “good reason” for doing so, as Boudon would say, but good reasons can themselves be adopted out of relatively blind conformism. Even so, the individual search for good reasons to conform i s a step toward autonomy, at least when this search i s not for an a posteriori justification for conforming. Cognitive Dissonance. In general, according to the theory of cognitive dissonance, individuals tend to reduce the contradictions or inconsistencies

in their behavior. For example, a smoker who realizes that smoking i s bad for his health w i l l tend to reduce this dissonance (by quitting smoking, or by changing his attitudes or beliefs about the effects of smoking on health). The theory does not deal, however, with what leads individuals into inconsistencies (if one takes dissonance seriously,individualsshould not, when circumstances are stable, put themselves into situations that generate inconsistencies), but only with the reduction of inconsistencies or contradiction. The theory of cognitive dissonance has had most success in demonstrating that newly adopted behavior results in changes in values, beliefs, attitudes, and even identity. According to the modern version of the theory, dissonance i s reduced when an individual becomes dissatisfied with behavior for which he has assumed responsibility (Aronson, 1988).’ A classic type of reduction i s that which occurs after making a decision (postdecisional reduction). Suppose, to take Aronson‘s (1 988)example, an individual who i s on the market for a car i s hesitating between an American and a European model. Let’s say the decisioninvolves what is,forhim, a considerable

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amount of money.The European modelis cheaper thanthe American model, which is larger and more powerful.H e proceeds to gather information on the two models, to read consumer magazines, to find out about each brand’s the car for,and so on. Then dealerships, andto think about what he will use he makes his choice.Let’s say he opts for theEuropean model.A s soon as he makes this decision, his behavior changes.H e will become much less or not at all interested in cars other than his own, and he will even avoid information about other cars, preferring to talk to the owners of cars similar to his. Suddenly, factors such as its small size, its maneuverability, its road-handling qualities (all qualities attributed to the car he bought) becomeessential. H i s desire to own his car increases. Also, it is as if his behavior after his decian sion-being interested only in information that confirms his choice-is attempt toreduce anypotential dissonance generated by the decision that he made. Postdecisional reduction in dissonance leads to a confirmation ofthe actual choice made. Thus, it is necessary to distinguish betweenex ante reasons for choices, which do not include dissonance unless by anticipation (Bern, 19671, and ex post justifications, which include reactions to dissonance-subsequent efforts to reduce dissonance andreinforce the wisdom of one’s decision. Of course, there could still be other sources of ex ante, ex post dissonance. Such dissonance andthe difficulties of making choices do not prevent thepsychological study ofchoice, which could,in fact,highlight the contradictions, help to distinguish the psychological subsystems that come into play in makingchoices, demonstratetheir mechanisms,and reveal the circumstances that affect them. The theory of cognitive dissonance leads one to see individuals as being quite consistent in the sense that they try to avoid contradictions. However, if we take into consideration that individuals act in a changing environment and are constantly forced to adopt new behavior, the theory predicts that they will thenadapt to this behavior by changing their values, attitudes, and beliefs-which will then lead to inconsistencies (overtime); that is, to nonrational choices. The interaction of Desires. Another psychological mechanism of nonrationality is theinteraction between pleasures. Ainslie (1985) noted, forexample, that a reward can bring more or less pleasure depending upon on how one makes useof it. From the outsetwe must distinguish betweenthe pleasure derived from a reward itself and the pleasure derived from consuming ti-a subtle distinction that presents some risk of confusion. Nothing, however, is simple, and as Ainslie said, one can have pleasurein holding back from pleasure. Butthen why could one then not have pleasure anticipating the pleasure in getting a pleasure (and why not in the anticipation of the pleasure of holding back from a pleasure?). As Shackle (1968) remarked, on

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Saturday I can be happy about the picnic onSunday, but on Friday I can also enjoy anticipating the pleasure I will experience on Saturday anticipating the picnic onSunday. In short, one canget pleasure from knowing that one will have pleasure in the future.It is oftendifficult to disassociate the anticipation of a pleasure from the pleasure of being in this state of anticipation. One can also get pleasure from speeding up the consumption of the pleasure (and even from anticipating, or from holding oneself back from, speeding up the pleasure). There is nothing unusual in these examples; our daily lives are made up of pleasures that interact one with another. There is also interpersonal interactions of attitudes, beliefs, feelings, and intentions; for example, when our beliefs about others’ beliefs lead us to modify our own beliefs, or when oneperson’s pleasure (or displeasure) gives pleasure (or does not give pleasure) to another (Valvanis, 1958). It would be very surprising, considering how closely interdependent pleasures are, if they resulted in a consistency that would guide the individual, regardless of the circumstances.

Will and Weakness ofthe Will. Some scholars emphasize the opposition between shot“ and long-term satisfactions.William James (1890/1983) saw the will as a concentration of attentionthat in some way enabled a person to nullify the attractions of instant gratification (or ”inferior tendencies”). ”Effort of attention is thus the essentialphenomenon of will,”he said. The question, then, is whether the will tends to be stubborn or intelligent. James undoubtedly saw concentration, and thus the will, as being inclined to intelligence. Piaget (1962a, 196213) more explicitly connected the will and intelligence. H e showed that the lack of intelligence itself generated stubbornness, or, more specifically, centration-the focusing on onething to the exclusion of everything else. According to Piaget (1946, 1962a), a centration has three and unstable (though potentially characteristics: it isarbitrary,distorting, end~ring).~ Piaget (196213) compared the will to our capacity to see an object as being the same size even as it approaches or moves away. In the same way, thewill perceives all desires as having a constant value relative to the others. The apparent size of the ”closer” desires-the most intense ones-is perceived for what it is: a sort of illusion. According to this metaphor of constancy, the will does not really require effort; in thesame way that our perceptions automatically accommodate to changes in distance, the will adjusts through an unconscious mechanism. Certainly, it takes time for the child to achieve this perceptual constancy, as Piaget showed (1961 ), but at the end of a period of development or learning, it is automatic and requires effort to reverse. Similarly, one imagines that at the end of a certain progression in the development of the will, Piaget’s moral-rational man would have to make a special effort to satisfy his close desires or his impulses. Of course, there is some-

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thing a bit circular in this conception of the will; neither close nor distant desires are, ex ante, specified. However, we are gettingan inkling, albeit very metaphorically, of the mechanism that makes choices coherent. James’s concept is somewhat distant from Piaget’s moral-rational framework. Recall that, for James, the will-the concentration of attention in volattraction of inferior untary choice-enables a person to nullify the tendencies. The question is thus whether this eclipsing mechanism is itself rational, which wouldpresuppose that the process is guided or controlled by a superior mechanism. James is not clear on this point. It is not clear what such a mechanism would be, or where it would come from. To summarize his ideas, he believed that exerting our will is what makes us what we are; “it appears to us that exerting the will seems to be the substantial reality thatwe are ... as opposed to what we claim to have been” (James,1983).Apart from the triviality ofsuch an idea, will seems to be disconnected from rationality. Cognitive Aspectsof Preferences. Theorists of rationalchoice do not differentiate, for example, between an individual who knows exactly what he wants and one whohesitates between a reasoned preference and an impulsiveThey also disregard the possible degrees ofsubjectivityin an individual’s goals or desires. W e know, however, that as a child grows older, he increasingly differentiates himself from his environment (especially from his social environment) and becomes able to integrate others’ perspectives. At the same time, he becomes better at differentiating his own feelings, emotions, and preferences, and at attributing them to himself (Lewis & Michalson, 1983).To take another metaphor, thechild decenters himself; that is, he distances himself to a certain extent from his own point of view while integrating it with others. Although decentration is fundamentally cognitive, numerous psychological theories see emotions and desires as depending upon this process of decentration, (Clarke & Fiske, 1982), which is, therefore, often considered to be a prerequisite for the development of stable values. According to this way of thinking, values are more stable when they are formed with a good understanding of oneself and one’s social environment. Values thatare disconnected from such understanding tend to be more erratic, moving by successive centrations (that is, by relatively abrupt transitions from one centration, or exclusive focus, to another).These ideas bring us back to Piaget, who differentiates values according to how self-regulated they are. H e considered moral values (in particular, high moral standards) to be strongly self-regulated, aesthetic values less so, and affective values even less so. Since rationality is the product of intersubjective coordination, it cannot be fundamentally subjective oregocentric. The whole of developmental psychology shows that rationality is the result of feedback (first, at the level of action, and then, of thought) (Piaget, 1975) andthat the individual develops

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toward a point of view that i s richer, more adequate, and more impersonal. Generally speaking, it i s the capacity to decenter oneself-to move away from the narrowness of one's own point ofview-that makes rationality and impersonality possible. A person having desires or preferences i s certainly centered on himself in the sense that he is thinking of his own desires. consequently We need to distinguish those desires that involve little or no self-regulation (such as fantasies or moods) from those that involve somecognitiveactivity (and consequently the possibility of self-regulation) and that are at once both more consistent and less subjective (that is, they depend less on the person's circumstances and subjective state at a particular time). W e could cite many other psychological works-in cognitive psychology, in the psychology of common sense and of identity, and in social psychology (knowledge of others; social identity; and social interaction). But since the objects of my critique here are rationality and maximization, the above remarks are sufficient tocall into question the generality of rational and maximizing behavior. Of course, theorists of rational choice do not say that all choices are rational. They are, however, ignoring the facts of psychology. An a priori theory like that of rational choice would be justifiable only ifthe psychology of choices did not exist. But the study of choices-that is, of conduct, in general-is the very essence of contemporary psychology. Naturally, if economics were a purely normative discipline, this discontinuity would present no problems (except for the problems that arise in discussing the norms themselves). But if the discipline claims to explain economic reality, it cannot run roughshod over economic behavior. I have not talked about the sociological dimension of nonrationality. W e saw above that theories of rational choice treat social norms as simple constraints, thus safeguarding the concept of maximization. W e w i l l see later how individuals often become less rational when they act as members of a social group. Nonrationality is a problem that must be understood as a whole; its psychological, psychosocial, and sociological aspects, though distinct, are interconnected. The Desireto Believe. What I call "the desire to believe," which is a variation of postdecisional dissonance, i s intended to highlight that individuals do not use their full capacities when they act. They can demonstrate a lack of rationality even without being impulsive, evenafter mature reflection. I w i l l take an example from the work of Cialdini (1985). Cialdini describes the unfoldingof a public lecture on transcendental meditation (TM) that he attended in his university with a colleague. The lecture outlined the advantages o f T M , which can apparently resolve important problems like insomnia and lack of concentration, and can even guarantee success in examinations. Cialdini said that his friend became increasingly irritated, and by the end of

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the lecture,he felt compelled to vent his irritation to the lecturer himself. H e proceeded to systematically criticize the lecture, refuting thearguments one by one. His attack was very effective,said Cialdini. The lecturerhimself even had to admit that the critique deserved some thought. But the most astonishing was yet to come. The goal of the lecture was to sell a T M weekend. After the talk,Cialdini wasamazed to see so many people registering and paying for the weekend. O n inquiring, he learned that there had never been such a large response. H e questioned some of the students as theycame to pay their registration fees;he received some surprising responses. A typical one was, ”Ihad nointention of signing up today because I am flat broke. But after hearing your friend, I knew that if I did not do it now, I would never do it. So I paid.” There is something irrational about such a response. What this individual was saying, ultimately, is that he was convinced by Cialdini’s friend that T M was useless for him, and that it was to a certain extentbecause he wasconvinced of that (or he believed he was convinced) that he signed up for theT M weekend. As Cialdini understood the situation, the crucial step for the participants was to attend the lecture; such attendance was itself a form of commitment (since the participants had already considered themselves to be interested in TM). Andit was a commitment that the individuals were prepared to keep in order to maintain their solidarity as a group interested inTM. (Wewell know that a small commitment can lead to a big commitment, and a small involvement to a great involvement. These same mechanisms are exploited by sales specialists when, for example, they want to make buyers see themselves as clients or as members of a club or network.) To Cialdini, the fact that a small commitment leads to a larger one is due tothe reduction of postdecisional dissonance. Recall that,for this dissonance to occur, the decision must be rather important, and the individual must think of himself as autonomous. Inthe case of the lecture,it seems that the decision to participate was an important one; after all, to sleep better and to mention well-being and serenity-are to be successful in exams-not important things for students. Assuming that the individuals at the lecture took responsibility for having decided to attend, they would already have found themselves in a somewhat contradictory position if they had not signed up for the T M weekend. But the potential dissonance was accentuated by the interventionof Cialdini’s friend, as was the prospective reduction in dissonance to be obtained by signing upfor the weekend session. What resulted was an increased desire to attend. Brainwashing. Afterthe Korean War, someAmerican soldiers were imprisoned in camps bythe Chinese. Whenthese soldiers returned home, it was apparent that they had changed; they had become anti-American. There is no need to revisithereeitherthe political or scientific controversies

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surrounding those conversions. What is clear, however, is that important and enduring changes occurred in the ideological values-that is, in the identities-of some of the soldiers. How couldthat possibly have happened? What is striking at the outset is thatno force was exerted on the American prisoners. They were asked, for example, to list freely thepositive and negative aspects of life inthe United States. They often mentioned negative aspects on their lists, which the Chinese then posted up in notices, along with the name of the authors. The American soldiers were asked if they agreed with innocuous statements like "not everything isperfectinthe United States" or "in a Communist country, unemployment is not a problem."The prisoners acquiesced willingly. Here again, the Chinese took their statements and asked the Americans to repeat them on the camp radio. No force was used against the prisoners, and they did not feel they were being forced; after all, theChinese were only expanding what the prisoners themselves had freely said and written. Thus, by taking responsibility for their statements,the prisoners had fallenintotheir own traps.Their values changed very slowly. They became pro-Communist (Cialdini, 1985). The question is why the American soldiers did not adopt pro-Communist values simply out of fear, or to please their jailers, while actually keeping their own values. Why did they not just pretend to adopt pro-Communist values? The answer is that the changes were not imposed on them, that they considered themselves to be the authors of those changes, and that they took full responsibility for them. Their values changed from within, even if the process originated in circumstances imposed by the social environment of the prisoners. Waiting for the "Guardians." Another case of nonrational conduct is that of the sect that was waiting for the "Guardians." This sect is cited in social psychology manuals because it is a good illustration of the reaction to cognitive dissonance (and also, no doubt, because it is linked to the names Festinger & Schachter). In the mid-l950s, in Chicago, a small sect announced that the end of the world would come soon, following a flood that would engulf the whole earth. Festingerand Schachter, who were teaching in Minneapolis, sent researchersto Chicago to infiltrate the sectand observe it from within. The sect of consisted of thirty or so members. Two people played central roles, Marianne Keech, the founder of the sect, and Dr. Thomas Armstrong. A few months prior to founding the sect, Mrs. Keech had received, through automatic writing, messages from individuals living on unknown planets. She called these people the Guardians. The messages, which she soon was receiving constantly, formed the dogma of the sect. In brief, the Guardians had announced the cataclysmic end of theworld, though the members of the

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sect would survive; the Guardians would cometo earth in flying saucers to save them. In studying the sect, the observers were immediately struck by the members’ high level of commitment. Most had been cut off from their families and friends by their beliefs.Many hadleft their jobs or were neglecting their studies to devote themselves to the sect.They aimed to sell or give awaytheir possessions; they would not take anything to “the other world.” But something else immediately struck the observers: sect members did not proselytize. They did not try to persuade people outside the group, maintained complete secrecy concerning the messages of the Guardians, and avoided any publicity. Even as the apocalypse drew nearer and journalists became more insistent, they responded with a solemn “NOcomment.” Let us now go to the imminent arrival of the Guardians, which was supposed to take place at midnight. Here I take up the observers’ astonishing description: The last ten minutes were tense ones for the group inliving the room. They had nothing to do but sit and wait, their coats in their laps. .. . [The last] four mina singleutterance. When the utespassedincompletesilenceexceptfor (slower) clock on the mantle showed only one minute remaining before the guide to the saucer was due, Marianne exclaimed in a strained, high-pitched voice: ”And not a plan has gone astray!”The clock chimed twelve, each stroke painfully clear in the expectanthush. The believers sat motionless. One might have expected some visible reaction. Midnight had passed and nothing had happened. The cataclysm itself was less than seven hours away. was But there waslittle to see in the reactions of the people in that room. There no talking, no sound. People sat stock still, their faces seemingly frozen and expressionless. .. .When 4 a.m. came withouta satisfactory resolution having been achieved, another break was taken. . ..Mrs. Keech broke down and cried bitterly. She knew, she sobbed, there were some who were beginning to doubt but we must beam light on those who needed it most and we musthold the group together. The rest of the group lost their composure too. They were all, now, visibly shaken and many were close to tears. ...But the fundamental problem of the group remained: it was now almost 4:30 a.m. and still no way of handling the disconfirmation had been found....They milled around ... the living room or stood in small groups discussing their feelings. But this atmosphere did not remain long. At about 4.45 a.m. Marianne once more summoned everyone to the living room, announcing that she had just received a message which she read aloud. She then read these momentous it is established that thereis but one God of Earth andHe words: “For this day is in thy midst, and from his hand thou has written these words. ...As thy God has spoken through the two whosit within these walls has he manifested that . ..Marianne had two more messages. ...The which he has given thee to do.” second message...was to be released immediatelyto the newspapers.

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[Marianne] calledthenewspaper,buthadsomedifficultyfindingthe reporter of her choice. ... During her wait one of the observers asked:”Marianne, is this the first time you have called the newspaper yourself?” H e r reply was immediate: “Oh yes, this is the first time I’ve ever called them. I‘ve never had anything to tell them before, but now I feel it’s urgent.” The whole group could have echoed her feelings, for they all felt a sense of urgency. The message wasto be given to the newspapersas soon as possible. (Festinger, Riecken, & Schachter, 1956, pp.162-163, 167-1 70) From being very secretive and closed, they became open andexpansive. This change in their behavior was evidently because they had gone too far; in view of their being so deeply committed, they would have been in a state of unbearable dissonance or inconsistency if they had renounced their beliefs. As D r . Armstrong told one of the observers: ”I’ve had to go a long way. I’ve given up just about everything. I’ve cut every tie.I’ve burned every bridge. I’ve turned my back on the world. I can’t afford to doubt. I have to believe. And thereisn’t any other truth” (p. 168). From I’’ can’t afford to doubt’’ (subtext:”if I do, I will be in complete contradiction with myself”), it is easyto slide into “1 believe.’’ Numerous beliefs arefounded onsuch slides. What the T M and the Guardians cases have in commonis that a decision was made or strengthened at the very moment it was most in question. It was after the arguments in favor ofT M were refuted-even in the opinion of the participants-that these very same participants decided to commit themselves to the T M weekend. Similarly, it was after it became apparent that the extraterrestrials were not coming that belief in them was affirmed and made public. Inthe case of TM, some subjects went as far as to say that they knew they were making a mistake, but that they had no alternative. Reason does not rectify belief. Instead, belief reinforces itself in order to counterbalance the weight of reasoning. Such a decision is not based on goodreasons. Apart fromT M and religious sects, there are otherexamples that illustrate this principle. There is what sales manuals call a ”negative sales pitch.” The salesperson makes it clear, after thebuyer has shown an interest in the object of the transaction, thathe does not really want to sell it or that, for one reason or another, there are obstacles to the sale. This stimulates the buyer’s interest because he believes that the object will slip through his fingers. In other words, sometimes a buyer’s interest increases because he believes he no longer has good reasons to buy the object in question. A similar example-the phenomenon of reactance-will be discussed later. W e must ask why individuals put themselves into a dissonant state. Too infrequently is it mentioned that the theory of dissonance deals with the reduction of dissonance, not with dissonance itself. In particular, the theory says nothing about how individuals put themselves into states that they will later come to see as dissonant. Perhaps the reasons people ”go into disso-

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nance" have to do with changes in their environment, with new representations of the self, or with their acting not onlyas individuals, but as members ofsocial systems. And thesechanges andthisnewrepresentationcan emerge without the individual realizing it. Simply put, the individual suddenly finds himself faced with a situation that is new, and adjusts to it; he realizes the consequences after the fact and thus finds himself in a state of dissonance. It is even plausible that if the individual anticipates the dissonance, he is somewhat complicit in it. (It is, indeed, difficult to reduce to rationality such entering into dissonance.) Nevertheless, it is difficult to know how intenor clearly tional such aprocess is. In anycase, it cannot be entirely conscious elaborated; if it were, the contradictions would be perceived, which would, in itself, lead to their being superseded. Thus, entering into dissonance may involve contradictory intentions. In contrast, the reduction of dissonance is aregulatorymechanism within theindividual that is morelikely to be unconscious. Thus, paradoxically, reduction, which appears to be a sort of return to rationality, can be and oftenis unconscious, while entering intodissonance, which constitutes a sort of move away from rationality,is the result of a (partially) conscious decision. Whereas reduction is essentially a psychological process, the entrance into dissonance can be understood on the basis ofthecircumstances (in particular,socialcircumstances). The link between social order and individual nonrationality i s not a simple one. Reactance. Reactance is astereotypicalreaction to the loss of liberty. For example, if I say I want to go on a picnic on Sunday, and on Sunday morning it i s raining (therefore, no picnic), reactance occurs if the idea of a picnic becomes even more attractive as a result. Reactance is thus a kind of reaction to frustration, a reaction that manifests itself in a change in motivation. Let us look at the generalprinciple withthe help of a simple experiment (Brehm, 1966).A group of individuals, group A, was presented with a choice between chocolate x and chocolate y/ and told that they could keep the chocolate they chose. Group B was presented with the same choice, then told that only chocolate y was available. More individuals preferred x; that is, the chocolate that had been withdrawn became more attractive. That is, in Group A, with free choice, 47 percent preferred chocolate x; in Group B, with no free choice and only y available, 65 percent preferred x, the chocolate they could not have. Another experiment shows that something that is publicly censured can gain impactsimply because it i s censured. Studentsat theUniversityof North Carolina were interviewed on their opinions of coed residences for later, it was announced with students (Worchel & Arnold, 1973). A little much publicity that a lecture against mixed residences had been canceled.

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A Quest

Interviews with the same students revealed that now more of them were opposed to mixed residences; without even hearing the lecture,and because it had been canceled, more were in favor of the speaker’sthesis. Reactance is not the same as either reaction or active resistance. It says something about motivation or preference, which is not what reaction or resistance refer to. The theory of reactance says nothing about whether an individual will react, nothing about the strength of the opposition that individuals will bring to bear when their freedom of choice is reduced. Reactance should thus be distinguished from active opposition to a reduction in freedom. instead, this desire for freedom, which manifests itself both in reactance and in reaction, varies according to the individual’s perception of what is threatening his liberty. Reactance and reaction will be greater if the threat isseen as illegitimate (French & Raven, 1959). There is a directparallel between these experiments on reactance and the cases of T M and the Guardians. In all these cases, the interest in the option that was withdrawn increased. When the possibility of benefiting from T M receded, the audience’s interest increased, and when the possibility of an interplanetary journey receded, the Guardiansmobilizedand became even morehighly motivated. The negative sales pitch, which is also basedon a kind of interest in something that hasbeen depreciated or withdrawn (oristhreatened to be), depends on similar mechanisms. Nevertheless, the Guardians andT M cases are different from the negativesales pitch in that the formerhave more to do with identity, or at least the consistency of individual values, whereas the negative sales pitch has more to do with reactance. What makes the theory of reactance at once interesting and flawed is its great generality. Like dissonance, we find reactance everywhere. The two theories have otherfeaturesin common. They are both somewhere in between psychology and social psychology; both deal with choices, representation, and motivation, and both take us further from rational choice. There are certainly also differences between the two theories; for example, individual freedom is less important in reactance. What is clear, in any case, is that anyone seeking to elaborate a fundamental theory of social conduct needs to incorporate hypotheses about cognitive dissonance and reactance. I have lingered over the desire to believe and over reactance because they illustrate that a theory of maximization has no power to provide an account of thiskind of behavior (and a fortiori, no power to explain it). Of course, one could say that in all of these situations the individuals are maximizing something, and that, after certain events occur, they maximize something else. From the perspective of rational choice theory,all such behavior would therefore be perfectly rational. But the psychological mechanisms would be missing. If we take “rationality”in a somewhat broader sense than strict max-

Autonomy and Coherence

39

imization, and then examine the fullpanoply of behavior, it becomes evident that individuals do not act to their maximum a b i l i t i e ~they : ~ are at once victims of, and complicit in, their own contradictions. Recall the words of the individual who said after hearing the critique of TM: “Iknew that if I did not do it now, I would never do it.” This individual knewthat if he thought about it calmly, he would not get involved, but he also knewthat he was eager to become involved(a desire thatalso playedthe role of a prior [psychological] commitment).The individuals who were waitingfor the Guardians were also victims of a prior commitment, which could appear to be nonrational after the fact.As in theabove caseof the reaction todissonance, an option, a possibility, is removed, taken away. Reactance is a similar phenomenon. In this case, it is the withdrawal of an option that has not (yet) been chosen that increases desire.

AUTONOMY AND COHERENCE D o Individuals Always Act to TheirMaximum Cognitive Ability? Until now,we have consideredrationality to be maximization, while concerning ourselves, above all, with nonmaximization. It is not my intention here to conduct an exhaustive review of nonmaximizing behavior. I have emphasized the psychological and psychosocial mechanismsof individual behavior, and the reasons why they depart from the maximization model. But maximization does not exhaust the question of rationality. As we saw earlier, means-ends appropriateness is also an important dimension of it. In the next section we will deal with this appropriateness from the perspective of psychological structures. It is not simply a questionof noting the inappropriateness of the means used or their “unconnectedness,” as Morel says (1995), but of placing this inappropriateness in its natural context, which is that of mechanisms of decision andcf action. W e will look at it from the perspective ofPiaget’s genetic epistemology. ForPiaget-whose ideas are widely accepted today-the main psychological mechanism that leads to means-ends appropriatenessis that of superseding contradictions. Contradiction. Piaget (1973,1974/1980,1975)haslong studied the phenomenon of dbpassement-the transcendence or superseding-of contradiction; he did not consider it as a transition from the irrational to the rational, but ratherfrom one kind of rationality to another.Such a transition constitutes, according to Piaget (1975), a progression; it is organized into stages, with each stagebeing necessary in order to move onto the next,and each stage representing an equilibrium superior to that of the preceding

40

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stage. That is, each successive stage is more general and more stable when confronting the potential disruptions of experience. But let us look first at the idea of contradiction. For Piaget (1974/1980), contradiction is not in things themselves, nor in the thoughts of the knowing subject, but primarily in the subject’s actions and his inferences about reality. At first glance, it does seem that if the contradictions are in the subject’s inferences, they must also be in his thoughts. But Piaget argued that if the contradiction is only in thought, ”all progress must consist purely in correcting errors of reasoning, and as if those errors were reallyno more than unfortunate accidents, that it would have been possible to avoid from the very beginning’’ (1980, p. xiv). According to cognitive psychology,the contradiction is not in the thought but in theorganization of the thought. Again,it must be addedthat between a contradiction”that would have been possibleto avoid from the verybeginning“ and onethat could not have been avoided,there are all sorts of intermediate possibilities. We know, for example, that to a childwho does notyet have the concept of conservation, a ball of play dough that has been crushed and elongated into the form of a sausage contains more dough than there was in the ball. H i s seeing that the ball can be reshaped from the sausage back into a ball does not affect his reasoning, any morethan it would if he were shown that what the sausage gains in length, it loses in thickness. We wouldsay that the child is therefore insensitive to the contradiction. Later, thecontradiction will beperceptible, first in theform of discomfort, a problem to be solved, and finally it will be superseded. Superseding a problem is thus to be distinguishedfrom the simple resolution of a problem. As Piaget observed, an individual does not supersede “a logical or formal contradiction, one either eliminates it or discards it by means of local correction or a change of theory” (1980, p. 286).6 A contradiction that has been perceived is, in virtue of having been perceived, ready to be superseded, and cognitive development tends in the direction of superseding contradictions. Of course, transcending one contradiction often leads to the perception of new ones. There is no (a priori) limit to contradictions. Nevertheless, a contradiction that has been superseded is definitively superseded. That is what Piaget teaches us, but once again, he was talking only about cognitive development. The Mechanisms ofsuperseding Superseding is not merely a solutionto a problem, evenif it occurs in response to a problemthat needs to be solved. Superseding suggests that there were centrations on various values, goals, and so on, which have givenrise to tensions or oppositions. These tensions or oppositions have led, in turn, to a reorganization basedon decentrations; the tensions or oppositions simply disappear.

Autonomy and Coherence

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For Piaget, the essential precondition for superseding a contradiction is that it be perceived; perception is firststep toward superseding. Consefirst quently, if one wants to attempt to supersede a contradiction, one must attempt to perceive it. In reading Piaget one sometimes gets the impression that when the contradiction is perceived, it is already understood, and that when it is understood, it is already superseded. But none of the above explains how this miracle of superseding occurs. H o w can one suddenly beaware, when previously one was not?According to Piaget, at first the individual does not see that one property is incompatible with another, or that one action undercuts another. The contradiction is superseded by means of a readjustment, together with extension the and comprehension of the concepts in opposition. In the language of assimilationaccommodation that Piaget was so fond of, the contradiction is removed by the creation ofa new assimilation schema, the operation that always accompanies an adaptation to change. When the contradiction is strictly intellectual, it is superseded by meanseither ofassimilation or reciprocal agreement (Piaget, 1973). This latter type of superseding, whichrelates to thedomain of intra-individual cognition, is of less interest here.However, whenthe contradiction appears following a confrontation with reality a external to the subject, we are getting closer to the general problem of conflict, opposition, or what is also called“real contradiction.” Let us take an example from Piaget’s work (1980). O n e of his collaborators had his subjects (children) compare aseries of circles, each differing in size from its neighbor by only 0.2 mm (see figure below). The subjects did not perceive the differencebetween one circle and the next.When, however, the first was compared with the last, the differencebecame evident and the subjects perceived it. But at first they did not perceive the still-existing contradiction in theirjudgments (namely,that adjacent circles wereall the same size, but the first and last were not). Piaget showed that, at an intermediate stage, thecontradiction is perceived but cannot be superseded.The subjects contradicted themselves and went back on and changedtheir statementsnot very stable behavior. This behaviorlasts quite a long time (around seven to ten years), and Piaget showed convincingly how difficult it is for an individual to become aware of the notion of imperceptible differences. Discovering this notion allows the individual to supersede contradiction. As the

0000000000

00

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A Quest for Coherence

figure illustrates, the 0.2 mm difference between the neighboring circles on the first line is difficult to discern, whereasthat between the first and last circles (on the second line) is immediately visible. When the individual has understood that there are imperceptible differences, his understandingof the group of objects is enriched by a new prophe understands, of erty-the relation of being imperceptibly larger-and course, that this relationship also links other objects, as well. Superseding contradiction is thus accompanied by an enrichment of reality. According to Piaget, this new property is only clearly perceived and understood when the contradiction is superseded, and understanding this property leads to superseding. In this way, contradiction and superseding it form a whole (Moessinger, 1977a). Piaget thus shows us howindividuals reason withintheir own rationality, and how they supersede it when they perceive its limits. In the realm of cognitive thinking, as studied by Piaget, subjects therefore reason to the maximum oftheircapability. And as soon as this capability increases,their reasoning changes. Where “Can Do Better” Poses Philosophical Problems. If we were dealing with a logical-mathematical problem, we could hardly imagine saying, ”I know that that solution is false, but I like it better,” or “I know the correct solution, but I am not going to adopt it.” In a purely cognitive context, the truth does not come into conflict with other values. But if it is a question of a choice, we take it for granted that the decision could involve hesitation, vacillation, and centration on various values. If so, is the individual-when hehesitates,vacillates, and centrates-operatingat the maximum of his capabilities. Is he doing so when he actually makesthe decision? O r could he have done better? Let us take an example. Suppose that my car breaks down, which makes me so angry that I kick the hood; I am acting in a nonrational and inappropriate manner (even from my own perspective) if I know that a kick is not going to fix the problem and may even damagethe hood. Onceagain, to say that I am thus maximizing my satisfaction does not get us much further ahead. In contrast, if I tap on my headlight (not too violently), which has gone out as a result of what I believe to be a bad connection, I am acting rationally (and to the best of my capabilities). The kick on the hood is an exampleof impulsive nonmaximization,which bears a family resemblanceto the weakness of the will. It could besaid that, as in the case of weakness of the will, impulses are a far cry from voluntary choice, though without eliminating such choice completely;I submit to my impulses even while knowing I should not. But it could also be said that at the moment that the individual kicksthe hood, he has been completely overtaken by impulseandhastemporarily forgotten about whatthe conse-

Methodological Individualism and

Subjective Rationality

43

quences might be. In other words, such an individual, who is the victim of his impulses, has lost communication with his knowledge, previousexperiences, and so on. He is, in a way, cut off from his memory (to use Leibniz’s interpretation of weakness of will). Whether the individual is acting to the maximum of his capabilities depends,in turn, on whether one considers the individual to be cut off or not from his will, his knowledge, and so on. Here we come backto the central issue of cognitive organization. If this organization is totally hierarchical, with one central structure and also substructures, all of which are well integrated and communicate well together, this central structure must be taken as a maximizing. In contrast, if there is no higher or central structure-but only parallel structures, as it were, that are not necessarily well integrated or coordinated-control is exercised by different structures at different times. And if there is little communication among these parallel structures, the individual is cut offfrom his knowledge, his memories. It is exactly this removal of control that allows weakness of will to come to the fore (seepp. 54-58 for further discussion of this topic).

METHODOLOGICAL INDIVIDUALISM AND SUBJECTIVE RATIONALITY A distinction must be made between methodological individualism and the theory of rational choice-even though both approachesare reductionist.’ Rational choice theorists believe in methodological individualism, but not all methodological individualists believein the theory of rationalchoice. Within the framework of methodological individualism, there is the possibility ofexplaining socialfacts in terms of individual conductthat is not completelyrational, which is what Boudon (1993a, 1993b, 1994) and Elster (1983, 1986, 1993),for example, haveattempted to do.8 Methodological individualists vary in the degree of their reductionism. Rational choice theorists are undoubtedly among the most reductionist, in that they have little interest in the novelty of emergence. Among individualists, a distinction is generally made between the radical reductionists, who explain social facts through individual behavior only (as Homans [l9611 sometimes does),and those who explain social facts starting fromindividual behavior butdo not exclude emergent effects. Theselatter theorists conceive of society as a whole (Boudon, 1984; Bunge, 1985; Crozier & Friedberg, 1977;Dupuy,1992;Luhmann,1988/1995;Morin, 1977-91;Touraine, 1973); the interaction between individuals and social systems creates new (or ”social”)properties that individuals themselves (more or lessconsciously) take into account. Such a view suggests a generally monist framework that stresses the levels ofsocial reality. Radical epistemological reductionism (socialfacts are explained through individual behavior only) goes together with radicalontological reductionism

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A

(no emergent properties). Reductionism and radical reductionism are often equated, which perhaps creates a certain confusion.The emergentist position is founded on a reductionist epistemology in the sense that a good explanation does not ignore the components of what is referred to and the mechanisms of what isbeing explained. Nevertheless, it is notradically reductionist in the sense that macrolevels are not ignored and explanation does not dissociate the different levels of reality. Thus,emergentism is a monist position and is to be distinguished from radical holism, which is a dualist position. Note that even rational choice theorists, who tend to ignore social phenomena as such, are interested in emergent properties, such as the competitive solution in the prisoners’ dilemma. However,they are much more interested in the mathematical representation of realitythan in reality itself, and, apart from the fact that this stance prevents them from seeing and conceptualizing of realnonrationality, theydo not see that emergent properties are properties These differentpositions are summarized in the tablebelow.

it^.^

Subjective Rationality a n d CognitiveOrganization. Boudon (1994, 1995) takes the termrationalityto have a broader meaning than simple maximization. However, he does not go as far as to examine psychological mechanisms, asI have done in the“The Mechanisms of Superseding,” above. Subjective rationality is very much evident in everyday errors in reasoning and alsoin the “good reasons” thatindividuals useto justify choices that do not appear to be very rational. Boudon is thus orienting us toward a psychology of common sense (or everyday reasoning). H e sees in the a priori features of thought (of which, as such, the individual is not conscious) as the principal characteristic of subjective rationality.

DUALISM

MONISM

reductionism Emergentism holism Radical Dualistic

of

Epistemology are explainedSocialfactsexplainedby SocialfactsareexplainedSocialfacts throughindividualbehaviorfromthestartingpointsupra-individualentities only (although without ignoring the social context) A society is nothing buta collection of individuals; social properties are individual properties

Ontology All socialsystemshaveSocialfacts emergent properties ated from individual (which arenotemergentbehavior properties)

are dissoci-

Methodological Individualism

and Subjective Rationality

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These a priori features often take the form of the “good reasons” that individuals give themselvesfor the way they act. Although these features could be seen as some sort of intellectual limit that prevent the individual from thinking in any other way, Boudon sees them as theexplanation for individual action. Boudon’s position becomes apparent through his comments on experiments in cognitive psychology. H e mentions at length an experiment of J. Feldman: The subjects were asked to predict the results of a game of heads and tails. However, they were told that the game was skewed, and that the probabilities of throwing heads or tails were 0.2 and 0.8, respectively. A large majority picked the wrong solution: they attempted a random series governed by the same rules as the series that they supposed to predict. In other words, they randomly predicted tails eight times out of ten and heads twice out of ten. In so doing, they were giving themselves 68 chances out of 100 of guessing each throw correctly. This is a mediocre performance, compared with the results they would have got by guessing tails every throw, because this would have given them eight out of ten chances of success. (Boudon, 1994, p. 374)

Boudon insists that the reasons the subjects gave are subjectively good: ”Most people would probably explainthe subjects’behavior as follows: they made a mistake, but they had ‘good reasons’for choosing the solution that they did choose, bad as it might be, because. ..” (1994, p. 374). Boudon did not finish his sentence, thereby sidestepping a difficulty. H e could have continued in two ways. First, he could have finished by saying, “because, taking into account their intellectual capabilities, it was the best solution.” Second, he could have said, ”because, when I put myself (Boudon) in their place, I understand them.” In the first case, the reasons are good ones for Feldman’s subjects but not for Boudon (otherwise, he would have chosen another example). In other words, althoughthese subjects werereasoning to the maximum of their abilities, it is not Boudon’s maximum (or, undoubtedly, thatof his readers). Besides, one would think that a subject in this experiment, presented with the correct solution, would immediately adopt it. A good reason is therefore ”good” only as long as an individual is unaware of its problems or limitations. To characterize such reasons as”good” is clearly tautological.A s Aristotle showed, individuals always havegood reasons for doing what they do (unless they are not in control of themselves). That these reasons may be good ones for the individuals themselves doesnot imply that they are good explanations of their behavior. In the second case, the reasons are ”good” for Boudon in the sense that heputs himself inthe place ofan individual who made such mistakes;

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perhaps becausehe (Boudon) has made the same mistakeshimself, he understands the individual. In effect, Boudon distinguishes, from among the (bad) reasons cited by the individuals, some that he considers to be less bad, and calls them ”good.” Thus, the notion of good reasons i s a very arbitrary one. In other words, although Boudon’s “good reasons” maybegood for him, they don’t explain much. PsychologyandSubjectiveRationality. Like Weber, Boudon(1989) emphasizes the reasons that individuals themselves give for their behavior (subjectiverationality). H e notes that apparently irrational behavior can often be understood, on closer examination, as subjective rationality. Boudon wants us to take an interest, in a privileged way, in individuals’ conceptions of themselves. One should note that the change Boudon advocates for sociology has already taken place ”in psychology, as a reaction against behaviorism.” Very few psychologists are interested in pure behavior. Now, following Piaget’slead, they study behavior cum consciousness (Panksepp, 1990); that is, they study behavior (broadly construed). If Boudon were asking for a better explanation for behavior-an explanation that delves into its very mechanisms, for which purpose the model of stimulus-response or one in the form of a “black box” is unsatisfactory-we would agree with him completely. However, a better explanation for behavior i s not exactly what he i s after: he wants us to focus-first and foremost, if not uniquely-on the reasons individuals themselves give for their behavior. But as we saw above, behavior cannot be explained either by looking only at behavior in the narrow sense or by looking only at the subjects’ reasons or justifications. Explaining behavior exclusively through the reasons individuals give to themselves i s tantamount to believing that individuals are guided by their own ”verbiage,” as Piaget put it.lo Explaining behavior in the manner of the behaviorists-that is, excluding mental faculties-precludes our understanding it in depth. The whole of Piagetian psychology tells us, in opposition to behaviorism, that behavior and consciousness form a whole, which i s a notion that is now accepted by most behaviorists-or rather, exbehaviorists.” It also tells usthat a discipline that would only deal with mental facts-like cognitivism-would miss brain processes. W e must therefore replace the study of subjective rationality with the study of behavior or, more simply, of psychology. Again, psychology studies behavior through thought (which, of course, includes intentions, feelings, emotions, moods, and so on). The knowing subject i s one who acts (or has acted) more or less consciously, who has feelings (andmaybe guided by them, and also by unconsciousor preconscious tendencies), and who reflects on his actions, thoughts, and feelings. The study of rationality should therefore not exclude behavior, given that, on the one hand, individuals can be victims of unconsciousconstraints (the affective unconscious) and, on the other hand, their own reasons do not always permit them to become aware

Methodological Individualism Subjective Rationality and

47

of the deeper reasons for their own intentions (the cognitive unconscious). As Piaget showed, it is difficult for individuals to become conscious of their own cognitive structures. The cognitive organization underlying awareness escapes consciousness. Inother words, subjective reasons very rarely represent objective reasons. If cognitivism-amerger of cognitive psychology and artificialintelligence-emphasizes rational behavior and the organization of intentions, it is undoubtedly a reaction to behaviorism, which is marked by arejection or ignorance of intention. Both of these schools of thought lead us to ignore the unity of the individual as an actingand thinking being.To summarize, contrary to behaviorism, individuals think whilethey act, and contrary to functionalism, they act while they think.12 Cognitive Development and Subjective Rationality, Nobody questions that the reasons a child gives for his choicesdo not explain them.For example, we know that childrenbehave in accordance withtransitivity long beforethey can systematicallyanticipate(orrather deduce) transitivity unable to justify (correctly) their (Piaget & Szeminska, 1941).Before, they are transitive behavior. Moreover,the same reasonsand justifications can correspond to different behaviors: small children justify unequal sharing by saythe same reasonto justify ing ”becauseit is fair,” whereas older children use equal sharing (Moessinger, 1975). There are also things that children can explain without being able to produce them through their actions (Piaget, 1973). Finally, lags (calages, that is, reasoning that is not yet transferred to similar situations) still lead to discontinuities between action and thought (Piaget, 1941). It is true, however, that within the framework of cognitive thinking, action and thought arenot onlyundissociable(whilebeing distinct),but also strongly connected, and that lags and disequilibria tend to be superseded.A divergence or contradiction thatis clearlyperceived is superseded. Of course, becoming conscious of contradiction can take time. For example, Elster claims to have held contradictory beliefs fora long time. When he was a child, hehad two explanationsfor where the hot water in his house came from. H e knew that it came from a water heater in the basement,which was something he had learned in the course of discussions and negotiations between family members,who could not all takea bath in themorning. The little Elster also thought, however, that under the street there were two parallel pipes, one for hot water and the other for cold. ”One day, these two beliefs, hitherto separate, came into contact with each other, and one of them disappeared, never to be seen again” (Elster, 198913, p. 4). Piaget studied thistype of ”graspingconsciousness” indepth (1973, 1980). H e showed in the cognitive domain that any contradiction tends to be superseded once it is clearly revealed, and that a contradiction that is superseded is definitively superseded. Of course, superseding is not always

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as simple as in Elster’s example. For Piaget, however, the knowing subject is one andindivisible, and that he always functions to the bestof his abilitie~.’~ Itis nevertheless possible to question the coherence of an individual’s judgments in relation to noncognitive choices, or the noncognitive aspects of choice.14 To be sure, all choices, all preferences, can include reasoned elements(for example, ”I preferfresh vegetables to canned vegetables because the latter contain preservatives”),but the reasoning in such choices operates only locally. It does not, forexample, allow oneto decide between fresh vegetables and cheese, or between vegetables and fruits. The choice or it can be can be difficult or “impossible,” as in the case of Buridan’s made difficult by temporary centration on one option or by jumping from one centration to another, which is reminiscent of Elster’s “loosely integrated self” (1989b). This weak integration is no doubt different, however, from the case of the person who, in looking at the menu in a restaurant, hesitates between boeuf royaland hornard au vin blanc, and who,thinking about the prospect of dining onfilet of beef, momentarily blocks out the possibility of thinking of dining onlobster, and vice versa. Such an individual knows he is hesitating and is voluntarily going from one possibility to another. Even as he considers one option, he keeps the other in his memory and knows that he can recall it at any moment. There are certainly different types of centration, according to which the competing options can be blocked out to greater or lesser degrees. Piaget considers an extreme case: centration that involves not only the incapacity to deal with more than one thing (one”field,” one option) at a time, but also the incapacity to keep the other option in one’s memory (punctuated by leaps from one option to the other). Piaget showed that one of the consequences ofcentrationis considerable overvaluation of the option being considered. W e thus come to the end of our (too) briefexamination of the generalpsychological and social-psychological issues concerning means-ends coordination. W e saw numerous reasons why the consistent pursuit of a goal is often difficult, if not impossible, even if, locally, the contradictions can be superseded. The next chapterapproaches nonrationality from a different perspective, that of the integration of the parts that make up an individual. In order for there to be individual rationality, there must be an individual, in other words, a certain degree of individual organization and stability. As we will see, this organization and stability are sometimes lacking.

NOTES 1. I do not distinguish between being the subjectof one’s own values and being theirauthor.Therearevarious ways inwhichoneappropriatesoradopts(or,as

Notes

49

Ricoeur [l 9491 put it, links oneself to [attache]one’s own values. According to Piaget (1 9321, heteronomy and autonomy are the two poles of this kind of appropriation. 2. One way to avoid dissonance is to refuse responsibility for one’s conduct. That is what happened to the subjects in Milgram’s experiment (1974), who blamed the experimenter for the shocks they believed that they were administering (and for which they were, in fact, responsible). Strictly speaking, in this case it is not a question of reducing dissonance, but of rejecting autonomy. Not considering himself to be responsible for his conduct, the individual avoids dissonance (because he no longer has anything to reduce). This situation is not far from the case of the alcoholic who, knowingthat alcohol is bad for his health, says that he has to die of something. In a way, he is refusing to take responsibility for potentially expediting his own death. 3. O n the notion of centration, see Piaget (1 961); see also later in this chapter. 4. This distinction corresponds to ones made by Lavelle (1 950), who contrasted prevalences (which are active, reflective preferences) and preferences (which are more impulsive) and Piaget (1970), who contrasted normativevalues (which are regulated by norms) and nonrational values. 5. To say that individuals do not act to the maximum of their ability does not mean that their conduct can bedescribed bya principle of satisfaction (Simon, 1982), which is still a principle of rationality. What we are discussing here is behavior that is influenced by contradictory tendencies. 6. If the logical progressions correspond well with supersedings, they are not, in themselves, logical, but theresult of a constructive process (equilibration and reflective abstraction). See Piaget (1975). 7. Regarding the methodology of individualism, see the section ”Note on the Social Sciences and the Humanities,” pp. 69-70. 8. Van Parijs (1990) considers Boudon and Elster to be rational choice theorists (that is, theorists and supporters of what he calls methodological rationalism). However, it is the nonrational that interests these two authors.The ”good reasons” Boudon talks about are often bad or not logical, and Elster’s concept of multiple selves produces inconsistencies and contradictions. It istrue, however, that Boudon often reduces subjective rationality to maximization under constraint, and that Elster often tacks rational choice models onto behavior thatis not very rational. For more on Elster, see chapter 1, note 12. 9. Elster, who is an ontological reductionist without clearly being a radical reductionist (epistemologically), is an exception here. A statement such as “there are no societies, only individuals who interact with each other” (Elster, 1989a) is tantamount to denying emergent effects (or at least to excluding them as properties of social reality), which is ontological reductionism. Emergent effects do enter into his explanations, but their ontological status is not clarified. 10. “The study of a child’s spoken thoughts is only one aspect of the problem of the construction of logical structures” (Piaget, 1924). Starting from judgment and Reasoning oftheChild (1 924/1959), Piaget renounced the conversational method for a ”mixed” or ”critical” method that encourages the child to become aware of his own contradictions (including those between his actions and his thoughts). 11. See N e w Ideas in Psychology, 8 (21, for an extended discussion of this topic. 12. Merleau-Ponty himself recognized that ”one does notact only with the mind” (Piaget, 1965).

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Coherence

13.Aristotlepresagedthispositionwhen he saidthat akrasia (acting against one’s will) is due to ignorance,at least to the absenceof theoria(Nicornachean Ethics, Book VII). 14. W e will come back to the question of integration in the context of weakness of the will and the issue of subselvesin chapter 3. 15. According to the legend, the ass, hesitating betweena peck of wheat and a (19821, however, envisioned a somewhat less peck of oats, starved to death. Sen of choosing needs to be distinguished from harsh fate for the animal; the impossibility indifference.

Chapter 3

Internal Disorder: Subselves and Multiple Personalities

I often wake up in the night, start thinking about a serious problem, and decide to talk about it with the Pope.

Pope John XXlll

The problems described in the previous chapter concerning contradictions and conflicts touch upon the claimthat there are multiple selves; that is, the personality* is madeupofrelativelyautonomous features thatcantemporarily take control of the person.This idea can be traced back to Socrates' demon or to the metaphor of the chariot pulled by two horses, one prudent and the other impulsive, that Plato presents in the Phaedrus. It is an idea that can also found, in some form, throughout contemporary psychology.The literature is full of examples of what is, in effect, an individual composed of instances+that oppose, absorb, or reject each other (Freud, Groddeck, Jung, Kohut, Mair, Ornstein); ofsubselves (Assagioli, Balint, Berne, Gergen, Lewin, Martindale, O'Connor, Redfearn, Shapiro); of styles of intelligence (Gardner, Sternberg); of subprograms, routines, or agencies (Fodor, Gazzaniga, Minsky), of potentialities (Mahrer); of schemas (Cantor, Kihlstrom); or of roles (Goffmann). Other writers focus on self a that is fragmented (Bordo, Denzin, Kohut,Laing, Levin) or unreal Uanov,Lake,Laing, Winnicot). All of these concepts come back to the idea of a multiple, poorlyintegrated, fluctuating personality.'

Author uses "personality" in the broad sense. Trans. There is no English equivalentof instances as the author employs it here, and so the French word has been retained throughout the chapter. Trans.

+

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Internal Disorder: Multiple Personalities Subselves and

SUBSELVES AND PERSONALITY In order for thesubselfapproach to be more than just a mannerof speech, subselves must exist, that is, they must be actual entities that can be delimited and specified. In other words, subselves must constitute systems. In order to investigate this claim, the first step would be to test the stability of these systems by trying to disrupt them in different ways. Unfortunately, our psychophysiological knowledge is not sufficiently advanced to enable us to investigate the potential physiological substrate of subselves. However, we can examine both the interdependencies between the properties of a single subself and those between the properties of differentsubselves. W e can formulate hypotheses concerning theinteractions between subselves; some work has already been done in this direction (see, for example, Gardner, 1993; Sternberg, 1993). Attempts have been made to test the ability of cognitive and moral systems to withstand disruption, and to study the interdependencies not only between the cognitive and moral subselves, but also between the moral subself and the subself dealing with representations of the self and others (see Wade & Tavris, 1990). Such studies are in their infancy, however, and we are far from consensus, even on how the subselves are to be delimited. W e have to distinguish the coordination of subselves from the coordination of goals or activities. When Minsky (1986) presented the example of a child who is building a tower and in whom the subprograms Play and Sleep are activated together,he was talking about the coordination (or lack of coordination) of goals or activities. Recall that the child then kicks the tower he is in the process of building, which allows him to free himself from the goal Play, thus restoring order in his mind. It is not a supersystem (for example, one called ”put the mind in order by suppressing a temptation”) that intervenes. According to Minsky, this destructive act expresses frustration at not being able to achieve an objective.Things are thus clarified a posteriori.That the child ends up adopting one type of conduct rather than another does not necessarily translate into hierarchical mental organization. Like Alexander cutting the Gordian knot, the child who destroys his tower is not solving a problem any more than he is superseding it; he is suppressing it.‘ In everyday life, contradictory “programs” are often activated together, to use Minsky’s language. In such cases, and whenthe programs engage multiple aspects of the individual, we talk about opposition among subselves. A s is the case with Minsky’s programs, contradictions among subselves are not but perhaps by an always resolved by an integratingorcentralsubself, impulse, by the emergence of a new type of conduct, or by the adoption of a social norm. Subselves should bedistinguished from the metaphor of the individual as a society or social group, in which nonrationality would be reduced to an

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aggregation effect. Bresson (1965) expresses this viewpoint as follows: ”Like the psychoanalytical theory of the plurality ofinstances, of an id and a self, one approach is thateverything happens asif a singlesubject were anamalgamation of a pluralityofvoters:conflicts and intransitivitiesare thus explained byArrow’s theoremand are theexpression of a ‘Condorcet’effect’’ (p. 94). Bresson adds, however, that this approach gives rise to questions concerning its refutability. The substantive problem with Bresson’s conception of the individual is that an instance is not an individual, and it is not clear who woulddecide to apply a democratic procedure,or who would count the votes. Of course, it is possible that an individual’s preference for x over y would be that much more intense if more of his own instances preferred x to y. But we are falling back onto apriori concepts. W e are defining the preferenceof the totalityon the basis of the preference of the majority ofcomponents, but without being able to establish anything about them. What is more, we are confusing instances with value systems. The differenceis ontological.Value systems are systems of properties; they are characterized by interdependencies. Instances are things; they interact. If we must useasocial metaphor, I would preferthat of coalitions, intrigues, machinations,misunderstandings,ironicalcommunication, and so on (see Moessinger, 1999). According to this approach, the absence of rationality would not be due to paradoxes of aggregation such as the Condorcet effect. Instead, the focus would be on coordination (including communication) among agencies or subselves. Such an approach, to which researchers like Dupuy, Elster, and Minsky have contributed, should lead to the reevaluation not only of sociological theories of social dynamics, but also of socio-economic theory. To my mind, a personality emerges out of the interaction among subselves. This interaction can lead todifferentequilibria-whicharethemselves facets of the personality, or, possibly, subpersonalities. It is therefore necessary to distinguish subselvesand subpersonalities.A subpersonality (or ”the” personality at time t) emerges from particular a organization ofthe subselves. A subself is an interconnected system of attitudes, values,cognitions, and behaviors. Some subselves are coherent and well integrated (the cognitive and moral subselves, for example), and others are poorly integrated and not very autonomous, such as the affective subself. It is not always easy to distinguish subselves and subpersonalities; in particular, when one subself takes control of the others,it could be confused with the subpersonality. For example, when the cognitive subselftakes control, the individual has a tendency to intellectualize. When this tendency consistently dominates the individual, wewould talk about an intellectual (sub)personality. As for Elster’s (198913) impulsive subself, it could be considered a subpersonality only if it affected the whole person; thatis, if it affected the individual’s

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feelings, attitudes, and beliefs, his presentation of self and world view, and even his intellectual style and his identity. In any case, we must distinguish a temporarily dominant subself-likeElster’s impulsive subself-from one that is strongly connected to the other subselves. Unfortunately, none of the psychologists mentioned above make this distinction. Elster does not either. It is worth noting that consciousness is not a subself; even if it strengthens individual autonomy, it is not itself an entity and is not itself autonomous. It emerges from the activity of the brain-in particular, from the interaction between the neural networks corresponding to subselves. Consciousness, in turn, influences the subselves, albeit without exercising strict control over them.3 It is somewhat like a guiding instance (under constraints).As for the unconscious, it is not a subself, either; it is too poorly integrated. It does play a role, though, as the environment of the subselves.

Subselves and Weakness of the Will Elster (198913) has undoubtedly done the most to popularize the notion of the subself in the social sciences. H e analyzes the will and weakness of will through the concept of subselves, often using the example of Ulysses, who anticipated his own weakness of will and overcame it. Schelling (1960, pp. 24-25) paved the way for this kind of analysis by studying self-commitment; that is, an irreversible individual commitment whose object is to protect the individual from his own capriciousness. If, for example, an individual was willing to spend no more than four hundred thousand dollars for a house whose original asking price was five hundred thousand dollars, he could formally and irrevocably commit himself to paying two hundred thousand dollars to a third party if he ended up paying more than four hundred thousand dollars for the house. Thanks to this subterfuge, he can be inflexible in the negotiation (and make this inflexibility believable to the vendor). ToElster, subselves boil down to more or less conscious desires or impulses. For example, Ulysses wants to live, and he knows that in certain circumstances he is the victim of an obscure impulse that could threaten his life. Can wetalk about a voluntary subself and an impulsive one? Insofar as subselves are distinct systems of desires, attitudes, beliefs, and personality traits, we have to try and showthe interdependencies between them, even if the notion of subself remains somewhat metaphorical. These interdependencies highlight problems of awareness, of concealing desires, ofcomplicity with oneself, of duplicity, and of other games that come into play in the interdependencies among subselves and the relations between the personality and the subselves. Let us lookat an example. In ltalo Svevo’s The Confessions o f Z e n o (1930/1958), the narrator, Zeno, talks about himself, sensitively and candidly, as if he were the undeceived recorder of his own thoughts. Zen0 is trying to quit smoking; he knows he has to be strong. Like so many smokers, he sets a time (let’s say, midnight on

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December 31) that he w i l l stop smoking. T h i s deadline, though making him anxious, and perhaps because it makes him anxious, also gives special importance to his last packs of cigarettes. H e counts the days he has left, the number of packs he still has time to smoke. H e becomes increasingly frantic as he smokes his last few packs. December 3 1 arrives, and then the time for his last cigarette. The paradox i s that this last cigarette has been so much anticipated that his pleasure in smoking is at its peak. Afterward, Zen0 sinks into melancholy, and a few days after that last cigarette, he starts smoking again-while immediately setting himself a new date to quit. Months and years roll by, and the scenario repeats itself again and again: Zen0 fixes himself a date, moves feverishly toward the precious last cigarette, and then starts smoking again. Reading Svevo, it isclear that Zen0 is nofool, that he is, in a way, his own accomplice. Let u s examine this situation a bit more closely. Let us imagine that there are two subselves,A and B; A wants to quit smoking and B wants to be allowed to continue smoking. Let us imagine, too, that at the beginning, A i s sincere and really thinks he i s going to succeed in dominating B. But A's determination has an unanticipated consequence: i n imposing a limit on B, A is increasing B's pleasure. Thus A and B become, in a way, accomplices. B needs A to augment his pleasure (in particular, an authoritarian and intransigent A, who can scare B). A needs B to increase his own sense of importance. A agrees to play this game to give B pleasure, but "playing" itself presupposes a duplicity within A-between the A that i s and the A that plays. In other words, A splits up into two subselves, A,, and A,. One, A,, has decided to make B give up smoking, and the other, A>, i s B's accomplice. Yet, in as far as B needs A,, A , also becomes B's accomplice. Thus, A, andA, go again indistinct. The same game starts again, and continues in a circle. It is also possible that a new, superior instance, C, could emerge, who cynically observes the little game between the two or three other instances, and eventually intervenes to play the game or interrupt it. Note that in order for the game to work, B must be the dupe of A,. Zeno, setting up a small drama involving A,, announces pompously to those around him that he i s going to quit smoking, and also boasts of his extraordinary courage. B falls for it, but, of course, the charade cannot go on indefinitely; the excitement would cease if B knew that it was all just an act. Everything happens in Svevo's novel as if Zen0 was conscious of this risk that the game may collapse. Eventually, Zen0 asks one of h i s friends, who i s a doctor, to have him locked up in a clinic so he can avoid starting smoking again (and above all, in order to show B, who i s a bit skeptical, or a bit naive, that "this is it," that he [Zeno] i s really going to submit to A,, that he i s going to be inflexible, and also, indirectly, that B had better be afraid since this will give him pleasure). After Zeno is admitted to the clinic, the point of all this mental organization is lost. What was (for A) originally based, in part, on a "real" desire to

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Internal Disorder: Multiple Personalities Subselves and

stop smoking has been diverted to the benefit of the smoking subself (that is, to the benefitof B, through the relationship between A , and A2).As a consequence, quitting smoking onlypartially (and insufficiently) satisfies Zeno. H e quickly gets bored in theclinic, where smoking is, of course, prohibited. O n the very first evening there, he asks the nurse who is taking care of him to go out and buy himsome whisky. Not having been instructed not to do so, she complies. O n her return, they talk, strike up a rapport, and drink one, two, three whiskies together. The nurse ends up drunk. Zen0 asks her for the key to his room. H e goes out and buys himself a pack of cigarettes. In telling this story, Zen0 doesnot admit to any blame.H e sees himself as the amused and resigned observer of his ownbehavior. It is as if he had abdicated responsibility, or as if he was observing from a distance the game between his subselves. One could think that Zen0 has two per~onalities:~ one whois playing at quitting smoking, and the otherwho is not playing and is depressed. The first personality, changeable yet enduring, reveals a Zen0 who is at one with his world and relatively serene; thesecond, although less contradictory, is less enduring and corresponds to a Zen0 who is desperate. Even so, what we are talking about here involves more a change of attitude than a change of personality. Multiple personalities, as weshall see, involve much more than a change of attitude. In addition, referring to multiple personalities prevents us from seeing the connections between the subselves. W e cannot talk about maximization in Zeno's case; for there to be maximization, there must be one individual who is pursuing a goal. What weare dealing with here is not so much that the goals change (though we could claim that Zen0 is, in each instant, pursuing a goal), but that Zen0 himself is changing. There cannot be individual maximization if there is no individual, or rather no stable notion of an individual. As Ricoeur (1 949/1965) said, in order for values to be "attached" to the individual, there must be someone, something, to attach them to. Let us return to the example mentioned earlier (chapter 1) of the gambler who signs a paper banning himself from casinos. If this gambler, taken over by the demon of gambling, presents himself at the door of a casino in France while the ban he himself agreed to is still in force, he would be firmly but politely-and perhaps somewhat disdainfully-turned away. Let us imagine that such a gambler backslides one evening and does appear at the door of the casino. The employee he deals with might know that this person is actually sheltering a subself who is superior to the gambling subself who is controlling him at this moment (in any case, his movements, and undoubtedly his attitudes and justifications, as well). Let us imagine that the employee is able to read his mind. H e might then say something like this: Dear Sir, you know quite well that your reasonable subself (call him not want your gambling subself to get the upper hand, even though

A) does at this

ty

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moment you (your person)are in the grip of your passion (B).I must say that I am quite surprised to see you here. You (A),however, must know that you are not allowed in.I must therefore assume that you (A)are so possessed by your impulsive subself (B)that the most elementary information-the fact that you are barred from the casino-has been obscured or distorted. Perhaps you think I am not informed of your contract with the casino.O r perhaps you (we must imagine another instance, let us say 0 will secretly experience pleasure from being thrown out.

Of course, one is reminded of the case of Ulysses. Like the gambler, Ulysses anticipates a change in his personality (or a change in the organization of his subselves) and requests in advance that he be ignored when he asks to be untied. The gambler anticipates the same change and, in signing the casino ban, is asking that we donot listen to him. The moment the individual walks into the casino, the situation is different. Let us examine it a bit more closely, by going back to the time just before the casino employee’s rebuke. It is quite possible that our gambler has no intention ofgoing to gamble. Perhaps he is going in the direction of the casino simply because he enjoys the walk. When he decides to go into thecasino lobby, he still has no intention of playing. H e simply wants to remind himself of the atmosphere of thecasino; he can allow himself this small pleasure. At that moment, from his pointof view, he is still perfectly coherent and in control of himself. Once but he is in thelobby, he decides to go onto the gambling floor-not to play, for the atmosphere, the noise, the smells. H e will only stay a few moments; they will hardly notice him. Since he hasno intention ofgambling, heis still, from his perspective, perfectly in control. H e goes in; the employee stops him-how absolutely disagreeable and unfair of him! In the language of subselves, one would say that the gambler had gained the upper hand. In the language of akrasia, or weakness of the will, one would say he was the victim of an impulse. The problem becomes complicated, however, whenwe ask at exactly which moment the change occurred. D i d he give up his free will when he started to walk toward the casino? Whenhe went into the lobby? Whenhe decided to go onto the gambling floor? And howdoes one prove that this change occurred; for the individual himself, there was no change. H e did not give in to any impulse, and he remained in control of himself the whole time. When he walked along outside the casino, he was convinced that he had the strength to go back home when he wanted to (perhaps he had even done it before). This idea reinforced his impression that he was in control. Once there, he had some sort of identity change; he made himself believe that he was autonomous, which was a means of compensating for his loss of autonomy. It is this selfmodification of identity that leads to nonrational behavior. The alcoholic who believes he is in control of himself is also a victim of this self-modification. Not conscious of his state, he thinks that he can stop

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himself from drinking, which gives him the impression of being in control of himself, and which, in a way, authorizes him to drink. This impression is not negated by his then imbibing, which still appears to the individual to be the result of his own voluntary actions. To continue the analogy with the gambler who wants to stop gambling, we must imagine that our alcoholic, whenhe is “in full possession of his faculties” (anotion that remains to be defined), wishes to stop drinking.There is thus a contradiction between what hewants in this state and what he does later. From his pointof view, however, there is no contradiction, noris there any discontinuity in his desires, values, or identity. This apparent dilemma leads to the distinction betweenthe largely unconscious organizationof subselves, andindividual self-regulation and the consciousness of thisselfregulation.In other words, we are todistinguish the individual from his guiding instance (Moessinger, 1999). This kind of nonrationality can be found in everyday behavior,and not just in that of alcoholics andinveterate gamblers. Studies dealing withthe reduction of dissonance, particularly the reduction of postdecisional dissonance, have shown identity changes in common andvaried situations. Forexample, consider the research of Freedman & Fraser (1966), which suggested that identity changes may follow quite ordinary actions (like signing a petition, putting up a poster on one’s door, or sending a curriculum vitae to a potential employer). The individual suddenly sees himself as having a stake in issues to which he was previously indifferent. Let us return briefly to thequestion of what we mean whenwe talk about subselves.This questionis one of semantic analysis (scientific, notlinguistic). Instead of talking about subselves, asI have done here with regard to Zeno, I could have talked about dispositions, character traits, or, perhaps, personality traits. instead of talking about instances, I could have talked about tendencies. Moreover, although the distinction between instances and tendencies is important from an ontological point of view (instances are things, tendencies are properties), the distinction becomes a little blurred while conducting research to apprehend subselves. Indeed,from a methodological viewpoint,the subject ofsubselves can be studied, in effect,through individual properties such as opinions or attitudes.

The Double Bind The above exampleshighlight the fact thatfluctuations inthe organization of subselves lead toidentity problems. An individual faces such identity problems when he asks himself questions such as ” W h o am I, I w h o . .. ?“ or ”Am I in control of myself?’’ Thesequestions are to be distinguished from the question, “What is my real personality?’’ Whereas one’s personality is a

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collection of properties thatemerge from the functioning of subselves, identity refers tothe regulating instance of the individual. The functioning of this instance, or rather its malfunctioning, is often illustrated by the case of the double bind-the situation in which an intention undercuts itself, making what is desired impossible to achieve. For example, the intentionto be spontaneous makes spontaneity impossible (which was Stendhal’s dilemma [see Elster, 1989bl). Sluzki & Veron (1977) discussed the case of a student who experienced enormous psychological difficulties in relation to brushing his teeth. H e did everything he could to delay, and ultimately avoid, this act of daily hygiene. H e himself characterized his behavior as irrational. The therapist who saw this student observed that when he was a child, his parents gave him a double message: an First, “you must brush your teeth,” and then, “wanting to brush your is teeth adult attitude and therefore independent and praiseworthy.” Ultimately, these two messages were a paradox, “DOexactly as we tell you, but do it on your own initiative,” and could be explained thus: ”If you do not obey, we will be angry with you, but if you obey only because we tell you to, we will also be angry because youshould be independent.”(p. 104)

According to the authors’ hypothesis, a block due to a double bind will persist until adulthood. Be that as it may, it reveals weakness of the will, or what appears to be such here, in a new light. Whereas in the case of akrasia, intentions are paralyzed by impulses, here the block is at the level of the intentions themselves. In the authors’ words, the parents’ order to ”be independent” created an unbearable situation ”because it confused an external source with an internal source” (Sluzki & Veron, 1977, p. 104). One could also say that the individual’s capacity for self-modification was disrupted in the tooth-brushing case. “Be independent” corresponds, for the individual, to a situation in which A divides into instances A , (an internal, normative, voluntary source) and A, (an external source), which is opposed but closely connected to A,. A does not distinguish, or barely distinguishes, between A , and A,. Even if he acts spontaneously, nothing enables him to prevent A2’s machinations. Nothing enables him to identify A,. So now, A, condemns A,. Thus, every time he acts, A condemns his own action. Condemning himself, A is also condemning both A , and A,. Where doesthis strange confusion come from? A s far as the double bind described above is concerned, it seems that it is conditioned by learning. At least, thatis what Sluzki & V e r b lead us to believe. Bateson (1979), who sees a close empirical relationship between the double bind andschizophrenia, also suggests that the tendency to experience suchconfusion could be genetic. Moreover, the double bind could also be seen in the context of

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social determinations. Consider the case of Zinoviev, whose book on the Soviet Union (The Yawning Heights) was analyzedby Elster (1990). It appears that Soviet society created a double bindfor its members; for example, how the Soviet system led dissidents to adjust, if only in order to be able to exist as dissidents. Thus, they were at once both dissidents and, in a way, social climbers. As Zinoviev said, As soon as he overcomes his resistance, little by little, [the dissident] takes a form approaching that of the normal individual of this society. If he did not, he would not be able to edge his way in between the cracks of all the obstacles. [The dissident] believes he is keeping his creative individuality and that he is achieving his ideals. But in reality, he is progressively conformingto the norm. (Elster, 1993, p. 105)

As Elster says (1993, p. 951, dissidents confuse the absence of a desire to adapt with the desire not to adapt. Thus, they have identity problems similar to those we will analyze in the next paragraph. For Dupuy (1982), the double bind is linked to self-reference, as when an individual says the reason for not-p is p.5 For example, when Epimenedes claims that all Cretans are liars, this statement makes him a liar because he is telling the truth, or makes him someone who is telling the truth because he is lying. It all depends on the starting point. But something that is a logical paradox is not necessarily aparadox in psychological reality. When Epimenedes says ”Iam lying,” it is not obvious that Epimenedes and ”l” are exactly the same entity. It is possible that Epimenedes says he is a liar without believing it himself (as in irony). Perhaps he does not even know if he believes it. What is apparent here is that the double bind is connected more to identity and a plurality of controlling instances than to a multiplicity of personality traits. There is, to be sure, an intersection between identity and personality, although the boundary between them is imprecise; the language of the multiplicity of instances adopted here allows us to explicate that connection. Even so, one’sidentity is closely linked toone’sself-reflection,6 whereas personality includes properties that are independent of any selfreflection.

Identity and the Multiplicity of the Person Since the concept of a subself is somewhat vague, it is not easy to delimit or test it. A s we have seen, however, it is necessary to distinguish a subself from a personality, a subself being a subsystem of a personality. There is a related distinction (inevitably a bit vague) that has recently taken on a certain importance: that between changes within a personality and passages from one personality to another (inthe case of multiple personalities).

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Undoubtedly, each personality within one individual (with multiple personalities) forms a totality that is better integratedthan the different traits ofa single personality.However, the well-differentiated facets of a single person may resemble multiple personalities. In both cases, the personality i s organized into several relatively stable equilibria. In most individuals, there seems to be something that gives the person continuity, even if it is difficult to define. In contrast, in the case of multiple personalities, there i s little or no continuity between the individual's different states or personalities, whether this individual i s viewed from within (by himself) or from without. Thecase of Dr. Jekylland Mr. Hyde isundoubtedly the best-known illustrationofmultiplepersonalities.It has often been remarked that the case i s one in which the different personalities are strongly contrasted; when there are two personalities, one may be very extroverted, for example, and the other, very introverted. It makes little sense, however, to ask who the person is that harbors these multiple personalities. That person does not exist (or hardly exists); he i s sometimesone personality and sometimes the other. Thus,multiplepersonalities are to be distinguished from subpersonalities. Numerous cases of multiple personalities have been observed (AldridgeMorris, 1991; McKellar, 1979) It i s believed that one individual can harbor a dozen ormore different personalities,' each withitsownmemories, attitudes, vocabularies, accents, and so on. Even intelligence quotients can differ from one personalityto another. The most common cases, however, appear to be double personalities. The personalities can acknowledge or ignore each other. Most frequently, there i s a kind of amnesia; that is, personality Xacknowledges personalityL: whereas Y ignores X. It i s not uncommon for one personality to see another as being completelyoutside the person, like a ghost or a reincarnation (Ellenberger, 1970). Multiple personalities should be distinguished from what we call moods. An individual canbe, by turns, warm and reserved, dominant and submissive, and so on, without going from one personality to the other. However, each of these moods forms a whole that includes posture, voice, attitudes, even opinions. What differentiates a personality-in case of multiple personalities-from a mood i s that an individual who has (is in) a mood is still connected and in touch with his memories and his values, even if they originated in other moods. Moreover, he maintains an identity as a single, coherent personality.The difference thus relates to the cohesion (or the integration) of the subselves and the communication between the parts that make up the self or the person. Of course, the above distinction needs to be further clarified, and multiplepersonalitiesmust be distinguishedfromschizophrenia. According to Weakland (1981), what is strikingabout schizophrenics i s that there are such

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gaps between what they say and what they do, and between what they say and what they say theysay. Schizophrenia is not, however, a matter of separate personalities that are a little disconnected. In the case of multiple personalities, each personality forms a relatively integrated whole, and there is a movement from one personality to another.Schizophrenia, like the double bind, is more a disruption of the person's control function, which is both everywhere and nowhere. Rather than involvinga group of relatively autonomous subpersonalities, schizophrenia seems to involve the disintegration of the person himself.

The Society of the Mind Minsky's approach, as presented in The Society of M i n d (1986), is somewhat different from the subselves approach. According to him, we start out by choosing what we want to do, and then we do it (or rather have it done, as he says, in so far as the instance who chooses is not the same as the one who executes).This idea has some plausibility. In any case, we are often in situations where we do not do what we decided to do, where we are angry with ourselves for not doing it, or where we even try to punish ourselves for not having done it. H o w can one beangry with oneself? Here, again, we may betempted to resolve the problem a priori by postulating two different entities, with one being angry at the other or attempting to punish him. Such an approach could be heuristically interesting. It leads to the questions about the potential hierarchy that connects these entities,about the quality of theircommunication, and about their capacity to use or exploit other instances. To show that these instances are not hierarchical (that is, that there is no permanent, central subself), Minsky gives an example of the will's guile: "1 would tryto concentrate on a given problem, and then when I had had enough and got sleepy, I imagined that one of my rivals, Professor Challenger, was going to resolve the same problem. The furious desire to deprive Challenger of this success allowed meto work a little longer" (Minsky, 1986, p. 109). In Minsky's interpretation, his will (the agent he calls Work) exploits anger (the agent Anger) to paralyze sleep (the agent Sleep). What he wanted to show is that if Work controlled Sleep (that is, if Work were Sleep's superior), it would not need to resort to the strategy of anger to paralyze Sleep. Work could stop Sleep directly. By the same token, Minsky noted that one sometimes has to promise oneself rewards in order to carry out what one has decided to do. W e say toourselves, for example, "if I manage to finish this project, I will have more time for other things." But the fact thatwe try to buy ourselves means that thewill as subself is not very dominant.

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As Minsky said, a species made up of very willful individuals would be doomed to disappearance: “A species that could willingly suppress hunger or pain (or sleep) would die off very quickly” (Minsky, 1986, p. 110). Extrapolating a little, one could say that a self composed of very hierarchical instances would be a danger to itselfe8Moreover, very hierarchical (that is, not very autonomous) subselves would have to be controlled by a central subself that is very powerful (in terms of its capacity to process information) and very well informed.9 Minsky’s ideas are quite similar to Elster’s multiple-subselves concept. To my mind, however, thereis an ontological difference between the two approaches. To Minsky, who specializes in artificialintelligence and is trying to develop programs that imitate natural behavior, agents are subprograms; software. H e asks questions to determine, for that is, they are part of the example, which subprogram is going to activate or deactivate which other, in response to what events, and howit would doso. Although Elster does not dwell on ontological questions, one could interpret his subselves as being parts of thepersonality. In this sense, they are a part of the hardware. Minsky often makes analogies between a computer’s mechanical intelligence and the functioning of a social group. For example: Establishing a society, whetherit be human or mechanical, requiresthat questions such as the following be answered: which agents choose who will do what? who will decide on the tasks to be carried out? who decides how much effort will be made? how are conflicts resolved? (Minsky, 1986, p. 111 )

This analogy between subselves and subprograms is problematic in that the human brain is not divided into hardware and (external) software. Theanalogy between thought and software is flawed totheextentthat thought emerges from theveryactivityofthe brain (whereas software does not emerge from the activityof hardware). Minsky’s position, like that of thecognitivists, thus leads to a dualism, in which the mind is outside the brain. (Unfortunately,these questions cannot be pursued any further here; they are only tangentialtothe problem of subselves, our central concern in this chapter.) Recall that we can identify a subself by the interdependence of behaviors and attitudes. Such interdependence suggests that it corresponds to integration (or connectivity) of neuronal systems. The connections between these systemsareofdifferenttypes;for example, they can be hierarchical or

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nonhierarchical. Certain hierarchies can become reversed, or in certain circumstances, unhierarchical;1°for example, whensome supersystem is activated.

DISSONANCE AND IDENTITY In its most recent version, cognitive dissonance centers on identity (Garai, 1986); it is not just a question of opposition between actions or, as Festinger (1957) said, "cognitions," or even between what one does and what one more specifically-a question of believes one should do.It is, instead-and opposition between who one is and who onethinks one should be. To take another of Garai's (1986) examples, an individual who considers himself to be a true Muslim and who allows himself to drink wine will experience a certain dissonance. W e must, however, recognize thatidentity (whatever meaning onegives to the term)is both vague and fluctuating.This individual could, for example, consider himself to be a Muslim but have some reservations. H e could wish, more or less consciously, that his religion would change on certain points. From then on, his personal identity as a Muslim would be slightly different from his social identity. If dissonance is linked to identity, and if identity is fluctuating and indistinct, dissonance and its reduction would appear to be more complex phenomena than was previously thought. Let us take the case of another individual who considers himself to be Muslim, but one with a difference-let us say, a Muslim who has lived in Europe for years and has adopted certain Western values. Drinking wine could comeinto dissonance with his social identity as a Muslim, but not with his identity as a partially westernized Muslim. Dissonance thus depends on one's perspective. H e could go into dissonance in relation to only oneof his identities. Moreover, since his two identities are somewhat in opposition, even if he reduces his dissonance with respect to one identity, he is not thereby reducing it with respect to the other. H e could even favor one identity with the aim of reducing the dissonance of the path he has chosen, or create a newidentity in order to reduce the dissonance in relation to this new identity. in short, to the extent that identity is not fixed, the notion of dissonance itself becomes blurred. It is this type of problem, in its static aspect, that Ackerlof (1984) attempted tomodel under the term loyalty filters. H e used this phrase to refer to the change in values, identifications, and even representations of the self that follow in thewake of a changein affiliation. It is thus a very general phenomenon, part of socialization. Ackerlof simplified the problem, reducing the manifestations oftheaffiliationto a cooperative choice (in a game-

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theoretic sense). H e hypothesized about institutions’ filtering (in) for loyal individuals (that is, cooperative individuals)and about individuals’ reactions to this filtering process.

Weakness of the Will and Identity An individual’s integration of his own thoughts and behavior, as well as any associated contradictions, is another aspect of weakness of thewill. Aristotle realized that a person’s ideas concerning his actionsor behavior could be poorly coordinated.Prior to Aristotle, more utilitarian or more voluntarist viewpoints prevailed.W e read in Plato’sdialogues (for example, in the Georgias) that Polus maintained,contrary to Socrates, thatpeople alwaysdo what they want todo. Suchreasoning is tantamount to saying that if an individual has chosenx rather than x it is because he prefers x to y (which comes down to resolving the problem in posing it). Socrates presented the counterexample of an individual who takes a distasteful potion that has been recommended by a doctor. For Socrates, all individuals always aim at just ends, which is also the case here: in taking the medicine, the individual’s goalis to preserve or improve his health, which is a just goal. Thus, for Socrates, nobody voluntarily makes mistakesor bad choices. A person’s true will is to be happy. And a person who is happy is just. Consequently, a personwho gives in toa temptation does notknow that he isdoing wrong. If he knew, he would correct his action. Weaknessof will, therefore, comes down to an intellectual mistake. Leibniz (in Theodicy) took an even more intellectualist position than did Socrates. For him, an individual who acts against his will is the victim of some kind of a distraction, let us say a memory lapse. Leibnizdid admit that there canbe inconsistencies betweenthe will and what it achieves. Nonetheless, if these inconsistencies were clearly perceivedby the subject, his will would prevail. Aristotle (in Ethics, BookVII) opposed Socrates’ viewpoint by insistingthat an individual can knowingly act against his will.The intemperate individual knows what is right butdoes wrong through lackof self-control,or akrasia.’ Although Aristotle admittedto some opposition between thought and action in the case of weakness of wi11,12 he did not accept such opposition with respect to reason. A n individual does not act against his knowledge (except in exceptional cases that are close to madness). For Aristotle, all individuals always reason to the best of their abilities. akrasia, one finds statements like ”the agent” Note that in this debate over did x intentionally (although ”he” found the results regrettable) or”he” gave in to his impulses (although “he”did not want to do so). In such discourse, the everything happens as if the agent (in quotation marks) were constantly

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same, as if the entitywho desired and the one whogave in were one andthe same.13 These problems raise the issue of responsibility. Elsewhere, I have briefly suggested that, for there tobe responsibility, there must be a central instance, and that decentralized instances would collude and refuse to takeresponsibility (Moessinger, 1991,pp. 154-1 55). Moreover, thecentral instance should not dominate by force; otherwise, the other instances would not really be bound to comply, so to speak; they would not carry out the decision made bythe central instance. This issue is difficult topin down.O n the one hand, it seems, intuitively,that an individual is so much the more responsible for giving in to contradictory feelings than he is (at least before making his decision) for merely being a victim of internal conflicts. O n e might think that a person who was not a victim of such conflicts would bea rational, unfeeling, heartless person-that suchan individual wouldbe somewhat aresponsible. (This notion of aresponsibility should obviously be distinguished from that of irresponsibility in the legal sense.) O n the other hand, an individual who knows immediately what he has to do, without experiencing conflict, could beseen as more fulfilled, more in harmony with himself and the world around him, and more responsible in that he makes his choiceswith greater clarity. If we wanted to take thisanalysis further, we would have to distinguish different ways of experiencing and superseding, resolving or suppressing, internal conflict. The case of an individual who gives in toan impulse after an internal conflict is obviously different. Such an individual is not aresponsible. To what extent is he responsible or irresponsible? Theoretically, we must distinguish irresponsibility in virtueof the unconnectedness between the subselves (everything occurs as if no one knew whowas responsible) from irresponsibility in virtue of thedecentralization of the instances-in which case there is no longer any true direction, decision, or ability to decide (everything occurs as if everyone refused to takeresponsibility).The question, then, concerns the extent towhich the individual himself is a victim or accomplice of this unconnectedness or decentralization. In practice, it is difficult to know if an individual really is the victim of his impulses. Is he more a victim of them if he has not sufferedany internal conflictZThis question, to which there is no easy answer, relates back to the organization of the instances.

Psychological Subjectivism and the Uniqueness of the Individual There are quitea few specialists who doubt the stability, oreven the existence, of the self.According to Laing (1971), for example, the self is a story that one tells about oneself. Of course, it is then conceivable that the stable instance, that is, the one who tells the story, is the person corresponding to

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the ”one.” But this view suggests that the real story must be distinguished from the recounted story. Laing adds, however, that it is others who tell you what you are. “At times one strives not to be what one knows one is deep down in oneself. At times one strives to eradicatethis ’foreign’ identity, with which one has been endowed or to which one has been condemned, and to create by one’s own acts, an identity for oneself that one is then desperateto have confirmed by others” (Laing, 1961/1971, p. 1 1 6). Laing distinguishes between one’s fundamental identity and another that is somewhat disconnected from it and experienced as a stranger by the individual. W e must thus imagine an individual who comprises two separate identities and who, in some way, watches them from a little higher up. Again, one of these identities might be the controlling instance that the individual (at least in part) wanted (which is what makes it ”fundamental”). But one could also see this fundamental identity as a creation of the mind, which brings us back to Hume’s (1738) metaphor, according to which the mind (here the self)is a “play in a theater that does not exist.” Here again, the self is only a story, that is, a subjective experience that has nothing to anchor it to reality. Hume also talks about illusion. Pursuing this idea, the logical positivists formed the idea of the selfas a ”grammatical fiction.”14 Such ideas are obviously closely linked to psychological subjectivism, that is, to an epistemology according to which it is possible to know an individual consciousness, or even an individual in his uniqueness. In contrast, for proponents of scientific psychology, it is impossible to know an individual in his singularity and uniqueness. Perhaps there is a misunderstanding between these two viewpoints. Even if it is true that psychology does not allow one directly to examine directly what is unique about the individual, it does not follow that one cannot attempt to know and explain this or that singular individual. ( O n the impossibility of knowing scientifically-or knowing at all-what is “absolutely” unique, see Piaget [l 965/1971].) For reasons that perhaps have to do with a sort of anthropocentrism, the desire toget right atthe uniqueness ofthe thing being studied is much stronger in the social sciences and humanities than in the natural sciences. The illusion of a ”science”that allows one to look directly into minds is constantly perpetuated by the desire to know others, as well as by a sort of elementary confusion between self and others, which isatthe base of identification processes. But this illusion is also perpetuated by an ignorance of psychology, by a condemnation of the methods of natural science methods, and by the confusion between science and positivism.’5 Even if we cannot obtain real knowledge of what is unique, we are not therefore precluded from studying the self.And even if the self is only a story about oneself, nothing prevents us from studying that story, from comparing the stories of real individuals, from looking for organization in them, and

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delimiting their parts. It is paradoxical that those who are most insistent on the irreducible uniqueness of the individual are also the least interested in the reality of the self. One might think that direct knowledge of the self by the self is“essentially hermeneutic,” asSteedman (1991) has said. Knowing myself is thus reduced to my own makingsense of myself, an undertaking that is quiteinsensitive to contradictions. I observe, however, that when I try to understand myself, I make comparisons between myself and others, and between my behaviors at different times. In other words, it is not exactly the same me (or the same self) who acts and whoobserves. Moreover, I evaluate this information about myself; I tryto transcend contradictions, to increase my self-knowledge. True, these attempts arequite limited, and I am constantly subject to biases, because the self who is studying and the self who is being studied interact. The fact thatwe are aware of our uniqueness does not, therefore, prevent us from thinking about ourselves in general terms. It is true, however, that awareness ofthe absolute and irreducible uniqueness of the self-and hence, of others-can lead to quite strange experiences.Von Foerster (1991) tells the story of one of his friends, Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist in Vienna who, shortly after the Second World War, started seeing a patient who was in a state of profound depression. This man had survived several concentration camps in which he had been imprisoned with his wife. She haddied several months after the end of the war of a disease she had contracted in a camp. The man became depressed, stopped eating, stopped participating in the life around him, and let himself fall apart. The psychiatrist, after a long andvain attempt to get through to him, asked him the following question: ”Suppose I had the power to createa woman whowas identical toyour wife. You would see no difference; her appearance, her tastes, her memories would all be exactly the same as your wife’s. Would you askme to createsuch awoman?” There was a long silence. Then the man said “no.” Shortly afterthat, he resumed a normal life. The psychiatrist’shypothesis, as reported by von Foerster, is the following: ”This man lived through his wife’s eyes. When she died, he stopped seeing. But when he realized that he was blind, he could see again” (von Foerster, 1991). In essence, what the psychiatrist was saying with this metaphor of vision is that the man has resigned himself to having lost his wife. What this hypothesis does not tell us, however, is why the man hadto confront the fiction concerning the perfect copy of his wife. Another interpretation is possible. Perhaps the psychiatrist’squestion had thrown the man off balance. The woman the psychiatrist was proposing to him was not his real wife, or rather, it was his real wife except for what was unique about her. Of course, the psychiatrist’s question was only a mind game. All the same, the question made him aware that there was only a minute difference between his wife and the copy that he did not want. Thus,

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the part that was left for him to mourn was very small. H e understood that reduced to almost nothing, and perhaps what made his wife unique could be even that was his own creation. This realization facilitated the mourning process.

Note on the Social Sciences and the Humanities Many say that to understand someone one must be able to put oneself in any knowledgeof others that is not based on this operation of changing places would be empty knowledge devoidof meaning. For example, Boudon states (1979/1991), again using Weberian methodology, that

his place, or rather in his skin-that

thesociologisthastoconcernhimselfwithonecategoryofphenomena, actions, that is never in the physician’sor the chemist’s field of observation. In essence, the notion of action implies the fundamental phenomenonof empathy between the observer and the observed. Consequently, the sociologist’s work has no equivalent in the natural sciences. (p.259) Boudon (1991) adds that sociology’s inescapable interpretive dimension does not require that one view that discipline as “tainted by subjectivism.” This observation is an important one. In effect, all interpretation is linked to what is observable, and it can therefore be evaluated. Here we are confronted with the junction between interpretive approaches and those I call “systematic”(that is, based on a critical analysis of hypotheses, a confrontation with reality, and evaluation in relation towhat is already known).W e are not far from the distinction between the humanities and the social sciences, with the humanities depending more on interpretive methods and the social sciences on systematic methods. I do not want to oppose the social sciences and the humanities, but to distinguish between the two approaches, both of which are found in both groups of disciplines.”j These two approaches have always interacted to some degree; thehistory of the social sciences, like that of thehumanities, is replete with examples of fruitful exchanges. For example, it is often the interpretative approach of the social sciences that leads to new ideas, which can become new hypotheses when integrated intohypothetical systems. Moreover, systematic approaches can strengthen and reinforce hermeneutic undertakings. Nineteenth-century phenomenologists, who reduced all science to positivism and claimed that only phenomenology couldget to the essence, have few imitators today. As an example of coordination between the two approaches, we could mention-in addition to Weberian methodology-Piaget’s “clinical method” (1924/1959). Through this method, Piaget tried to “follow the convolutions of the subjects’ thought.” H e thereby tried to understand the meaning that subjects themselves give to the world. Of course, that meaning is taken as

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fact; it is studied from outside, through the subjects’ statements; and, naturally, it also has a meaning for the experimenter himself. This meaning (for the experimenter) guides the experimenter’s questioning but cannot be used by him as a means of justifying or corroborating experimentalresults(lest those results be ”tainted by subjectivism”). W e must there distinguish, following Meyer (1979), the context of discovery from the context of justification. Discovery requires imagination, intuition, flair, and, possibly, even empathy; justification requires, above all, honesty and rigor. This distinction isone that Weber himself left somewhat vague. If we give meaning to social phenomena through ”empathy,” it is an empathy that is linked to the heuristic aspect of knowledge, and that remains attached to one’s own (subjective) viewpoint. That said, it is not only from such empathy that the meaning of a social phenomenon emerges. W e must distinguish subjective meaning andpersonal connotations, on the one hand, from meaning that is extracted through the scientific enterprise, through the coneffort to increase knowledge, on the other. Such an enterprise-which sists in highlighting the structures and properties of reality, and in delimiting things-also contributes meaning to reality. Nevertheless, as Weberand Boudonsaid, whatis specific to thesocial sciences is a natural tendency to interpret thebehavior of others by attempting to put oneself in their place, an emphasis on subjective interpretations.There is also a tendency to enter into mutual expectations,which onedoes not find in the naturalsciences. These subjective aspects,even if they make the social sciences particularlyinteresting and rich (in hypotheses,tendencies, and paradigms), do not in themselves lead to consistent, coherent,profound, and well-corroborated knowledge.

NOTES 1. Organizations, groups, and businesses are sometimes portrayed as individual actors who make decisions, pursue goals, and maximize. The problem with this portrait is that one risks attributing intentionality to a social group, whereas, strictly speaking, only individuals can be conscious, reflect, and make decisions (Bunge, 1985). Of course, a group, like an individual, pursues goals and can even generate new ones, thus manifesting a certain autonomy. However, individuals and groups produce or modifygoals using different mechanisms. Ina group,the process involves discussions, coalitions, seduction, acts of submission, authority, and revolt, and so on. There is no such social interaction (unless it isin a very metaphorical sense) within an individual who is in the process of deciding. As a result, the moral responsibility of a group must be distinguished from thatof an individual. An individualis more integrated and cohesive thana group (perhaps because an individualis ”undivided,” as Koestler put it). There are, nevertheless, sociologists who attribute intentions to social groups. In his analysisof the corporate actor, Coleman (1982) comes

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close to doing so. Forhim, acorporation(asortofanonymous society) is an autonomous actor that pursues goals, that maximizes.In The Foundations of Social Theory, he found what he considered to be an irrationality: a corporation that sells itself (for example, to another corporation) rejects its own autonomy in doing so. However, a salelike this one is actually irrationalonly if one sees in it, as Coleman did, an inverted intention-one that goes against itself-and not an emergent property. 2. Relational and interpersonal problems can also be suppressed.There aretwo particularly important strategies. First of all, as Koestler (1 979) very judiciously noted, ”the simplestway to defeat your opponent[in chess] is togive him a massiveblow to the head.” The question of why this strategyis not more oftenapplied is still one of of sociology (seeStark, 1976-83). Second, one could simthe fundamental problems ply leave the social group in which one was experiencing problems-the exit strategy (Hirschman, 1972). 3. On thedistinctionbetweendeterminationandcontrol,seeMoessinger (1991 1. 4. See ”Identity and the Multiplicity of the Person,” pp. 60-62. 5. Smullyan (1980) gives a humorous illustration of this point. 6. Identity is linked especially closely to an individual’s image of his personal coherence and existential plan. As Zavalloni and Louis-Guerin noted (1 984), such an image activates “deep thoughts” in the limbo of theconscious mind,which has strong affective resonance. 7. The question of the number of (sub)personalities has no particular significance; not only is the verynotion of the multiple personality not very clear, but diagnoses differnoticeably fromone specialist to the next (Aldridge-Morris,1992). 8. Note that this danger is not created by some opposition between “orgiastic and ascetic tendencies” (Simmel, 1990) [because, on the one hand, an orgy can be organized obsessively, and on the other, asceticism can result in blindness], nor of that which gives the lives of the cicada and the ant such different meaning (Suits,

1978). 9. One of the character’s in Giraudoux’s (1 939) Ondine makes an equivalent

comment. “Since you left me,Ondine, everythingmy body usedto do by itself, l have had to order it to do.... It is very tiring. I have to supervise my five senses, my two hundredbones,my one thousand muscles. If I stopped paying attention for one moment, I would forget to breathe” (Giraudoux, 1939, p. 1 10). 10. Here, it is a question of hierarchies of control and not of domination/submission. O n the notion ofhierarchy,see Bunge (1979), Pattee (1973), and Weiss

(l 974). 11. AristotlepresentstheexampleofNeoptolemus

in Sophocles’s Philoctetes. Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, gives in to Ulysses, who has bribed him to persuade Philoctetesto surrender to Troy. 12. I t is true, however, that Aristotle hesitated a little.For example, whenhe gives the exampleof the weakwill of a drunk (Ethics,bookVII), he is quite closeto Socratic ideas. 13. Thefactthatthesubjectofakrasiaisstartingtointerestresearchers (for example, Cooter, 1990; Davidson, 1991;Ogien, 1993; Pears, 1984; Rorty, 1980) is an indicationthat there is some interest in the question of individual nonrationality.

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in addition, there is an increasing interest in the more general issue of the will and Rychlak & Rychlak, self-consciousness(Maurin & Everett,1990;Natsoulas,1991; 1990). 14. In Darkness at Noon (1984) Koestler tells the story of Rubachov, who saw himself as existingonly to achieve the party‘s historic mission-in particular, that of carrying out the purges. Rubachov considered himself to be a grammatical fiction, a the reality beinghistory, the Party,and the masses.H e is eventually broken (as man) by the very party to which he has dedicated his life, and it is in the course of his own humiliation that he discovers thatwhat he believed to be a mere grammatical fiction, himself, is quite real.What is tragic (and, of course, ironic) is that Rubachov discovers in that same moment that all the people he liquidated and destroyedwere not grammatical fictions, either.He is condemned to death, and diesat the very moment he discovers that he is alive. 15. The illusion discussedin this paragraph isone that Piaget attacked brilliantly and with much passion inInsights and ///usionsof Philosophy (1965/1971). See, in particular, the chapter entitled “Le faux ideal d’une connaissance suprascientifique.” 16.The disciplines that are generally considered to form the social sciences (particularly for the purposes of international comparison) are economics, law,sociology, political science, psychology,pedagogy, socialanthropology(ethnology), geography (social and economic), and media and communications. The human sciences consist of the humanities (languagesand literatures, bothancient and modern literatures),history (and historicaldisciplines),linguistics,philosophy,archeology, and religious studies.

Chapter 4

Social Order and Disorder

Two dangers lie in wait for the world: order and disorder. "Paul Valery, Cahiers

THE PROBLEM WITH VlEWlNG SOCIAL ORDER FROM A RATIONAL CHOICEPERSPECTIVE Rational choice models no doubt allow one toreason about social order, but only within the context of models of social order, and only whenthe term social order is taken in the rather metaphoricalsense of an equilibrium or an optimum. What may be misleading is that rational choice theorists sometimes even talk about the emergence of social order. For example, in the prisoners' dilemma, they say that the competitive solutionemerges from rational individual behavior. But it is important to point out that this emergent property, that is, the competitive solution, is the property of a model of social interaction, and not of actual social interactions. The properties that emerge in reality must be distinguished from those that emerge only formally. The prisoners' dilemma-a formal game-is primarily interesting from a pedato show in abstracto how something that gogical point of view: it allows one is collectively irrationalcan emergefrom individual rationalchoices (as such choices are characterized and defined in game theory). But the prisoners' dilemma relates only to whatis logically possible, not to what is the actually possible. For it to constitute an explanatory model, the players would have to be logicians or mathematicians, and they wouldhave to be acting in that capacity. In other words, they would have to cease being persons as such (see the section below on game theory, pp. 80-81 1. We willnowlook at otherproblems within thetradition of rational choice, which willbecome apparent as we examine the abstract social order

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of rational choice models.W e will then turn tocontrasting views inorder to understand what social order actually is and what makes it possible.

Equilibrium and Interpersonal Comparison We saw above (pp.4-6) how Coleman (1990) brought the contract curve into sharp relief in elaborating his linear system of actions. The question of the emergence of the optimum and of social equilibrium is also tackled through the models of game theory. Nash (1950) generalized the notion of an n-person equilibrium. His equilibrium is defined in such a way that no player can improve hisresult once the otherplayers have made their choices. One of the boundaries that social welfare theorists neither can nor will cross is that concerning the proscription of interpersonal comparisons; that is, it is not possible to compare, or to make linksbetween, one person’s utilities (or utility function) and those of anyone else.’ The reason for this proscription, which is the basis of welfare economics, is that such comparisons have no foundation, either scientific or ethical. The proscription prevents welfare economics from being sensitive to considerations of equity. Thus, the inequalities that emerge through exchanges, such as the one in Coleman’s example, are unobjectionable because they arise from the players’ preferences and the initial division. But individuals do make comparisons between themselves and others: they hypothesize as to others’ pleasures and displeasures, tryto compare others’ pleasures or displeasures with their own, identify themselves with others, evaluate the equirability of their situations (that is, compare it to others’ situations), and feel frustrated, privileged, and so on. Economists’refusal to incorporate interpersonal comparisons into economic models is another example of how disconnected such models are from reality. This disconnectedness becomes particularly apparent when one attempts to grasp the reality the model of a game is supposed to represent. Let us take an example from Braithwaite (1955). Two musicians, Luc and Mathieu, live in adjacent rooms that are not well soundproofed. Luc plays the piano, Mathieu the trumpet. They have different orders of preference. Luc’s order of preference is (1) to play alone, (2) for Mathieu to play alone, (3) for neither of them to play, and (4) for thetwo of them to play at the same time. Mathieu’s order of preference is (1) to play alone, (2) for Luc to play alone, (3) for the two of them toplay at the same time, and (4) for neither of them to play. Taking up Nash‘saxioms (except one), Braithwaite showed that the equilibrium of the game is established in favor of the trumpeter. Mathieu’s advantage emerges exclusively in virtue of his preferring (over silence) thatthe two play atthe same time, whereas Luc prefers silence to the cacophony that would result from the two playing together (p. 37). Of course, one could say that the only things being compared here are the

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orders of the individuals’ respective preferences, and that there are, strictly speaking, no interpersonal comparisons. However, in the reality of such a game, Mathieu’s advantage results from LUC’Sknowing, or from LUC’Sbelieving that he knows, that Mathieu prefers cacophony (the two playing at the same time) to silence. Mathieu the trumpeter thereforehas the advantage of a threat over Luc the pianist.2This example is interesting because it flies in the face of the fiction of independent actions. Luc cannot ignore the threat of the blaring trumpet that is hovering over him (or if it is not hovering over Luc himself, it is hovering over the game theorist who is calculating the solution to thegame). In terms of actual decisions, interpersonal comparisons are being made here: we are once more confronted by the gap between the abstractions of game theory and the complexities of actual decisions and situations, which gametheorists nevertheless often claim they are addressing.

The Emergence of Justice Pragmatic (fair) division provides another example of the disconnectedness between the emergence of rationality within the model ofrational choice and the emergence of order in actual situations. Pragmatic was Steinhaus‘s (1948, p. 101) name for this game of division, which Kolm (1997) called divide and choose.It rests on a simple principle: one person divides, the otherchooses.3 Suppose that two individuals divide a cake according to this principle. If the divider is a maximizer, he will divide the cake into two equal pieces. In this way he is assured of getting at least half of thecake. The chooser will, of course, take the part he prefers, leaving the other to the no oneprefers divider. This procedure ensures that there is no envy-that is, the other’sshare to his own-making it a case of what Rawls (1971 ) calls perfectprocedural justice. The equilibrium of the game is immediately evident: it is where the divider estimates half of the cake to be. The above procedure is attractive because it leads maximizing individuals toagree by themselves to a division, however limited the resources. Nonetheless, one might ask whether the division is actually being carried out by egoistic maximizers. To the extent that they accept the procedure, have they notalready rejected a form of egoism-let us say, an egocentric egoism, a Hobbesian egoism-where individuals are not bothered by any interpersonal or moral considerations? To look more closely at these issues, we must examine the reasons why individuals agree to the procedure. Is it spontaneous? Would such a procedure be acceptable to a demonic people? It would undoubtedly be acceptable to morally autonomous and egalitarian individuals. But when we are talking about morally autonomous individuals, we are referring to realityin particular,to a quiteelaborate social bond.4 Rationality says nothing about that social bond, it says nothing about interpersonal considerations

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that would lead the divider to cut the cake into two equal parts. Moreover, it obscures the fact that some participants might consider division into equal parts to be inequitable. In contrast, with altruistic individuals this division does not have an equilibrium point (Garrab6, 1974; Loubergk & Schlesinger, 1988; Moessinger & Koerffy, 1975). A radically altruistic divider (someone who tries to maximize the other’s anticipated satisfaction) would tend not to cut the cake, which comes down to giving the whole thing to the chooser. But when the divider considers the chooser to bean altruist, the divider’simage of the chooser interacts with his owninterest in sharing (some people tend to be more altruistic when they see their partner as altruistic, others do not). Moreover, the altruistic chooser’s image of the divider interacts with his ownchoice. When each anticipates the altruism ofthe other, behavior and representations of the other fluctuate, and the division becomes unpredictable. The limits of a rational choice model become quite clear here. In divide and choose, altruistic behavior cannot be reduced to rationality, even if limited. Of course, one could say that the divider is maximizing under the constraint of what he thinks the chooser i s going to do, taking current normsinto account. But when norms, as well as the representation of the other, interact withindividual behavior, the problem becomes intractable. Inthis case, rather than starting from rational choice, it would be better to work with a probabilistic hypothesis derived from a sociological analysis (for example, “in this type of social situation, individuals have a tendency to .. .’7.

Reciprocal Altruism At the beginning of 0. Henry’s story, “The Gift of theMagi”(1942), a young, amorous couple consider their plight as Christmas approaches. Neither has money, but each wants to give one fine gift tothe other. Each knows what the other wants: he, a case for his pocket watch, and she, a mother-ofpearl comb. Each has only one thing ofvalue: he, his pocket watch, and she, her long, golden hair. The young man pawns his watch to buy the comb, and the young woman sells her long hair to buy the case. After receiving their gifts, they are both portrayed by the author as being in some way winners, as if the pleasure of giving their gifts more than compensates them for their losses-or erases them. T h i s example takes u s to the heart of the problem of altruism. I n general, altruistic behavior i s considered to be aimed at the satisfaction of others, whereas egoistic behavior aims at one’s own satisfaction (Frohlich, 1974). Of course, if one associates (a priori) every action with a satisfaction (or worse, if one defines action in terms of satisfaction, i n which casean individual‘s choice i s taken as revealing his preferences), it becomes impossible to distinguish between altruism and egoism,-which obscures the problemof

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altruism by eliminating it altogether. An interpretation of altruism as maximization is an a priori interpretationthat, though always and necessarily true, provides no information or insight whatsoever. W e must therefore leave the framework of rational choice in order to be able to see that altruism includes sacrifices. It is a matter of fact that we sometimes make painful decisions; that egoistic satisfaction is distinct from altruistic satisfaction; that in pursuing certain goals, we lose out on others. The altruistic individual may not himself see the sacrificeshe makes. Indeed, he may see himself as asystematic maximizer.After all,we often have apartial and distorted view of ourselves and may notbe fully aware of thereasons for our actions. Moreover, whenwe question individuals abouttheir altruistic behavior, we should not place too much confidencein their verbiage, as Piaget put it. Individuals interpret their experience, reducetheir dissonance, fail to understand themselves.It is only by looking at behavior as a whole, without excluding its unconscious, biophysiological, or social aspects, that we could start to see thedifference between altruistic and egoistic behavior. W e can say with confidence that we sometimes aim at goals other than our own satisfaction. Two types of actions have to be distinguished: those that please and those that cost-and they are intrinsically different. But the situation is even more complex than that: an action can please and cost at the same time, which brings us backto the lack of coordination among our subselves. Here again, rather than postulatingthat a particular typeof behavior is rational, it is worth examiningthat behavior a bit more closely.

The Emergence of Social Satisfaction Pragmatic division can be extended into a principle of social satisfaction-the idea being that there is social satisfaction in a dyad to the degree that each individual prefers his own situation to that ofthe other (where situation would need to be defined). O n e would say that there is complete social satisfaction in a group if no individual in the group prefers another’s If such is not the case, the group would be in a stateof situation to his lesser social satisfaction. W e should also want to be able to compare the social satisfaction of different groups. The procedure outlined below hasthe advantage of simplicity. Let us take two groups,A = (f,g,h)and B = (k,/,m,n), and the corresponding groups of individual situations (X X ~, X h) and (X X I,X , , and XJ. Each individual ranksthe individual situationsin his group (including his ownsituation). Suppose, for example, we got the rankings in A and B described in Table 4.1. If we take the numbers representing how each person ranks his own situation relative to the other members of the group, the average of the rankings (“ar”) in group A is as follows: arA= 5/3 = 1.7. That is, f occupies the first position in its own ranking, g the second, and h the second. We add upthe rankings, which makes5, and divide bythe

and

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number ofindividuals in thegroup. The average of therankings in

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B is 8/4 =

2 . Note, incidentally, that our definition of complete social satisfaction can be stately precisely: thereis complete social satisfactionin group G if a r G = 1.

A

f

g

First

xf

Second Third Fourth

xh

xg xh

xg

B k h mI

n

xg

x,,

f‘

xk xk xk

xk

W e cannot, however, directly compare A with B. The averages have to be weighted in order to be able to compare the different-sizedgroups. If we take a weighting of 10 points, the weighted average ranking in A (warA) is 5.6. The weighted average in of B (war@ is 4. We would thus say that B is closer to complete social satisfaction than A . W e n o w have a means of comparing different groups in terms of their social satisfaction. Group G would have more social satisfaction than group H if warG <warH. Social satisfaction can also be compared to other group properties, such as cohesion or stability, and our ability to quantify certain social features could enable us to generate and test new hypotheses (see Moessinger, 1998). Note that pragmatic division, discussed earlier, is a procedure through which a division is accomplished, whereas in the case of social satisfaction, the portions have already been assigned; we are only measuring the satisfaction associated with that prior assignment. Pragmatic division is an unusual case because the procedure is, in effect, guaranteed in advance to produce a satisfactory allocation of shares or of surplus goods.6 In reality, however, there is not just one decision or allocation, but successive ones, with each new decision affecting the circumstances in which the next decision will be taken. Thissuccession of decisions can lead to paradoxical situations, as in the following example from Nozick (1974): Suppose there are twenty-six women and twenty-six men each wanting to be married. For each sex,all of that sex agree on the same ranking of the twentysix members of the opposite sex in terms of desirability as marriage partners: call them A to Zand A’to Z’,respectively, in decreasing preferential order.A and A’voluntarily choose to get married, each preferring the other to any other A‘, and B‘would most prefer to marryA, partner. B would most prefer to marry but by their choices A and A’ have removed these options. When 5 and 6” marry, their choicesare not made nonvoluntary merely by the fact that there is something else they each would rather do. This other most preferred option

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requires the cooperation of others who have chosen, as is their right, not to cooperate. B and B’chose among fewer options than did A and A‘. This conof options continuesdown the line until we come toZand traction of the range Z’,who each face a choice between marrying the other or remaining unrnarried.Eachprefersanyoneofthetwenty-fiveotherpartnerswhobytheir choices have removed themselves from consideration byZ and Z’.Z and Z’ voluntarily choose to marry each other.(p.263) W e must assume that all the individuals were satisfied, even though only two obtained thepartnerthey wanted. Z and Z voluntarily choose to marry each other, Nozick argues, even though Z was the last choice of Z , and Z the last choice of Z.Here, the meaning of satisfaction is different from that ofthe social satisfaction discussed above. Without playing on words, we can say that in Nozick’s example, it is the procedure that is satisfied rather than the individuals. Again, we must note that this procedure is possible only when there is, as there is here, a univocal collective order (everyone has the same preferences). Needless to say, such a viewpoint is very simplistic. Individuals who have used a satisfactory procedure areguaranteed to receive their lot. W e must nevertheless distinguish satisfaction with the procedure from satisfaction with the result. W e thus come back to consideraa tions of egoism, egocentrism, and consideration for the other. There is whole range of satisfactions that cannot be reduced to egocentric egoism. When a procedure is considered to be satisfactory, the satisfaction that is achieved by its result has to be distinguished from the satisfaction that a choice made in theabsence of thatprocedure would have achieved. In other words, the same result might be considered differently depending on the procedure of which it is the result. To say, a priori, that individuals are satisfied obscures this distinction. Though this distinction needs to be carefully studied, I will limit myself to three especially important points here.

1. The procedures must be distinguished fromtheresults.Just procedures (for example, democratic procedures) can lead to unjust results, and unjust procedures can produce just results (Reis, 1986; Tyler, 1987). 2. A satisfactory procedure can leadto an unsatisfactoryresult(for example, when threeor more individuals are involved, pragmatic division can create envy (see Moessinger, 1998), and a satisfactory result can be the product of unsatisfactory procedures. 3. The procedure must alsobe distinguished fromthe principles by which it is inspired (as must the result of applying these principles). For example, the principle that governs the procedure of divide and choose is a principle of equality, orrather of equilibrium, between the satisfactions of the participants. But there is nothing in the principle

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itself that necessitates the result,which only comesfrom the application of the procedure. More attention needs to be given to what the result is based on, which is precisely what Nozick (1974, pp. 183ff) reproached Rawls for: behind a veil of ignorance, the choice procedure involvesan a priori decision about distribution but notabout the foundation for the procedure itself.

It is important for sociologists to distinguish what is just and unjustat the level of the subjects’ behavior and justifications from whatis just and unjust at the macrolevel of social systems. It is also important to distinguish the norms (not always conscious)that inspire individuals,from the principles on which these norms are founded (principlesthat are rarelyin the minds of the individuals themselves).W e must, therefore, take care not to delimit reality (real systems) arbitrarily.True, one couldsay, just as one couldwith regard to divide and choose division,that individuals maximize withinthe framework of certain procedures and on the basis of principles, but that would be to ignore that-in actualbehavior-procedures, principles, and maximizing tendencies interact. In this context, and as a note on game theory, a few comments on the of the most ardent defenders of game thework of Christian Schmidt-one ory in France-are in order.Schmidt views gametheory as an explorationof the possible. H e argues that this theory can lead decision makers to consider new, logically possible solutions. Schmidt is thus inviting us to consider a theory of thelogically possible.In a response (Moessinger,19931, I remarked ironically that it will be of great interest to logical decisionmakers and anyone whois attempting to studyor predict the behavior of logical individuals. First, we must distinguish the logically possiblefrom what is actually possible. What purpose does it serve to explore the logically possible if it is, in fact, excluded orvery unlikely. For game theory to be explanatory, two absurd conditions need to be met: (1)the players must be game theoreticians, and (2) they should adapt their behavior to the theory (but note that [l I does not necessarily imply[ZI).That is how the logically possible would come together with theactually possible; game theory would becreating the reality that it studies. Second, I have long stressed thatwhat is logically possible in game theory is based on an a priori conception of rationality. O n e cannot say an a priori conception is false because it has no relation to what is true or what is false, but one can say that this type of a priori conception is particularly intrusive and sterile, and that it obscures reality. It distracts attention from the many connections among individuals, and from relationships of power, cohesion, friendship, influence, seduction, and so on. Moreover, an a priori concepif it does, only arbitrarily-to take tion of rationality does not allow us-or social norms into account.

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Behavior

Finally, aswe saw in the first chapter, utility an is apsychologicalconstruct and offers no procedure that permits a value to be given to an individual’s utility function. In these circumstances, the matrices of games can only be arbitrary. In fact, game theorists themselves often have difficulty in agreeing on which game best describes which conflict, oscillating between games as different as the prisoners’ dilemma and a game of chicken. In fact, it is the conceptual frameworkof game theory that does not allowthese theoriststo deal with factual data.’

SOCIAL ORDER AND NONRATIONAL BEHAVIOR

I hoted above that when a rational choice model leadsto the emergence of nonrationality,as is the case in the prisoners’ dilemma,this nonrationality emerges from an abstract model and not from actual social interactions. I also highlighted the reasons why individualsare not rational and stressed the importance of behavior that cannot simply be reduced to rational choices. nonrationalchoices. M y Finally, I havestronglyadvocated thestudyof analysis now turns to the emergence of social order from such nonrational choices and other nonrational behavior. In effect, since individual behavior is always nonrational (with the exception of the behavior of logicians and mathematicians,and only insofar as they areacting as logiciansand mathematicians ...),and since the macrolevel is often more orderly than the microlevel, the emergence of orderis actually the most general case.Yet,collective incoherence sometimesemerges from individual behavior, even from what appears to be maximizing behavior. The question of perverse effects illustrates this point (Boudon, 1984;Schelling, 1979). The problem, fromthe perspective of my argument, is that limited rationality, however limited it may be, is still within the framework ofrational choice-which some writers see as an advantage in that thenotion of rationality introduces a certain precision (or at least the impression of precision). But of what use is precision in a science of reality if it is remote and disconand precise theory, on nected fromreality?The choice is not between a clear one side, and the absence of theory, on the other, butbetween the clear and precise unreality of rationalchoice and the inevitably inexact and questionridden attempt to confront reality. The choice is between postulating individual rationality and emphasizing social interactions. The Structuralization of Space In a book that deals with cultural-and

therefore, largelyemergent-facts,

M. Burke (1987) is surprised, even rather amazed, that urban space is structured the same way in very different and distant parts of our planet;* “every city is structured into neighborhoods housing populations that are socially,

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professionally, and ethnically distinct,’’indeed an amazing problem. In the same vein, Schelling (Micromotives andMacrobehavior, 1979) is amazedor rather simulates amazement-at the spontaneous organization of human activities. H e wants to go to the airport: a taxi w i l l take him to the airport! Moreover, there is a street that goes there! At the airport, there is a plane, which w i l l take him precisely where he wants to go! Etc. All this requires a huge amount of finely coordinated activities. Schelling’s amazement comes close to Burke‘s: in other places in the world, there are also airports, taxis, planes, and streets. W h y i s that so? Sociologists are not of muchhelp to explain such similarities, for they are trained to stress social and cultural differences. Durkheim, however, had quite an insight when he mentioned that behind societies, there is the society. What he wanted to stress i s that there are common ways to coordinate activities that canbe found everywhere. Such common coordinated activities lead to produce common artifacts like airports, streets, or houses (Moessinger, 1991). My further point i s that there is little chance thatcoordinated activities and spontaneous organization could be explained by individual choices only. Let me elaborate with an example again taken in Schelling (1979). It deals with a rather elementary form of coordination, namely the formation of ghettos. Schelling considered that in choosing a place to live,individuals are uniquely sensitive to the similarities and dissimilarities of their immediate neighborhoods. H e showed that if everyone wanted at least half of h i s neighbors to be in the same ethnic group as he was, a geographical distribution by homogeneous groups would quite quickly result. As Boudon (1984) argued, ”theaggregation of relatively modest individual demands (not to be in the minority) produces a segregation effect that largely exceeds these demands and caricatures them.” Schelling and Boudon thus explain the structure of urban social space through individual choices based on a single criterion, choices from which ghettos emerge. The supposed reason for the distribution seems clear. But is it really the right reason? The explanation presented, even if it i s tidy, does not dispel the amazement. W e know that a family that is moving chooses a new location on the basis of numerous criteria such as proximity to the place of work, school,transportation,shopping, and, of course, the size, price, and surroundings of the house. It i s easy to imagine the discussions, the agonizing, and the familycoalitions that form when making such decisions. But the proximity of similar individuals most probably does not play a pivotal role in their decision to move. Here again, we are faced with a rational choice model. Everything occurs as if individuals were choosing according to the model, but in reality, they do not choose like that at all. Their choices do not come down to a single criterion.The capacity to predict (probabilistically) peoples’ moving patterns (in conditions over which we have little control) on the basis of the single criterion concerning the similarity of the neighbors i s certainly useful. At any rate,

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it is useful when it works. Such a prediction cannot, however, be asubstitute for an explanation, because it does not get at the fundamental, underlying reasons for the phenomenon in question. In general, it is only when such a prediction fails thatone examines things more closely. In the meantime,one can make do with a correlation. I mention this example, which is similar to some that I have already discussed, because it effectively illuminates how the theory of rational choice obscures the nonrational. Thecriterion of the similarity/dissimilarity of neighborhoods, to the extent that it works, dispenses with the study of real choices. Inthe same way, in all the examples of rational choice I have mentioned previously,rationality actsas asort of glossy veneer thatmakes behavior appear to be even and smooth when,in fact, it is uneven and bumpy.

Christmas Cards Let us return to Schelling (1979), who, like Boudon and Elster, has looked extensively at nonrationality, and who, like them, rapidly swept it under the carpet of rationality.H e mentions the custom of sending Christmas cards as an exampleof a nonmarketphenomenon. H e notes thatpeople sendChristmas cards even though they find the practice absurd. That is, people feel obliged to send cards to those from whom they expect to receive themwhile often knowing thatthey have received the cards inthepast only because of the senders' expectations that they would be receiving cards themselves. Here, specularity* hascreated an institution, as also happens in the case of discrimination.9 Dupuy (1992) extensively examined such situations, which he called entangled hierarchies, in which individuals A and B tend to reinforce and exaggerate their representations of each other (asdiscriminator and the one discriminatedagainst). Schelling conducted a survey of people's attitudes toward the institution of Christmas cards: Even those who, all in all, liked Christmas cards, found certain aspects of the to see the system ridiculous, absurd, or frankly exasperating. Some wanted institution disappear completely. Others wished some kind of disaster would befall them thatwould destroy all their Christmascard address listsso that they could start from the beginning again and no longer be motivated by a host of obligations, but simply by the spiritof friendship and celebration. (Schelling, 1979, p. 38)

* The French word is specularit6. Although "specularity" is not a common word in Anglo-Americanacademicdiscourse, it is occasionally used in reference tothe mutual mirroring between actorsof their beliefs, intentions, and, ultimately, actions. Trans.

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In other words, the people who sent cards did not consider their own behavior to be very rational. Granted, one could always say that since they did it, they had goodreasons for doing it, but such a conceptionis a prioriit is true regardless of the context. It does not give us any information about the individuals' intentions. It is more interesting to look at individuals insofar as they act as members of social systems, which is what leads them into inconsistencies and absurdities. Individual nonrationality thus cannot be separated from the social situation, as the following example illustrates.

1'6verg6fisme Elster's work contains numerous examples of individual nonrationality, whether it be prior commitment, the reduction of dissonance, the psychological dynamics ofthe Soviet system,the double bind, bad faith, or e'verge'tisrn+-the last of which we will discuss in a moment. AlthoughElster tends to link such behavior with rational choice models, when we examine it more closely, we will see that it is nonrational. Elster (1990/1993) based his analysis of everge'tisrne-a type of patronage practiced in Hellenic cities by prominent citizens, as well in Rome by the emperor and the members of the republican oligarchy-on the work of Veyne (1976). Elster noted that "the patron was in no way obliged to engage in [it],except by his own inner promptings and the informal expectations of the public" (1990/1993, p. 37).H e shows that e'verge'tisrne is not the result of a rational calculation (in the sense that one cannot see instrumental rationality in it), and that it was not efficient in relation to its subjectively stated goals. W e must therefore understand "inner promptings" to refer to unconscious motivations. In the language of this study, it is neither maximization nor subjective rationality. Moreover, Elster himself acknowledges that e'verge'tisrne isnot maximizing behavior. H e notes, along with Veyne, that in pursuing a goal simply in order not to lose the respectof others or to produce an effect on others, the goal itself is perverted: When man delights in himself and his greatness, he takes little heed of the is careless in calculatingit. Those othexpression to be produced on others and ers, moreover, know this. They know that authentic expression ignores spectators and does not seek to match the effects to them. Self-important men, who . . .Only an calculate too much, do not see the smiles behind their backs. expression not seeking to achieve an effect can achieve one. (Veyne, cited by Elster, 1990/1993, p. 52) Here we come back to the notion of the double bind, that is, a strategy that backfires upon itself. Subjective rationality is refuted by the phenomenon of the reduction of dissonance following an action: preferences change once the choice has

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been made. For example, the simple fact of making a donation to a given group leads the donor to validate the group's significance. Every action thus leads to a reevaluation of the situation. Once the choice is made, notes Veyne (1976), theintereststhat aresatisfiedtake on a disproportionate importance relative tothose that are not satisfied. In such a context, it is easy to understand that it would be difficult to maintain coherence among the to the practice of good reasons for acting, particularly in relation e'verge'tisme.

Elster did not analyze e'verge'tisme in terms ofsocial interaction.O n e does find in his work, however, the elements of an explanation based on social interaction. H e mentions, for example, the common need to feel governed by a good master, and the royal need to display and express majesty. But what seems important to me is that these needs are mutually reinforcing: the display of majesty reinforces the need to be governed by a good master, and vice versa. The social process (mechanism) referred to here is mutual reinforcement. According to this hypothesis, the explanation of evergetisme would rest more on social interaction than on the rational pursuit of individual goals. There is another way of using interactions to analyze e'verg6tisme; namely, in terms of the reciprocal reduction of dissonance. W e have seen already how a small choice can lead to a larger one, or, more precisely, to a modification of preferences that can itself lead to a larger choice (see also Freedman & Fraser, 1966). By the same token, one might think that a small manifestation of allegiance or admiration for a sovereign could lead to unconditional support. However, for this support to be become unconditional, the sovereign's behavior must be somewhat unpredictable; otherwise, it cannot generate the dissonance that would lead subjects, in turn, to make their support unconditional. And, of course, the subjects need to see each other displaying this unconditional support in order to believe in it themselves. W e can thus see how the subjects' allegiance and the nonrationality of the sovereign's behavior depend on and reinforce each other. Certainly, Elsteris not far from thisinterpretation when he remarked that subjects invent their own mystification. For example, he notes, again going back to Veyne, that "the sovereign needs only to live as sovereign as the lion lives as a lion, and that the narcissistic expression of his majesty is more impressive than any attemptto make an impression" (Elster, 1990/1993, p. 65). Yet, Elster is not interested in the sociopsychological processes. Elster cites Tocqueville: "Honor therefore is not strong because of being it is fantastic and strong for the same reason" (Elster fantastic, but 1990/1993). Elster then remarks (provocatively) that it was because of the absence of majesty that the Soviet regime lacked legitimacy; its quest for rationality weakened it. In contrast, the irrationalityofTrajan's column could only strengthen the cult of the emperor. Elster adds, again citingveyne, that

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”Grandiloquent nonsense has always been the privilege and sign of gods, oracles, and bosses” (Elster, 1990/1993, p. 65).1° Elster’s interpretations are still essentially psychological, and not relational.What fascinates him is that a sovereign cannot intentionally be majestic (just as Stendhal could only be natural naturally, not intentionally). The example of 6verg6tisrne shows us that nonrationality must be included as a central component of the social interactions that connect those their equilibwho initiate it and those who react to it; the interactions-and rium-are much more stable than the individual behaviors that are part of them. Such interactions create what is sometimes called the determination of agency by structure, in which individuals act as members of social systems. Determination should bedistinguished from constraints, although this distinction is often sidestepped. The problem is that there is some overlap. For example, social norms can both determine behavior (when individuals act as members of a system, though without constraints) and constrain it (particularly when norms have been fixed and are enforced).”

“It Makes No Difference to Me” Let us look now at another type of behavior that cannot be reduced to maximization, one that I call naive cooperationand that some considerto be expressed by phrase “it makes no difference to me.” This behavior appears in its pure form only amongchildren, although traces of it can still be found in adults. It appears during exchanges and divisions. Let us take the case of exchanging batteries for toy cars (Moessinger, 1974). Two children sit opposite each other. The experimentergives one, whom we will call C, three little electric cars, and the other, whom we will call B, three batteries, one for each car. H e tells Cthat CSparents have offered him these cars for Christmas, and that they could not find batteries for them. H e tells B that his parents have offered him these batteries, but they could not find anything for them to go in.’* H e then asks them what they are going to do. Three levels of behavior were discernible, depending upon the children’s ages. At the first level, theexperimenter observed alternating behavior. The children alternately gave and took something without taking stock of what they were giving, taking, or receiving. At the second level, the subjectsbegan by exchanging a battery for a car, each thus getting a car that worked. Then, one of the children in each pair gave his remaining car or battery to the other, saying that it made no difference to him. Here, we see a sort of generosity by absence of maximization, or rather by absence of the notion of individual ownership. This generosity is nevertheless naive to the extent thatit is the result ofa lack of understanding of social interaction, which is illustrated by the issue of extortion. When the

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experimenter suggested to B that he (B)propose to his friend that ”you give me two cars and I will give you one battery, and if you don’t, I will go home and you will have nothing,” B did not understand the role played by the threat. H e understood the first part of the extortionate statement-namely, that he would receive two cars andonly surrender one battery-and repeated it easily, but he forgot toinclude or repeat the essential element, the threat. Nor did the other child, C, pick up on the idea and make an equivalent counterproposal. Instead, C just accepted his friend’s suggestion and claimed that he was very happy to have one car that worked. These secondlevel subjects were thus excellent victims and poor extortionists.They were happy with their unequal exchange and did not experience jealousy. They were naive. At the third level, the subjects understood the idea of extortion, specifically the need for the threat of withdrawal. They also saw the possibility of very Iitcounterextortion. Despite this knowledge, the subjects did not-or tle-resort to extortion in theirexchanges. Most of the subjects were, indeed, spontaneously cooperative. And even though the final distributions were often the same as at the second level, the reasons were different.The child who, after the first exchange, gave away an object, was conscious of giving away something that could have eventually been something with which to negotiate. H e did not say ”it makes no difference to me,”because it did make a difference: he had committed a generous act. Young children’s social interactions thus demonstrate a new sociomoral dimension-namely, naive cooperation-wherebytheyare incapable of anticipating intentions and, above all, incapable of understanding the interaction of their own intentions with those of the other. Thus, they cannot blackmail each other,13 or, at least, their ability to do so is very limited (they can sometimes imitate a blackmailer, but their imitation lacks coherence). Thus, in exchanges among children at the second level, cooperation is, in effect, the only behavior possible. In contrast, once they have understood the game of reciprocal intentions, the solution they adopt is no longer unique, and their sociomoral system opens up to encompass a diverse range of possible new behavior. Although adults occasionally say ”it makes no difference tome,” this statement probably has a slightly different meaning for them than it has for children. For example, they might say it through altruism or politeness, or in order not to make the other feel guilty for, or self-conscious about, being given something (and generally the other person understands the statement in this way). Among children, ”it makes no difference tome” has to be taken literally. In effect, the mental systemthat makes the notion of individual ownership possible is not in place yet; psychologically, the child is incapable of distinguishing between ownership and possession (Moessinger, 1975). It does not mean that he has not yet made this distinction but could easily

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make it now by simply by correcting his way of thinking. Instead, he could not even learn to make it because he does not have the means to do so. He does not have thenotion (as child psychologists say) of individual ownership, even if he manifests proprietary behavior. As a result, the exchange at the second level is extremely stable; the two protagonists cannot fail to be ~ a t i s f i e d . 'Because ~ the children lack astuteness, and because they are incapable of anticipating the other's intentions and the interaction of their own intentions with those of theother, there cannot be intrigue, conflict, threats, or any kind of understanding of the mechanisms of disagreement. Thus, second-levelsubjectscannotand donot attempt to outwit each other. Heuristically, it is difficult to avoid making a parallelbetween the type of thinking found in traditionalsocieties and that found in children. For example, there are some analogies between the economy of ostentation and the children'sexchanges(RulliPre, 1971). Moreover, as Laine (1972)commented, "Nothing is more foreign to the 'primitive' consciousness than the notion of the person inherited from Roman law."If one were to take the above parallel seriously, its primary meaning would notbe, contrary to what is often asserted, that individuals in traditionalsocieties existonly interms of their relations with other people or other things. It would mean, instead, that the notion of individual property is foreign to them, that they are more egoto external centric than egoistic, that their exchanges fluctuate (according circumstances), and that they do not indulge in looking into the minds of others and adjusting their behavior accordingly. Finally, ashas often been remarked with regard to societies that are particularlycordial,a socialenvironment inwhich affectiveoutburstsare common often goes together with very hierarchical power, the minute observance of social differences (except, perhaps, in small, basically autarchic societies). Although I would not want tosuggest that such societies are infantile, there is an analogy with the child: a certainaffective confusion, the tendency to ostentation, the absence of any conception of the rule of law, and an understandingofsociety in terms ofobedienceandauthority(Furth, 1980). Thus, there are mentalities (here cognitive systems) that are particularly foreign to homo oeconomicus. These mentalities suggest that in order for truly maximizing behavior to be possible, the notion of one's own identity must be developed,along withthe notion of individual property. In addition, naive cooperation highlights nonrational behavior that leads to a particularly stable social order; specifically, it shows that more individual rationality-or rather astuteness-can lead to less social stability. Some might respond that naive cooperation relates only to children and perhaps members of traditional societies. Nevertheless, it shows that a society, or rather a social group, can be cooperative and egalitarian through some

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lack of rationality. Such a group would free be of conflict, intrigue, extortion, of conmanipulation, andall similar behaviorand attitudes. But such absence flict would result fromits members’ lackof intelligence and astuteness (reciprocal expectations,calculations concerningthe anticipatedimpact on others of one’s own behavior and intentions, and additional forms of interpersonal could exist only very ephemerally as it anticipation).Of course, such a group would not be able to adjust to a hostile environment(in particular an envito say, in an inegalironment made of smart maximizers); in reality-that is tarian society-egocentrism goes together with restraint and submission. Naive cooperation can thus be explained by the absence of stabilizing norms, that is, by the lack of closure in individual cognitive systems with regard to personal relations.What is paradoxical is that it is the absence of regulatory mechanisms that results in stable social interaction. Later, when the child reaches a higher cognitivelevel, exchange is more fragile-which should not be too surprising; abetter equilibrium does not necessarily lead to greater ~tabi1ity.l~ If we extend the above remarks concerning child psychology into sociological hypotheses, we couldattempt to say that societies inwhich individuare also the most rigid and als have the leasttendency to be guided by reason the most unresponsive to their environment. In contrast, societies in which individuals tend to be most guided by reason would be more mobileand better adapted to their environment (andthe most capableof changing it).

The Fundamental Bond The question of the possible existence of a fundamental or basic social bond (Eskola, 1988) has given rise to a debate within the theory of social exchange. Are individuals who interact and spend time together connected by social bonds that can be reduced to simple individual advantages? More generally, what bond (if any) is the basis for all social life? What is the fundamental or elementary bond that connects individuals? What is interesting about this debate is that it has lent support to the critics of utilitarianism and economic reductionism. It has also led to the suggestion that at the base of society there is not one bond that makes up the foundation of society, but several. The various disciplines or subdisciplines tend to favor one or the other fundamental bond. For example, psychoanalysts place the emphasis on attraction; the organizational approaches stress power relations; most social-exchange theoreticians emphasize exchange and individual advantage; social psychologists are interested in affiliation;16 others stress religious feeling, communication, or socialization mechanisms. Eskola (1988) looked at the issue of the fundamental bond bysimplifying it and placing it in the framework of interpersonal relations. H e commented that a social group is, by definition, a group of interconnected individuals.

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H e added, ”All that remains to be done is to define the fundamental relationship that keeps the members of the group together, just as gravity keeps them on theearth. Is it attraction, power,communication, or perhaps exchange?”17 Using historical examples to demonstrate that exchange cannot be the fundamental and elementary bond he was looking for, Eskola (1988) presented a strong challenge to social-exchange theory. In particular, through (Le his analysisof the village of Montaillou, France, in the fourteenth century Roy Ladurie, 1975), and through that of a group of millers in seventeenthcentury Finland, he showed that the individuals were not connected solely by exchange and that they were not independent, maximizing entities. H e maintained that individual property was restricted to a few objects and that the group or family was the holder of wealth. The result was that individual autonomy was,in a way, limited-in favor of thegroup.The millers, he notes, were not hierarchically organized, and if, for example, someone noticed that the mill needed to be repaired, that person did the repair himself. Thesehistorical examples reveal aspontaneous, relativelyegalitarian cooperation, without anytrue property rights orconscious hierarchical relationships.18 But for all that, there was n o democracy: collective decisions did not prevail over individual decisions. A s Eskola said, at that time people could not understand the idea thata majority could force a minorityto do its bidding. Again,onecannothelpdrawinga parallel between thesehistorical examples and thechild’s comprehension of social interaction.Strangely enough, spontaneous cooperation-coupled with an absence of the notion of property rights-resembles naive cooperation. Contemporary children, like their ancestors, are not maximizers. Nor are they democrats.The egalitarian foundations of majority rule are loston them.lg This digression by way of Eskola suggests that naive cooperation played an elementary orconnecting role in some earlier societies. It also brings me take on comback to a pointI have already stressed:altruism and egoism can pletely differentmeanings that depend on whether or notone is dealing with egocentric individuals. Recall that an egocentric altruist is an extravagant altruist, and that an egocentricegoist is naive; that is, he is barely capableof anticipating another’s desires and taking them into consideration in his calculations, for even his own desires are not very coherent. But in order to understand all the connections here, we must look at things more closely. From a distance,we see only egoistic individuals. Close up, we will be able to identify the different types ofegoism and altruism. In his historical studies, Eskola found no economicexchange in the strict sense. There was neithersystematic maximization nor ownership ofthe things exchanged. It was not a question of an intentional absence of maximization, however,but one of a cognitive limit. Similarly, it was not a ques-

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tion of nontransitive choices (which could always-as we have seen-be interpreted as maximizing choices, where the individual would simply be maximizing somethingother than what was immediatelyapparent), butone of psychological mechanisms that made transitivity impossible. If so, the behavior Eskola studiedwould strangely resemble naive cooperation,where the subjects areincapable of conceivingof anything other thana fleeting and circumstantial link between themselvesand their possessions.20

“It Makes N o Difference to Me” (Again) Laing (1971) gives the following example:Jill loves Jack. Jack loves Jill. Jill knows that Jack lovesJill. Jack knowsthat J i l l loves Jack. But Jack says that it makes no difference to him whether Jill loves him or not.As long as he loves her, that is all that matters. Laing doesnot say if it makes anydifference toJ i l l whether Jack loves her or not. In any case, note that if Jack andJ i l l are in a symmetrical situation (assuming that Jack’slove makes no difference to Jill), the couple is more stable than if that were not the case. Thus,theirs is a sort of naive lovethat cannot easily be perturbed by the other’sbehavior. It is only when it makes a difference that emotions such as jealousy could begin to operate. Of course, Jack and Jill’s case is different from naive cooperation. However, in both situations there areindividuals who are victim of an inequality, As in which-at least under acertain limit-does not affect their satisfaction. the case of naive cooperation, Jack and Jill’s situationis stable; each is indifferent to the love demonstrated (or not) by the other. It makes no difference. If it did, the couple would be less stable. Likewise, any sensitivity to the other’s pleasure or needs would make an exchange, let alone bargaining, more fragile. If we suppose Jack is trying to convince himself that he is indifferent to Jill’s love (as a means of fortifying his own love for her), we would belooking at a different picture. Jack would then be trying to commit himself to introduce a coherence or rationality intohis feelingsfor J i l l : he would betrying to make his feelings impervious to Jill’s, or ratherautonomous in relation to Jill’s. This kind of process, when it is conscious, is obviously doomed to failure. As Bateson, Dupuy, Elster, and others have often stated, one cannot become more autonomous on demand. Piaget continually reiteratedthe Child (1924/1959). same point in judgment and Reasoning in the In contrast, it is also possible for one individual’s affection for another to become, without any conscious effort, relatively independent of the other’s affection. I borrow my example from Cialdini (1985), whowas attempting to illustrate what he called the “hobgoblins of the mind.” H e tells the story of thedifficult relationship between Sarah and Tim. Sarah complains about Tim’s drinking. Shewants him to stop, and she wants them to get married.

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After an especially difficult period of conflict, Sarah brokeoff the relationship and Tim moved out. At the same time, anold boyfriend of Sarah’s returned to town after years away and called her. They started seeing each other socially and quickly became serious enoughto plan a wedding. They had goneso far as to set a date and to issue invitations when Timcalled. H e had repented and wanted to move back in.When Sarah told him her marriage plans, he begged her to change her mind; he wanted to be together with her as before. But Sarah refused, saying she didn‘t want live to like that again.Tim even offeredto marry her, but shestill said she preferred the other boyfriend. Finally, Tim volunteered to quit drinking if she would only relent. Feeling that under thoseconditions, Tim had the edge, Sarah decided to break her engagement, cancel the wedding, retract the invitations, andlet Tim move back in with her. Within a month, Tim informed Sarah that he didn‘t think he needed to stop his drinking after all; a month later, he had decided that theyshould wait and see before getting married. Two years have since passed; Tim and Sarah continue to live together exactly as before. H e still drinks, there are still no marriage plans, yet Sarah is more devotedto Tim than she ever was. She says that being forced to choose taught her thatTim really is the number one in her heart. (pp.52-53) This storyillustratesthe reduction ofSarah’s dissonance through the strengthening of her love for Tim-a process that occurs, it seems, without her knowledge. Her case is typical of postdecisional reduction (Aronson, 19881, one of the principal conditions of which is that the individual takes responsibility for his (inthis case, ofcourse, her) choice. Not onlydid Sarah give up her plan to marry her old boyfriend, but she also abandoned her effort to marry Tim, which only accentuated the reduction in dissonance. In order to remain consistent, she goes as far as to love Tim almost unconditionally.21 Now, whatever Tim’s attitude happens to be, it makes no difference to Sarah. Note that this change in Sarah‘s attitude toward Tim is based on a process (dissonance reduction) that Sarah is not aware of. One couldalso see this story fromanother angle; namely, that it is Sarah’s and Tim’s inconsistency (above all Sarah’s)that enables the couple to remain stable. It is the disorder of their minds that allows the couple to exist. Here, again, individual nonrationality and social stability are linked.

ORDER AND ORGANIZATION Specularity and Decision Makingunder Conditions of Uncertainty Uncertainty about the other’s behavior, and the difficulty to understand the reasons for it, is a source of disorder. If everyone acted haphazardly, as below, p.105), there would be no social order, in Dr. Rhinehart’s centers (see

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or at least one would have to look for stability and regularities at the high macrolevel (seeFor&, 1989). Further, unpredictability may sometimes emerge from the interaction of predictable individual behaviors. W e will begin by distinguishing three types of uncertainty (which is not to be confused with the feeling of certainty or uncertainty that accompanies a decision). Uncertainty isoften presented as aproblem analogous to blindly picking different-colored balls from a container (let us say a vase). In the first type of uncertainty (l), one knows the composition of the vase itself and the proportion of balls of each color (but not, ofcourse, which ball one is going to pick). In the second type (2), one knows the composition of the vase but not the proportion of balls of each color (for example, one knowsthat there are black and white balls, but nothing else). In the third type (3),one knows neither thecomposition of the vasenor the colors of theballs inside it (which does not, however, prevent one from speculating about either thevase or the balls). These ”vase problems” can be metaphors for our knowledge of other persons, their actions, and intentions. In ( l ) , one knows what kind of individual one is dealing with, and has known it for long enough to have a reasonable basis for attributing a probability to his actions. In (21, one knows what kind of individual one is dealing with (at least one knowswhat type he is not), but one cannot say much about the probability of one or another type of behavior. In (3),one knows nothing about the other person, that is, one does not know what kind of a person heis, and onedoes not know what he is likely to do or to think (but one can substitutes opinions, representations, or, as social psychologists say, attributions, forthis lack of knowledge). W e should note at the outset that, no matter how little we know about someone else, there arealways more orless plausible inferences or hypotheses we can make. And since a plausiblehypothesis is already the beginning of knowledge, one cansee, even in (3),that one’s inferencesabout the other are not merely a matter of chance; they take into account what one knows or believes one knowsabout the other, such as his appearance, presentation of self, socioeconomic class, and so on. It seems to be this third situationthat Simon (1972) is referring to when he cites the example of the chess player who finds himself incapable (Simon is talking of computational incapability here) of knowing the structure of the environment; that is, of what is going on in his opponent’s mind. However, as mentioned above, an inability like this one does not prevent the individual from formulating hypotheses. There is, moreover, a limited number of reasonable moves one‘s opponent can make (thatis, the available moves are constrained by the strategy of the game), which brings us closer to (2). Finally, if our player knows how his opponent plays, he can seedifferentpotentialstrategies as more or less likely, perhaps even probable, which brings us closer to ( l ) . It thus appears that there is some overlap in the three cases above.

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There are so many things we do not know aboutothers that we probably most often are placed in situations (2) and (3). Thiswas, no doubt, what Shackle (cited in Williamson, 1991, p. 64) had in mind when he noted that ”in a great multitude and diversity of matters the individual has no record of a sufficient number of sufficiently similar acts, of his own or other people’s, to be able to construct a valid frequency table of outcomes of acts of this kind. Regarding these acts, probabilities are not available to him.” Georgescu-Roegen (cited in Williamson, 1991, p. 64) was of the same opinion: “A measure for all uncertainty situations...has absolutely no meaning, for it can be obtained only by an intentionally mutilated representation of reality. We hear people almost every day speaking of calculated risk, but nooneyetcantell us how he calculated it so that we cancheck his calculations.” Such calculations are, nevertheless, extremely common. For example, the questions one frequently asks oneself about an individual’s personality are, from a psychological pointof view, part ofsuch calculations. However, their epistemological status is not easy to pinpoint. They are (nondeductive) inferences that are extremely varied, ranging from random, wild, or magical speculationstoreasonablyplausible,informed hypotheses thatperhapseven incorporate the results andgeneral principles of scientific theories. They range, that is, over the full spectrum of the rational and the irrational, from the subjectivity of an isolated and distorted viewpoint to the objectivity that is the result of a reasoned integration of viewpoints and confrontation with reality. Note that communication alone cannot remove uncertainty. Indeed, the situations in whichuncertainty is removed by communication are sometimes those in which communication is the least useful. The example here is a game involvingcoordinationamong theplayers.Recallthat in a game involving coordination, there is already a kind of tacit cooperation between the players, which is based on their shared knowledge. In contrast, when their interests are conflicting, communication does not necessarily reduce uncertainty. Each player hasan interest in deceiving the other, andeach knows it. The following twoexamples illustrate that there are cases in which communication eliminates some uncertainty, but that there are other situations in which neither communication nor knowledge of others’ intentions has any impact on such uncertainty.The first example (illustratingthe former point) is a coordination game taken from Schelling (1960), and the second (illustrating the latter point) is an example of a non-zero-sumgame-a game involving conflictinginterests-taken from Morgenstern (1 963). Schelling(1960)describesa game in which an individual, A, selects whatever card he wants, and another, B, has to guess what card A picked. Suppose A wants B to guess the card he picked, but he is not permitted to communicate with B. “Such a conundrum,” says Schelling, “depends more

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on imagination than logic-on poetry and on humorthan on mathematics.” A will draw upon memories the two have in common, and he will intentionally select thecard that B is likely to think that A will choose, considering whatthey know about eachother, what eachknows the otherknows, and so on. Clearly, if the individuals could communicate-for example, bycheating-this secondary uncertainty would be removed. In real situations of coordination, individuals will usually end up finding astable solution to their problem, asthey are both looking for a unique solution to their game. The Holmes-Moriartydilemma, presented by Morgenstern (19631, is another example of uncertaintyabout the other’sbehavior, but one that is not this dilemma, which concernsMoriarty’s puraffected by communication. In suit of Holmes on his way from London to Dover by train (and Holmes’s resulting effort toevade Moriarty), each tries to anticipatewhat the otherwill do; each adjusts his course of action based on that anticipation; each then adopts a new courseof action because of those adjustments; and so on and so on. In the above situation, communication would have made no difference in the instability of each interim solution to the problem of determining what the other is doing (and when and howhe is doing it). If Moriarty had communicated with Holmes-for example, by announcing that he would catch up with him in Dover-Holmes would have immediately thoughtthat Moriarty was trying to trick him into making the mistake of getting off the train before reaching Dover. But Holmes might also think that Moriarty would think that Holmes wouldthink that Moriarty was tryingto trick him into getting off before Dover, and so on (one canimagine all the levels ordegrees of beliefs about, and adjustments in response to, the others’ intentions). Nor would imagination, poetry, or humor be of any additional assistance. No matterwhat, communication between Holmes and Moriarty would have done nothing to eliminate the secondary uncertainty in their situation. In general, when we take into account the dynamics of specularity-the anticipation of,and adjustment to, the intentionsand behavior of others-neither a deeper knowledge of the other nor unhindered communication is enough to reduce uncertainty. I cannot help thinking about Edgar Allen Poe’s short story,”The Purloined Letter.” Recall that Dupin has been askedto find a compromisingletter that a governmental minister has stolen. Dupin does not have to think long in order to determine where the ministerhas hiddenthe letter. Knowing that the minister is a poet and a mathematician, knowing what the minister knows about the police, and, finally, knowing thattheletter would have to stay within the minister’s reach, Dupin, putting himself in the minister’s place, is convinced that ”to conceal this letter, the minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all” (Poe, 1839/1960, p. 99). Dupin also knows thatthe police had already

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searched the apartment from top to bottom, which reinforces the detective’s conviction that the letter had to be the first thing that one saw in the minister’s apartment, that it had to be immediately visible; knowing the police as he does, Dupin knewthat they would have searched all, but only, the likely hiding places. Dupin knew, too, that the minister would himself know which places the police wouldlook. After reasoning out the situation, Dupin makes up somepretext to visit the minister at his apartment, whereupon he discovers the letter in plain view. Here again, any communication that might have occurred between the to deceive minister and Dupin wouldhave been deceptive. Its aim would be the other, and both would know it. What is central here is not communication, but the structure of the game and, from a psychological point of view, hidthe elaboration of hypotheses about the others’behavior. The minister, in ing the letter, puts himself in the place of the police (that is, he tries to anticipate what he knows and imagines to be the behavior of policemen), and Dupin, knowing what he knows about the minister and taking the circumstances into consideration, comes up with the hypothesis he believes to be the most plausible. There is an intellectual process of inferring and of anticipating intentions, which is the starting point of knowledge about the other, and which consists essentially of producing plausible hypotheses that take all the available information into account. It is thus not a question of specific knowledge through identification, mental confusion, or who knows what direct access to the other’s thoughts. When Dupinreveals his methods, he mentions the case of a boy who wins all the marbles in a game of even and odd. Recall that this game consists of guessing if the number of marbles your opponent is hiding in his hand is even or odd. The person who guesses correctly wins the hidden marbles. If he is wrong, he loses the number of marbles that are in his opponent’s hand. Of course he had some principle of guessing, and thisinlay mere observation and measurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand, asks, ”are they even or odd?” O u r schoolboy replies, “odd,” and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to himself “The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will therefore guess odd;” and he guesses odd, and wins. (Poe,1960, p. 93)

Of course, guessing works here only because the boy’s opponent is not very astute.In addition, that theboy’s hypothesis about his opponent’s astuteness proves correct is nothing more than pure luck. W e are talking here about a belief rather than about an hypothesis. Nevertheless, one can come up with hypotheses about others that are more or less informed and plausi-

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ble, and belief and hypothesis are not completely unrelated. The closer one i s to belief, the more subjective and less rational is the decision, in the sense that the belief is, at most, only partially regulated by a system of norms or impersonalknowledge. Moreover, if the event we are reflecting about i s unique or rare, we are likely to end up with beliefs that are poorly informed, which i s another problem. What we see through the above-mentioned examples i s something we already know: we see that it makes quite a difference whether individuals perceive their interests to be common or divergent. In the first case (common interests)mutual expectations eventually lead to a fixed solution, and the more astute the individuals, the sooner they get to the solution. In the second case (divergent interests), the solution i s unpredictable, or, rather, unstable. And indeed there are intermediary possibilities between these two poles, where individuals have mixed interests or fluctuate about them. What we also see is that individuals have unequal abilities to predict the other’s behavior, or, rather, to make plausible inferences about it. Thus, when interests are conflicting,some individuals may-at least temporarily-take advantage over the other, thus breaking the circleof mutualuncertainty about the other’s ehavior.

Economics and Social Order Neoclassical economics avoids the problem of social order, substituting for it that of the market equilibrium. Startingfrom postulates such as the maximization of utility (combined with choice under conditions of uncertainty), its practitioners delimit both a field of possible decisionsby the actors and a rule specifyingthe consequences of their decisions (consequences that often relate to allocation). They then imagine that these individuals are making their decisions in a free (competitive) market. In this context, the question of the social bond cannot be posed; the individuals are driven by their own interests. The neoclassical vision is perpetuated in the new institutional economics, which, a s its name indicates, places central emphasis on institutions. W e should point out that the word institution i s taken in both its meanings; that is, as (1) a collection of rules or procedures, and (2) an entity (organization, administration).2’ Fromthis perspective, the issue of social order corresponds with that of the institutionalization of society (see Furubotn and Richter, 1991). Some might be tempted to portray the institution (in sense [ l I) as a game. One could, for example, imagine an institution such as price controls as a collection of decisions, with limits beyond which the players are penalized. However, as Hurwicz (1991) noted, such a game-theoretic conception of price controls does not account for the system of preventingillegal acts,

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which is relegated to the outside of thegame. Herewe cometo an important aspect of the issue of social order. A more fruitful, productive, and richer manner of looking at institutions is to see them as systems (Bunge,1979). I do not mean systems that aredisconnected from people (dualistic holism), which is a wayof interpreting systems that has been popularized by the approach known as philosophy ofsystems. I mean, instead, thatwe think of institutionsas interconnected systems that fit together and that have emergent (new) properties and resultant properties (which are the already-existing properties of the components). Accordingly, institutions insense (1) aresystems of properties; therules and standards can be consideredto be the propertiesof functional social systems.Institutions in sense (2) are thefunctional systems themselves. This perspective allows to us conceive of reality on different levels, since systems are nested. By emphasizing the connections (in functional systems) and interdependencies (in systemsofproperties), one is not temptedtoabstractthesystemfrom its environment. Thus, this systems approach provides the natural framework both for the new institutional economics andfor socioeconomics. Note, however, thatcurrent economists'training hindersthe widespread adoptionof this approach (see thesection below on"The Systems Approach"). Let us summarize.There are three different ways in which economists see of norms; andthird, social order: first, as an equilibrium; second, assystem a as an organization. At equilibrium, which is achieved through the behavior of individuals, we have to imagine that actions and plans come together without clashing and in a stable fashion. The equilibrium of supply and demand can be understoodin this way, as can the equilibria of games, contracts, and agreements.The norms andprocedures of a socialorder, it is generally believed, enable one to avoid conflict later, but they also legitimate domination. The organizational analysis of social order emphasizes the division of labor in the context ofa hierarchy of power or domination.

Stark's Social Bond The question of the fundamental bond, which I broached above from a psychological and sociological perspective, corresponds, in the field ofsociology, to the question of the social bond, an issue that isclosely linkedto the issue of social order. Unquestionably, WernerStark's work in sociology is the most detailed on the subject. According to him (1976, 1978, 1980, 19831, there are two broad currents of thought about social order, one involving alienation or repression, andthe other a low, spontaneous creation. According to Stark, Ross (1926) was one of the firstsociologists to develop and support the ideaof a founding oppression,and Gumplowicz (18931, one of the first to support theidea of spontaneouscreation ("der Staat ist naturnotwendig" [the state comes out of a natural necessity]).

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Stark saw social order through customs and laws. H e conceived of order as being in opposition to disorder; that is, as a kind of social integration resulting from a system of habits or norms, but he also saw order as the absence of conflict. Apart from these definitions, the emphasis in his own sociological work was on social order as the stability that results, in large part, from customs (or folkways) and laws. H e devoted himselfto analyzing the reasons why individuals observe folkways, obey laws,and act as members of social systems. H e looked for the fundamental social bond in the bases of law-abidingness-obedience to thelaw and the acceptance of social institutions-and he saw order as resulting from such obedience and collective acceptance. O n e problem with these concepts, apart from the fact that they tend to obscure the social dynamics, is that customs and laws do not always bring about socialorder. Another is thatby opposingorder and disorder (here, integration and disintegration), we lose sight of order and disorder as two indissociable aspects of the society’s f ~ n c t i o n i n g Something .~~ that strengthens the social bond in a given social system may weaken it in another system. Conflict maylead to cohesion. Abandoninghabits or norms canresult in the reinforcement of the social bond.

The Systemic Pointof View A system is a complex thing (broadly construed) whose components are linked together or connected. It has new, or emergent properties, that is, properties that are not properties of its components. Its history is different from the individual historiesof its components. A system exists only after its components come together (naturally or artificially) (Bunge, 1979). Living systemsareself-organized-they assemblethemselves(through natural they are composed of subsystems that did not processes), as it were-and exist as such before they came together. O n e could probably say the same about social systems. From a functional point of view, self-organizing systems represent states of equilibrium, with active compensation for perturbations. O n e could also say-although somewhat metaphorically-that such systems pursue goals.24 All social systems and each of their components of manifest a certain amount of autonomy, while always acting as members even more comprehensive social systems.The basic concepts here are that (1)a social system cannot go its own way, any more can its components (it does not have complete autonomy), and (2) a social system is not entirely controlled by its environment, nor are its components. There are some other fundamental distinctions that need to be made.Of special importance is the distinction between real systems and abstract or conceptual systems. The problem here is that if a conceptual system serves as a modelfor a real system, there isa risk of confusing the two. However, a

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model i s a representation of reality, that is, an image. And though it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the image from the thing it represents, there is an ontological difference between these two types of systems. Among real systems, one generally distinguishes functional systems-in which each component (or subsystem) i s connected to others (that is, interacts with others)-from systems of properties, where each property depends on other properties. In other words, the two types of real systems are those made up of interacting components (functional systems) and those made up of interdependent properties (systems of properties)(Boudon, 1979/1981; Bunge, 1979). For example, a work group, a family, a community, an organization, and a public administration, are functional systems. There i s a certain density of interactions between members of the system. Each of these social systems has emergent properties: for example, it pursues goals that would not be the goals of its members if these members were unconnected individuals; it manifests cohesion; it has a culture; it is the locus of power relations. In contrast, neither the clientele of Amazon.com nor a random sample is a system. As for systems of properties, they translate into changes or differences that are linked to other changes or differences in the system. For example, a change in the social structure i s linked to a change in the degree of anomie (Merton, 1957); the development of capitalism i s linked to the development of Protestantism (Weber, 1904-05/1976); greater equality of educational opportunity is linked to less socialstratification(Boudon, 1973); and so on. Of course, some interdependencies are more important, more fundamental, than others. Although systems of properties have to be distinguished from functional systems, they ultimately refer to functional systems. Social properties are always properties of social systems. For this very simple ontological reason, an explanation of systems of properties sooner or later has to refer to functional systems. Let us return to functional systems and emergent properties, using the example of organizations. What we call an organization’s culture emerges, to a large extent, from the functioning of the organization itself (within its environment). That culture, in return,determines the work methods, relationships (formal and informal), management, values, standards, and goals. Dysfunctions present other examples of emergent effects in organizations. Classic examples of bureaucratic dysfunction include both the distortion of information and the rigid interpretation and enforcement of an organization’s directives. These phenomena emerge; they are not really properties of individuals outside the framework of the organization. Yet, these new properties, such as dysfunction, can also be seen as properties of individuals; rather, they have individual properties as counterpart. For example, in the cases of distorted information and rigidly applied directives mentioned above, the individuals involved may have a taste for secrecy or an obsession for working within the rules, respectively, which are indi-

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vidual properties. The factthat a social property can have an individual counterpart should not be surprising; social interactions create emergent properties, which in turn “determine” individual^.^^ Yet emergent (social) properties are never exactlysimilar to individual properties. Organizations are complex things because,in part, of their many subsystems and interconnections,and because of therichness oftheir environment. What is fundamental to their complexity, however, is that an organization forms a whole. Morin (1984), reacting against a simplistic conception of organizations, was adamanton this point. It is important to emphasize that the explanation of a complex thing does notitself have to be complex. For example, the systems approach is not in itself complex even though it does permit the thematization and explanation of complex things, such as the connections among relationships. It permits one to tackle questions relating to social dynamics in a very general way. What is striking aboutthe discourse of nonsystemic sociology is its absolutism. Insteadof talking aboutorder and disorder, it should be investigating relative notions, such as whether one social system has more or less order thananother. Instead of talking about a microlevel and a macrolevel, it should be determining whether and how one level is more micro or more macro than another level. It talks about the integration or cohesion of a social system while losing sight of the fact that these notions are relative ones. This inability of nonsystemic sociologyto perceive differences reflects its tendency to see society as monolithic andto obscure the gradations. It is worth noting again that the systems approach leads to an in-depth view of things, in contrast to simplistic or “black box” explanations.26 Indepth understanding is thus contrasted with whatis immediately observable. W e can illustrate this difference with an experiment by Clarapede, which Piaget frequently cited. ClarapPde asked children to compare mosquitoes and bees-in particular, by askingthem to point out the differencesand similarities between the two types of insects. To his surprise, they cited many more differences than similarities.The older they were, however, the more similarities they cited. Piaget’s explanation was that the most central things are the least evident. As he said, the grasp of consciousness goes from the periphery to the center (Piaget, 1973). I mention this example because the systems approach, being the most general theory that permits the thematizing of similarities, is notjust a richer,deepertheory of organizations; it enables us to understand whatis less obvious.

Disorder, Conflict, and Disorganization The problem of social order and disorder is different from thatof organization and disorganization. As we have seen, social order is often defined as general, incorrectlystability (Faris,1964), and disorderis oftenIikened-in

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to conflict. Conflict, however, canbe a source of integration2’ and even of order, which suggests that disorder and conflict should notbe put in the same category. Certainly conflicts bring some disorder, but there can be disorder without conflict. The ordeddisorder dimension i s distinct from the peace/ conflict dimension. One point needs to be clarified here: the notion of stability has two senses: structural stability (the stability of a social bond, of a system of norms, of cyclical patterns of interaction or organization, and so on) and the permanence of components (that is, individuals and groups withstand perturbations and tend to stay in their social system; see Moessinger, 1991, pp. 86-87). Social order, it seems to me, i s more often defined through the structural stability of a social system than through the mere continuity of its membership. From this perspective, disorder canbe classed with structural instability. In turn,the notion oforganization refers to thecoordination(or regulation) that occurs at all levels of a system-that is, to self-regulation and its mechanisms-and not to stability as such. Nevertheless, organization and order are closely linked. Recall that social systems, like all organisms,are both open (in that they interact with the environment) and closed (in that they are self-regulating). One could say that the open quality i s functional and the closed quality,structural, but doing so would obscure the ordedorganizationunity, whichmanifestsitselfright down to the most elementary processes. Consider, for example, asystem A,, which interacts with its immediate environment, A’. Imagine that the environment changes and that A’ changes into A“.There are now two possibilities: either system A, cannot be maintained and disintegrates, or there i s a compensatory modification and A, i s transformed into A?,which can then continue to interact with A”.Of course, this transformation occurs in an environment that can itself be modified. It should be noted that the transformation of A, into , A which i s the process that permits stability, can also be seen as an organizational process-in the elementary sense that an obstacle that was preventing it from reaching its goal was removed. Disorder and disorganization are also similar notions. Following the distinctions outlined above, disorder i s a structural instability, whereas disorganization refers to a functional breakdown (dysfunction) or to a problem or an obstacle in the pursuit of an important goal (see Mattessich, 1990; Sommerhof, 1969). One could, as does Morin (1984), reduce crisis to a case of disorder, that is, to a case of structural change following a perturbation. But then one must distinguish its various levels. A large change at a microlevel can be accompanied by only small changes at the macrolevel. Moreover, what perturbs a system at a microlevel canlead to the preservation of the organizational structure at the macrolevel. True, a crisis can hit an organization on several levels, but it is still important to define the level or levels at which the crisis originated and to take into consideration that a crisis is not necessarilytransmitted from one level to another. For example, a crisis

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within one family does not necessarily lead to a crisis between that family and other families. A crisis between two organizations does not necessarily lead to a crisis among the individuals that make up these two organizations. Moreover, a crisis at one level can lead to the organization being preserved at a higher level. This last type ofcrisis is obviously very different from acrisis that engulfs a higherlevel (forexample, one in which two countriesgo to war following skirmishes that only involved afew individuals).

An Extreme Case of Disorganization Disorganization is defined, in relation to organization, as lack of coordination among activities, or dysfunction. In a broad sense, disorganization is an absenceof organization. What does that mean? Imagine what would happen if individuals were not affected by one another and acted as if their neighbors did not exist. Such individuals, since they do not care about others, would not engage in exchange, coordinateamong themselves, or cooperate; nor would theyenterinto conflict with one another. With each individual operating from his own vantage point, and as the individual trajectories crashed into each other unpredictably, socialinteraction would rapidly become chaotic. Of course, chaos like this does not exist; later in this chapter, I will attempt to suggest why.28 Nothing prevents us, however, from imagining whattotal disorganization would be like. Since such a total absence of interpersonal coordination is imaginary, it can only be found in works of fantasy. The Dice Man (Rhinehart, 1971) is one example. It features a psychiatrist, Luke Rhinehart (the same name as the author’s), who has developed a formof therapy that uses dice; luck plays a fundamental therapeutic role. H e begins by experimenting on himself, living his life according to the roll of the dice. H e starts cautiously, at home in the evening, by establishing options for himself, such as going to bed, saying hello to the upstairs neighbor, or watching television. Then hestarts to play. Every time he is faced witha choice, hesets six options and allows the dice to make the final decision. Little by little, he makes it a habit to include at least one daring option,often a fantasy. W e can see this “dice therapy” as asort of apology for the lack ofcoordination among subselves. In the case of the dice man, it is as if the selection of the subself that is predominantly going to react is left to chance. The individual finds himselfin the position of an observerwho is comp!ete/y powerless and incapable of predicting what is going to happen. But this situation is of his own making; or at the very least he is complicit in his own loss of control. Of course, the options are established by a relatively normal individual (that is,one whose personalityor subselves are relatively integratedand who is himself relatively well integrated socially). Nevertheless, Rhinehart (the

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character) has a gambling side. Thus, for example, one dayin the beginning of January, he decides that if he gets a double six when rolling the two dice, he will leave his wife and children. H e trembles as he reaches for thedice. O n e cannot help thinking about Zen0 and the deadlines he repeatedly sets tostop smoking. Zen0is also imposingan extremely difficult life change on himself, and he, like Rhinehart, becomes almost frantic in the process. That Zen0 decides to stop smoking-that is, that his decision is not random-makes little difference. And that Zen0 makes himself afraid is a kind of by-product, an unintentional consequence, of his decision. Much the afraid is also same could besaid, n o doubt, of D r . Rhinehart: making himself his principal interest in playing his little game. It is something like Russian roulette. Thus, he reaches for the dice, his hand trembling. “But suddenly 1 felt tired. The dice man seemed boring, uninteresting, different. It was as if all that was beyond my strength. ...For the first time in six months, I thought about giving updice’’ (Rhinehart, 1971). [Author cites French text. Ed.] Here we are facing something similar to Minsky’s case of the tired child who destroys the tower he is building (see p. 52). It is a kind of reaction to an anticipated contradiction, a reactionthat impels the individual to clarify things. by his identity /-reinIn terms of the subselves, the individual-guided vents himself, creating a somewhat forcedidentity, A, who partially and temporarily obscures 1. A, who is temporarily perceived as the natural self, is prepared to takean enormousrisk, a risk that is very frighteningto /(andperhaps even to A). At the same time, / fears the change that A risks imposing upon him. However, asthe fateful moment approaches, / begins to distance himself fromA and, as he doesso, takes a fresh look at the whole business. N o w it seems like a game to him, like something that is not true, a farceundoubtedly because his subselves are not well integrated. And the reason he is now distancing himself is that he has recovered his previous equilibrium. Despite this episode, Luke Rhinehart (the narrator) increasingly enjoys performing original and daring-evenabsurd-feats. H e climbs a tree in Central Park while barking weirdly; he freezes in a yoga position during a cocktail party; he yells“Iam Batman‘‘ at the end of a telephone conversation with his psychoanalyst, and so on. H e increasingly enjoys making pithiatic comments to his colleagues and friends. H e claims to be discoveringhis natural self. O n e could also see his absurd or gratuitous bravado as cutting him off from his natural self. What he is saying is that by acting in this way he is liberating himself from social conventions and also, perhaps, from the constraints his identity and personality impose on him. H e is giving up his autonomy to increase his liberty. Whether this liberty or these new possibil-

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ities allow him to rediscover his natural self is another issue,underlying that which is not only the old nature-versus-nurture controversy, but also the idea, perpetuatedby psychoanalysts, that a person’smind includes parts that are themore natural or profound to the degree that they are unusual or unexpected, even if the individual is unaware of them himself.

Dice Men and Disorganization In addition to dice therapy, Dr. Rhinehart also sets up dicecenters, where the only rule is that anything goes.29The stated goal of these centers,called Centers for Experiments in Totally Random Environments (CETRE) is to further relieve the individual of the burden of his identity. But what interests us here isthat the individuals often get together in the same placewithout coordinating with each other, at least in the usual sense of the term. The CETRE is, indeed, the most extreme example of disorganization I have come across in literature. Individuals react absurdly to the behavior of others; here, we leave the framework of socially integrated behavior-and even of social behavior itself. As soon astrainees arriveat a CETRE, they areasked to abandon any consistency or permanence in their habits, to renounce their personalities and beliefs, and to change (repeatedly) their names and styles of dressing. Nevertheless, there is a hierarchy, and there are rules that cannot be left to the roll of the dice. As Rhinehart gets a participantto say: In our structured anarchy. . .the authority is in the hands of the therapists (called ”referees” in most centers) and the policemen, whoever they may be. or actions inappropriate to There are rules (no weapons, no violence, no rules the game that’s being played),and if the rules are broken, a “policeman” will ”jail”. About take you to a ”referee” to determine whether you must be sent to half of our “criminals” are individuals who insist, who continue to insist,on the fact that there is one true person in them, who wants to return home. Since such an attitude is inappropriate in our workrooms and playrooms, these people must be sentenced to jail and to the hard labor of dice therapy until they are better able to function in multiplicity. The other half of our criminals are new students who still have to learn how to break laws with ease,even when those laws are as strange as those of our dice centers. (p. 231) [Author cites French text. Ed.] What we are looking at here is structured anarchy, and the structure seems to exist in spite of the efforts of theorganizers. The games are played according to certain rules, and even though individuals are told not to observe them, they do. The absence of coordination among them i s limited by the very game that they play together. Thisexample of thedice centers, in showing how far disorganization can be taken, also reveals its limits.

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Conventions and Games of Coordination The notion of convention plays a specific role in the vision of a spontaneously emerging social order. To conventionalists-Gumplowicz (1893) could already be considered one-social order is created in the same way that a language is created; that is, as a group of conventions that are established, extended, and modified (Lewis, 1969). The notion of a convention suggests thatindividuals spontaneouslylook for enduring modesof interpersonal adaptation.It postulates that tacitnegotiation occurs withinthe framework of a common knowledge. Schelling’s (1960) work well demonstrated the role of common knowledge in the creation of conventions. H e saw games of coordination as the source of stability among institutions. Recall that within such games, social interactions tend to become habits, traditions,and conventions. The case of a couplewho split up in a large store is a classic exampleof a gameof coordination. O u r two hypothetical players wantto find eachother, and to do so, they must end up in the same place, wherever that place is. Each will thus ask himself where the other islikely to go, speculate about what eachknows about the other(and aboutwhether each knows whether the otherknows it), and so on. Once a habit is established (for example, everytime they lose eachother, they will both go to the perfume department to meet up), it has some stability. There is no reason to change the habit, for it is precisely because it is established thatit is desirable. Many conventions are thus arbitrary, butfixed. Time is an example:When weswitch to summer or winter time, the fact that we are adapting to seasonal time differences is certainly important, but the essential thing is that everyone does the same thing,whether they are moving the clocks backward or forward. Driving onthe right side or on the left side of the road is another example. To generalize the above point, conventions are arbitrary because each individual conforms only because he knows (or thinks he knows)that others are also conforming. Thus, we cannot talk about individual rationality here because the individual’s choice depends on others’ choices. As Schmidt (1991) noted, coordination cannot be reduced to individual rationality qua maximization under uncertainty. W e should add that we cannot talk about individual consistency here, either-at least not in the sense of a well-corroborated system ofgood reasons. Thus,the stabilityof conventions doesnot emerge out of individual rational behavior. Precisely becauseof their stability, games of coordination are sometimes considered to be models of social order(Thevenot, as cited in Schmidt, 1991). However, we must distinguish coordination in the context of games and coordination in the context of real interactions. Using the term coordination for both does not make them one and the same thing. In the context

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of games, it is postulated that the players are interested only in adapting themselves to others, without any resulting costs. The stability of games of coordination is predicated on these premises. In reality, establishing a convention often requires sacrifices and negotiation from eachparty.To go back to the example of thecouple in the large store, they might havedifferent preferences concerning the meeting place, in which case they would have to negotiate. In short, convention in social reality is not very different from a contract (Moessinger, 1991, pp. 25-27).

EMERGENT EFFECTS, RESULTANT EFFECTS, A N D C O N S T R A I N T S The Notion of Emergence In reaction to Tarde’s atomist ideas, Piagetdefined emergenceas novelty: ”The wholeis not the result of thecomposition of ’structuring’ elements,but adds a set of new properties to the elements, which are structured by it. The additional properties emergespontaneously fromthe union of elements, and cannot be reduced to any additive composition sincethey essentially consist in forms of organization or equilibrium” (Piaget, 1965, p. 60). According to this approach, any property of a thing that is not a property of its components is emergent (Bunge, 1979); for example, breathing is a property of the respiratory system and not of its components. Thought is a property of the brain, but not ofn e u r ~ n s . ~ ~ Tindividuals wo can be linked by a relationshipof mutual trust,power, or cohesion, andso on-properties that are already social (evenif elements of themcan be foundin individuals). W e 960, know that triadshave emergent properties (for example, see Rapoport [I pp. 144-1451 on the dynamic of disequilibrium) that neither dyads nor the individuals in the triadspossess. W e have seen that dysfunctions are properties of bureaucracies, but not properties of juxtaposed individuals. A family can be characterized by its styles of communicating and of relating, which are, again, relational properties. A state can be democratic, which can also be a property of some of its components, though not of the individuals of which the state is composed (who can be democrats-but that is something else altogether).Many other examples could be mentioned. The emphasis on emergence leadsto a distinction between organizational levels, such as that of dyads, triads, families, organizations, governmental departments, the state, and so on. The idea here is that each level is composed of things that belong to a lower level, which some describe as the notion of hierarchy (not to be confused with hierarchies of power). Under this approach, the preliminary sociological task consists of distinguishing levels, delimiting social systems, uncovering their properties, and studying their mechanisms and dynamics.

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An emergent property can appear rapidly, that is,as soon as the system is assembled, or slowly, according to a dynamic or historical process. Let us first take examples of rapid emergence:A s soon as a football team is assembled, it can playfootball; thus,a typeof game appears, which is an emergent property. Two individuals can fall in love at first sight and immediately start a relationship, of which mutual consideration and jealousy constitute two emergent properties. Crowd phenomena are another example. Earlier, we discussed examples of historical emergence (justice, the structuralizationof space). The phenomena of critical mass, of diffusion of a novelty, of geographicdistributions (for examples of this type of phenomenon, see Schelling, 1979), of the appearance or modification of a fashion, a norm, a social category, and of the evolution of morals, laws, and so on, are other a fortiori, examples of dynamic emergence.There is n o way to separate-or, to oppose-these two types of emergence (rapidand historical or dynamic); they constitutetwo poles in the creation of novelty. That said, aswe have already seen, sociology cannot be summed up simply as the study of processes or interactions, that is, of functional systems; sociology also comprisesthe study of systems of properties. For example, a suicide rate (or a change in a suicide rate), a custom, a norm, a professional status, and a socialhierarchy are, equally,social properties. Properties(or the properties of properties)make up asystem when they are organized into stable relationships. Thus, we talk about asystem ofnorms (or system a of a system of norms), about social stratification, about the preservation of elites, and so on. Parson’s systems and Bourdieu’s fields are also-or, rather, should be considered-systems of properties. Totheextentthat social properties emerge out of social interactions, social properties lead back,quite naturally, to the study social of interactions. Indeed, if social properties always have their source in social interactions, then systemsof properties will ultimatelybe explainedin terms ofsuch interactions. Here, we are coming back to the central problem of emergentist epistemology, in accordance with which the emergent properties of a thing are not cut off from itscomponents and are to be understoodon the basis of those components and howthey interact. Those things or their components can themselves be more or less well integrated, more or less cohesive, and more or less autonomous. They are also connected to their environment, which is also more or less integrated, and so on. In other words, there are several levels of explanation. For example, the explanation of an interpersonal equilibrium or the dynamic of a coalition relates to individual behavthe social ior, whereas the explanation of ageopolitical factrelatesto dynamics of states and regions or to the interactions ofsocial and geographical factors.What should bestressed here is that allexplanation depends on other explanations, andwe should try to establish a certain amount of compatibility among them all; that is, we need to supersede the contradictions

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that may exist between well-established theories or between wellcorroborated hypotheses. Coordinating hypotheses and theories may involve different levels, however; interlevel definitions and explanations are richer and deeper than intralevel ones.

Emergent and Resultant Effects Before going any further, we should recall that, in addition to emergent which are effects, which are properties of a system, there are resultanteffects, properties of the system’s components. National income and mortality and birth rates are resultant properties. However, there are few resultant properties in their pure form in tightly interconnected systems such as social systems. Let us examine this claim a little closer, first through the example of voting. The result of a vote is no more than the sum of individual choices. However, if we take a more global and dynamic approach to voting, the emergent effects also are evident: for example, the mere process of organizing for an election creates new alliances (orconflicts) between parties; the result of theelection is that new people come into power; after the election, coalitions and political solidarity can emerge, as can intrigue and conflicts. To give another example, suicide, like voting, is a solitary act. A suicide rate is the result of the sum of individual suicides. In this sense, a suicide rate is not a new property of a given population. Nevertheless, if we take a more global view and examine, for example, the difference between the number of suicidal individuals and the number of suicides, we would undoubtedly end up also investigating the effect ofthe environment, particularly the social environment, and how individuals act as members of the social systems to which they belong. Let us return to the example of social cohesion that emerges from the practice of magic. W e will follow Durkheim’s (1912) analysis here, in accordance with which the practice generates cohesion as an unintended social property. Let us consider, then, a situation where political leaders encouraged the practice of magic in order to promote social cohesion. Suchcohesion would, in this context, be a partially anticipated emergent effect (at least by the political leaders themselves). If, in turn, all the individuals in the collectivity practiced magic only in order to promote the goal of social cohesion, we could no longer be sure whether the cohesion had emerged or resulted from these practices. The distinction between emergent and resultant effects is sometimes difficult to disentangle. Let us consider another example: the cohesion of a winning sports team. If the members of the teamknow that cohesion will enable them to getbetterresults, they will intentionally engage in activities, for example, that promote friendships and other interpersonal ties. In that case, their improved performance will result, rather than emerge, from those ties

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(it also will result from many other things, especially athletic training). But the cohesion could also emerge from the sporting activity itself and not be the result of the players’ intentional efforts to promote it. Of course, cohesion can be both resultant and emergent. Indeed, social systems have numerous properties that are both resultant and emergent. Let us take the case of a firm’s corporate culture. O n the one hand, it emerges from the firm’s operations, and on the other, it is often imposed by management. Obviously, it is difficult to delimit what emerges and what results. O n e would imagine that a culture of excellence, for example, would be largely imposed, whereas a highly political culture is more likely to be emergent. In defining emergent effects as unintentional we run into another problem, namely, that individuals themselves are not always sure of their own who have the intentions. When the collective actions of individuals-ones same goals and whose subselves are well integrated-lead to unintentional results, it is relatively straightforward to trace the source of the emergent effect. However, the verynotion of individual intention is problematic, as we saw in chapters2 and 3. When there is not one intention but many, and when they arevague, partly obscured, and so on, even the question of whether the new collective property corresponds with the intentions of the individuals is much more complex than the simplified models to which scholars often resort to account for emergent effects. It is thus rather simplistic to define emergent properties through unintentionality. If one looks atthe hidden aspect of intentions or the (partially) unconscious aspects of behavior, as I have here, one cannot help but think that such a definition is like a petitio principii.In addition, one is thus opposing the individual and society, and obscuring that intentions are not themselves without social weight. Finally, one is reducing society to two levels, that of individuals (who always have very clear intentions) and that of society, which is the sole locus of emergent properties. It would be preferable to define emergence as n ~ v e l t y , ~ as’ Piaget did (1965b), rather than in terms of unintentionality. In concludingthis section, we shouldlook at an ontological problem concerning the concept of a property.W e have known at least since the Scholastics that the concept of property has two poles, one substantial (of the thing itself) and one representational (produced by the mind). It goes without saying that a new property that is purely representational cannot be emergent in the sense that a substantial property can. Note, however, that outside the logico-mathematical disciplines, we always talk about properties that are at least partially substantive. And in emergent properties there are, indeed, these two poles. W e are thus led to distinguish, when weexplain a social fact by means of a mathematical model (for example, a game), between the novelty that isproduced bythe model and the novelty that is intrinsic to the reality with which the model corresponds.

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Like an Invisible Hand In summarizingthe philosophical foundationsof neoclassical economics, Arrow and Hahn(1971) express the view the notion thata social system moved by independent actions in pursuit of different values is consistent with a final coherent state of balance, and one in which the outcomes may be quite different from those intended by the agents, is surely the most important intellectual contribution that economic thought has made to the general understanding of social processes. (p. 1 ) [Author’s translation. Ed.] Underlying this remark are profound-and interconnected-ontological and epistemological issues. The ontological issue is that ofmonism anddualism. In the social sciences, dualism is radically holistic, thatis, society is considered to be disconnected from individuals. According to dualist sociology, society is cutoff from individuals: it is, by nature, different,and it acts on individuals from the outside. According to the monist position, society forms a whole: individuals andsystems are interconnected, and individuals have a role in society’s evolution. The epistemological question is that of resultant and emergent effects: are the bestexplanations reductionist (priority is given to resultant effects), emergentist (there are emergent properties), or holistic? Note that monism can be either strictly reductionist or emergentist, whereas dualism is neither one nor the other. To put it another way, the ontological question is: is the invisible hand it guided bya body outside attached to a visible body-that of society-or is society, which is itself invisible? The epistemological question is: What kind of mechanism is this hand controlled by? To come backto Arrow and Hahn, since they speak of the ”result,” they seem to be referring to resultant effects. Nevertheless, this appearance may be misleading, a matter of vocabulary alone; intherestoftheirarticle,theysay nothing to exclude emergent effects. Whatever the case may be, and although they make no attempt to clarify this question of emergent effects, their views clearly fall within a monist framework; they do not see economic equilibrium as something external to society. The quotation from Arrow and Hahn raises many other questions. For example, the “final state of equilibrium” (an emergent effect) arises out of independent individual actions. What they mean is that the choices of one individual are not affected by those of any other individuals. It would be tedious to mention again the numerous criticisms raised by this postulateconcerning the independence of people’s choices. I will say only that from the psychological standpoint, individuals who are indifferent to others’ choices are either extremely egoisticor obtuse [obtusl-by which I mean, insensitive ~ ~ individualism and unresponsive to their social e n ~ i r o n m e n t . Since

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togetherwith moral autonomy is not reallyin keeping with egoism (Moessinger, 1989), however, we should assumethat individuals are obtuse. But obtuse individuals are not rational....Here, we cometo a centralproblem: either individuals are rational, in which case they have no morals and are antisocial, or they demonstrate moral and social concerns and interests [socialitel in which case they are not rational. From the latter perspective, social order-or theelements of social stability that are visible-would emerge from the interactions between nonrational and very interdependent individuals. W h y have we strayed so far from this idea that social order may have its origin in something other than the(egoistically) rational?The problem is that by dint oflooking for mathematical models, the question of confronting reality has been obscured-or it has been left to others, such as psychologistsor sociologists. This division of labor has led, in turn, not only to the reification of the boundary between economics andother academic disciplines, but to the deprecation of the nonrationalist ontologies of psychology and sociology, thus eliminating any further need to confront and understand the real world.

A Brief History of the Notion of Emergence The notion of emergence undoubtedly originated in the distinction made

by the Sophists in the fifth century B.C. between natural and conventional institutions. Adopted by Aristotle, the distinction was integrated into Euro-

pean thought.This particular opposition does not quite capture, however, the current distinction between emergentand resultant effects.As Hayek (1967) observed, what the Greeks were opposing corresponded to the opposition between what is independent of man‘s actions and intentions (the natural) and their results (the conventional). This distinction from theGreeks persisted for many centuries, and until the eighteenth century there was no term to express the idea of spontaneous social novelty. According to Hayek, up until the appearance of modern sociology over the course of the eighteenth century, the only accepted means of expressing that some regular relationships observed in human affairs were not the result ofa concerted action wasto say that they were ”natural.”And up until the rationalist reinterpretation of the law of nature during the seventeenth century, the term “natural” served to describe an order or regular relations that did not spring from man’s will. The word “organism” was one of the two generally accepted terms to designate the product of growth that was spontaneous as opposed to willed or invented. [Author’s translation. Ed.] In the seventeenth century, the natural law tradition was replaced by a completely different conception, in accordance with which the natural was

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a product of reason. Ultimately, it was this rationalism that Vico and Mandeville aimed at, and their writing stimulated the work of Tucker, Ferguson, Smith, and other thinkers. Ideas such as the concept of the generalgood and that of an institution appeared in their novelty and spontaneity. At the same time, social novelties appeared that werenot only independent of individual behavior, but capable of constraining that behavior, as well; for example, Smith’s invisible hand led individuals to further an unintended end. The notion of emergence, according to Bunge (Vacher, 1993), was precisely formulatedfor thefirst time by J.S.Mill in his System oflogic. H e gave the example of water, which is formed from hydrogen and oxygen, emphasizing that waterhas newproperties that areradically different from thoseof its components. A s for the notion of socialnovelty, it no doubt first appeared in the contextof social order, as we will see below, but without always being perceived as truly emergent.33Brown (1965) claims that it was Le Bon who first transposed the notion of emergence ontothe social sphere: Contrary to an opinion whichone is astonished to find coming from the pen of so acute a philosopher as Herbert Spencer, the aggregate that constitutes a crowd is not merely the sum or average its of elements. Whatreally takes place is a combination followed by the creation of new characteristics, just as in chemistry when certain elements are brought into contact-acids and bases, forexample-and combine toform a new substance possessing properties quite different from those that formed it. (Le Eon, cited byBrown, 1965, p. 734) Like Mill and Le Bon, Durkheim (1993) also turned to chemistry to illustrate emergence, giving the example of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin. H e noted that bronze is a hard metal, whereas copper and tin are very malleable, and its melting point does not result from that of its two components. The advantages of chemical metaphorslike these are threefold. First, they tend to place the problem in a monistic framework; second,they allow for of the system’s determination (the system’scomponents operate as a function properties); and finally, they allow the question of emergence to be posed independently of individual intentions.

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Giambattista Vico Writing in the early part of the eighteenth century, Vico was oneof the first to react against rationalism.It w a s primarily as a Catholicthat he opposedit. In his view, we donot reallyknow what has beencreated. Only Godis capable of knowing the world. Vico used the Catholic argument (which would later be found, practically unchanged,in the writings of the positivists) that

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mank reason does not get to the essence; human knowledge deals only with appearances. W e often attribute toVico (1730/1984)what is called the ”antirationalist theory of social phenomena” (see Stark, 1980). Even if his assertion homo non intelligendo fit omnia [man acts without understanding] was often misunderstood, he stressed that institutions such as marriage or property emerged from disorder, that they created order out of chaos. ”Semi-bestial giants,’’ he said, ”united with strange women ...solemnly celebrated marriages ...and had children. They would ultimately come to establish and divide patrimonies’’ (Vico, 1984). Vico attempted to compare the differentpeople heknew. H e started from the idea that man tries using his reason to improve his lot, but is constantly distracted by his passions. H e transposed this idea onto the level of society. Societies oscillate between periods of increasing social well-being and periods of decadence, when individuals give themselves up to their passions. A certain levelof well-being leads to decadence, but then, of necessity, reason takes over again and passions are eclipsed. It is a recurring cycle, which he referred to as ”course and recourse” (corsi e ricers/].

Mandeville and Smith Without question it was Mandeville who broke most radically with the rationalistic social conceptions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the sardonically provocative Fable of the Bees, he showed how private vices can lead to public virtues. What is new is not so much that individuals pursue their own desires, but that social well-being is produced by immoral behavior (Campbell & Skinner, 1985).The question of whether this behavior is maximizing was not posed at thattime (or, at leastnot clearly posed). Mandeville, IikeVico, gave the impression that this behavior was quite disorderly. Mandeville’s critique of individual rationality appears in addition to his poem from which the following, well-known passage, which deals with the division of labor, is taken. “We often ascribe tothe excellency of men’s genius and to the depth of theirpenetration, what is in realitydue to the long work of time, to the experience of the generations that preceded them and that differed little in sagacity” (Mandeville, cited in Hayek, 1976, p. 9, n. 10). Mandeville minimizedthe role of individual intelligence and reason, and often stressed that it is the multiplicity of human desires that is the basis of human sociability. The more numerous and varied human desires are, the more likely it is that people will gather themselves together into strong,stable societies. Mandeville discovered something that was very striking to eighteenthcentury economists (Burke, 1795; Smith, 1776; Tucker, 1776; see Schuyler, 1931, 1951), which Adam Ferguson (1814) encapsulated in his celebrated

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assertion that institutions are the result of men’s actions, but not of their plans.The idea that individuals producesocial order without even intending to do so is the great sociological idea of the eighteenth century. What was surprising atthat time was not emergence or social novelty in itself, but rather the mystery of the invisible hand, in which some sawGod’s work. O n e is reminded of Smith’s phrase (l 776): “Our supper does not depend on the benevolence of the butcher, the beer seller, or the baker, butrather on their self-interest” (Smith, 1759/1997).W e should distinguish, however, distinguish Smith’s self-interest (1759) and Mandeville’s private vices: It is the great fallacy of D r . Mandeville’s book[Fableof the Bees] to represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any direcevery thing asvanity which has any reference either tion. It is thus that he treats to what are, or to what ought to be, the sentiments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry that he establisheshis favouriteconclusion,that private vices are public benefits. (Smith,1759) Smith attempted to dissect this self-interestwithout unduly diminishingit.

As Schmidt (1985) shows, he distinguished between self-interest and egoism;

self-interest included consideration of the other’s interest.34In a way, Smith was talking about individual interests that are already coordinated. Part ofthe Edgeworth (1881), as mysteryis thus resolved. It is notuntil later-with Schmidt mentions-that the individual was consideredto be totally egoistic. Thatis, unlike Smith, Edgeworth gave an individualistic interpretation to preferences.35 In any case, the social outlook of the eighteenth century-apart from Smith, perhaps-wasthat (relatively) immoral individuals produced social order by their unrestrained activities.O n e might wonder whythe reverse situation was not seriously considered; namely that moral individuals might create disorder. W e should not forget that at least since the Crusades, individuals with high moral designs have produced wars, misery, and social disorder.36But these macro-effects were not perceived as emergent effe~ts.~’To theextentthatthemacro-effectswere believed to result from individual actions, they werenot seen as new,and to the extent that they wereseen as the effect of divine intervention, they werenot seen as emergent.

Vilfredo Pareto For Pareto, all behavior had two aspects: objectiveand subjective. From a subjective viewpoint, almost all actions are considered appropriate by the actor (they are subjectively rational). From an objective viewpoint, Pareto saw a clear distinction between logical and nonlogical actions. In fact, the subjective-objective distinction was not the perspective that Pareto stresses. H e focused on the distinction between logical actions (which are rational,

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with the means appropriate to the end) and nonlogical actions (with the means inappropriateto the end, thereby precluding the achievement of the intended end). For example, making a sacrifice to a divinity to improve a crop is a nonlogical action, whereas burningfield a to fertilize it is a logical action. In other words, there are types of behavior that arelogically (causally or rationally)connected withthe actor’sintended end.Thereare also actions that do not lead to the intended end becausethe means were inappropriate. conceptions, which he I do not want to go into the details of Pareto’s developed with considerable care and erudition. I only want to go briefly back to the distinction between logical and nonlogical actions. If, as Farina (1980) thought, Pareto considered the distinction to be avery importantone, it is because he saw nothing arbitrary or provisional about it. But, in fact, it is rendered arbitrary by the arbitrariness of thechoice as to who establishes the goal of the action. Is it the actor himself? Is it someone else? Moreover, an action is only provisionally logical;that is, it is logical in relation to a particular state of knowledge. O n e could consider any action to be nonlogical to the extent that the means at one’s disposal can always be improved.This distinction is thus not as absolute and static as Pareto had us believe. An action is not logicalonce andfor all,it is logical at a particulartime, in a particular context,and taking into account the exact level of means-ends appropp. 20-23). priateness one wishes to obtain (see also above, Pareto’s sociology was undoubtedlythe most significantattempt toincorporate individual nonrationality into a sociological theory. O n e could see it as Pareto’s wanting to do for sociology what he did for economics; that is, to produce ageneral theory that linked individual behaviorto social equilibria. However, whereas he succeeded, to a large extent, in integrating levels in economics (that is, in clarifying the micro-macro links), he did not succeed in achieving the same level of integration in sociology (and perhapsdid not even see the magnitude of the problem). His analysis of the social equilibof remainders and derivations. rium remains disconnected from his analysis It seems to me that two types of obstacles-epistemological and ideological38”prevented him from going furtherinthe direction of sociological integration. holdingan The principal epistemological obstacle relatestoPareto’s extremely rationalist and not very realistic view of science. Even though he criticized economic theory for not being ableto get close enough to reality, he remained very attached to the rigor of mathematical models. For him, there was no tertium quid between scientific rigor and verbal confusion. For example, he had harsh wordsfor those who lookedfor a psychological cause of value. H e criticized their “nebulous conceptions,” their ”amphigorical phrases,“ the ”jungle of words” (Valade, 1990, p. 199). H e emphasized that value has no cause. H e might as well have also saidthat it is a priori.

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T h i s discussion of value brings u s back to the links between psychology and economics. Pareto was very clear on this point: one should venture as little as possible into the subjects that relate to psychology.39 H e believed that the reason economic science has developed to become the ”only part of [the social sciences] that is starting to be well known, is preciselybecause that it has avoided psychology’’ (blade, 1990, p. 1 8 1). Let us return, in the light of these ideas, to the distinction between logical and nonlogical actions. One might think, at first glance, that logical actions are more abstract, more unreal, than nonlogical actions, which are closer to reality. But even if Pareto sometimes permitted such a view to slipout, it must be stressed that his remarks on nonlogical actions do not constitute psychology. Nonlogical actions are not closerto reality than are logical actions. Pareto tried to illuminate the ”grammar” of social behavior. When he talked about logical actions (and h i s work, including Mind and Society, deals much more with logical than nonlogical actions), he was obscuring nonrationality, and when he spoke about nonlogical actions, his conceptualization was once again a priori. Here again, economic methodology functions as a model. Even if Pareto (1967) expressed the desire to move closer to systematic observation, he laid out-axiomatically-the elementary aspects of human behavior. H e stated unambiguously that scientific propositionsare true when they agree with the facts. There is no other criterion for truth, he said, and there can be no other. Yet, we must not forget that his principal contribution to economics was a remarkable abstraction and generalization of the economic model: for the cardinal scale ofutilities,which isimplicitly unique, Pareto substituted a function that represents a family of functions increasing with ophelimity. T h i s function i s so general that nothing can invalidate it. Nevertheless, Pareto believed that the function was in keeping with the facts, and it is reasonable to think that what he had in mind for sociology was an undertaking of the same type: anabstract undertaking that addressed the field’s most fundamental aspects. Pareto valued the internal coherence of economics, its autonomy in relation to related disciplines. H e wanted to separate economics and sociology, thus closing these disciplines in on themselves. T h i s separation contradicted his emphasis on the interdependence of social phen~mena~~-frornwhich one would otherwise be forced to conclude that what is studied by economics i s interdependent with what i s studied by sociology. From a realistic perspective, in any case, it is not clear how sociology and economics could be disconnected. But again Pareto, even while continually invoking experience, had a very rationalist concept of science. As for the ideologicalobstacles confronting Pareto i n h i seffort to integrate sociology and economics, we should note that he was a liberal and that he was fiercely opposed to state socialism (Busino, 1983). H e elaborated this

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subject in numerous writings, particularlyin his correspondencewith Pantaleoni, Croce, and Naville (Pareto, 1975). Certainly he was not an apologist for the free play of economic forces (nor did he spare liberal ideology, whose na'ivete he pointed out in his discourse on socialist systems), but he was not unaware of what he himself had contributedto demonstrating in his Manual of Political Economy (1906/1971), namely, the spontaneity of the general economic equilibrium. Valade (1990) argued that Pareto's ideological conceptions were close to those of Yves Guyot(1906), whosethesis can be summarized in the following phrase: "Progressis in an inverse relation to man's coercive actions towards man;in a direct relation to man's actions towards things." Arturo Labriola, a professor at the University of Naples, was extremely critical of the above ideas. Especially noteworthy are two points in his cricritiquethat tique of rationalist, liberal, and individualistic economics, a Valade (1990) described as being principally directed against Pareto and Pantaleoni: Itis false to maintain that human psychology is principally subordinated to the intellect. Feelings prevail over reason.Theobject of study should therefore not be an abstract man carrying out rational, uniform, logical acts pursuant to a well-understood economic interest, but a real man whose feelings and desires are expressed within the framework of the social class to which he belongs ... 2. Liberal economics positsthat each individual acts in isolation, he acts in spite of other partners (not in opposition, rather in ignorance); but all economic organization is that of a collectivity, and no more than one can liken the evolution of the state to that of an individual, can one see this collectiveeconomy as anartificial construction. (Valade, 1990, p.209) 1.

The ideological obstacle I discussed above appears indirectly in this critique. Pareto could not conceive that orderor socialequilibrium could emerge from nonrational individual behavior. H e thus confused the nonrationality of behavior with the irrational description("nebulous" and "amphigorical") of that behavior. In this sense, Pareto remained a rational choice theoretician.There was, however, some ambiguityin his work to the extent that nonlogical actions can sometimes beinterpreted as real, nonrational actions. In any case, the core of his sociology looks like a failure. Pareto wasunable to show that social orderemergesfrom nonlogical actions. H e kept thinking that social order can only bethe result of external intervention (that is, by the state), but at the same time rejected this idea for ideological reasons. Perhapshe might have thought otherwise if he had succeeded in showing that social order can emerge from nonlogical behavior.

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O n this hypothesis, Pareto was unable todemonstrate the link between nonlogical actions and social equilibria to his own satisfaction (that is, deductively). As aconsequence, toplacethe emphasis on nonlogicalactions would have been, for him, tantamount to justifyingstate mechanisms to regulatebehaviorand itseffects.For ideological reasons,Pareto could not accept such a possibility.

Friedrich von Hayek Hayek’s outlook was quite different from that of Pareto. To simplify, one could say that, for Hayek, individual nonrationality allows social order to exist. O n a deeper level, Hayek, unlike Pareto, had no desire to develop a scientific sociology. Hayek must therefore be seen within the English individualist tradition of Mandeville, Smith, and Ferguson, an evolutionist perspective that was subsequently elaborated furtherby such German writers as Humboldt, Savigny, and Gumplowicz. According to this perspective, social order arises naturally or spontaneously-at least in the absence of any constraints-out of irrational or unpredictable individual actions. Mandeville’s of thought: celebrated quotation well characterizes the origins of this current [Rleason, with a capital R, does not exist in the singular, as given or available to any particular person, as the rationalist approachseems to assume, but must be conceived as aninterpersonalprocess in which anyone’s contribution is tested and corrected by others (as cited in Hayek, 1948/1976, p. 15). What exactly he meant by reason with a capital r, however, and how it is different from reason with a small r is not clear. Whatever Mandeville meant, Hayek (1976) likewise emphasized that order appeared spontaneously and that it satisfied-by means that no one completely understands-individual needs. Therefore, he believed w e have to try and preserve this spontaneous order: The major public preoccupation shouldbe not with individual needs but with to the conditions for maintaining the spontaneous order that allows individuals satisfy their needs, needs of which the authoritiesare unaware. [Author’s translation. Ed.] Obviously, it is legitimate to ask whether, in the very attempt to preserve “spontaneous” order, the spontaneity itself is not destroyed. Nevertheless, for Hayek the essential condition for preserving spontaneous order i s the free expression of individual choice (under theconstraint of elementary rules of justice). Since needs are diverse and changing, and since theindividual himself does not know what hewill want in thefuture-as the information provided to himby prices fluctuates-no centralized system can know orsatisfy

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his needs; thus, the individual himself is in the best position to choose his immediate goal andhis immediate course of action.Such an individual cannot be captured in the notion ofhomo rationalis. The individual does choose in accordance with his desires, but he does not know whathis future desires will be. His choices must therefore be considered nonrational. Hayek (1 973) distinguishes imposed order from spontaneous order. The first is obtained through submission. The second i s endogenous; that is, it arises out of the functioning of each particular social system. Hayek dwelt extensively on spontaneous order, specifically for the purpose of demonstrating that it is not the result of any intent (even though onecould attempt to attribute such an objective after the fact). For Hayek (1978), social orderis not and cannot be totally imposed. He distinguished the market, which is a ”deliberate arrangement,’’ from a collection of markets “that serves a multiplicity of separate and incommensurable ends” (p.108). It is in this second sense that he saw social order as a group of markets: The confusion that has been created by the ambiguity of the term “economy” is so serious that for our present purposesit seems necessary to confine its use strictly to the original meaning in which it describes a complex of deliberately co-ordinated actions serving a single scale of values, and to adopt another term to describe the system of numerous interrelated economies which constitute the market order. (p.108) This type of market order, or what Hayek refers to as a catallactic order, does not result from exchanges alone, but also from interpersonal adjustments. (The Greek verb catallattein meant “not only ’to exchange,’ but also ’to admit into a community’ and ’change from enemy into friend’” Hayek, 1976.) The distinction between order and market order, however, remains unclear. Following Hayek, a market order is not constituted exclusively of exchanges, but also of adjustments, that is, of some sort of organization. Like market order, social order is based on diversity. For Hayek, diversity is the cement of society. His basic hypothesis was that individuals spontaneously engage in games that are cooperative, rather thanzero-sum, in character, andthatcatallactic games create wealth (Hayek, 1978). To this hypothesis canbe added Hayek’s view concerningthe unpredictability of the be determined only after the consequences of one’s actions-whichcan event. “Though the share of each . ..will depend only in part onhis skill and i s the condition opportunities to learn facts, and in part on accident, this which alone will make it the interest of all so to behave themselves as to make as large as possible the aggregate product of which they will get an unpredictable share’’ (Hayek, 1976, p. 122). Here we are encountering a type of social Darwinism, one in which unpredictabilityleads to the adaptation to new circumstances. This conception of society leaves little room for

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morality, which is not seenas a product of the functioning of society, but rather as being in some way outside of society. As in the social exchangesof the neofunctionalists in sociology (like Blau, Gouldner, or Homans), interpersonal adjustment-the adjustment of expectations- occurs through the game of deception and rewards, which also, for Hayek, improves communication. However, whereas the neofunctionalists see interpersonaladjustment as lending coherence and rationality-and thereforepredictability-toindividualactions,Hayek sees individuals as fundamentally irrational and unpredictable. In addition, and in contrast to the social-exchange theories of the neofunctionalists, Hayek sees information as being provided by prices-the same mechanism through which, for him, communication is established. Hayek was no doubt right to stress the nonrationality of individualbehavior, but he basically stopped there.He considered this nonrationality as presenting an impenetrable barrier to any furtheranalysis-as if no more could be said. In this way, he justified the most spontaneous individual freedom. Moreover, since he made no further effort to examine nonrationality, he did not attempt to understand it or, as a consequence, to understand how different types of individual behavior combine with, or add to, one another. In short, he did not tryto explainsociety. But evenif attempting to explainsociety requires a certain division of labor between the socialsciences, we cannot, as Hayek did, refuse to study individual behavior simply because it is nonrational. He was condemning outright a whole field of knowledge that in his time was already showing great promise. This lack of interest in psychology goes hand in hand with a fascination with social order. Since social order is contrasted with individual intentionality (or has been since at least the seventeenth century), there i s a tendency to caricature this opposition. In order to show that social order i s not the result of individual intentions, social philosophers have invoked the intervention of God or of the mysterious invisible hand. Alternatively, they have caricatured individuals, making themappear more irrational than theyareas Mandeville and Hayek did. The most important problem being, for them, that of socialorder, these writers obscured and distorted the problem of individual b e h a ~ i o r . ~If’ theyhadbeeninterestedindisorder,theywould inevitably have seen that coherent, even moral, conduct can lead to social disorder or disorganization.Such interest in psychology may in turnhave led them to view the links between individual nonrationality and social order. For Hayek, defending individual nonrationality was primarily a way to defend individual liberty and liberalism. Changeable individuals (but if they are changeable, can they be responsible?) in a changeable world must be free to act. Like Mandeville and Smith, Hayek maintained that social order came out of the interaction among individuals who were pursuing their own interests (even though theseinterests might not be very clear to the

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individuals themselves). H e concluded that individuals had to be left to act freely. H e postulated that these not very rational or predictable individuals knew theirownenvironments better than any planner did. Although this view mayhave merit with respect to the individuals’ immediate environment-andeven here there are considerable individual differences-it has much less merit with respect to more distant circumstances. Hayek did not take into consideration that, because of peoples’ lack of information about others’ actions and about their own circumstances (broadly construed), free actions are often uncoordinated. H e postulated, instead, that irrational and free individuals would produce an optimal society. It is difficult to ignore the ideological side of Hayek’s work. H e tried primarily to show not only the negativeeffects of all attempts to correct the equilibrium of the market, but the suboptimal features of any egalitarian society. H e started from the abstract idea of a perfect society, and showed how it could be achieved, what conspired against achieving it, and so on. First and foremost, his goal was to defend and illuminate this perfect society-not, however, as a model that could be held up against reality and evaluated, but as an ideal toward which all societies should strive. Instead of simply emphasizing that social order arises out of individual nonrationality, Hayekwould have donebetter to examine it a little more closely. H e would have seen the different types of nonrational behavior and the diverse relationships between such behavior and the environment, the world. T h i s attention to the psychological and sociological details of behavior would have enabled him to see that from certain types of interactions, order certainly emerges, but also that from other types of interactions, disorder emerges. And he would have seen that from some interactions order can result, and not emerge. In short, he would have seen that the spontaneity of individual behavior does not in any way guarantee social order.

The Issue of Explanation Since Boudon is unquestionably one of the sociologists who are currently most interested in the problem of explanation, his work will be the starting point for addressing the question of explanation in sociology. In Effets pervers et ordre social [Perverse Effects and Social Order] (1977), he noted that ”sociologism” (by which hemeant dualistic holism) i s the chronic disease of sociologists-and added that the best sociologists (that is, Rousseau, Tocqueville, Marx, Merton) knew how to distance themselves from it by proposing an intentional man. To be precise, what Boudon meant by sociologism i s a group of ideas in which the actions of individuals can be explained on the basis of elements existing ”prior” to those actions-structural constraints, the socialization process, and so on.

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Boudon did not mean to imply that social facts can be explained completely on the basis of individual, autonomous behavior; in his work he has placed enough emphasison perverse (or emergent)effects that he cannot be accused of radical reductionism. Nor does he deny environmental constraints. What he does state, however, is that in the majority of cases, an explanation of social facts on the basis of individual, deliberate, and subjectively rational behavior is a good explanation (see p. 44-46).

Two Types of Explanation. Boudon distinguishestwobroad types of explanation in sociology: onedeterminist and the other referring to the ends sought by individuals themselves. H e gives two accounts from a newspaper:

1 . M r . X, theimportantindustrialist

who,according to witnesses, seemed to be very tipsy when he left the restaurant after a meal, smashed his car into a tree. 2. Two motorists, who were driving directly at each other in the middle lane,reportedly flashed their headlights. A head-on collision was unavoidable. In the first case, the explanation is determinist, says Boudon; thatis,the action can be completely explainedin terms of previous events. In the second case, the explanation is based on goals pursued by the actors. Boudon considers these two typesof explanation to be mutually exclusive. ”The two explanatory types are completely different. In the first case, the motorist’s behavior is explained causally. In the second case, the accident is, by contrast, explained through a rubric in which the actors’ intentions and their image ofthe appropriate ways to achieve them playedacrucial role” (Boudon, 1977/1981). [Author’s translation. Ed.] Despite what Boudon says, there is no legitimate reason to oppose these two kinds of explanation. In fact, all actions are accompanied by goals, and individuals’ intentions are often related to their past histories.The first example bringsintentions into play. For example, perhapsthe industrialistsaw that justifications such as “I turned the he wasgoing to hit a tree. Perhaps he used wheel sharply to avoid a rut” or ” I would rather hit a tree than an oncoming car.” In short, this kind of action is also accompanied by justifications and intentions. As for the second example, the motorists’ signaling with their headlights constitutes previously learned behavior. For each, this behavior interacts with the opinion he forms of the person coming towards him, an idea that is linked to past experiences. Boudon’s-and other sociologists’distinction is not a useful one; a good explanation includes individualintentions as well as circumstances (in particular social circumstances).

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Boudon makes the same distinction again in The Art of Self-Persuasion (1990/1994). As in Effets pervers et ordre social, he opposes explanations by means of the causes to which individuals are subject, and explanations that individuals themselves invoke (and by which they are supposedly guided). H e considers explanations through reasons to be better than those through causes. H e dwells at length on the explanation of magical rites, contrasting Levy-Bruhl’s explanation that takesprelogical mentality tobe the cause, with Durkheim’s explanation through reasons. Boudon does not always distinguish between two important problems relating to explanation. The first problem is: what constitutes a good sociological explanation.Is it an explanation that gives prominenceto individual reasons-as Boudon believes-or to behavior(and ultimately, to psychophysiological mechanisms)? This question is a central one not only for sociology, but also for psychological epistemology-a question that we have discussed earlier (pp. 46-47). I mentioned then, following Piaget, that an explanation cannot be based exclusively either on reasons or on behavior. In fact, contrary to behaviorism, an individual thinks when he acts, and contraryto intentionalism,heacts when he thinks (thatis, action precedes thought and often explains it). on The second problem is: shouldsociologicalexplanationbebased something in addition to the reasons invokedand the behavior? More specifically, should explanation be basedon something other than what is observable? Boudon maintained that it should not. H e criticized L6vy-Bruhl, who tried to infer prelogical mentality on the basis of observed beliefs. W e must remember, however, that mental phenomena are not observable, and that any explanation is an inference based on the external manifestations (taken as indicators) of these phenomena. Ascientific theory is not amere summary of observations, but asystem of hypotheses that not only integrates what is observable, but also supersedes it. And it goes without sayingthat hypothetical systems arealways provisionaland subject to revision and improvement. By giving greater importance to what is observable, particularly observable ”good” reasons (that is, the reasons specifically invoked),Boudon obscured that in order to explain these good reasons, we must make use of hypotheses that are not themselves observable. Ironically, Boudon uses thelatter argument to justify his Weberian (hermeneutic) methodology, where good reasons are //reconstructed.”Yet, the epistemological status of such reconstruction remains unclear.If it were giventhe status of a hypothesis,it would be easy to show that, most often, it is a bad one. Rational Choice and Rationality. Reacting against rational choice models, as well as against sociological models (in which behavior is explained through social norms), Boudon emphasized the reasons given by individuals themselves. H e attempted to find a tertium quid between homo rationalis

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and homo sociologicus,and stressed individuals’ own (reasoned) beliefs.H e cites allkinds of nonrational behavior to illustratehis proposition. It is noton that basis, however, that Boudon rejects rational choice theory. Instead, he argues that this theory isn’t universally valid, for one simple reason: the behavior of the social actor is often governed by beliefs. Quite often, we have to resort to a theory of the type: “x has done y because he believed z.” Here, then, explanation consists of explaining why x believed z. In the first case (rational choice), x believes z because z is true: x has objective reasons forbelieving z.In the second, byfar the more important,x believes zalthough zmay be untrueor doubtful. In such a case, one almost naturally resorts to the model of the homo sociologicus:x believes z because, though z may be false, it is socially acceptable. In other terms, x has no reason to believe z, but he has been socialized to the idea of accepting that z is true. (Boudon, 1993a)[Author’s translation.Ed.] It is easy both to understand and accept the above reasoning, which led Boudon to reject not only the rational choice model, but also that of homo sociologicus. Rational choice is too abstract to be ableto explain things. And homo sociologicus can, at best, offer only a complementary explanation. in the eyes of the indiHowever, evenif the existence ofgood reasons-good vidual-strengthens his autonomy, theyarenotsufficient to explainhis behavior. Good reasons often do not appear as such until after the fact.42A n individual’s behavior is not uniquely guided by his own understanding of it. As Piaget said,one cannot place confidencein the subjects’own ”verbiage.” Their actions must also be taken into account, as must the unconscious aspects of their behavior. Certainly, individuals think while they act, butone of themost important lessons to be learned from Piagetian psychologytheynever have but a partial and distorted view of their own thought mechanisms. Boudon emphasized good reasons because he sawthem as a satisfactory explanation of both individual and social behavior. For him, (good) reasons explain better than causes. Thereis, however, no (good) reason toreject causes. Behavior can certainly be partially explained by subjective reasons, but there is no reason to reject causes, be they physiological, psychological, or social. Indeed, behavior always occurs in an environment, which alsohas to be taken into account. It would be better to replace the study of subjective rationality with the study of behavior (in the broad sense). All knowing subjects act more or less consciously, experience feelings, and can be guided by them and by their unconscious or preconscious tendencies. Such subjects also reflect on their actions, thoughts, and feelings (always in an environment). The study of rationality should therefore not exclude behavior, especially since individuals can be victims of unconscious constraints, and since their own reasons

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do not permit themto discover the deeper explanations for their intentions. A s Piaget showed, it is difficult for individuals to be conscious of their own cognitive structures (cognitive unconscious). Inother words, subjective reasons only rarely become objective reasons.

A Simple Error? Boudon considers whatever is doubtful or unobjective to be a correctable fault. H i s distinctions tend to oversimplify reasonand to categorize nonrationality as a simple error. H e did not see thatgood reasons may sooner or later be considered bad ones, any morethan he sawthat nonrationality is an essential dimension of man.43 It willbe helpfulinthiscontext to lookclosely at one of Boudon’s (1990/1994) examples, which he took from Bonnafous (1990). It is one of those counterintuitive problems on which Boudon founded his analysis of good reasons. A hikerleaves at 8 A.M. to climb a mountain. After an irregular climb up, he reaches the summit at 7 P.M. H e spends the night there. The next day, he leaves at 8 A.M. and climbs down, taking the same route. H e descends at an irregular pace and arrives at his point of departure at 6 P.M. The question is the following: is there a point xsuch that the hiker passes this point at the same time going up and going down? Most of the subjects’ responses werenegative. Typically, theyreasoned as follows.This point, if it exists, must be towardthe midpoint of the walk (since it could not well be at either extreme).If one takes a pointor a segment, toward the middle, it is not very likely, so they thought, that this point would be x o r would contain x. It would be the same for any other point or segment. This conclusion is false, which would be easy to demonstrate with a simple graphic representation. However, said Boudon (1994), the subjects’ reasoning is understandable, we alltend to make the samemistake.This experiment illustrates subjective rationality: thereasons the subjects give are good (for them), but thereasons are objectively false. This example, like most that Boudon (1994) cites, refers toan error in reasoning. All that would be requiredfor the subjectsto be ableto correct their error is to explain it to them. Yet, this example is an unusual one; the same cannot be said of life’s everyday decisions, which do not have objectively good solutions. In addition, that subjects have good reasons to justify themselves is trite. O n e always has good reasons, at least for whatone does consciously. Nor should it be surprising thatthese good reasons should be common to many individuals. In short, Boudon’s propositionthat we should concentrate on individuals’ beliefs is certainly more worthy than the a priori useof models. And one can only agree with his critique of sociological radical But his idea of systematically focusing on the good reasons that individuals give-although necessary-seems to me to be somewhat insufficient. W e also have to ask why subjects make such and such error or invoke such and such good rea-

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son; that is,we have to look at the internal organization-which is inevitably inferred-of their arguments. Boudon’sfailure to look closely at these things is not simply dueto the division of labor imposedon himby his sociological specialization. Itis, above all, due to his seeing contradiction as no more than an errorin reasoning, or, as Piaget (1977) put it, as an unfortunate accident that was avoidable from the start. Boudon doesnot see that nonrationality is deeply rooted in thought. Thisattitude is tantamount to rejecting psychology. In addition, to stress subjective rationality leads to sidestepping social determination (that is, determination of behavior by social structure). Obviously, such determination is first and foremost the expression of ourignorance of detailed microprocesses; yet, since we are-and will always be-somewhat ignorant, determination should always have a place in our explanations. Boudon is in line with Weber,for whom sociology was the study of typical modes of action-and not of individuals, as such.Boudon is also in line with Pareto. A s we saw, although Pareto stressed that man is not merely a homo oeconomicus, he added that we must be careful not to stray too far into psychology. For Pareto, togo too far into psychology is to risk losing the simplicity that allows generalization. However, this fear is based on a misunderstanding. First, psychological theories themselves can achieve a certain level of generality. Second, and moreimportantly, to the extent that the properties of a social system are emergent,explaining them cannot exclude examining the system’s components and their connections-which often involves psychology. W e should be clear that such an epistemological framework-onein which a social system has emergent properties-leads to distinguishing a system from its environment and examiningthe connections linking the system’s components. It would be incorrect to infer, however, that all sociological explanation is supported by psychology, which it is not. 1 have argued here-contrary to many eminent sociologists-only that sociology must be compatible with psychology, or at least with the best-corroborated part of psychology. Today, psychology increasingly stresses nonrationality, that is, contradictions, individual fragmentation, and how little control individuals have over their own behavior, even overtheir own thoughts. That individuals havelittle control over theirown behavior-that even the central importance to reasons for their behavior partially elude them-is of sociology. Sociological explanation cannot be founded solely on individual reasons. The field also has to take into account, especially when individual reasons are not well founded, the other-in particular, the social-reasons why individuals present such weakjustifications forwhat they do. Sociology must also look at the reasons for which individuals sometimes act without (individual) reasons. Again,the reasons for a social phenomenon to happen are distinct from the reasons the individuals involved haveor claim to have;

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as argued here at length, social facts can rarely be understood on the basis of the latter reasons only. O n e of the clarification problems here is that we are dealing with two categories of reasons. Since individualsare not always very autonomous in producing their reasons, one is inescapably led toplace the emphasis on their environment, particularly their social environment; it thus appears that individual reasons are already social. But that does not make them explanations as such,contrarily to the individualist claim. The explanation of social phenomenon cannot ignore that individuals act as members of social systems,and that they arenot fully aware of theconsequences ofsuch membership. In shifting the emphasis to the environment, I remain, of course, close to the individualist framework, one in which social facts cannot be disconnected from individual behavior (which can bediscerned through indicators such as individual reasons and behavior). This behavior is also a function of its environment-particularly its social environment-which is itself a function of more macrosocial variables (Boudon, 1984, 1987). Remember that it is from the combination and interaction of individuals’ behavior (in their environment) that social properties emerge, and that these properties, in turn, determine individual behavior.

NOTES 1. Sen (1973; 1979)has done much to clarify this problem from an economic point of view. See also Brandt(1959). 2. Recall that a threat by A toward B is an undertaking by A, believable by B, to reduce B’s satisfaction. This undertaking would be that much more believableB to if B considered its execution to be not very costly for A. And A has to anticipate B’s satisfaction (or preferences) in order to possibly reduce it. Each therefore attempts to to interpersonal assess the cost to the other ofcarrying out the threat-which leads comparisons. 3. Theprincipleofpragmatic division is found in Antidosis and is generally attributed to Solon(see also D e Phaenippus in Demosthenes’ Orationes). All individuals who felt they had been unjustly taxed could ask to exchange their lot with a lower-taxed citizen. Such arule guaranteed therewould be no injustices (taking taxto the process). Elements ation into account, which was a priori-a given-in relation of pragmaticdivision appear again in the Middle Ages; for example, in the procedure of hospitalitas. This procedure was usedlater in inheritances. It is called majordividat, minor eligat, or cujus estdivisio, alius est electio (see Brissaud,1935). It can be (1899) under the name Kurecht. Blackstone (1809) menfound in Grimm’s dictionary tions it in as an aspect of English law whena father had to divide a dowry between two peohis two daughters. In all these examples, the division occurs between only ple. For further details, see Moessinger, 1998.

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4. For more on thesocial bond, see Piaget(l 932), and on the various forms of the social bond, see Stark (1980, 1983). 5. With regard to other dimensions ofsocial satisfaction, see Kozielecki (1987), Lalive d’Epinay (1994), and Locke(1969). 6. For more details on fair division, perfect procedures, and social satisfaction, see Moessinger(1990). 7. For another critique of game theory, see Moessinger (1991, pp. 70-73). 8. One could transposeonto space a remarkthat Allan (1983)madeabout social time. H e observed thatsocial time does not correspondwith clock and calento correspond with our dar time, or rather that the rhythms of societies appeared not (objective) measures of their duration,In the same way, one could say that individuals’ sense of their distribution in space appears to be wrong in the context of our measures. 9. Thereasons to separateapopulation that is discriminatedagainst could become self-fulfilling simplyin virtue of discrimination.Recall here Merton’s famous example, where blacks, consideredby the whitesto be strike breakers, establisheda separate union, which did, in effect, lead them to become strike breakers, which exacerbated the discrimination they were suffering. 10. If grandiloquent nonsense was a sign of the oracles, it seems that, in the case conduct that of thegods and patrons, it wasrathertheunpredictabilityoftheir demonstrated their superiority.In the area of divinity, theCalvinist dogma of predestination is an extreme illustration of this unpredictability. This notion also appliesto patrons: charismatic leaders are always unpredictable. At Pergamon Press, where I was the editor ofa journal for many years,all of the importantand reasonable managerial decisionstook into account the“Maxwell factor,” that is, the absolute unpredictability of Robert Maxwell’s actions. Thus, the managerial staff were constantly watching Maxwell and endlessly trying to interpret his slightest move. The unpredictability andoften nonrationalityof his decisions made him the object of a sort of fascination among his employees. (On the function of the absence of rationality in managers, see Cleverly [ l 9731). 11. On the distinction between determinations and constraints, see Moessinger (1 994). 12. W e are thus in a situation of bilateral monopoly. 13. The ability to manipulate depends on the cognitive level. Whether an individual resorts to manipulation is linked to the individual’s own situation and personality, particularlyto what social psychologistscall Machiavellianism(Christie& Geis, 1970). 14. Thus,exchange is a formofperfectproceduraljustice in Rawls‘ssense (1 971); that is, the participants’ satisfaction is guaranteed. 15. This point has often been made in the context of the evolution of species (which could be extended to the history of societies). A better equilibrium is not defined as a better resistanceto environmental perturbations (or asa better ability to fight against the environment), but by greater independence in relationto the environment (see Piaget, 1977).The problem is that, when we talk about independence with respect to the environment,we actually meanthe usual environment.When the environment is very changeable, a better equilibrium could be more fragile, and a

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higher species (more independent in relation to its environment) could be a more threatenedspecies. In thecontextofpsychology, an individual’senvironmentis equivalent to its representation, and it is essentially this representation that changes when one goes fromone level to another. 16. The underlyingissue is the fundamental fear having of to face a danger alone (Schachter, 1959). 17. Note that the issue of the fundamental bond has long been monopolized by functionalistsocial-exchangetheorists(forexample, Blau, Homans,andPiaget). go back to ArisThese concepts, which stress exchangebetween egoistic individuals, of the seventeenth totle (Ethics, Book 4). They can also be traced to the contractualists century (for example, Hobbes, Locke) and to the economists of the nineteenth century (for example, Menger & Walras). See also Moessinger(1 978a). 18. W e could add that these gaps in the conscious mind do not eliminate the “profit mentality” or attempts to dominate others orto prove oneself. 19. Children (upto the ageof eight) do not distinguish successive majorities that are constantly composed of the same individuals (the same individuals are found in the majority and minorityin each vote) fromrenewed majorities (that are not continually made up of the same individuals). See Moessinger (1981). 20. For a discussion of the history of the notion of ownership andits relationship to autonomy, see Berthoud & Busino (1995). 21. See the earlier sections on Cognitive Dissonance (chapter 2) and Dissonance and Identity (chapter3). 22. Schotter (1 981) adds a third meaning; namely, that of institutions asa source of consistency in social behavior. 23. Padioleau (1986, p. 23) sees the problem of social order in general terms, and is quite simply looking for an answer to the question: how do individuals or groups establish permanent or ephemeral, planned or spontaneous, relationships, agreements orconflicts? 24. On thedistinctionbetween following andhaving goal,seeMoessinger (1991, pp. 157-160). 25. Such properties are not unusual. For example, conformism is an individual property (conformismin an individualis a character trait), aswell as a relational and social one (one conforms to others). To give another example, power is a relational property (it connects at least two individuals, the one exercising the power and the one submitting to it) andcan be translated into theindividual properties of authority and submission). 26. I am thinking about thenotion of simplicity inherited from Ockham, accordingto which a hypothesis is onlyvalid if it is inevitable, in other words, minimal. Such a concept discourages the search for an explanation. 27. Recall that integration, though difficult to define, is related to cohesion and refers to theenergythatlinks a system’scomponents(Bunge,1979;Moessinger, 19911. 28. Fors6 (1989) has a different view. Reacting against mechanistic conceptions of equilibrium, he investigated thermodynamic equilibria, which are characterized by maximal disorder. This approach led him to observe that entropy is constantly ejected by social systems.

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29. Would Feyerabend (1975) have been inspired by Rhinehart’s novel? 30. Durkheim often stressed this point. H e spoke of the exteriority of psychic facts in relationto brain cells,and, by analogy, of the exteriority of social facts in relation to individuals. By exteriority, I believe he meant novelty. See Durkheim (1965). 31. Bunge (1977) refined this idea: a property of a system is emergent if, and only if, it is not a property of any of the system’s components. 32. The least conformist or submissive individuals are either very originalor do not understand their own situations verywell. To summarize, either they are astute or they are obtuse. 33. According to Dupuy, however, it was within the context of reflecting about societies that the question of emergence was first raised, and it was the proposed notion of theinvisible handthat provided the occasion. 34. Dupuy (1992) saw Smith’s interest more globally; that is, as a digest of the whole range of human passions. 35. Schmidt (1985) showed that this hypothesis was formulated for reasons of simplicity and generality. Sen(1977) focused on itsconventional aspect. 36. If moral conduct includes respect for the others, it is astonishingly hard to believe that such conduct can still lead to war or devastating social problems. To understand how this is possible, we must first distinguish the rational morality of equity/reciprocity from the affective morality of soIicitude/loyaIty. The first, moralthe ity of equity,can lead to disorder to the extent thatindividuals donot always have the same idea of what is equitable (see Kellerhals, Coenen-Huther,& Modak, 1989). As for the second, the morality of solicitude, one only has to look at thesolicitude orloyalty shown by the Mafia,for example, to see that this morality does notin itself lead to social order. For more about the distinction between these types of morality, see Moessinger (I 989). 37. Recall that game theory (particularly the prisoners’ dilemma) showed clearly that rational conduct can lead to collective irrationality. 38. Valade (1990) also mentioned the methodological problems Pareto saidhe experienced, which resulted not only from the difficulty of observing social phenomena, but also from their interdependence. Paretosaw these difficulties as obstacles to the elaboration of a scientific sociology. 39. The polemical irony demonstrated by Pareto ( l 916) on the question of the links between economics and psychology is revealing: “Here is another wonderful intellect who wants to substitute psychology for political economy because many economic phenomena depend on man’s will. Why stop there? Why not substitute geography and even astronomy? After all, economic phenomena also depend on oceans, continents, rivers, and above all, the sun” (Pareto, 6/1963). 191 It appears that to Pareto, economic systems depended as much on the stars as on the individuals of which the systems are composed. In his quotation, he did not distinguish the composition of society(individuals) from its more distant environment (the stars). 40. Pareto dwelt on these questions, which specifically deal withthe makeup of ascientificsociology,inhiscorrespondence,especiallywith Croce (seeBusino, 1992, pp. 277-304) 41.Accordingto Balandier (1988), it was in theeighteenthcenturythatthe slightly magical ideathat disorder leads to order first appeared. Thus, what interested

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these thinkers was not so much disorder as the ”knowing hand of nature,” which “brought order out of disorder. . . .Without disorder, it would achieve nothing; such is nature’s equilibrium” (Sade, as cited in Balandier, 1988, p. 1811. 42. To cite one example among many: faced with the inability to declare hislove for Ellenore, Adolphe decides that she is not ready for such an avowal and that it would be better to wait longer. In order to live at peace with ourselves, we nearly always parody our powerlessness and our weakness in calculations and systems: ”that satisfies the part of ourselves that so is, to speak, watching the other” (Constant, 1965, p. 69). 43. It is undoubtedly Piaget (1974) who placed most emphasis on the above. In all the literature in the field, if one is to believe Kundera (1986), Flaubert was thefirst to consider stupidity to be an inseparable dimensionof man’s existence. Previously (still according to Kundera), stupidity was considered to be the mere absence of knowledge. 44. I take holism in the sense of dualistic holism; that is, individuals are directed by social facts that are externalto them. See Bunge(1985).

Conclusions

How does one concludein a truly conclusive manner? Pierre Dac, Les pense'es

Contrary to rational choice theory, according to which social order has its source in individual behavior that is postulated to be rational, I have shown that it would be better to understand order as emerging from nonrational behavior (or simply, from behavior). Unlike those writers-and theyare legion-who contrast individual rationality and collective irrationality, and also unlike those who place primary emphasis o n collective irrationality without being interested in individuals, I have tried to show that it is more fruitfulto contrast individual nonrationality and social order. M y attitude towards these other fashionable viewpoints should not, however, obscure the general view I have developed here: namely, that it is necessary to start from nonrational behavior to explain not only order, but also disorder, instability, and social disequilibrium. Many different approaches are based on rational choice. Whattheir advocates have in common, in addition to an emphasis on maximization, is that they ignore psychology or, rather, isolate psychology andsociology, and that the theories they propose are static (ahistorical), cannot take reality into account (they are a priori), and rest on an ontological confusion between models and reality (as if the image of a thing and the thing itself were indistinguishable). These theorists are confusing irrationality (a formal property) and nonrationality (a property of an organism). Their approaches often have an air of positivism about them, which precludes anydeep understanding of the phenomena they are studying. The combination of nonrational individual behaviorsproduces social order, which, in turn, determines individual nonrationality (yet, there is no epistemological circle). There is novelty both in macrosystems (e.g., social order is not found in individuals) and in microsystems (e.g., when individuals act as members of social systems and thus have properties they lack when they act disconnectedly). Insofar as emergence and determination refer to novelty, theyrefer tosomething that cannot be explained strictly causally.Yet new properties can be explained, their processes can be searched for, and their logic hypothesized.

134

Conclusions

W e are thus ledto another fundamental idea presentedin this study. Since societies are composed of individuals,we must not disassociatepsychology and sociology. Of course, the properties of social systems are quite different from those of individuals, butthese differences should not be ajustification for either theexclusion or ignorance of psychology.The separation of thetwo disciplines is nothing less than a formof dualism, arefusal toexplain a thing on the basis of its components andthe interactionsbetween them.It was not my intention to hide the reality of behavior: individuals’ experienceof internal conflicts, theinability to decide, weaknessof the will, duplicity, the lack of personal integration, and a multitude of more or less conscious conwith the structural stability that straints. I contrasted this nonrational behavior is observable on various macrolevels. For example, cognitive dissonancewhich introduces discontinuity into individual behavior-is often triggered by social circumstances. I also tried to show that a rigid social bond can be linked to the lack of coordination between subselves, to identity problems, and to not very well rooted values.I suggested (as I have elsewhere [see, for example, Moessinger 1991I) that there is an affinity between responsible individuals (that is, ones whose subselvesare well integrated) and a decentralized social system. Again, order in a society emerges from nonrational individual behavior and fromtheinteraction betweensocialsubsystems.Social orderdetermines, in turn, individual behavior and the dynamics of these subsystems. Thus, the question of social order must be placed within the framework of this sociology of the whole-a sociology that is both systemicand monistic. Explaining order involves showing howthis order emerges fromthe interaction between individual behavior and social subsystems, and how social orderfosters disorder inpeople’s minds, even in social subsystems. This explanation clearly has to be compatible with the related knowledge, particularly with well-corroborated theories and hypotheses concerning the relationships betweendifferent micro- and macrolevels.These relationships are the point of departure for one of the most important and central themes of sociology, which is that of micro-macro links. I have presented here a few avenues of reflection, which I only hope will prove fruitful, that is, usefully wrong.

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104

Author Index

Aristotle, 45, 50 (n. 131, 65, 71 (nn.

11-12), 112

Arrow,Kenneth

I.,

7, 14,27,53, 111

Becker, Gary S., 2-4, 8, 11, 24 (nn. 2-31, 25 (n. 14) Boudon, Raymond, 12, 23,43-46,49 (n. 3), 69, 82-83, 100, 122-1 28 Bunge, Mario, 2, 6, 10, 11, 22-23, 24 (n. 3), 25 (nn. 9, 11, 15), 70 (n. l ) , 98-1 00, 107, 1 13, 130 71 (n. (n. 27), 131 (n. 31), 132 (n. 44)

Minsky, Marvin L., 12, 52-53, 62-64, MoliPre, 14-1 5,20 Morin, Edgar, 101-1 02 Nozick, Robert, 78-80

Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan,95 Durkheim, Emile, 24 (n. 6), 82, 109, 112, 124, 131 (n. 30)

Pareto, Vilfredo, 5, 7, 20-22, 24 (n. l ) , 115-119, 127, 131 (nn. 38-40) Piaget, Jean, vi, 6, 30-31, 39-42, 46-48, 49 (nn. 3-4, 6, 10, 12), 69, 72 (n.15), 77, 91, 101, 106, 110, 124-125, 127, 129 (nn. 4, 15), 130 (n. 17), 132 (n. 43) Plato, 51, 65 Poe, Edgar Allan, 95-96 Popper, Sir Karl Raimund, vi, 1, 20-23, 24 (n. 1) Poquelin, Jean-Baptiste.See MoliPre Porter, William Sydney. See Henry, 0.

Elster, Jon, 12-1 3, 24 (nn. 2-3), 25 (nn. 11-1 3), 43, 47-48, 49(nn. 8-g),

Rawls, john, 75, 80, 129 (n. 14) Rhinehart, Luke, 92, 103-1 04, 131 (n. 29)

lo),

Cialdini, Robert B., 32-33, 91-92 Coleman, James S., 4,6, 24 (n. 2), 25 (n. 14), 70-71 In. l), 74

53-54, 60, 63, 83, 84-86, 91

Eskola, Antti, 89-91

Schelling, Thomas C., 54, 82-83,

Friedman, Milton, 9-1 0

Schmitz, Ettore. See Svevo, ltalo Smith,Adam, 113-115, 119, 121, 131 (n. 34) Socrates, 51, 65 Solow, Robert M., 1 1-12, 16 Stark, Werner, 71 (n. 21, 98-99, 114, 129 (n. 4) Svevo, Italo, 13, 54-56

Hayek, FriedrichAugust von, 1 12, 114,

1 19-1 22

Henry, O., 76 James, William, 30-31 Laing, R.D., 66-67, 91 Leibniz, GottfriedWilhelm von, vi, 43, 65 Machlup, Fritz, 18-1 9 Mandeville, Bernard, 1 13-1 15, 1 19, 121 Mill, John Stuart, 26 (n. 17), 1 1 3

94-95, 106, 108

Vico, Giambattista, 1 13-1 14 Walras, Leon, vii, 16, 130 (n. 17) Weber, Max, 7, 18, 24 (n. 6), 26 (n. 16),

46, 69-70, 124-1 27

Subject Index Akrasia. See Will Altruism, 76-77 Assumptions. See Postulates Autonomy as aspect of dissonance,33 lack of, 28, 57 partial, in social system, 99

Double bind defined, 59 and identity, 60 and intention, 59, 84 and schizophrenia, 59 Dualism, 44, 63 Edgeworth Box, 6 Society disconnected from individuals, 111, 134

Behaviorism, 18-1 9 Brainwashing and self-imposed value change, 33-34 Economy and Society (Weber), 7 Buridan’s Ass, 20, 48, 50 (n. 15) Emergence, 100-1 01 defined as novelty, 107 Centration emergent properties, 110 as exclusive focus, 31 history of concept,112-1 13 in Piagetian cognitive psychology, Epimenedes’ paradox, 60 30-31, 48, 49 (n. 3) Equilbrium Christmas cards, 83-84 of market, 97 Cognitivism, 46-47 psychological, 68 Condorcet effect, 53 as social order, 98 Contradiction Evergetism, 25 (n. 12), 84-86 logical versus real, 25 (n. 12) Explanation superseding, in Piaget, 39-42 “black box” (simplification),46, 101 Cooperation in Boudon, 122-124 in children, 86-88 dormitive principle in, 12, 14-1 5, 20 naive, 86-92 n-person.See Game theory as notion of individual ownership, rational choice as failed basis, passim lack of, 87-88 role of belief in. See Elster in Author in traditional societies,88 Index spontaneous, 90 social interaction, explanatory power of, 85 Dissonance cognitive, 28-29 Game theory postdecisional, 32-33, 36-37, 58, arbitrary constraint in, 80-81 64, 91-92 convention, sourceof, 106-1 07 Doctor Rhinehart (fictive) deception and rewards, in Hayek, dice centers, 105 121 “dice therapy,” 103-1 05 in institutional economics, 97-98

151

Subject Index Game theory (continued) loyalty filters and, 64-65 n-person equilibriumand, 74-75 ”Good” reasons. See Boudon in Author Index “Homines” (ideal types) homo oeconomicus, 12, 18-1 9, 88, 127 homo psychologicus, 12 homo rationalis,4, 69, 120, 124 homo sociologicus, 12, 125 Human sciences, 69-70 Individualism and emergence, 43 methodological, and rational choice theory, 43-44 Instances and subselves, 51, 58-59 Institutional economics, new, 25(n. 14), 97 Institutions as systems, 98 Maximization fictitious versus realistic, 18-19 and intentionality, 22 means andends, 20-21, 11 6 and psychologicalmechanisms, 48 and situation appropriateness, 23 utility, 22, 24 (n. 51, 32, 39, 56, 76, 97 Model Economists’, 17 and passim Monism, vi, 43-44 Nichomachean Ethics, 65. 71 (n. 12), 130 (n. 17) nonrationality in Elster, 85-86 in sociological and psychological modeling, 111-1 12 Order, social, passim defined as structural stability, 102

in Mandeville, from private vices, 114-115 in Smith, from self-interest,115 Organization norms and proceduresas, 98 social order as, 98 Panic, collective, 20 Personalities, multiple, 60-62 distinguished from schizophrenia, 6 -62 1 Jekyll and Hyde, 61 Platonic dialogues Gorgias, and voluntarism in choices, 63 Phaedrus, metaphor of chariot in, 51 Socrates’ demon, 51 Positivism, 67, 69 Postulates, 13, passim Friedman’s “assumptions,” 9-1 1, 18 Preferences, passim Prisoners’ dilemma, 20, 44, 73, 81, 131 (n. 37) Rational choice,theory and methodology, passim Rationality, subjective in Boudon, 46 in Bunge’s conceptual schema, 22-23 defined, 22-23 and intentionality, 22 theory of, 7 reactance, and preference, 37-39 Reductionism. See individualism, methodological Satisfaction, 77-80 group comparisons, 77-78 norms distinct from principles, 80 procedures distinct from results, 79-80 social, defined, 77 Schizophrenia defined, 62

152 Self as grammatical fiction, 67, 72 (n. 14) multiple selves, 12-13 Sganarelle, 14-15 Social bond as acceptance of laws and institutions, 99 creation of, spontaneous, 98 illusory, 89-90 and social order, 98 Specularity, 83 and n., 95 Subjectivism, psychological, 67-68 Subself defined, 54 impulsive, 54-57, as subsystem ofa personality, 60 Systems, social types of, 100

Subject Index Ulysses. See will Uncertainty calculating (strategy), 94-95 Holmes-Moriarty dilemmaand, 95 Poe's Dupin and, 95-96 three types of, 93 Unreality of postulates. See Postulates

Will

and desire to believe, 32-33 in James, 30-31 in Piaget, 30-31 as subself, 62-63 weakness of (akrasia),42-43, 50 (n. 14), 54-58, passim

Zen0 (Svevo), 13 attempt to quit smoking, 54-56