“There are not only wrong answers. There are also wrong questions. There are questions which deal with a certain real problem but the way they are formulated they effectively obfuscate, mystify, confuse the problem. ”
via Good Thinking is Good Questioning. | Slavoj Žižek | Big Think.
You may have to read the complete article several times to understand the full impact of its tenets . Rational choice theory and rational choice philosophy , its origins and manifestations can help us to discern elements in the approach that our Governments and Countries are making in economic and societal governance fronts….even the thrust for democracy in the ” Arab Spring ” Middle East.
“But the real significance of rational choice philosophy lay in ethics. Rational choice theory, being a branch of economics, does not question people’s preferences; it simply studies how they seek to maximize them. Rational choice philosophy seems to maintain this ethical neutrality (see Hans Reichenbach’s 1951 “The Rise of Scientific Philosophy,” an unwitting masterpiece of the genre); but it does not. Whatever my preferences are, I have a better chance of realizing them if I possess wealth and power. Rational choice philosophy thus promulgates a clear and compelling moral imperative: increase your wealth and power!
Today, institutions which help individuals do that (corporations, lobbyists) are flourishing; the others (public hospitals, schools) are basically left to rot. Business and law schools prosper; philosophy departments are threatened with closure.”
via RAND, Cold Warriors and the Failure of ‘Rational Choice Philosophy’ – NYTimes.com.
