or pain which will ensue, before making a decision. In economics this is homo
economicus, the economic human who behaves rationally, calculating gains
and losses when deciding to produce and purchase goods.
36
Contrasted with
behaviourism is Sigmund Freud’s view of human behaviour. According to
Freud, in the first instance before civilising influences cut in, behaviour is
irrational, driven by inner native urges of Thanatos, the death instinct, and
Eros, the life instinct.
This distinction is reflected in a comment in Jane Austen’s novel Emma. One
of the characters, Mr John Knightley, says of another character Mr Elton:
“With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please,
every feature
works”.
37
It is also impounded in the clever word play of Mary
Wollstonecraft in her treatise on the rights of woman where she said: “A king
is always a king –
and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex
ever stand between them and rational converse”.
38
Being Irrational
The experience of the irrationality of the world has been the driving force of
all religious revolution.
39
My reason, the physician to my love, Angry that his prescriptions are not
kept
40
In some ways, irrationality is defined negatively and residually so that irrational
means of working with law consist of methods that are not rational.
Nevertheless, it is possible to explain and illustrate irrationality by identifying
factors that cause decision-making to be irrational.
41
These are
many and
varied and include factors that are personal, political, ideological, social and
cultural.
42
To illustrate this, scholars adopting a socio-economic approach
recognise that individual choices are shaped not only rationally “by calculation
of advantage"
43
but also irrationally by other factors such as “emotions [and]
social bonds”.
44
Various explanations for irrationality are canvassed in later discussion,
45
but
one example here will be useful, namely policy making. In principle policy can
___________________
36
See Bensusan-Butt (1977)
37
Jane Austen Emma Chapter 13
38
Mary Wollstonecraft A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) Chapter 3
39
Max Weber
40
William Shakespeare Sonnet 147
41
Chapter 27 Irrationality
42
Fogg (1992), Easterbrook (1994)
43
Galanter (1997) p 386, citing Ashford (1997)
44
Galanter (1997) p 386, citing Ashford (1997)
45
Chapter 27 Irrationality
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