Rational Choice Theory Brian Kogelmann and Gerald Gaus 1. Introduction “The theory of justice is a part, perhaps the most significant part, of the theory of rational choice,” writes John Rawls (1999: 15). In linking the theory of justice to rational choice Rawls both continued an intellectual tradition and began a new one. He continued an intellectual tradition in the sense that rational choice theory was first formally introduced in von Neumann and Morgenstern’s Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1944), which launched a research agenda that continues to this day. Rawls, James M. Buchanan (1962; see Thrasher and Gaus, forthcoming) and John Harsanyi (1953; 1955) led the way in applying the idea of rational choice to the derivation of moral and political principles; a later generation of political theorists applied game theoretic analysis to a wide variety of problems of social interactions (e.g., Hampton, 1986; Sugden, 1986; Binmore, 2005). David Gauthier’s Morals by Agreement (1986) was perhaps the most sustained and resolute attempt to apply models of utility maximization and decision theory to the derivation of social morality. Yet, despite the fact that some of the most respected political theorists of the last fifty years extensively employed the tools of rational choice theory, confusion still reigns about what these tools presuppose and how they are to be applied. Many reject the entire approach by a common refrain that “rational choice assumes that people are selfish,” and since that is false, the entire line of analysis can be dismissed; a slightly more sophisticated (but still misplaced) dismissal insists that rational choice is about “preferences” but political philosophers are interested in “reasons,” so again the entire approach can be set aside asserting that rational choice theory assumes selfishness, denying that people are selfish, and dismissing rational choice accordingly. A fundamental aim of this chapter is to explain just what the tools of rational choice theory are — and what presuppositions they make — and to provide some guidance for those wishing to follow in Rawls’s footsteps, showing
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