Reason in Action Essays in the Philosophy of Social Science [Paperback]

This 1995 book collects together essays from twenty-five years of Hollis's work on rationality and social action.These essays argue that social action cannot be understood by viewing human beings as abstract individuals with preferences in search of satisfaction, nor by divorcing practical reason from questions of the rationality of norms, principles, practices and ends.These essays argue that social action cannot be understood by viewing human beings as abstract individuals with preferences in search of satisfaction, nor by divorcing practical reason from questions of the rationality of norms, principles, practices and ends.Did Adam and Eve act rationally in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree? That can seem to depend solely on whether they had found the best means to their ends, in the spirit of the economic theories of rationality. In these essays, culled in revised form from twenty-five years' work, Martin Hollis argues that social action cannot be understood by viewing human beings as abstract individuals with preferences in search of satisfaction, or by divorcing practical reason from questions of the rationality of norms, principles, practices and ends.1. Prologue: reason in action; Part I. Rational Choice: 2. Three men in a drought; 3. Rational preferences; 4. The ant and the grasshopper; 5. Moves and motives; 6. A rational agent's gotta do what a rational agent's gotta do!; Part II. Roles and Reasons: 7. Of masks and men; 8. Honour among thieves; 9. Dirty hands; 10. A death of one's own; 11. Friends, Romans and consumers; Part III. Other Cultures, Other Minds: 12. The limits of irrationality; 13. Reason and ritual; 14. The social destruction of reality; 15. Hook, line and sinker; 16. Say it with flowers; 17. Reasons of honour. Hollis's thoughtful and provocative essays will reward anyone interested in these and other topics addressed in this volume. International Philosophical Quarterly Martin Hollis has made significant contributions over many yearl“$