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4 - Adaptive Reflexive Individuals

A Capability Conception of the Person

from Part II - Building a Socially Embedded Individual Conception

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

John B. Davis
Affiliation:
Marquette University, Wisconsin and Universiteit van Amsterdam
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Summary

Chapter 4 lays out the book’s adaptive, reflexive capability view of socially embedded individuals. An important reason we ought to see people as adaptive is that this provides a basis for explaining how they make choices and act in changing, often highly uncertain environments – large worlds rather than small Bayesian ones. When we accept that choice is context-dependent, we need to be able to explain individuals’ behavior in the most demanding circumstances they can face. An implication of this framing is that, as in Simon’s procedural rationality view, behaviorally speaking there is really no maximization – only continual adjustment over time. To capture all this, I use a stock flow, state description/process description characterization of adaptive individuals, and then model their behavior more specifically as a capability choice/action capability pattern of behavioral adjustment that works via a reflexive feedback loop. Given that this individual conception also needs to satisfy the two identity criteria I used in Part I to evaluate the standard Homo economicus individual conception, I then show how an adaptive, capability individual conception successfully individuates people as distinct and independent. In light of how undemocratic economic and social institutions limit people’s capability development, I also discuss the circumstances under which they can be reidentified as the same individuals over time.

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Chapter
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Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
Reflexive, Adaptive, Socially Embedded Individuals
, pp. 83 - 108
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Adaptive Reflexive Individuals
  • John B. Davis, Marquette University, Wisconsin and Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book: Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
  • Online publication: 11 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009438247.007
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  • Adaptive Reflexive Individuals
  • John B. Davis, Marquette University, Wisconsin and Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book: Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
  • Online publication: 11 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009438247.007
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Adaptive Reflexive Individuals
  • John B. Davis, Marquette University, Wisconsin and Universiteit van Amsterdam
  • Book: Identity, Capabilities, and Changing Economics
  • Online publication: 11 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009438247.007
Available formats
×