Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 26
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
December 2009
Print publication year:
2004
Online ISBN:
9780511617058
Subjects:
Logic, Philosophy

Book description

How do we think about what we plan to do? One dominant answer is that we select the best possible option available. However, a growing number of philosophers would offer a different answer: since we are not equipped to maximize we often choose the next best alternative, one that is no more than satisfactory. This strategy choice is called satisficing (a term coined by the economist Herb Simon). This collection of essays explores both these accounts of practical reason, examining the consequences for adopting one or the other for moral theory in general and the theory of practical rationality in particular. It aims to address a constituency larger than contemporary moral philosophers and bring these questions to the attention of those interested in the applications of decision theory in economics, psychology and political science.

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
×

Contents

Bibliography
Adler, Matthew D., and Eric A. Posner, “Implementing Cost-Benefit Analysis When Preferences Are Distorted.” In Matthew D. Adler and Eric A. Posner, eds., Cost-Benefit Analysis: Legal, Economic, and Philosophical Perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, 269–311
Anderson, Elizabeth, “Reasons, Attitudes, and Values: Replies to Sturgeon and PiperEthics 106 (1996): 538–54
Anscombe, G. E. M., “Modern Moral PhilosophyPhilosophy 33 (1958):1–19
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. In Richard McKeon, ed., The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House, 1941
Arrow, Kenneth J., “Utilities, Attitudes, Choices: A Review Note.” In Individual Choice Under Certainty and Uncertainty. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984, 55–84
Audi, Robert. The Architecture of Reason: The Structure and Substance of Rationality. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
Barsky, Robert, and Jeffrey, Miron, “The Seasonal Cycle and the Business CycleJournal of Political Economy 97 (1989): 503–34
Becker, Gary S. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993
Bergstrom, Theodore C., “A Fresh Look at the Rotten Kind Theorem — and Other Household MysteriesJournal of Political Economy 93 (1985): 1045–76
Bernhaim, Douglas B., Andrei, Shleifer, and Lawrence, H. Summers, “The Strategic Bequest MotiveJournal of Political Economy 34 (1985): 1045–76
Binmore, Kenneth, “Modeling Rational Players, Part IEconomics and Philosophy 3 (1987): 179–214
Modeling Rational Rational Players, Part IIEconomics and Philosophy 4 (1988): 9–55
Black, Fischer, Exploring General Equilibrium. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995
Bratman, Michael E., “Reflection, Planning, and Temporally Extended AgencyPhilosophical Review 109 (2000): 35–61
Broome, John, Weighing Goods: Equality, Uncertainty, and Time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991
Butler, Joseph, Fifteen Sermons. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874
Byron, Michael, “Satisficing and OptimalityEthics 109 (1998): 67–93
Caldwell, Bruce J., Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century. New York: Routledge, 1994
Caplan, Bryan, “Stigler-Becker versus Myers-Briggs: Why Preference-Based Explanations Are Scientifically Meaningful and Empirically Important.” Working paper, George Mason University, 2001
Cowen, Tyler, Risk and Business Cycles: New and Old Austrian Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 1997
Cox, James C., “Testing the Utility HypothesisEconomic Journal 107 (1997): 1054–78
Daniels, Norman, “Wide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptance in EthicsJournal of Philosophy 76 (1979): 266–82
Darwall, Stephen, “Rational Agent, Rational ActPhilosophical Topics 14 (1986): 33–57
Dreier, James, “The Structure of Normative TheoriesThe Monist 76 (1993): 22–40
Accepting Agent Centred Norms: A Problem for Non-Cognitivists and a Suggestion for Solving ItAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 74 (1996): 409–22
Elster, Jon, Sour Grapes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983
Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984
Evans, Paul, “Interest Rates and Expected Future Budget Deficits in the United StatesJournal of Political Economy 95 (1987): 34–58
Foot, Philippa, “Utilitarianism and the Virtues.” In Samuel Scheffler, ed., Consequentialism and Its Critics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988, 224–42
Natural Goodness. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
Gardiner, Stephen M., “Aristotle's Basic and Non-Basic Virtues.” In D. N. Sedley, ed., Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy XX. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 261–95
Gauthier, David, Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986
Gibbard, Allan, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990
Grether, David M., and Charles, R. Plott, “Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal PhenomenonAmerican Economic Review 69 (1979): 623–38
Hampton, Jean, “The Failure of Expected Utility Theory as a Theory of ReasonEconomics and Philosophy 10 (1994): 195–242
Harsanyi, John C., and Reinhard Selten, A General Theory of Equilibrium Selection in Games. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988
Hausman, Daniel M., The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992
Heap, Shaun Hargreaves, Rationality in Economics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989
Herman, Barbara, The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993
Horney, Karen, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self Realization. New York: Norton, 1970
Howard-Snyder, Frances, and Alastair, Norcross, “A Consequentialist Case for Rejecting the RightJournal of Philosophical Research 18 (1993): 109–25
Hume, David, Treatise of Human Nature. L. A. Selby-Bigge, ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968
Hurka, Thomas, “Two Kinds of SatisficingPhilosophical Studies 59 (1990): 107–11
Consequentialism and ContentAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 29 (1992): 71–8
Hurley, S. L., Natural Reasons: Personality and Polity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989
Hursthouse, Rosalind, On Virtue Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999
Jackson, Frank, “Decision-Theoretic Consequentialism and the Nearest and Dearest ObjectionEthics 101 (1991): 461–82
Jeffrey, Richard C., The Logic of Decision, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983
Kagan, Shelly, The Limits of Morality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989
Does Consequentialism Demand Too Much?Philosophy and Public Affairs 13 (1984): 239–54
Kagel, John H., and Alvin E. Roth, eds., The Handbook of Experimental Economics. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995
Kahneman, Daniel., “When More Pain Is Preferred to Less: Adding a Better EndPsychological Science 4 (1993): 401–5
Korsgaard, Christine, The Sources of Normativity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996
Levi, Isaac, Hard Choices: Decision Making Under Unresolved Conflict. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986
Litterman, Robert B., and Laurence, Weiss, “Money, Real Interest Rates, and Output: A Reinterpretation of Postwar U.S. DataEconometrica 53 (1985): 129–56
Little, Margaret Olivia, “Virtue as Knowledge: Objections from the Philosophy of MindNous 31 (1997): 59–79
MacDonald, Scott, “Ultimate Ends in Practical Reasoning: Aquinas's Aristotelian Psychology and Anscombe's FallacyPhilosophical Review 100 (1991): 31–65
Machina, Mark J., “Expected Utility without the Independence AxiomEconometrica 50 (1982): 277–324
MacIntyre, Alasdair, After Virtue. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984
Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988
Marcet, Albert, and Thomas, J. Sargent, “Convergence of Least-Squares Learning in Environments with Hidden State Variables and Private InformationJournal of Political Economy 97 (1989): 1306–22
March, James G., “Bounded Rationality, Ambiguity, and the Engineering of Choice.” In J. G. March, ed., Decisions and Organizations. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988, 266–93
Martineau, James, Types of Ethical Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886
Mas-Colell, Andreu, “The Price Equilibrium Existence Problem in Topological Vector LatticesEconometrica 54 (1986): 1039–54
McDowell, John, “Non-Cognitivism and Rule-Following.” In Mind, Value, and Reality. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998, 198–218
Mendola, Joseph, “Gauthier's Morals by Agreement and Two Kinds of RationalityEthics 97 (1987): 765–74
Mill, John S., Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979
Millgram, Elijah, Varieties of Practical Reasoning. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001
Mulgan, Timothy, “Slote's Satisficing ConsequentialismRatio 6 (1993): 121–34
Nagel, Thomas, Mortal Questions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979
The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986
Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil. trans. R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Penguin Books, 1973
Zarathustra. trans. Walter Kaufmann. In The Portable Nietzsche. New York: Penguin Books, 1976
On the Genealogy of Morals. trans. Douglas Smith. Oxford: World's Classics, 1996
Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. New York: Basic Books, 1974
The Examined Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989
Nussbaum, Martha C., “Aristotelian Social Democracy.” In R. Bruce Douglas, Gerald M. Mara, and Henry S. Richardson, eds., Liberalism and the Good. New York: Routledge, 1990, 203–52
“Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach.” In Martha C. Nussbaum and Amartya Sen, eds., The Quality of Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 242–69
Pettit, Philip, “Satisficing ConsequentialismProceedings of the Aristotelian Society suppl. 58 (1984): 165–76
Plato, The Republic. tr. Richard W. Sterling and William C. Scott. New York: Norton, 1985
Pollock, John L., “A Theory of Moral ReasoningEthics (1986): 506–23
Radnitzky, Gerard, and Peter Bernholz, eds., Economic Imperialism: The Economic Approach Applied Outside the Field of Economics. New York: Paragon House, 1987
Railton, Peter, “Facts and ValuesPhilosophical Topics 14 (1986): 5–29
Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970
Raz, Joseph, The Morality of Freedom. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986
Practical Reason and Norms. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990
Reder, Melvin, Economics: The Culture of a Controversial Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999
Resnik, Michael, Choices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987
Richardson, Henry S., “Commensurability.” In Lawrence Becker, ed., Encyclopedia of Ethics, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2001, 258–62
Practical Reasoning About Final Ends. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994
Rosen, Sherwin, “Austrian and Neoclassical Economics: Any Gains from Trade?Journal of Economic Perspectives 11 (1997): 139–52
Samuelson, Paul, “A Note on the Pure Theory of Consumer's BehaviorEconometrica 5 (1938): 353–4
Scheffler, Samuel, The Rejection of Consequentialism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982
Human Morality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992
Schmidtz, David, “Rationality within ReasonJournal of Philosophy 89 (1992): 445–66
Rational Choice and Moral Agency. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995
Sen, Amartya, Choice, Welfare, and Measurement. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982
Seung, T. K., and Daniel, Bonevac, “Plural Values and Indeterminate RankingsEthics 102 (1992): 799–813
Shiller, Robert J., Irrational Exuberance. New York: Broadway Books, 2000
Simon, Herbert A., “A Behavioral Model of Rational ChoiceQuarterly Journal of Economics 69 (1955): 99–118
Theories of Decision Making in Economics and Behavioral ScienceAmerican Economic Review 49 (1959): 253–83
Models of Thought. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1979
Models of Bounded Rationality: Behavioral Economics and Business Organization, vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982
Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organizations. New York: The Free Press, 1997
Slote, Michael, “Satisficing ConsequentialismProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 58 supp. (1984): 139–63
Goods and Virtues. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983
Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism. New York: Routledge, 1985
“Moderation, Rationality and Virtue.” In Sterling M. McMurrin, ed., The Tanner Lectures on Human Values VII. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1986, 56–99
Beyond Optimizing: A Study of Rational Choice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989
From Morality to Virtue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994
Morals from Motives. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001
Smart, J. J. C., and Bernard Williams, Utilitarianism: For and Against. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973
Smith, Holly, “Deciding How to Decide: Is There a Regress Problem?” In M. Bacharach and S. Hurley, eds., Foundations of Decision Theory. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991, 194–219
Smith, Michael, The Moral Problem. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994
Sobel, David, “Subjective Accounts of Reasons for ActionEthics 111 (2001): 461–92
Sosa, David, “Consequences of ConsequentialismMind 102 (1993): 101–22
Stigler, George S., and Gary, J. Becker, “De Gustibus Non Est DisputandumAmerican Economic Review 67 (1977): 76–90
Stocker, Michael, “Desiring the Bad: An Essay in Moral PsychologyJournal of Philosophy 76 (1979): 738–53
Plural and Conflicting Values. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990
Sumner, L. W., Welfare, Happiness, and Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996
Swanton, Christine, “Satisficing and VirtueJournal of Philosophy 90 (1993): 33–48
A Virtue Ethical Account of Right ActionEthics 112 (2001): 32–52
Taylor, Charles, Sources of the Self: The Making of Modern Identity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989
Thaler, Richard H., Quasi Rational Economics. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1994
Ullmann-Margalit, Edna, and Sidney, Morgenbesser, “Picking and ChoosingSocial Research 44 (1977): 757–85
Varian, Hal, Microeconomic Analysis. New York: Norton, 1992
Velleman, David, “Well-Being and TimePacific Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1991): 48–77
Walzer, Michael, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations. New York: Basic Books, 1977
Weber, Michael, Satisficing: The Rationality of Preferring What Is Good Enough. Ph. D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1998
Williams, Bernard, “Persons, Character and Morality.” In Moral Luck. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 1–19
Wolf, Susan, “Moral SaintsJournal of Philosophy 79 (1982): 419–39
Yeager, Leland B., “Austrian Economics, Neoclassicism, and the Market TestJournal of Economic Perspectives 11 (1997): 153–65
Zagzebski, Linda, Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.