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Rational-choice - Coggle Diagram

- - - - Good predictions don't always = good explanation
    - - 'Those tests that have been undertaken have either failed on their own terms or garnered theoretical support for propositions that, on reflection, can only be characterised as banal'
      - Mismatch between what rational choice theorists said about their method and the way in which they actually applied it
      - These ignored rational-choice's empirical achievements - novel insights - Hindmoor, 2010
      - Made rational-choice theories more diligent in their testing of arguments
  - - - teaching students about basic principles of economics made them more likely to act in a self-interested manner
  - - - People obey laws due to normative values about distributive and procedural justice matter in the motivations of individual behaviour
      - People obey the law because they believe it is proper to do so - 1986, Petracca, 1991
  - - - If we design our political institutions based on models of political life embedded with assumptions of self-interest, then such institutions may promote and nurture self-interested behaviour - which has negative consequences for political life everywhere - narrowly self-regarding, egoistic and optimising institutions are produced i.e. profit-driven organisations which locate overseas and perpetuate child-labour practices - large retail companies- Petracca, 1991
- - - - Correlation doesn't always mean causation. Leader may have visited a astrologer so isn't a vote-maximiser - Hindmoor, 2010
- - - - Theories are 'nets cast to catch what we call "the world": to rationalise, to explain, and to master it. We endeavour to make the mesh ever finer and finer'.
        
        Large mesh = large fish, not EVERYTHING in the net
        
        Fine net = small fish + detritus that needs to be sifted through
        
        Rational-choice = large net = simple theory = allow us to know something without having the debris (knowing everything)
        
        Simplifications for a reason
  - - - A general class of specific tokens
    - - Specific example
    - - pick key features out of a situation, and the mechanisms which cause things to happen, and so can make generalised explanations of particular events
      - This is good as we may need to explain types not tokens
      - Starting point for more token events as far as they identify certain factors as being of potential casual significance
      - Can be used to explain almost any political situation - complement for other political science approaches