Schlicht, Ekkehart

English

Research Papers in Economics

Journal ofInstitutional and Thcorctical Economics (JITE) 150/1  (1994),  142-144 
Zeitschrift ftir die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 
Choosing What to Choose 
Comment 
by 
EKKEHART SCHLICHT 
One of the most significant developments in contemporary economics is  the 
type  of constitutional thinking that has evolved from Professor Buchanan's 
work, Within this strand of thought, a central - and still Iargely unsolved -
question is: why is it that peopie obey rules, particularly self-imposed rules and 
constitutions, even if they could easily disregard them? The answer suggested 
in tbis paper is that people have a preference for observing such rules, and this 
integrates rule-obedience into the ordinary rational calculus. 
The preference for observing certain rules, we are told, may be due to some 
evolutionary process or to explicit choice.  While I have no objection to the 
evolutionary story (which tells us that whatever we observe today has its roots 
somewhere in the past), I am slightly sceptical regarding a possible choice of 
rules. 
For the sake of brevity I  refrain  here from entering the infinite recourse 
suggested in the title of the paper, but it seems difficult to maintain that a rule 
will be chosen rationally that requires, under certain conditions, actions that are 
not utility maximizing. I am alluding here to the standard argument against rule 
utilitarianism that underpins "the economist's familiar prejudices against the 
rationality of  deliberative choices made in order to constrain choices".  1 It  runs 
as follows.  Let C be the set of possible circumstances and denote by A the set 
of possible actions. Denote further the set of  possible rules by R. Any possible 
rule  r  E  R  assigns  an action  a  E  A  to any given  circumstance c  E  C.  If  an 
individual  has chosen  a  possible  rule  r  that under certain circumstances  c' 
requires an action a' = r ( c') that is worse than a possible action a" under these 
circumstances, then there is another rule r*  that is strictly better than rand is 
defined  as  follows:  for  all  circumstances  save  c',  apply  rule  rand choose 
a =  r (c); for c',  choose a": 
r*(c) =  r(c) for all c ECj{C'}, r*(c') =  a". 
1  The quotation is  from BUCHAl-lAN [1994),  The argument against rule utilitarianism 
is given e.g. in MACKIE [1977, 136-138]. Mackie also observes that psychological consid-
erations may restriet the set of possible rules and render rule utilitarianism meaningfuL 150/1  (1994)  Choosing What to  Choose  143 
If  a suboptimal rule such as r is rationally chosen, this would require that r* is 
not available (Le.  not in R).  So this part of Professor Buchanan's argument 
seems to require either that people choose suboptimal rules (such as r) because 
they simple like them or there are real constraints - rather than self-imposed 
constraints - that render the amended rule r*  unavailable.  Both arguments 
would merge if  psychological constraints were to prevent people from choosing 
r* rather than r. There may be moral reasons supporting r that are not valid for 
r*. The rule "Always tell the truth!" may be justified more convincingly than 
the apparently  better rule  "Always  tell  the  truth unless  lying  can't be  de-
tected! ", and people may prefer the first rule because they like justifying their 
action. Such an argument builds on psychological dispositions that determine 
what is  morally convincing and what is  not convincing.  The moral reasons 
cannot, themselves, result from utility maximization, since they constrain be-
havior away from utility maximization. This may benefit society, as Professor 
Buchanan argues. It may,  however,  also  be  very  harmful not only for  the 
individual foregoing  some immediate benefits, but also  for society  at large. 
Moral behavior may  have  indeed  very  dire  consequences;  morality  is  not 
always a good thing. 
Another aspect of  norms ought to be stressed a little more than is done in the 
paper, namely  that the rules people observe are  widely shared and should be 
conceived, there/ore, as largely independent 0/  idiosyncratic choices  ... This points 
to shared propensities of men and, therefore, to invariances of psychological 
organization. The point may be illustrated by David HUME's  [1978] theory of 
property, where property is related to "a quality ... in human nature, that when 
two objects appear in elose relation to each other, the mind is  apt to ascribe 
them any additional relation,  in  order to complete the  union." Property is, 
according to Hume, such a completion of "a relation betwixt a person and an 
object". He traces many observations back to these psychological propensities. 
" ... And I farther observe, that a sensible relation, without any present power, 
is sometimes sufficient to give a title to any object. The sight of  a thing is seldom 
a considerable relation, and is only regarded as such, when the object is hidden, 
or very obscure; in which case we find, that the view alone conveys a property; 
according to that maxim, that even a whole continent belongs to a nation, which 
first discover'd it. 'Tis however remarkable, that both in the case of discovery 
and that of possession,  the  first  discoverer and possessor must join to the 
relation an intention of  rendering hirnself proprietor, otherwise the relation will 
not have its effect; and that because the connection in our fancy betwixt the 
property and the relation is not so great, but that it requires to be help'd by such 
an intention"2. 
It  seems to me that psychological considerations of this kind may help us to 
und  erstand widely shared constitutional elements such as the rules goveming 
2  The quotations are from HUME [1978,506-507]. See KUBON-GILKE and SCHLICHT 
[1993]  for a  discussion of David Hume's theory of property in its relation to  gestalt 
psychology. 144  Ekkehart Schlicht  JJrnrIE 
property, and mayaiso be  helpful in understanding the emotions ultimately 
underpinning and establishing these rules. All this is, however, not a matter of 
choke. 
References 
BUCHANAN, 1. M. [1994], "Choosing What to Choose", Journal of  Institutional and The-
oretical Economics,  150, 123-135. 
HUME,  D. [1978],  A  Treatise  of Human  Nature,  second edition, with text revised  and 
variant readings by P. H. Nidditch, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
KUBON-GILKE, G. and E. SCHLICHT [1993], "Gefordertheit und institutionelle Analyse am 
Beispiel des Eigentums", Gestalt Theory,  15(3/4),257-273. 
MACKIE,  J. L. [1977],  Ethics.  Inventing Right and Wrang,  Harmondsworth: Penguin. 
Professor Ekkehart Schlicht 
Ludwig Maximilians Universität 
Seminar für Theorie und Politik 
der Einkommensverteilung 
Schackstraße 4 
80539 München 
Germany 

A Treatise of Human Nature, second edition, with text revised and variant readings by

Choosing What to Choose&quot;,

Ethics. Inventing Right and Wrang,

Gefordertheit und institutionelle Analyse am Beispiel des Eigentums&quot;, Gestalt Theory,

Choosing What to Choose: Comment on James Buchanan

http://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3161/1/schlicht_ekkehart_3161.pdf

Choosing What to Choose: Comment on James Buchanan

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