Conference Papers & Current Trends
Discussion of Rational Choice Theory
Professor Anthony Gill Explains Rational Choice Theory
Rational choice is a general theory of human behavior that assumes individuals try to make the most efficient decisions possible in an environment of scarce resources. By "efficient" it is meant that humans are "utility maximizers" - for any given choice a person seeks the most benefit relative to costs. It is an instrumental theory of human behavior, trying to explain how people achieve their goals rather than what those goals are per se. In this regard, William Marquis is on target with his critique (below) that rational choice says very little about the content of individual preferences, a topic that economists are only now starting to address (see Gary Becker's Accounting for Tastes).
What rational choice theory attempts to explain can best be understood in relation to two other general perspectives of human behavior - cultural and psychological. The former seeks to explain human behavior based on the social values, norms and beliefs (ideologies and theologies) that people are socialized to. Psychological approaches (primarily cognitive psychology) try to understand behavior as a function of how the mind processes external information and translates it into action. Each perspective, including rational choice, is limited in what it can explain. I believe a major goal of the social sciences is to try to bridge the gap between these perspectives to provide a more complete account of individual and social behavior.
While rational choice theory developed from the study of microeconomics, it should not be associated exclusively with fiduciary gain (i.e., money). Money has been a prime focus of economics largely because it is the best empirical measure economists have had for determining "utility." But people can seek to maximize non-fiduciary goals such as leisure, reputation and even love. Likewise, although rational choice theorists assume that people are self-interested utility maximizers, this does not imply that people are "greedy." Rather, rational choice only states that people will try to maximize their utility (however defined) in a world of scarce resources. Consider the proverbial "Good Samaritan." While pure of heart and concerned with strictly altruistic goals, the Good Samaritan nonetheless is constrained by limited time, energy and resources to help the poor. For simplicity sake, we can assume that this Good Samaritan has two options before him/her. The first (policy A) allows him/her to raise quadruple the living standards of 10 poor people. The second (policy B) provides him/her to double the living standards of 100 poor people. How to choose between policy A or B is an economic decision, and, in this case, is one that has very altruistic goals. Indeed, this is often the decision that the most honorable charities face on a daily basis.
But can rational choice apply to religion and religious behavior? After all, it is often taken as given that religion is an inherently "non-rational" form of knowledge; spiritual knowledge (and the action it is based upon) relies on faith that something is true rather than cost-benefit calculation, empirical verification or information updating - all hallmarks of the "rational choice" process. In part, this is true and points to one of the limits of rational choice theory. Rational choice does not try to explain why people have certain spiritual beliefs (although "Pascal's wager" is an attempt to do this - see also John Durkin and Andrew Greeley's 1991 article in Rationality and Society). However, given a certain set of spiritual beliefs (e.g., Catholicism), rational choice observes that people acting on religious motivations (e.g., evangelize, help the poor, seek salvation) still live in a world of scarcity and must make tough decisions on how best to achieve their goals. Individual parishioners must make choices about how much time to devote to church activities versus individual worship, and how much money to donate. Economist Larry Iannaccone has written extensively on this topic (see his 1990 article in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion). Similarly, clergy must make decisions on how best to serve their parishioners based on limited budgets. In large part, this is what my book - Rendering Unto Caesar - is about. A Catholic Church with limited resources (most notably a dearth of priests) must make decisions on how to allocate those resources under two different circumstances: 1) when the Church is a monopoly; and 2) when the Church faces pluralism, or religious competition. These choices, I argue, have political consequences.
All told, the rational choice approach to studying religious actors and institutions need not be one that sterilizes spirituality from religion. Indeed, my own personal spirituality has grown stronger over the course of my fieldwork in Latin America. I have had the great pleasure to talk to both Catholics and Protestants who are truly honorable people whose main motivation has been to serve God. Nonetheless, these individuals have had to make tough choices along the way and they have always tried to make choices that bring about the most amount of benefit to the people surrounding them. Understanding these choices is well within the purview of rational choice theory.