Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality

By Jon Elster

Categories: Politics & Social Sciences, Religion & Spirituality

Social theorist Jon Elster examines the concept of rationality and its limits. He critiques the economist's idea of rationality as maximizing present preferences, and contrasts it with the ability to bind oneself in advance, as Ulysses did when he had himself tied to the mast to resist the Sirens. Drawing on philosophy, economics and psychology, Elster explores weakness of will, precommitment, and the role of irrational beliefs in human behavior.

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• Shane Parrish: “Elster critiques the notion of rationality in the economist’s sense, as a faculty that is concerned with maximizing the satisfaction of agents’ present preferences. He contrasts this notion of locally maximizing rationality with what can be called globally maximizing rationality.”