Whereas reason is commonly viewed as a superior means to think better on one’s own, we argue that it is mainly used in our interactions with others. We produce reasons in order to justify our thoughts and actions to others and to produce arguments to convince others to think and act as we suggest. We also use reason to evaluate not so much our own thought as the reasons others produce to justify themselves or convince us.
That is from Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding, a book that I have just started to read.
They call their theory of human reason “interactionist.” They argue that when economists or psychologists find what appear to be errors of human reasoning, we are taking human reason out of its natural context by focusing on individual choice. The authors apparently are going to argue that when human reasoning is used interactively, it works better than one might expect based on looking at the individual capacity to reason.
Regardless of how that argument works out, I think that economists would do well to recognize the interactive nature of human behavior. Treat economics as the study not of autonomous individuals (“human action”) but as the study of humans interacting in the context of production and exchange. Models based on the autonomous individual sometimes work well, but my guess is that once you get beyond the most basic supply and demand story, models become very dependent on the prevailing beliefs, cultural norms, and laws in the society to which one attempts to apply the model.
There is no need for economists to commit to what Deirdre McCloskey derides as the Max U view of human nature. We can instead accommodate the view that man is a cultural animal, and that we learn our habits and beliefs from others.
Taking human beings as social animals subject to various departures from pure rationality, market exchange is still a very defensible mode of human interaction. Markets help to organize large-scale specialization and cooperation. Markets are effective learning mechanisms. If Mercier and Sperber are going to claim that our collective brain works in spite of (and perhaps even because of) the flaws of our individual reason, then I am prepared to claim that the market system is often the best tool for taking advantage of that collective brain.
There is something to the idea that reasoning arose from interpersonal relations, but Mercier and Sperber exaggerate the point. According to them, our reasoning is (1) “to justify our thoughts and actions to others,” (2)” to produce arguments to convince others to think and act as we [want],” (3) ” to evaluate not so much our own thought as the reasons others produce to justify themselves or convince us.” What about reasoning employed simply the better to achieve one’s personal aims (which would include reasoning simply to discover truth)? I am a card player–specifically, bridge–and I reason about strategy and tactics not primarily to justify myself to others or to win arguments–that is very much a by-product. I simply want to *win*, and playing rationally is the way to achieve this. I am also an investor, and my reasoning about investment is aimed simply at maximizing my expected return (in terms of utility rather than dollars); chattering impressively at a cocktail party about my investments (and the like) is hardly a consideration. Maybe I am more of a rationalist than most people, but I know of lots of people who try to apply reason even outside the context of discussion with other people, the better to achieve their aims, even the non-social ones.
Mercier and Sperber would reply that when you apply reason for your own purposes, you are taking it out of its natural habitat. There it may work, but often it works less well than it does in the social context of arguments and justification.
There is certainly something to their thesis (as the phrase goes “man is not the rational animal, but the rationalizing animal”) but I agree with Philo that they may be overselling it somewhat.
Consider this essay[1], in which the author talks about teaching math by recasting logic problems as social problems. His success supports Mercier and Sperber’s thesis, but casting abstract mathematical problems in terms of spatial orientation and motion are also effective. For instance, I can demonstrate the property of transitivity by reference to spatial navigation: “Shelter is east of the river, the river is east of me; therefore I must travel east to reach shelter.”
I would say that “tool-use” and “navigating the environment” are both first-class reasoning functions, separate from any social context.
I would also say that there are two key functions of abstract reasoning:
1) Separating the map from the territory (recognizing that our mental model is not the same thing as the reality it represents)
2) Stepping into other peoples’ shoes (being aware that peoples’ minds work differently from our own, and being able to simulate their thought processes).
The first could be characterized as spatial-kinetic in nature, and the second could be characterized as social-interactionist. As I understand it (though I don’t have studies to back it up at the moment) both correlate with I.Q.
[1] http://www.lispcast.com/tap-into-your-social-brain
In “Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman laid out the case that in interactions, we have both fast (instinctive) reactions and slow (reasoned) choices.
Consider the “Allocation Game.” You are given $10,000, and told to divide it into two piles – one for you and the other for a total stranger. Once you set the two piles, the stranger come in and gets to approve (you each get your pile) or veto (nobody gets nothin’). How to you divide the money?
The great majority stay between 40/60 either way, to avoid triggering the strangers sense of revulsion at an “unfair” deal. Rationally, that is inappropriate. Offering the stranger just say $1,000 ought to be fine, because hey, free money. But that’s the rational mind, able to deal with one-off games and pure economics.
The old monkey brain still recalls the semi-stable solutions to the iterated prisoners’ dilemma. I share fruit now, you damned well better share nuts later, else NO ONE survives the Ice Age! Punish deal-breakers (see also “Tit-for-Tat” on Wiki).
And if people still anticipate, and allow for, that revulsion then irrationality is really quite quiet rational, isn’t it?
I’m picturing a Chinese room inside another Chinese room. The smaller room is called consciousness and the bigger one reason. When John Searle came up with this thing he was saying the opposite of what I’m saying. He said that consciousness is not a Chinese room. What I’m saying is that this is exactly what consciousness is.
But is reason a bigger Chinese room? The collective brain is reason, and the individual brain is consciousness, but the individual brain is also collective, because it’s Chinese rooms all the way down. Like the turtles.
And is Daniel Dennett saying something similar, or something completely different?
Dennett’s book is called From Bacteria To Bach And Back. He says that consciousness is “a trillion mindless robots dancing.” And that “all the brilliance and comprehension in the world arises ultimately out of uncomprehending competences compounded over time into ever more competent—and hence comprehending—systems.”
Which sounds like a market to me. Dennett himself is talking about Darwin and Turing, and evolution and computers, but he could be talking about Hayek and markets, and in fact that’s the best example of what he’s talking about. That’s the collective brain, connecting the whole planet in something like John Updike’s “vast conspiracy to make you happy.” The market is this vast, worldwide conspiracy and the conspirators don’t know you exist, or whether you’re happy or not, but they’re working away regardless, all to make you happy.