Between Facts and Norms - Contributions to a ... - Blogs Unpad

337----"-- -"--"----Civil Society and the Political Public Sphereformation. Elster designates this as the "autonomous" formation ofpreferences: "autonomy is for desires what judgement is for beliefs."15Moreover, it is especially unrealistic to assume that all socialbehavior is strategic action and can thus be explained as though itwere the result of egocentric utility calculations. The explanatorypower of this sociological model is obviously limited: "While thereis always a risk of self-serving behavior, the extent to which it isactually present varies widely. Much of the social choice and publicchoice literature, with its assumption of universally opportunisticbehavior, simply seems out of touch with the real world, in whichthere is a great deal of honesty and sense of duty. If people alwaysengaged in opportunistic behavior when they could get away withit, civilization as we know it would not exist."16This and similar considerations led Elster years ago to broadenthe rational-choice framework by including socioethical commitmentsand moral reasons among preferences. In addition, hedescribed the democratic process as a mechanism that changespreferences through public discussions.17 What matters most tohim are the procedural aspects of such a rational will-formation.18To render this idea fruitful, he had to make two drastic revisions inthe rational-choice model.First, he expanded the theory by adding an additional actiontype. Besides strategic or purposive-rational action, which is orientedto consequences (under conditions of incomplete information)and steered by the individual's own preferences, there is alsonorm-regulated action. The latter is an elementary action type,because it is not reducible to strategic action.19 In reply to theargument that norms serve only to justifY opportunistic action afterthe fact, Elster maintains that no one could deal strategically withnorms in a particular case ifhe could not count on the intersubjectiverecognition of norms in general. To this extent, the social validityof norms eoys a logical priority over the advantages one mightgain by pretending to orient oneself to such norms. Equallyunconvincing is the further objection that norm-conformativebehavior is actually a purposive-rational avoidance of internalizedsanctions (such as feelings of shame and guilt) . Dealing rationallywith the consequences of a behavior that by presupposition isirrational does not explain how this behavior (as the result of the