Abstract
Behaviorism is consistent with the assumptions of perfect competition, with the homo economicus model, and with a form of ethics that enshrines market-based notions of utility, justice, and rights and encourages rational maximizing. Economics and business courses foster this deficient form of ethics, assuming an overriding desire for money, which, according to MacIntyre and Aristotle, crowds out the associative virtues. These beliefs, often associated with Taylor and Friedman, lead to such practices as incentive compensation, which would be effective only if employees were homines economici and thus rational in the sense of knowing how to satisfy whatever desires they have. Against Davidson’s view that psychology cannot be a natural science, Aristotle believes that there can be a teleological, if not exact, science of behavior. Aristotle believes that emotions and objectives may be rational or irrational. But rationality—phronesis, practical wisdom—is not a matter of applying algorithms. Doris questions whether character generates the first premises of an agent’s practical syllogisms, while Haidt has argued that we often act on emotions rather than on the basis of the reasons that we claim motivate us. Aristotle agrees that many people are not virtuous and that weakness of the will is a common occurrence, and he agrees that emotion drives actions. But if you are virtuous, your emotions and desires support your rationality. Aristotle gives us reason to reject the notion that people are homines economici and to treat them as rational deliberators, in part by creating an appropriate culture. The claim that it is in the nature of human beings to deliberate rationally is in part aspirational, but also in part scientific—in Aristotle’s modest sense.
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Notes
I think this is implicit in De Anima III 2–3 and elsewhere.
See, for example, Friedman, M. (1970).
Huehn harshly criticizes Friedman for essentially ignoring the facts if that is what it takes to save the theory. See Hühn, M. (2015).
See, for example, Moore, G. (2012). Moore is a sympathetic but by no means uncritical interpreter of MacIntyre.
Aristotle discusses the mean at NE II 6–9.
See also Bernacchio, C. (2015) where he discusses the social nature of framing in a way that Aristotle might find congenial.
For more along these lines see Greene, J. (2013).
See also his “The Emotional Dog and its Rational Tail.” (2001).
Especially in “The Emotional Dog….”
See further Hartman, E. (2013).
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Hartman, E.M. Rationality in Management Theory and Practice: An Aristotelian Perspective. Philosophy of Management 14, 5–16 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-015-0003-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-015-0003-9