In this chapter, it is described and assessed how political scientists use rational choice theories to offer causal explanations. We observe that the ways in which rational choice theories are considered to be successful in political science differs, depending on the explanandum in question. Political scientists use empirical variants of rational choice theories to explain the political behavior of individual agents and analytical variants to explain the behavior of collective actors. Both variants are used for distinct explananda, which ask for (...) different modes of explanation that raise in turn different explanatory demands toward rational choice theories. We argue that when political scientists discuss the explanatory usefulness of rational choice theories, they should assess them in light of the demands they are supposed to meet. This would enable a more nuanced and problem-oriented appraisal of rational choice theories in political science. (shrink)

Agent-based modeling has become a common and well-established tool in the social sciences and certain of the humanities. Here, we aim to provide an overview of the different modeling approaches in current use. Our discussion unfolds in two parts: we first classify different aspects of the model-building process and identify a number of characteristics shared by most agent-based models in the humanities and social sciences; then we map relevant differences between the various modeling approaches. We classify these into different dimensions (...) including the type of target systems addressed, the intended modeling goals, and the models’ degree of abstraction. Along the way, we provide reference to related debates in contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

The emergence of economic inequality has often been linked to individual differences in mental or physical capacities. By means of an agent-based simulation this paper shows that neither of these is a necessary condition. Rather, inequality can arise from iterated interactions of fully rational agents. This bears consequences for our understanding of both inequality and rationality. In a setting of iterated bargaining games, we claim that expected utility maximizing agents perform suboptimally in comparison with other strategies. The reason for this (...) lies in complex feedback effects between an agents’ action and the quality of beliefs used to calculate expected utility. Consequentially, we argue that the standard notion of rationality as maximizing expected utility is insufficient, even for certain standard cases of economic interaction. (shrink)

Domesticated animals need to be treated as fellow citizens: only if we conceive of domesticated animals as full members of our political communities can we do justice to their moral standing—or so Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka argue in their widely discussed book Zoopolis. In this contribution, we pursue two objectives. Firstly, we reject Donaldson and Kymlicka’s appeal for animal citizenship. We do so by submitting that instead of paying due heed to their moral status, regarding animals as citizens misinterprets (...) their moral qualities and thus risks treating them unjustly. Secondly, we suggest that Donaldson and Kymlicka’s reinforced focus on membership should draw our attention to the moral standing of a further ‘species’, namely robots. Developments within artificial intelligence have advanced rapidly in recent years. With robots’ gaining ever greater capacities and abilities, we need to ask urgent questions about the moral ramifications of these technical advances. (shrink)

Der Band gibt wichtige Impulse für die methodologische Reflexion der historischen Kulturwissenschaften. Er geht auf eine Tagung zurück, deren Thema "Dichtung und Wahrheit. Zum Verhältnis von Narration und Erklärung in den Kultur-, Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften" war. Die Autoren greifen zum ersten Mal im kulturwissenschaftlichen Kontext Anregungen vor allem aus der Analytischen Philosophie auf und diskutieren ihren Wert für historisches und kulturwissenschaftliches Arbeiten. Im Fokus der Untersuchungen steht eine Begriffstrias, die für die Sozial-, Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften gleichermaßen seit dem 19. Jahrhundert (...) eine große Herausforderung darstellt: Erklären, Verstehen und Erzählen. (shrink)

Political psychology and rational choice approaches are often regarded as standing in direct competition with one another. In this paper, we put this postulated rivalry to the test by examining the conditions which would need to be fulfilled so as to set up a conflict between political psychology and rational choice. Since our analysis shows that the perceived competition rests on a mistaken conception of the respective approaches, we argue that our main aim should be to investigate how to combine (...) these approaches so as to maximise their fruitfulness for political science. (shrink)

The concept of rationality, predominantly in the guise of rational choice theory, plays a key role in the social sciences. Yet, whilst rational choice theory is usually understood as part of positive political science, it is also widely employed within normative political theories. In this paper, we examine how allegedly positive rational choice arguments can find application within normative political theories. To this effect, we distinguish between two interpretations of rationality ascriptions, one empirical, the other normative. Since, as we demonstrate, (...) empirical readings of the rationality assumption cannot convincingly explain the role of rational choice arguments in normative theories, we argue that the rationality assumption should be given a normative interpretation. We conclude by considering what this result implies for the use of rational choice arguments in normative and positive political science. (shrink)

In der Literatur finden sich zahlreiche Hinweise, dass die Versorgung mit öffentlichen Gütern in demokratischen Regierungssystemen besser funktioniert als in autokratischen Alternativen. Klassischerweise wird diese Beobachtung durch Unterschiede in den Anreizstrukturen demokratischer und autokratischer Entscheidungsverfahren erklärt (vgl. de Mesquita et al. 2005; Olson 2000). Der vorliegende Beitrag diskutiert eine weitere Erklä- rung für Unterschiede zwischen den unterschiedlichen Regierungstypen. Aufbauend auf die Debatte zur epistemischen Rechtfertigung demokrati- scher Entscheidungsverfahren (siehe Estlund 2000, Estlund und Landemo- re 2012, 2018) analysieren wir, ob demokratische (...) Regime auch einen insti- tutionell bedingten epistemischen Vorteil haben. Wir untersuchen diese Frage mit Hilfe eines Modells, in dem Akteure vor der Aufgabe stehen, das optimale Niveau öffentlicher Gütern zu bestimmen. Es gilt für die Akteure also, den optimalen Steuersatz zu schätzen. Wir implementieren dieses Modell in eine agentenbasierte Computersimulation und analysie- ren, wie gut es Akteuren innerhalb von zwei idealtypisch verfassten, po- litischen Systemen (Demokratie und Autokratie) gelingt, diese Aufgabe zu lösen. Die resultierenden Ergebnisse erlauben uns, die epistemische Qualität von demokratischen und nicht-demokratischen, kollektiven Ent- scheidungsverfahren zu vergleichen. Wir finden erstens einen positiven Effekt der epistemischen Vielfalt großer Gruppen, die in demokratischen Entscheidungsverfahren zur Geltung kommt (für ähnliche Ergebnisse im Gebiet wissenschaftlicher Gemeinschaften siehe Zollman 2010, O'Connor und Bruner 2019). Zweitens zeigt sich überraschenderweise, dass demokra- tische Entscheidungsverfahren am besten abschneiden, wenn die Bürger auch ihre eigenen Bedürfnisse priorisieren und kommunizieren, anstatt in ihren Interaktionen mit ihren Mitbürgern lediglich das optimale Niveau des öffentlichen Nutzens aus der Sicht der Gruppe zu kommunizieren. Schließlich findet sich ein positiver Effekt von zeitlich begrenzten Deli- berationsphasen auf die epistemische Qualität kollektiver Abstimmungser- gebnisse. (shrink)

High levels of trust have been linked to a variety of benefits including the well-functioning of markets and political institutions or the ability of societies to solve public goods problems endogenously. While there is extensive literature on the macro-level determinants of trust, the micro-level processes underlying the emergence and stability of trust are not yet sufficiently understood. We address this lacuna by means of a computer model. In this paper, conditions under which trust is likely to emerge and be sustained (...) are identified. We focus our analysis mainly on the individual characteristics of agents: their social or geographical mobility, their attitude towards others or their general uncertainty about the environment. Contrary to predictions from previous literature, we show that immobile agents are detrimental to both, the emergence and robustness of trust. Additionally, we identify a hidden link between trusting others and being trustworthy. (shrink)

In this contribution we analyze how the actions of rational agents feed back on their beliefs. We present two agent-based computer simulations studying complex social interactions in which agents that follow utility maximizing strategies thereby deteriorate their own long-term quality of beliefs. We take these results as a starting point to discuss the complex relationship between rational action couched in terms of maximizing utility and the emergence of informational inequalities.

There is considerable correspondence between theories and models used in biology and the social sciences. One type of model that is in use in both biology and the social sciences is the fitness landscape model. The properties of the fitness landscape model have been applied rather freely in the social domain. This is partly due to the versatility of the model, but it is also due to the difficulties of transferring a model to another domain. We will demonstrate that in (...) order to transfer the biological fitness landscape model to the social science it needs to be substantially modified. We argue that the syntactic structure of the model can remain unaltered, whilst the semantic dimension requires considerable modification in order to fit the specific phenomena in the social sciences. We will first discuss the origin as well as the basic properties of the model. Subsequently, we will demonstrate the considerations and modifications pertaining to such a transfer by showing how and why we altered the model to analyse collective decision-making processes. We will demonstrate that the properties of the target domain allow for a transfer of the syntactic structure but don’t tolerate the semantic transfer. (shrink)