Transaction, development, and capacity: commentary on 'Toward a transactional theory of decision making'

The author fundamentally agrees with Mousavi's and Garrison's criticisms of Herbert Simon's version of rational choice theory, underscoring three central points of their analysis: 1) rational choice theory's naive assumption that consumer preferences are given and fixed, rather than transactionally formed; 2) the truncated notion of 'rationality' assumed by Simon, and other rational choice theories generally; and 3) the impoverished philosophical anthropology assumed by Simon, and the notion of homo economicus generally. The author's only significant disagreement with Mousavi and Garrison is with respect to the second point: they choose not to follow Dewey's shift to 'intelligence,' as a replacement for the abused term 'rationality.'