"Are human beings motivated exclusively by self-interest? The orthodox theory of rational choice in economics thinks that they are. Amartya Sen disagrees, and his concept commitment is central to his vision of an alternative to mainstream rational choice theory. This book examines commitment as...

This paper examines Amartya Sen's notion of 'commitment' in light of Geoffrey Brennan's recent discussion thereof. Its aim is to elucidate one type of commitment which consists in following social norms. To this end, I discuss Sen's 'apples' example from his 'Rational fools' essay (section 2)....

This paper develops a two-tier concept of rationality which broadens the orthodox notion of instrumental rationality in economics. In the first section, I conceive the idea of “background rationality” to consist in the ability to act normally, i.e., according to social conventions...