David Hume and Rationality in Decision-Making: A Case Study on the Economic Reading of a Philosopher

André Lapidus

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Abstract: This paper shows that Hume's theory of passion, such as elaborated mainly in book II of the Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) and in the Dissertation on the Passions (1757), gives rise to a conception of the decision process which challenges the canonical approach to the rationality of decision, as rationality of preferences or rationality of choice. It shows that when adopting a Humean perspective, rationality is not embodied as consistency requirements of individual behaviour, but may emerge as a possible outcome of some dispositions of our mind, which make the world inhabited by our emotions.

Keywords: Hume; economic philosophy; rationality; decision; passion; emotion; desire; preference; will; choice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-upt
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Published in R. Ege and H. Igersheim (eds), The Individual and the Other in Economic Thought, 2019

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01831901

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