Big Steps and Blind Spots: Herbert Gintis's Take-Over of Sociology Is Economic Imperialism

Abstract

The history of the social sciences resembles an endless sequence of two different processes: fragmentation into different and even combatting camps vs integrative attempts to develop some kind of unity of the (social) sciences. This applies especially to the relation between economics and sociology, mostly in the form of a disregard for the other fields and attempts at a more or less hostile take-over. In Individuality and Entanglement Herbert Gintis makes a new suggestion that is partly based on some earlier contributions to this discussion. The key points involve several extensions of classical concepts of economic reasoning: the systematic inclusion of moral motives within the established framework of axiomatic rational choice theory (RCT); the extension of the classic concepts of Walras equilibrium for markets to a system of dynamic processes with temporary equilibria; skipping the assumption of isolated and sovereign actors and replacing it with the notion of overlapping networks of actors with the shared mental models of a common culture and communication; linking the emergence of moral motives to longterm processes of gene-cultural evolution; and, last but not least, systematic empirical testing of the core assumptions of these concepts in the new movements of behavioural economics and in experimental game theory in particular. In a large part of the book, this can be understood as a direct attack on sociology with the injunction to save all the valuable and indispensable contributions sociology has made, its broad fundus of observations and conceptual descriptions of social processes and its socalled middle-range theories in particular for more analytical rigor and the use of formal instruments of economic analyses. One of the singularities of Gintis’s suggestion is that, unlike similar proposals in the past, in this case the author is familiar with sociology and even its details. Herbert Gintis knew Talcott Parsons personally and had several disputes with him early in his academic life. One chapter of the book is devoted to this exchange. It represents one pivotal point in his argumentation: consider what sociology has to contribute, i.e. norms, internalisation, and culture, but integrate these elements into the instruments of economic reasoning and model-building. This point alone highlights the contribution: It is once again a kind of imperialistic view of sociology, but clearly from a much better informed and sometimes even benevolent perspective, where the merits of sociology are appreciated much more than one is used to reading in comparable contributions from outside the camp of economics and RCT in general. The proposed concept is summarised very clearly right at the beginning of the book. Individual chapters deal with the particular elements focused on different directions and emphases. They can be briefly summarised in 12 points: 1. A society is constituted as a gigantic game with rules which is played by human beings. The rules are not set by ‘society’ or by ‘genes’, but by coordinated individual actors, with some common SPECIAL REVIEW ESSAy SECTIon