In Robert Frank’s article, “What Price the Moral High
Ground?” he makes an interesting distinction between wanting to use a
cost-benefit analysis framework for personal relationships and using that
framework consciously. Frank holds that “relationships with scorecards in hand
are much less satisfied with their marriages” and that “when therapists try to
get people to think in cost-benefit terms about their relationships, it often
seems to backfire” (8). Yet, subconsciously, the cost-benefit model actually
works well for personal relationships, since “an emotional commitment to one’s spouse
is valuable in the coldly rational Darwinian cost-benefit calculus because it
promotes […] reproductive fitness” (8). Here, Frank uses the model that
rational choice theorists invented, and protects his argument by saying that it’s
okay to use the cost-benefit model only theoretically to look at personal
relationships. This seemed to be a fundamental tension within Frank’s argument:
he seems to rely on the frameworks that he tries to prove futile.
He claims that rational choice theories confront the dilemma
of assuming that people pursue narrowly selfish goals in order to make testable
implications for observable behavior (26). While claiming that the Darwinian
analysis “offers a principled way of resolving this dilemma” (26), isn’t Frank
also relying on the Darwinian assumption in order to make testable
implications? It seems that it could likely be what he is doing within his personal relationship analysis above. It seems that he wants to work in a quasi-poststructuralist mode when
critiquing the traditional rational choice theories, but reverts back to its
well-known framework in order to make his case.
Possibly, the Darwinian assumption is just more inherently
true than the rational choice model of narrow self interest; we do give to
charities, leave tips at highway restaurants, vote in elections, as he points
out. But it seems that Frank needs to do more work explaining the distinction between these two assumptions,
instead of attacking the framework upon which he also relies. To explain why the
Darwinian assumption holds truer for why people enter into spousal
relationships, Frank would certainly have to defend his analysis in the face of
plummeting fertility rates in the United States and around the world. If not nearly as many people are having kids today, are people really entering into relationships for reproductive fitness? Does his assumption of the subconscious human drive to reproduce really outweigh the rational choice model's assumption for humans to pursue narrowly self-interested goals? I guess I wasn't completely convinced, mainly because he operates using a similar framework as the rational choice model which he tries to refute.
Becca,
ReplyDeleteI think you're right to point out that Frank critiques the overuse of cost-benefit frameworks. He says: "The problem with this approach, however, is that if analysts are totally unconstrained in terms of the number of goals they can attribute to people, virtually any behaviour can be explained." (3)
However, I think he is not arguing against the use of cost-benefit frameworks themselves, but rather their indiscriminate expansion and application. As you note, he instead embraces a Darwinian view of evolution that allows him to narrow the range of possible goals that can be factored into a cost-benefit analysis. Through this he is aiming to strengthen cost-benefit frameworks, rather than critique their use in and of itself.
So instead of trying to work in a post-structuralist framework, I think he is explicitly trying to strengthen and improve upon common structuralist cost-benefit approaches.
Thomas
But doesn't he think that people over use cost-benefit analyses when looking at humans as narrowly self-interested people? That quote helps a lot...he wants to put all these things into the category of self-interest in order to perform the cost benefit analysis. I agree that he uses the Darwinian view of evolution to expand this framework, but then, he doesn't adequately argue why this new addendum ameliorates the problems of the use of the cost-benefit analysis. Isn't he just explaining away himself? Instead, I feel that it could rest upon similarly troubling assumptions, and not apply to as many situations as the rational choice model... just a thought!
ReplyDeleteBut doesn't he think that people over use cost-benefit analyses when looking at humans as narrowly self-interested people? That quote helps a lot...he wants to put all these things into the category of self-interest in order to perform the cost benefit analysis. I agree that he uses the Darwinian view of evolution to expand this framework, but then, he doesn't adequately argue why this new addendum ameliorates the problems of the use of the cost-benefit analysis. Isn't he just explaining away himself? Instead, I feel that it could rest upon similarly troubling assumptions, and not apply to as many situations as the rational choice model... just a thought!
ReplyDelete