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AbstractAxiomatic rationality is defined in terms of conformity to abstract axioms. Savage (The foundations of statistics, Wiley, New York, 1954) limited axiomatic rationality to small worlds (S, C), that is, situations in which the exhaustive and mutually exclusive set of future states S and their consequences C are known. Others have interpreted axiomatic rationality as a categorical norm for how human beings should reason, arguing in addition that violations would lead to real costs such as money pumps. Yet a review of the literature shows little evidence that violations are actually associated with any measurable costs. Limiting axiomatic rationality to small worlds, I propose a naturalized version of rationality for situations of intractability and uncertainty (as opposed to risk), all of which are not in (S, C). In these situations, humans can achieve their goals by relying on heuristics that may violate axiomatic rationality. The study of ecological rationality requires formal models of heuristics and an analysis of the structures of environments these can exploit. It lays the foundation of a moderate naturalism in epistemology, providing statements about heuristics we should use in a given situation. Unlike axiomatic rationality, ecological rationality can explain less-is-more effects (when using less information can be expected to generate more accurate predictions), formalize when one should move from 'is' to 'ought,' and be evaluated by goals beyond coherence, such as predictive accuracy, frugality, and efficiency. Ecological rationality can be seen as a formalization of means–end instrumentalist rationality, based on Herbert Simon's insight that rational behavior is a function of the mind and its environment.

AbstractDespite the ubiquity of uncertainty, scientific attention has focused primarily on probabilistic approaches, which predominantly rely on the assumption that uncertainty can be measured and expressed numerically. At the same time, the increasing amount of research from a range of areas including psychology, economics, and sociology testify that in the real world, people's understanding of risky and uncertain situations cannot be satisfactorily explained in probabilistic and decision-theoretical terms. In this article, we offer a theoretical overview of an alternative approach to uncertainty developed in the framework of the ecological rationality research program. We first trace the origins of the ecological approach to uncertainty in Simon's bounded rationality and Brunswik's lens model framework and then proceed by outlining a theoretical view of uncertainty that ensues from the ecological rationality approach. We argue that the ecological concept of uncertainty relies on a systemic view of uncertainty that features it as a property of the organism–environment system. We also show how simple heuristics can deal with unmeasurable uncertainty and in what cases ignoring probabilities emerges as a proper response to uncertainty.

AbstractStandard evolutionary game theory investigates the evolutionary fitness of alternative behaviors in a fixed and single decision problem. This paper instead focuses on decision criteria, rather than on simple behaviors, as the general behavioral rules under selection in the population: the evolutionary fitness of classic decision criteria for rational choice is analyzed through Monte Carlo simulations over various classes of decision problems. Overall, quantifying the uncertainty in a probabilistic way and maximizing expected utility turns out to be evolutionarily beneficial in general. Minimizing regret also finds some evolutionary justifications in our results, while maximin seems to be always disadvantaged by differential selection.

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of affective appraisal dimensions on the use of two ecologically rational, social heuristics: imitate the majority (IMH) and imitate the best (IBH) during an entrepreneurial strategic decision-making process (ESDM).


Design/methodology/approach
The authors test the hypotheses in a controlled field experiment, on a final sample of 98 entrepreneurs.


Findings
The study shows that entrepreneurs experiencing affect described by certainty appraisal display a preference for relying on IMH, but not on IBH. Moreover, entrepreneurs who experience unpleasant affect tend to rely more on IMH, rather than IBH. The reverse is true for the entrepreneurs who experience positive affect. Finally, the use of IMH is most likely under unpleasant and certain affect, while the use of IBH is most likely under pleasant and certain affect.


Originality/value
The main contribution of this study is that it provides initial support for the impact of affective appraisal dimensions on the use of ecologically rational heuristics (i.e. heuristics that save important resources, but bring beneficial results) during an ESDM process.

We have investigated manure management practices at three farm scales in Chinese pig and poultry production. The concept of ecological rationality was employed to explore empirically how environmental concerns drive adoption of environmental-friendly manure management technologies at different farm scales. The more developed Rudong County in Jiangsu Province and the less developed Zhongjiang County in Sichuan Province were chosen as cases for study of 258 animal breeders. On the contrary to our hypothesis, medium-scale farmers were not always found to be laggards in adoption of manure management technologies. Government ecological rationality played a key role to induce environmental-friendly technology adoption on its own, but also in cooperation with ecologically rational individual or network drivers. Authorities no longer applied their efforts in a conventional command-and-control way, but more in the form of incentives, stimulation, and information to farmers. Individual farmers in general showed low environmental responsibility in relation to manure handling.

Ecological reasoning has been a subject of discussion for some time now. The earliest references to it dates back to 1983 when John S. Dryzek wrote his article on 'ecological rationality'.3 In this article, Dryzek discussed the problem of collective decision making and argued that 'ecological rationality' is a more fundamental form of reason than all other forms of rationality - political, economic, technical, legal and social4 - and hence should take precedence over them when making collective decisions or public policies.5 Dryzek gave the utmost importance to 'ecological rationality' because he claimed that "the preservation of the life-support systems upon which human beings depend is a precondition to the continued existence of society."6 Although, he argued that ecological reasoning should set the standard of reasoning, he didn't make it clear what ecological reasoning entails. This paper aims to explore the incurrent patterns of 'ecological reasoning' through observations of instances of reasoning by self-claimed ecological reasoners in an ethnographic research. In our in depth interviews (48 owners and managers of greentech and consultancy firms in Portugal and Turkey) some of our interlocutors, self claimed ecological reasoners, said that they need to translate their ecological reasoning into economical reasoning in order to appeal to their customers. In other words, in order to make sense, they need to frame their ecological concerns in economic terms. However, contrary to the clarity of economic reasoning, ecological reasoning manifests in a foggy terrain. What are the characteristics of reasoning pattern that make it ecological? Economic reasoning manifests itself in profit maximization, interest seeking etc. However ecological reasoning is a camelon, the colours oscillates between attributing intrinsic value to nature on the one hand; and it gains the colour of means-end rationality on the other.

First paragraph: I write this review under lockdown amid a global pandemic. So far today (March 25th 2020), the Dow Jones is up 5 percent. Last week trading was suspended following a 13 percent fall. Financial markets across the globe are struggling to price the risk posed by an unprecedented phenomenon. Given this uncertainty, the equity premium puzzle might not look like such a puzzle after all. ; Output Type: Book Review

Contents -- List of Contributors -- Acknowledgments -- Series Preface -- 1 Introduction to general ecology: The ecologization of thinking Erich Hörl -- 2 Computational logic and ecological rationality Luciana Parisi -- 3 Elements for an ecology of separation: Beyond ecological constructivism Frédéric Neyrat -- 4 General ecology, economy, and organology Bernard Stiegler -- 5 The modern invention of nature Didier Debaise -- 6 Deep times and media mines: A descent into ecological materiality of technology Jussi Parikka -- 7 Planetary immunity: Biopolitics, Gaia theory, the holobiont, and the systems counterculture Bruce Clarke -- 8 Ecologizing biopolitics, or, What is the "bio-" of bioart? Cary Wolfe -- 9 Ecologies of communion, contagion, &c, especially Bataille David Wills -- 10 Metafiction and general ecology: Making worlds with worlds James Burton -- 11 An ecology of differences: Communication, the Web, and the question of borders Elena Esposito -- 12 Specters of ecology Timothy Morton -- 13 Devastation Matthew Fuller and Olga Goriunova -- 14 Virtual ecology and the question of value Brian Massumi -- Index

In the focus of the paper there are some basic insights and ideas of rational choice theory, that is the "core" of contemporary economic theory. Also, rational choice theory is the "center" of modern political science and is used in various other scientific disciplines, such as: sociology, philosophy, political science, psychology and the like. There are two main goals of this paper. One is to point out the limitations of rational choice theory as one of the theories of economic behavior (and decision making). The second goal is to analyze psychological programs of research of heuristics and bias in behavioral economics and to consider the importance of alternative concepts, models and theories from the point of view of improving the understanding of economic and social behavior.

Concerns about immigration are salient in the European Union and in Malta in particular. Previous research has demonstrated deep antipathy towards the Arab community in Malta, and social representations of Arabs are mired in a conflation of ethnic and religious categories with negative connotations. This paper presents evidence of the potency, within the public sphere, of negative arguments from cultural essentialism, concerning the integration of Arabs in Europe. The data was obtained abductively from a data corpus containing positive, mixed and negative arguments about Arabs and their integration. Results show evidence of the almost total exclusivity of cultural essentialism. All such arguments posited Arabic culture as an underlying essence that makes integration with Arabs difficult or impossible, yet different arguments were distinguishable by emphasis. Results pointed towards forms of culturally essentialist views that vary in their emphasis of different aspects of cultural essentialism. Reductionist, determinist, bounded and temporal aspects of cultural essentialism were all emphasised by respondents. The essentialist exceptions to negative arguments from cultural essentialism were extremely few in number and were posed tentatively by participants. Their paucity and manner of delivery give strength to the claim that it is strictly an Arabic cultural essence that is deemed to make integration impossible in the eyes of participants. Findings are discussed in light of the communicative functions that these dominant argumentative strategies fulfill.