Special Workshop Abstract

It has become increasingly common among academics and policy analysts to define “rationality” or “reasonableness” exclusively in terms of the maximization of individual or aggregate welfare or preference-satisfaction, and to label behavior not consistent with such maximization as “irrational” and “unreasonable.” This interpretation is especially common among economists, political scientists, and experimental psychologists, but it also has been accepted by many academics, including legal academics, who are proponents of theories of rights and justice rather than economic efficiency. Specific examples include prevailing legal academic understandings of reasonableness and responsibility in negligence and nuisance law.

This prevailing academic conception of reasonableness or rationality stands in stark contrast with the quite different conception of reasonableness and rationality in classical moral and political theory, which defines thought and action as reasonable or rational only if it is consistent with each and every individual’s equal dignity and freedom in seeking to fulfill his or her humanity. Contrary to the prevailing academic understanding, it is this equal-individual-freedom conception of reasonableness and rationality that continues to be accepted by ordinary people and that is applied in the law, including negligence and nuisance law.