Comment: Positive tails and normative dogs

Rational Choice: Positive, Normative, and Interpretive

Among most economists, political scientists, and sociologists, it is taken for granted that the rational choice approach is a predictive methodology, and its strengths and weaknesses are judged in relation to that purpose. However, the rational choice model of action is found in a far wider range of disciplines across academia, and the purpose for which it is adopted varies greatly, with predic...

CONNECTING POSITIVE AND NoRMATIvE LEGAL THEORY

Positive and normative legal theory often seem to have little to do with one another. Part I describes the disconnect and suggests that it arises from two sources: the gap between fact and value, and the gap between external and internal perspectives on law. In the following Parts, I lay out a repertoire of strategies and mechanisms for connecting positive and normative legal theory. Part II ex...

Positive Constraints on Normative Political Theory

We consider the relationship between positive and normative political theory, emphasising both the role of normative ideas in motivating political behaviour and particularly the constraints on normative theory imposed by positive theory. Our point of departure is Christiano’s recent claim that the rational choice approach to positive and normative political theory is self-defeating. In arguing ...

Regulating managed care: pulling the tails to wag the dogs.

Social security and retirement decision: A positive and normative approach

Social insurance for the elderly is judged responsible for the widely observed trend towards early retirement. In a world of laissez-faire or in a first-best setting, there would be no such trend. However, when first-best instruments are not available, because health and productivity are not observable, the optimal social insurance policy may imply a distortion on the retirement decision. The m...