Free choice disjunction as a rational speech act

Disjunction-based Free Choice in Korean

Rational Choice Theory: A Cultural Reconsideration

Economists have heralded the formulation of the expected utility theorem as a universal method of choice under uncertainty. In their seminal paper, Stigler and Becker (Stigler & Becker, 1977) declared that “human behavior can be explained by a generalized calculus of utility-maximizing behavior” (p.76). The universality of the rational choice theory has been widely criticized by psychologists, ...

Ethics as Rational Choice

There are several advantages to viewing ethics as rational choice in this broader sense. It provides a conceptual framework that allows you to analyze complex business decisions that involve multiple stakeholders (as nearly all do). It offers a style of argument that can appeal to all parties, since rational choice, by definition, considers all points of view. It provides a vocabulary with whic...

Disjunction in Free Choice and Polarity in Malagasy

The examples in (1) show that Malagasy uses the same item for both FCIs and NPIs. This overlap is not unusual – consider English any (see Haspelmath 1997 for several other examples). What is striking about the Malagasy data, however, is that FCIs and NPIs are made up of a wh-element (e.g. inona ‘what’) and the disjunctive morpheme na. Thus the Malagasy equivalent of anyone is literally or who o...

Rational Choice Theory: An Overview

It seems easy to accept that rationality involves many features that cannot be summarized in terms of some straightforward formula, such as binary consistency.  However, this recognition does not immediately lead to alternative characterizations that might be regarded as satisfactory, even though the inadequacies of the traditional assumptions of rational behavior standard used in economic theo...