Choice-Centred versus Subject-Centred Theories in the Social Sciences: The Influence of Simplification on Explananda

Abstract

The idea, originating in economics and forcefully brought back by Goldthorpe, that rational choice theory and large-scale data analysis are symbiotic, is very attractive. Rational choice is in dire need of explananda which can be provided by large-scale data analysis, while large-scale data analysis is in dire need of an explanatory device; at the moment, rational choice can provide this better than any alternative approach. However, this idea is limited. It can only be applied to situations in which the specific simplifications made in rational choice model-building do not seriously affect the explananda. Ignoring this complication has created a very unsatisfactory use of rational choice theories in economics and sociology alike: a choice-centred approach in which the main task is to show that choice theory can be applied to the phenomena at hand, rather than to advancing knowledge in the field that specializes in the study of the phenomenon. What is needed is a subject-centred approach in which the quality criteria are related to advancement in the field, with rational choice theory taking a back seat. For a subject-centred approach, we need to have so-called ‘feeder theories’ which inform us about the impact of model specifications on explananda. If the simplication disregards important tendencies of human behaviour (such as short-sightedness), it cannot even acknowledge explananda of the ways people try to deal with these tendencies (say, by norms that shorten the time-horizon). There can thus be a direct relationship between the kind of simplification and the reality under consideration. Feeder theories thus open up the possibility of studying the interactive relationship between rational choice theory and explananda (be they from large-scale data analysis, from experiments, or from historical descriptions) and avoiding a choke-centred approach in favour of a subject-centred approach.