This PhD thesis focuses on the philosophical foundations of Neuroeconomics, an innovative research program which combines findings and modelling tools from economics, psychology and neuroscience to account for human choice behaviour. The proponents of Neuroeconomics often manifest the ambition to foster radical modifications in the accounts of choice behaviour developed by its parent disciplines. This enquiry provides a philosophically informed appraisal of the potential for success and the relevance of neuroeconomic research for economics. My central claim is that neuroeconomists can (...) help other economists to build more predictive and explanatory models, yet are unlikely to foster revolutionary modifications in the economic theory of choice. The contents are organized as follows. In chapters 1-2, I present neuroeconomists’ investigative tools, distinguish the most influential approaches to neuroeconomic research and reconstruct the case in favour of a neural enrichment of economic theory. In chapters 3-7, I combine insights from neuro-psychology, economic methodology and philosophy of science to develop a systematic critique of Neuroeconomics. In particular, I articulate four lines of argument to demonstrate that economists are provisionally justified in retaining a methodologically distinctive approach to the modelling of decision making. My first argument points to several evidential and epistemological concerns which complicate the interpretation of neural data and cast doubt on the inferences neuroeconomists often make in their studies. My second argument aims to show that the trade-offs between the modelling desiderata that neuroeconomists and other economists respectively value severely constrain the incorporation of neural insights into economic models. My third argument questions neuroeconomists’ attempts to develop a unified theory of choice behaviour by identifying some central issues on which they hold contrasting positions. My fourth argument differentiates various senses of the term ‘revolution’ and illustrates that neuroeconomists are unlikely to provide revolutionary contributions to economic theory in any of these senses. (shrink)

The paper begins by providing a game-theoretic reconstruction of Gilbert’s (1989) philosophical critique of Lewis (1969) on the role of salience in selecting conventions. Gilbert’s insight is reformulated thus: Nash equilibrium is insufficiently powerful as a solution concept to rationalize conventions for unboundedly rational agents if conventions are solutions to the kinds of games Lewis supposes. Both refinements to NE and appeals to bounded rationality can plug this gap, but lack generality. As Binmore (this issue) argues, evolutive game theory readily (...) explains the origin of conventional behavior, but that is not Lewis’s project. Gilbert’s critique is generalized by reference to Bacharach’s (2006) work on team reasoning in games. The paper then argues that although Lewis’s account of the rationalization of conventions is shown by the reconstruction of Gilbert’s critique to be incomplete, Gilbert is wrong to conclude that classical (‘eductive’) game theory lacks the resources to explain conformity to conventions among people. A game-theoretic account of the dynamics of socialization, based on Ross’s (2005, 2006) idea of ‘game determination’, rationalizes choices of conventional strategies in overlapping generations contexts, provided agents are products of evolutionary selection and know that other players are also such products. (shrink)

No longer is sociality the preserve of the social sciences, or ‘‘culture’’ the preserve of the humanities or anthropology. By the same token, cognition is no longer the sole preserve of the cognitive sciences. Social cognition (SC) or, sociocognition if you like, is thus a kaleidoscope of research projects that has seen exponential growth over the past 30 or so years.