THE MASAI

A revision of an address delivered at the Volta Conference inRome, October 1938.     

ECONOMIC MAN AND ORIGINAL

Abstract. Are we descended from Adam or from rational economic homunculi? Rational-man theories usually favour the latter. But all four main versions run into famous puzzles of collective action. The cause is an underlying Humean philosophy of mind, by which desires, not reasons, move the rational man. When this is replaced, the idea of expressive rationality can be made to work. It requires a model of man, which gives human nature less variables and more constants. Among the constants there needs to be a pride, which spurs men both to create a social framework and to undermine their own creation. The old name for this source of social contradictions is Original Sin.