An economics essay, with capes!
bobgorila
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, I've got this Law and Economics essay to write, and figured I'd put a super-hero slant on it. I thought I'd ask you guys for some ideas before I started banging it out like a monkey at a typewriter.
The title is: Critically discuss the proposition that the law requires people to be reasonable whereas economics assumes that they are merely rational.
It all revolves around the conceits of the Rational Man as used in economics for modelling purposes, and the Reasonable Man, as used in the law to determine the motives and appropriate actions of some party. I intend to cast these two as improbably meta-humans in every sense of the term.
Here's what I've got:
Our hero is Reasonable Man; by day, a mild-mannered court usher, by night a champion of justice. Reasonable-man is capable of ordinary levels of selflessness and sacrifice for the common good, as well as being able to give otherwise-impossible insight into a defendant's motives. His other identities include The Reasonable Doctor and Reasonable Bystander. His sole weakness is evidentiary problems.
Reasonable Man is beset by his arch-foe, Rational Man, who calls himself Homo Economicus. He is gifted with perfect knowledge of the market, as well as complete and consistent preferences, which he always acts on in an entirely selfish manner. Like all super-villains, Rational Man's biggest weakness is that he's so predictable, being guaranteed to act in a way that will maximise his utility.
Aaaaand that's where I run out. Perhaps there should be some kind of narrative? Rational man attempting to rob a bank, perhaps, secure in the knowledge that the probability of his capture multiplied by the magnitude of his punishment is less than the potential illicit gains? I'm going to go cook chicken and see if any ideas come to me, in the meantime, any ideas?
The title is: Critically discuss the proposition that the law requires people to be reasonable whereas economics assumes that they are merely rational.
It all revolves around the conceits of the Rational Man as used in economics for modelling purposes, and the Reasonable Man, as used in the law to determine the motives and appropriate actions of some party. I intend to cast these two as improbably meta-humans in every sense of the term.
Here's what I've got:
Our hero is Reasonable Man; by day, a mild-mannered court usher, by night a champion of justice. Reasonable-man is capable of ordinary levels of selflessness and sacrifice for the common good, as well as being able to give otherwise-impossible insight into a defendant's motives. His other identities include The Reasonable Doctor and Reasonable Bystander. His sole weakness is evidentiary problems.
Reasonable Man is beset by his arch-foe, Rational Man, who calls himself Homo Economicus. He is gifted with perfect knowledge of the market, as well as complete and consistent preferences, which he always acts on in an entirely selfish manner. Like all super-villains, Rational Man's biggest weakness is that he's so predictable, being guaranteed to act in a way that will maximise his utility.
Aaaaand that's where I run out. Perhaps there should be some kind of narrative? Rational man attempting to rob a bank, perhaps, secure in the knowledge that the probability of his capture multiplied by the magnitude of his punishment is less than the potential illicit gains? I'm going to go cook chicken and see if any ideas come to me, in the meantime, any ideas?
I like my women how I like my coffee.
Anally.
Anally.
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If you do it maybe rather have Reasonable Man be a super hero and have Rational Man be his civilian alter ego. That way you can show how reasonable man (more human and compationat) takes over where rational man fails.
For example reasonable man see's it as his duty to the greater good to use his powers to help people where as rational man believes that the dangers of being a hero outweigh the gains (or atleast that's the image the hero represents to he public through ratinonal man). Go in to how the economic model of how humans act do not take in to account that humans have social hard wiring that makes them act in ways (which I would think are) reasonable rather than rational.
There's studies about this where people are given group games where they can make maximum profit if they act rationally but the majority of test subjects opt for an outcome which represents social justice rather than maximum profit.
Hence you can say that being reasonable is represented in law through things such as settlements and differentiations between man slaughter and planned murder where as our current economic model only works in terms of rationality and thus has more short comings than the law system. That's why rational man is only a civilian and reasonable man is the hero.
Fuck I'm good.
i think that's a way better idea, actually. those two characters specifically
Nope, but right now I'm behind schedule and haven't read half as much stuff as I ought to. As such I'm trying to appeal to the convener's appreciation of a good story and the idea that after marking three hundred of these he might dig on a little originality.
I've moved away from the idea of a narrative structure at this point, preferring to use the super-hero idea as an involved metaphor that kicks the essay off and then stretches through the discursive essay.
Ugh. I hate leaving shit to the last minute.
If anybody wants to check out my academic suicide I'm writing it with the modern miracle of google docs: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhsq2wc4_14r3dhrmd9
Anally.
Speaking of papers, I just finished my final paper for my english class on Possible Worlds theory and the DC Multiverse, turned out pretty well. I might expand it to include the 52, though. I focused primarily on the pre-crisis multiverse.