(or “instrumental) rationality that becomes “irrational” once it loses sight of
the ends towards which it was initially employed. Calculating a way to attract
anywoman in a bar, regardless of whether one is compatible with her, is not
necessarily rational; just as deciding not to pursueany of the women in the
bar due to a preference based on values, taste, or other considerations is not
necessarily irrational. This being the case, the assumptions made by Stark
and Iannaccone regarding what constitutes a “rational choice” are shown to
be extremely problematic.
While the first presupposition employed by both Stark and Iannaccone
reduces rationality to the cost-benefit calculations of economic exchange, their
second premise is vulnerable to issues that Adorno criticises regarding the
“culture industry.” As rational thought is limited to instrumental calculation,
and ends become separated from means, Adorno argues that this results in
the impoverishment of human preference and discernment. Aesthetic and
moral concerns such as taste, individuality, ethics, and culture become sus-
ceptible to “fabricated need” (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002:109). This per-
spective presents two challenges to the rational choice premise that human
preferences do not vary much. First, the question arises whether this assump-
tion can be taken to be universal and constant. Given the scope of human
diversity and cultures, it is difficult to accept that everyone assesses and
weighs costs and benefits on exactly the same scale. Such a presumption is
not unlike the suggestion that every man in the bar-scene of A Beautiful Mind
desires the same woman, while simultaneously agreeing that any woman
will suffice. Second, even if it can be shown that many human beings desire
and value the same things, the concept of “fabricated need” alerts the scholar
to the possibility that critical analysis will uncover that apparent similarities
among human preferences are by no means “natural,” but are rather the con-
struct of concealed social forces and dynamics operating prior to individual
decision. Should this be the case, it would be difficult to call such preference
a rational “choice.”
From the perspective of Adorno and Horkheimer, the limitations of these
first two premises are rooted in the third presupposition of the rational choice
theorists regarding social “equilibrium.” The notion that existent society and
social forms represent the stable outcomes of the different strategic actions
of individual agents is challenged by Adorno’s concept of the social “total-
ity.” If the study of social action concerns itself only with the interactions
between human beings without attending to their “objectified form,” it acts
From A Beautiful Mindto the Beautiful Soul • 159