Nagra - Blog Post "Lucky Number 13"

In her paper, Unstrapping the Straightjacket of ‘Preference’, Elizabeth Anderson elaborates on Amartya Sen’s contributions to philosophy and economics. Anderson focuses much of her essay on the idea that it is disingenuous and blatantly lazy (this feels a little more implied than stated in her paper) to attribute economic choices and rationality to a set of preferences that boil down to nothing more than utility. Anderson argues that following from Sen, it is not always utility and preference in the broad sense that determine a person’s actions or choices. Many other factors play into the unquestioned dogma of economic preferences, and Anderson elaborates on mostly one.

She begins her argument by extending the prisoner’s dilemma, adding in ideas that seem very class conscious Marx-esque. Marxist theory, however, is not what I hope to develop. Anderson overcomes the inadequacies of rational-choice economic theory by creating her concept of committed action. Anderson defines committed action as “a principle of choice other than the maximum satisfaction of [one’s] preferences” (27). In sum, committed action is acting on values, whereas rational choice theory is acting in self-interest or for utility. 

We can see an interesting case of committed action in immigrant populations in countries with homogeneous solid value systems. For the sake of relevancy, let us look at how committed action may play out in the United States. Immigrants almost always come from a country with vastly different value systems than ours in the United States. While they may adopt some American principles, any sign of ‘otherness’ is often a point of attack from conservatives who fully embody their American tradition. External pressure may not seem like something too terrible. Immigrants would feel the pressure to assimilate and fully embrace American values. This is not often the case. Anderson’s theory of committed action, tying in with unique characteristics of identity, creates a vicious circle of anti-immigrant sentiment and pushes those who may want to accept American values further from integration. 

An immigrant, ostracized by their neighbors and community because of their understandably cautious integration into American society, is now much less likely to adopt the values of the man who makes fun of them. The cycle continues when conservatives again attack these immigrants for their understandable aversion to parts of American culture. The idea perpetuates, and an anti-immigrant sentiment unjustifiably remains. 

An anti-immigrant sentiment itself is antithetical to Anderson’s workaround to rational choice theory. Committed action relies on a sturdy set of principles that almost necessitates a free market of values. This diversity presupposes immigration and emigration to support lush debate and discourse of which values to take and which to leave.