Abstract: The place of the rational actor model in the analysis of individual and social behavior relevant to law remains unresolved. In recent years, scholars have sought frameworks to explain: (a) disjunctions between seemingly rational behavior and seemingly irrational behavior, (b) the origins of and influences on law-relevant preferences, and (c) the nonrandom development of norms. This essay explains two components of an evolutionary framework that can encompass all three. They are, respectively, time-shified rationality and the law of law 's leverage. CITATION: Owen D. Jones, The Evolution of Irrationality, 41 Jurimetrics J. 289-318 (2001). *Owen D. Jones is Visiting Professor of Law, University of Texas School of Law; Professor of Law, Arizona State University College of Law; Faculty Fellow, Center for the Study of Law, Science, and Technology, Arizona State University; Research Fellow, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research. This work is based on a talk presented at the Conference on Law, Behavioral Biology, and Economics, November 17, 2000, at the Arizona State University College of Law. A more thorough treatment of several subjects discussed here appears in Owen D. Jones, Time-Shifted Rationality and the Law of Law's Leverage: Behavioral Economics Meets Behavioral Biology, 95 Nw. U. L. Rev (forthcoming 2001). Some passages draw from that source, by permission. The author is grateful to the participants in the Olin Conference on Evolution and Legal Theory at Georgetown University Law Center, April 1999, and the annual meeting of the Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law (SEAL), September 1999, for many useful observations on the ideas expressed here. He also thanks, for their particularly helpful comments, John Alcock, Lydia Jones, Russell Korobkin, Jeffrey Stake, Thomas Ulen, Paul Zak, Oliver Goodenough, Donald Elliott, Amy Wax, Jeffrey Rachlinski, Erin O'Hara, Lynn Stout, Todd Zywicki, Andy Thomson, Anupam Chander, Robert Ellickson, Richard Posner, John McGinnis, John Robertson, Dennis Karjala, Larry Winer, Ira Ellman, and participants at an ASU faculty seminar. Sonia Krainz, Eva Shine, and Charles Oldham offered able research assistance. Please direct correspondence to [email protected].
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 10
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