ON THE LIMITS OF RATIONAL CHOICE

Hartmut Esser states an extensive correspondence of rational choice theory and Alfred Schutz's interpretative sociology. He postulates the possibility of explaining everyday behavior using a rational choice (RC) approach that is ''relaxed'' by employment of actors' subjective knowledge. My comment traces the stated correspondence to its origins in Schutz's work and points out the limits of the RC model that emerge from Schutz's discussion of Ludwig von Mises' theory of action: Although the RC approach recognizes that the conditions of action are selected by actors' subjective stock of knowledge, it does not offer any theoretical explanation for the social constitution of this knowledge, nor for the selectivity of its everyday structures.