Economic “rationality” sometimes gets a bad rap, but it’s more defensible than it may appear and provides a well-circumscribed, workable general foundation to e

Economic “rationality” sometimes gets a bad rap, but it’s more defensible than it may appear and provides a well-circumscribed, workable general foundation to expand on. In simple versions: rational preferences (which include indifference) are transitive and complete, and people pursue these goals. That’s all. Symmetric violations wash away in the aggregate, and asymmetric can be included, e.g. as loss aversion. Criticism of “rationality” is often stuck in late 19th to mid 20th century debates that were since generally resolved.