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Reflections and replies

Dual constraints on agent decision-making

Expanding Rocchè's critique of Raz's exclusionary reasons
Cuizhu Wang

Abstracts

This commentary expands Giuseppe Rocchè’s critique of Raz’s model of exclusionary reasons by addressing its limitations in real-world decision-making. By drawing from theories of bounded rationality and social norms, this commentary highlights how the interplay of cognitive biases and social constraints complicates the exclusionary reasoning process. Bounded rationality reveals cognitive limitations that prevent people from fully filtering biases, even when they intend to follow authority. Whereas research on social norms illustrates how normative pressures lead individuals to align their behaviour with perceived social expectations rather than act purely on rational considerations. These dual constraints underscore a fundamental tension in Raz’s framework: the interplay between individual cognitive limitations and contextual social factors. By integrating empirical and theoretical insights, this commentary strengthens Rocchè’s critique, offering a more comprehensive perspective on the challenges of human reasoning under authoritative guidance.

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1 Introduction

  • 1 Rocchè 2024.
  • 2 Raz 1999: 39.
  • 3 Raz 1999: 39–42.
  • 4 Raz 1999: 42.

1In “Exclusionary reasons and mental contamination,” Giuseppe Rocchè critiques the practicality of Joseph Raz’s model of exclusionary reasons, relying on concepts of mental, moral, and legal contaminations.1 Raz’s theory of exclusionary reasons explains how authoritative directives influence the practical reasoning of individuals, which is central to his accounts of legitimate authority, practical reasoning, and rules. According to Raz, an exclusionary reason is a second-order reason “to act for a reason or to refrain from acting for a reason.”2 He illustrates this concept with two examples.3 The first example involves Colin, who would normally weigh various factors — academic quality, cost, and location — when choosing a school for his son. However, Colin previously promised his wife to follow her preference on this matter. This promise functions as an exclusionary reason overriding other considerations and ensuring that Colin honours his commitment. The second example features Jeremy, who excluded his personal judgement to follow the order he was given by his commanding officer to appropriate a civilian’s van — “Had the decision been left to his judgement, he says, he would not appropriate the van.”4 According to Raz, Jeremy’s case demonstrates how exclusive reasons can act as tools that help individuals make better decisions by prioritising legitimate authoritative directives, which function as pre-emptive reasons.

  • 5 See Adam 2020, Moore 1988, Whiting 2014.
  • 6 See Alexander & Sherwin 2001, Perry 1989, Waldron 1999.

2Raz’s account has been influential in legal and moral philosophy but has faced different kinds of objections.5 Like Rocchè’s article, critiques often challenge the practicality of Raz’s model.6 One way Raz may respond to this kind of critique is by emphasising that his model is normative. In fact, Raz explicitly clarified the aim as a normative framework of his model in published works. He first introduced the concept of exclusionary reasons in his 1975 book Practical reason and norms, emphasising that his analysis is concerned with the normative aspects of reasoning — how individuals ought to reason when dealing with authoritative directives. In his 1986 book The morality of freedom, Raz argued that legitimate authorities, operating under the service conception of authority, provide normative reasons for action. These reasons, according to Raz, can enhance individual autonomy by guiding people to act according to reasons that they have but might not fully understand on their own.

  • 7 Raz 1986: 1–4.
  • 8 Raz 1986: 38–57.
  • 9 Raz 1986: 4.

3Nevertheless, the justification for the critique made by Rocchè and others lies in the fact that, for normative theories to be effective and meaningful, they must also be practically implementable and applicable in real-world contexts. While Raz’s theory is normative, he explicitly acknowledges the importance of practical concerns. In The morality of freedom, Raz argues that theories of political morality must be tested against our considered judgments about actual cases and practices, should help us make sense of our political experience, and should guide our actions within the political sphere.7 Throughout his work on the service conception of authority, models of exclusionary reasons and individual autonomy, Raz demonstrates that philosophical theories must function effectively in guiding real-world actions.8 His commitment to aligning theory with practice ensures that his work remains relevant and impactful within both philosophical discourse and practical applications.9 His framework seeks to balance philosophical soundness with practical relevance, making critiques of its practicality and applicability not only reasonable but essential for assessing its effectiveness.

4 This commentary expands Rocchè’s two critiques (mental and legal contaminations) by addressing mechanisms that render exclusionary reasoning inherently flawed. It proceeds as follows. Section 2 provides a brief overview of Rocchè’s article, which sets the stage for the main arguments of this commentary. Section 3 explores how the second generation of bounded rationality — cognitive biases — illustrates the cognitive challenges in support of what Rocchè identifies as mental contamination. Section 4 argues that the third generation of bounded rationality — ecological rationality — combined with Bicchieri’s theory of social norms, offers theoretical and empirical support for Rocchè’s critique of Raz’s theory regarding legal contamination. Section 5 synthesises these insights, proposing a dual-constraint to the practicality of Raz’s model of exclusionary reasoning. Section 6 concludes the commentary.

2 Summary of Rocchè’s article

  • 10 Rocchè 2024: §14 online.

5Rocchè interprets the exclusionary model as promising to better shelter agents from their biases. According to Rocchè, the model relies on the premise that individuals are motivated to neutralise their personal reasons and to obey the reasons given in authoritative directives. Rocchè’s worry is that if people are unable to compartmentalise their thoughts, they will be unable to perform the exclusion task. This implies that “in many cases we would not be able to live up to the demands of the exclusionary model.”10 Rocchè argues that obedience to authority is not merely a matter of motivation, which might seem to be the central issue at the individual-level (case by case). Even when an individual is motivated to follow a directive, unintended disobedience can still occur. Rocchè’s article focuses on the cognitive limitations that hinder individuals from intentionally disregarding certain factors, ultimately undermining their ability to fully obey authoritative directives.

  • 11 Rocchè 2024: §§18–19 online.

6To highlight the complexities inherent in human cognition that compromise the effectiveness of exclusionary reasons, Rocchè presents experiments as evidence of our inability to intentionally disregard three factors: 1) in the general sphere (‘mental contamination’), 2) in the moral sphere (‘moral contamination’), and 3) in the legal sphere (‘legal contamination’). These failures occur when agents are aware of biasing information and deem it relevant to the exclusionary task, resulting in decisions misaligned with authoritative directives. Rocchè identifies awareness and relevance as critical features of exclusionary reasoning,11 underscoring how these cognitive constraints compromise the efficacy of exclusionary reasons as Raz presents them.

  • 12 Wilson & Brekke 1994.
  • 13 Bertrand & Mullainathan 2004.
  • 14 Wistrich, Guthrie & Rachlinski 2005.
  • 15 See also Rocchè 2024: §§59-75 online.

7The first critique draws on the concept of mental contamination developed by Wilson and Brekke.12 Mental contamination refers to the influence of unconscious or uncontrollable mental processes that result in unwanted judgements, emotions, or behaviours. This phenomenon highlights the difficulty of avoiding biases that subtly infiltrate our thinking. The features of awareness and relevance connect to mental contamination in two ways. First, individuals may be unaware of subconscious influences on their judgments. For example, implicit bias, such as racial stereotypes, can unknowingly affect the evaluation of a job candidates, even when the evaluators believe they are impartial.13 Second, even when individuals recognise certain information as irrelevant, deeply ingrained cognitive biases may still influence decisions. For instance, judges may consciously disregard inadmissible evidence but remain subconsciously swayed by it. This was demonstrated in an experimental study by Wistrich, Guthrie & Rachlinski,14 which tested the efficacy of a “rape-shield” status in the deliberative process of real judges.15

  • 16 See Rocchè 2024: §§42-48 online.

8Rocchè defines the second critique, referred to as moral contamination, as a specific form of mental contamination rooted in the idea that morality acts as a distorting factor. Rocchè’s analysis focuses on whether the inability to resist certain influences from moral upbringing is due to “moral failure” (a failure to act on exclusionary reasons caused by the agent’s morality) or other psychological phenomena, such as those examined by Haidt.16 Rocchè demonstrates how Haidt’s moral foundation model poses challenges to Raz’s framework, but he cautions that these challenges may be discounted due to the model’s incompatibility with the two premises critical to Raz’s model — awareness and relevance. Furthermore, Rocchè suggests that moral contamination becomes less relevant when considered alongside legal contamination, his third critique.

  • 17 Rocchè 2024: §50 online.

9The third critique, which distinguishes between moral reasoning and legal reasoning, is referred to as “the moral contamination of law”, or “legal contamination” in short. This critique hinges on the question of where an agent “is capable of neutralising her own morality in order to be able to correctly apply the authoritative directive, or whether morality contaminate the application of law.”17 To explore this, Rocchè presents two analytical scenarios with differing conditions: one where morality aligns with legal rules and another where morality conflicts with them. In both cases, legal rules are framed as authoritative directives, and the assumption is that the agent is motivated to adhere to the exclusionary reasoning prescribed by Raz’s model. Rocchè further supports his argument with two experimental studies illustrating the concept of legal contamination.

3 Cognitive biases and mental contamination in normative contexts

  • 18 Simon 1955.

10Bounded rationality is a framework that models how real-world judgements or decisions are reached. It was introduced by Simon in the 1950s to challenge the traditional economic assumption that individuals are perfectly rational decision-makers.18 Since Simon, it has developed into several discernible generations.

  • 19 See Von-Neumann & Morgenstern 1944, Bernoulli 1738/1954, Savage 1972.
  • 20 See Gigerenzer & Selten 2001, Hertwig & Herzog 2009.
  • 21 Glimcher & Fehr 2014.

11The first generation centres on Simon’s initial proposal and posits that individuals operate under constraints of limited information, cognitive capacity, and finite time, leading to a process of satisficing an alternative to maximise their utility function, in comparison to the theory of expected utility function.19 The second generation expanded the concept by exploring how cognitive biases and heuristics influence decision-making. A leading exemplary model from this generation is Prospect Theory, which reveals that people evaluate perceived gains and losses differently. The third generation incorporates external factors, such as ecological structures of the environment in which heuristics operate and the social context of choices, and models cognitive biases and heuristics as adaptive tools.20 The fourth generation explores the neural mechanisms behind decision-making and recognises that decision-making is not only a cognitive process but is also embedded in social contexts and technological environments.21 Collectively, these generations of study deepen our comprehension of decision-making by progressively incorporating realistic human behaviours.

12 In this commentary, I propose an analogy between the second and third generations of bounded rationality to strengthen the first and the third (mental and legal contaminations) critiques of Raz’s model of exclusionary reasons, building on Rocchè’s interpretation of Raz.

3.1 Cognitive biases

  • 22 See Fischhoff, Slovic & Lichtenstein 1977, Furnham & Boo 2011, Kahneman &Tversky 1979, Moore & Heal (...)

13Cognitive biases are mental shortcuts individuals take when processing information and making decisions in complex environments. These shortcuts, while often adaptive and efficient, can lead to systematic errors that affect judgment and reasoning. Cognitive biases illustrate how ingrained tendencies distort an individual’s capacity to reason. Several different types of cognitive biases can be found in the literature.22 To summarise a few, confirmation bias, the anchoring effect, and the false consensus effect, not only influence how people perceive and internalise expectations but also create cognitive frameworks that reinforce pre-existing beliefs, making them resistant to exclusion.

  • 23 Nickerson 1998.

14Confirmation bias is the tendency to favour information that aligns with pre-existing beliefs, leading individuals to interpret new data in a way that reinforces their prior views.23 For example, imagine Dr. Smith, a lecturer, arrives late to his lecture. He attributes his delay to external factors such as uncoordinated traffic or terrible weather, reinforcing his belief that he is generally punctual and that external events are to blame. However, on that particular day, the traffic was normal and the weather was fine. In reality, his delay was caused by his preoccupation with deciding whether his suit matched his newly purchased pants, which caused him to miss the scheduled metro.

  • 24 Kahneman & Tversky 1974.

15The anchoring effect, as described by Tversky and Kahneman,24 highlights how individuals rely on initial information as a reference point, even when subsequent data suggests a need to adjust their reasoning. For example, the first Chinese student an American student interacts with may become their reference point for interpreting subsequent interactions with other Chinese students. However, this initial interaction may not statistically represent the broader diversity of Chinese students, leading to skewed judgments and expectations based on an unrepresentative anchor.

  • 25 Ross et al. 1977.
  • 26 All three examples presented in this section are hypothetical and are developed by the author of th (...)

16The false consensus effect refers to the bias wherein individuals overestimate the extent to which one’s beliefs and behaviours are shared by others.25 This leads to erroneous assumption that one’s own perspectives are more prevalent within the general population than they actually are. For example, a college student who enjoys drinking alcohol might assume, “Everyone at college drinks heavily, so it's normal for me to do so; and my fellow students and professors would be okay with me drinking heavily on a Saturday night.” In reality, survey data might reveal that most students do not binge drink or approve of such behaviour. This reflects the false consensus effect, as the student projects their own beliefs and behaviour onto the larger group, overestimating both the prevalence of heavy drinking and its social acceptance.26

3.2 Mental contamination as a cognitive challenge

  • 27 Rocchè 2024: §§24-34 online.

17Rocchè’s article identifies mental contamination as a core obstacle to Raz’s exclusionary reasoning. In the definition of mental contamination Rocchè cites, the key features are unconscious influence, unwanted judgments or emotions, and difficulty in correction.27 Cognitive biases illustrate why these challenges persist.

  • 28 Tversky & Kahneman 1974.
  • 29 Ross et al. 1977.

18For example, the anchoring effect, which involves reliance on initial information as a reference point, complicates exclusionary reasoning. The experimental study that Rocchè cites on “rape-shield” in section 6 can be viewed as a form of anchoring, where early exposure to specific information or other social norms establishes benchmarks that shape future reasoning.28 Similarly, the false consensus effect exacerbates the challenges of mental contamination. This bias reinforces the illusion of normative alignment, leading individuals to unconsciously uphold legal norms they perceive as universally accepted, even when evidence suggests otherwise.29 For example, a policymaker advocating for a contentious legal reform may assume their stance aligns with the majority’s views, further embedding these perceptions into their decision-making process. In legal contexts, confirmation bias can sustain mental contamination by anchoring individuals’ reasoning to their established perspectives. For example, a judge tasked with interpreting an authoritative directive may unconsciously focus on precedents or legal principles that align with their preconceptions, even when the directive explicitly requires a different course of action.

19The persistence of cognitive biases provides robust empirical support for the critique of Raz’s exclusionary model. Integrating insights from the analysis on cognitive biases from the literature on bounded rationality into a critique of Raz’s model underscores a key limitation: cognitive biases are ingrained and automatic, forming the very fabric of everyday reasoning.

4 Ecological rationality and Bicchieri’s theory of social norms

4.1 Ecological rationality and social norms

  • 30 Smith 2007: 2.
  • 31 Ross 2014: 242.
  • 32 Pentland 2014.

20Ecological rationality emphasises the adaptive relationship between cognitive strategies and environmental structures in explaining real-world human decision-making. It refers to “emergent order in the form of the practices, norms, and evolving institutional rules governing action by individuals that are part of our cultural and biological heritage and are created by human interactions, but not by conscious human design”.30 It is ecological in the sense that “its rationality depends on the match between the architecture of the tool and the structure of the environment in which it is employed”. Ross defines the ecological rationality as “an interface pattern that describes the systematic relationships between brains and the socially related people.”31 In the context of social sciences, this conception of rationality can be explained by findings in Pentland,32 which show that our cognitions depend on social interactions.

  • 33 Bicchieri 2006 and 2017.
  • 34 This commentary interprets Bicchieri’s framework of norms by avoiding reductive definitions or rigi (...)

21The concept of ecological rationality is closely aligned with Cristina Bicchieri’s work on social norms33 as a general theory of norms.34 In her seminal work, The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of social norms, Bicchieri examines how individuals' expectations about others' behaviours and beliefs influence their own actions. She argues that social norms emerge from and are sustained by shared expectations within a community. This coordination allows individuals to navigate complex social environments efficiently by relying on established norms as heuristics. Furthermore, in Norms in the wild: How to diagnose, measure, and change social norms, Bicchieri explores real-world applications of her theories, demonstrating how social norms can be diagnosed and altered to promote social change. This demonstrates the adaptability of human behaviour to environmental structures, a central tenet of ecological rationality.

  • 35 Bicchieri 2017: 35.

22According to Bicchieri,35 a social norm is “a rule of behavior such that individuals prefer to conform to it on condition that they believe that (a) most people in their reference network conform to it (empirical expectation), and (b) that most people in their reference network believe they ought to conform to it (normative expectation).” Legal rules are also norms. Following Bicchieri’s general account of norms, legal norms can be understood as a subset of social norms.

  • 36 Bicchieri 2006: ch. 1-2.
  • 37 Bicchieri & Demo 2024, Bicchieri et al. 2022.
  • 38 Bicchieri 2006.

23The alignment between Bicchieri’s analysis of norms and ecological rationality can be rendered as follows. Central to Bicchieri’s account is the concept of conditionality, which underscores the dependence of real-world rationality on the social context and circumstances of decision-making. Second, while traditional literature on social norms has emphasised deliberative conformity, her framework shifts focus to the automatic, default-guiding nature of norms.36 This departure challenges the assumption that norm compliance is primarily rooted in conscious deliberation, illustrating instead how norms operate as implicit behavioural guides. Third, an essential feature of social norms is their self-reinforcing nature, driven by the co-existing empirical and normative expectations they generate. Once established, norms gain a life of their own that enables them to function independently, shaping behaviour in a manner that transcends individual reasoning. Over time, these norms become internalised within individuals, functioning as cognitive heuristics that unconsciously influence actions.37 As Bicchieri explains, the stabilisation of norms within networks of socially engaged individuals not only directs behaviour but also shapes the interpretation of situational cues, reinforcing their persistence and dominance.38 Finally, the concept of reference network raised in Bicchieri’s analysis of norms recognises the intricate webs of norms with in which individuals are embedded. Social norms often intersect, and sometimes conflict with, legal norms, creating tensions in the expectations they produce. These conflicts compel individuals to navigate competing demands, prioritising and complying based on the relative weight and influence of each norm. Such dynamics reveal the layered complexities of norm adherence, further challenging simplistic models of rational compliance.

24The alignment between ecological rationality and Bicchieri’s analysis provides a robust framework for critiquing Raz’s model, emphasising the nuanced interplay between context, behaviour, and norm adherence as automatic responses to social cues. Sections 4.2 and 4.3 will elaborate on the concept of the reference network from Bicchieri’s analysis and explore its application as an alternative explanation for the legal contamination Rocchè identified in his critique of Raz’s model. These sections will demonstrate how Bicchieri’s general account of norms underscores the social constraints that challenge the viability of Raz’s model in real-world decision-making.

4.2 Reference network

  • 39 See Bicchieri 2017: 11. This refers to the third condition in Bicchieri’s analysis of social norms (...)
  • 40 See Goyal (2007: ch. 2) for the relevant concept specification.
  • 41 Wang 2022.

25Bicchieri’s analysis of norms characterises a reference network39 as the set of people whose normative expectations matter to the behaviour and normative beliefs of an individual agent . It is a cluster within a larger social influence network.40 Reference networks may involve heterogeneity in any of these relevant dimensions. Three features of heterogeneity of reference networks are worth pointing out in my opinion.41 The first concerns the scale: a reference network can be local or general and be big or small. The second is the variation in conditions under which a reference network is at play in an agent’s decision making. The third is the dynamics: agents’ reference networks can change over time. The concept of a reference network reflects the characteristic that a norm is a characteristic of a community, which can be specified relevantly broadly or narrowly.

  • 42 Bicchieri 2017: 14.

26The heterogeneity of reference networks reflects the fact that individuals live in interacting social webs. It is natural for an agent’s decision-making to be influenced by different reference networks depending on the circumstances. When circumstances differ, different people will matter differently to decisions. Different reference networks may have different normative expectations, and it is only the normative expectations from the people who matter to a specific decision that will motivate norm-compliance or norm-violation. A vivid yet tragic example provided by Bicchieri illustrates this concept.42 A Pakistani immigrant who had lived in Milan for 20 years killed his “dishonored” daughter. Despite living in Italy, the normative expectations of his friends and colleagues in Milan were insufficient to influence his behaviour. Instead, the normative expectation from his family and fellow villagers in Pakistan, where the concept of family honour is deeply ingrained, governed his action. His killing behaviour in response to his daughter’s perceived transgression was shaped by the reference network of his family and friends who still lived in his Pakistani village.

4.3 Relevance to legal contamination

  • 43 Rocchè 2024: §55.

27Rocchè’s concept of legal contamination addresses situations in which agents are unable to neutralise their moral reasoning in face of authoritative directives. Rocchè presents two analytical schemes (Section 6) to explore how morality can contaminate legal reasoning. The first scheme considers an agent confronted with a conscious moral obligation to support a discriminated minority group that conflicts with an authoritative directive. Rocchè argues that “if the agent is driven by her conscious morality, unknowingly or unintentionally, we would say that she followed her morality rather than authoritative law,” thereby committing legal contamination.43

28The application of the concept of reference network enriches Rocchè’s analysis, providing a basis for criticising Raz’s model from the perspective of social constraints. In this scenario, the moral norm from a discriminated minority conflicts with the authoritative directive that governs the broader societal group. This conflict illustrates a clash between two sets of behavioural rules: one functioning within the discriminated minority group, formed as a sub-population of society, and the other functioning as a legal rule regulating a broader societal group distinct from the minority. The agent’s legal failure, as described by Rocchè, arises from the conflicting expectations of these distinct reference groups.

29In this situation, Rocchè rightly notes that the weighting model might better address the conflict than exclusionary reasoning. This is due to two key uncertainties that challenge the applicability of Raz’s model. First, we aren’t sure about the context under which this agent has to weigh the different behavioural rules. Second, it is uncertain whether the moral rule, or even a second-order moral rule, such as showing generosity to discriminated minority groups, constitutes a fine-grained expectation internalised within the agent’s belief system. If such an internalisation exists, it might render the agent’s behaviour norm-compliant or ecologically rational, even if it leads to a failure of exclusionary reasoning. In this case, the agent’s justification of the minority group’s actions reflects alignment with the expectations of her reference network. This alignment underscores how internalised norms within specific social contexts can guide behaviour in ways that challenge the rigid application of legal directives, further supporting Rocchè’s nuanced approach.

  • 44 Wistrich, Guthrie & Rachlinski 2005.

30To correspond with the analytical scenario, Rocchè introduced the experiment conducted by Wistrich, Guthrie & Rachlinski,44 which tested the efficacy of a “rape-shield” status in the deliberative process of real judges. In this experiment, the exclusion task was made salient. Judges were divided into 3 groups — control, suppression, and admission — and they were presented with a case involving a sexual assault allegation and additional testimony about the complaint’s sexual history. This information was subject to exclusion by the “rape-shield” status. The treatment conditions were as follows: the control group did not hear the inadmissible testimony; the suppression group heard the testimony but ruled it inadmissible; and the admission group heard and admitted the testimony. The study found that judges who ruled the evidence inadmissible but still heard it made similar judgements to those who admitted it, showing that the excluded evidence influenced their decisions.

31This result can be interpreted through the lens of reference network. Judges operate within a legal framework that historically associates certain types of evidence, such as background testimony in sexual assault cases, with broader notions of fairness and justice. These notions, categorised as moral norms in most societies, often conflict with the specific behavioural regulations prescribed by legal norms. In this context, the broader societal expectations tied to fairness and justice clash with the narrower, role-specific expectations of judicial reasoning within the legal community. This tension underscores the conflict between the moral norms that govern societal behaviour on an everyday basis and the specialised legal norms that regulate professional conduct in the judiciary.

32By highlighting this interplay, the experiment illustrates the persistent influence of moral norms within the legal decision-making process, even when such norms are ostensibly excluded under procedural rules. This finding supports Rocchè’s broader analysis of how moral considerations can permeate legal reasoning, particularly in scenarios where the expectations of different reference networks are in tension.

33 Following Bicchieri’s analysis, social constraints illuminate how norms function as environmental cues that shape behaviour, posing inherent challenges to exclusionary reasoning when multiple norms are at play. Integrating Bicchieri’s theory of social norms with ecological rationality enhances the critique of Raz’s model by providing both theoretical depth and empirical grounding for its social constraints. Rocchè’s cases of legal contamination can then be reframed as arising from the interplay between social norms and contextual rationality.

5 The dual constraints

34Sections 3 and 4 proposed a synthesis between the two generations of bounded rationality, highlighting dual constraints that underpin Rocchè’s critiques of Raz’s model of exclusionary reasoning — mental and legal contamination. Mental contamination is supported by models of cognitive bias, offering additional grounding for Rocchè’s critique. Conversely, the adaptive roles of heuristics, modelled as ecological rationality and aligned with Bicchieri’s account of norm-compliant behaviour, provide an alternative lens for understanding cases Rocchè categorises as legal contamination.

35The interplay between cognitive bias and the adaptive role of heuristics highlights a dual constraint on decision-making, providing a deeper understanding of why Raz’s exclusionary reasoning struggles to address the complexities of human cognition and context. This "double bind" demonstrates that exclusionary reasoning is not merely a matter of isolating reasons from personal considerations but is fundamentally challenged by the mechanisms through which individuals process information and adapt to their social environments.

6 Conclusion

36This commentary reviewed Rocchè’s critique of Raz’s exclusionary model, beginning with a summary of Rocchè’s article. Following his interpretation of Raz’s model and the structure of his critique, it then elaborates how an integration from the second and third generations of bounded rationality — cognitive biases and ecological rationality, supported by Bicchieri’s theory of social norms — strengthens Rocchè’s critique. This integration was framed as a dual constraint to Raz’s model. Together, these perspectives expand Rocchè’s critique, highlighting the practical limitations of Raz’s model of exclusionary reasoning.

Funding information. This article was funded by the National Science Centre, Poland (grant no. 2020/37/B/HS5/00272).

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Notes

1 Rocchè 2024.

2 Raz 1999: 39.

3 Raz 1999: 39–42.

4 Raz 1999: 42.

5 See Adam 2020, Moore 1988, Whiting 2014.

6 See Alexander & Sherwin 2001, Perry 1989, Waldron 1999.

7 Raz 1986: 1–4.

8 Raz 1986: 38–57.

9 Raz 1986: 4.

10 Rocchè 2024: §14 online.

11 Rocchè 2024: §§18–19 online.

12 Wilson & Brekke 1994.

13 Bertrand & Mullainathan 2004.

14 Wistrich, Guthrie & Rachlinski 2005.

15 See also Rocchè 2024: §§59-75 online.

16 See Rocchè 2024: §§42-48 online.

17 Rocchè 2024: §50 online.

18 Simon 1955.

19 See Von-Neumann & Morgenstern 1944, Bernoulli 1738/1954, Savage 1972.

20 See Gigerenzer & Selten 2001, Hertwig & Herzog 2009.

21 Glimcher & Fehr 2014.

22 See Fischhoff, Slovic & Lichtenstein 1977, Furnham & Boo 2011, Kahneman &Tversky 1979, Moore & Healy 2008, Nickerson 1998, Ross et al. 1977, Tversky & Kahneman 1973, 1974 and 1991.

23 Nickerson 1998.

24 Kahneman & Tversky 1974.

25 Ross et al. 1977.

26 All three examples presented in this section are hypothetical and are developed by the author of this commentary for illustrative purposes.

27 Rocchè 2024: §§24-34 online.

28 Tversky & Kahneman 1974.

29 Ross et al. 1977.

30 Smith 2007: 2.

31 Ross 2014: 242.

32 Pentland 2014.

33 Bicchieri 2006 and 2017.

34 This commentary interprets Bicchieri’s framework of norms by avoiding reductive definitions or rigid categorisations. Instead, it encompasses a general class of behavioural rules that regulate coordination behaviours. Within this commentary, legal norms should be understood as a subset of social norms, following Bicchieri’s general account of norms.

35 Bicchieri 2017: 35.

36 Bicchieri 2006: ch. 1-2.

37 Bicchieri & Demo 2024, Bicchieri et al. 2022.

38 Bicchieri 2006.

39 See Bicchieri 2017: 11. This refers to the third condition in Bicchieri’s analysis of social norms interpreted by Wang (2022) as “reference network alignment”.

40 See Goyal (2007: ch. 2) for the relevant concept specification.

41 Wang 2022.

42 Bicchieri 2017: 14.

43 Rocchè 2024: §55.

44 Wistrich, Guthrie & Rachlinski 2005.

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References

Electronic reference

Cuizhu Wang, “Dual constraints on agent decision-making”Revus [Online], 54 | 2024, Online since 12 February 2025, connection on 15 March 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/revus/10714; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/13b09

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About the author

Cuizhu Wang

Assistant professor, Department of Legal theory, Faculty of Law and Administration, Jagiellonian University (Poland)

E-mail: dawncz_wang [at] hotmail.com

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Copyright

CC-BY-SA-4.0

The text only may be used under licence CC BY-SA 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) are “All rights reserved”, unless otherwise stated.

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