Reason in Action

Did Adam and Eve act rationally in eating the fruit of the forbidden tree? That can seem to depend solely on whether they had found the best means to their ends in the spirit of the economic theories of rationality. In these essays culled in revised form from twenty-five years'' work Martin Hollis argues that social action cannot be understood by viewing human beings as abstract individuals with preferences in search of satisfaction or by divorcing practical reason from questions of the rationality of norms principles practices and ends.