This brings his discussion into intersection with that of Albert Hirschman in The Passions and the Interests. He specifically discusses Envy, Fear, Hatred, Enthusiasm, Contempt, and Shame as emotions (passions) that often drive behavior in opposition to both interests and reason. (This bears out Amartya Sen's comment in 'Rational Fools' that the purely economic man is indeed close to being a social moron link.)Įlster is particularly interested in Tocqueville's treatment of the passions. So it is opposed both to altruism (concern for the interests of others) and foresight (concern for one's future interests) (kl 1113). Egoism means an exclusive attention to one's own interests in the moment. What is 'enlightened self-interest'? Elster finds that Tocqueville contrasts 'egoism' with 'enlightened self-interest' as well as with altruism. Preference formation is a topic that has consistently interested Elster, and he spends much time on the question in his early writings, including the formal question of time preferences. This question is plainly key to having a theory of political psychology: why do people make the choices that they do? He singles out three distinct psychological mechanisms that Tocqueville alludes to: the spillover effect, the compensation effect, and the satiation effect (kl 292). The other key to Elster's analysis of Tocqueville is his focus on features of the actor - reason, interests, and passions, or what Tocqueville refers to as 'habits of the heart'.Īmong the social mechanisms that Elster focuses on are those that surround preference formation. Elster believes that the most important feature of Tocqueville's claim to being a sociologist is his consistent search for causes. One is Elster's view that Tocqueville operated on the basis of a conception of social explanation that depended on social mechanisms rather than general laws. There are several elements of Elster's interpretation of Tocqueville that seem particularly significant. So Elster is forced to engage in a fair amount of rational reconstruction of the theories that underlay a variety of Tocqueville's observations about the politics of France and America. Instead, it is necessary to infer his theoretical ideas from the comments he makes about historical events and actors.

At the same time, Tocqueville is not really a theoretical writer. So Elster's Tocqueville is textually well supported. So Elster's treatment of Tocqueville as a social scientist in Alexis de Tocqueville, the First Social Scientist will be of interest to anyone who wants to know how we have come to analyze societies in the terms we have.Įlster demonstrates a deep familiarity with Tocqueville's writings, though he focuses in this book on L'Ancien regime and Democracy in America. Jon Elster is one of the people whose thinking about society and the social sciences has made a consistently important contribution to the philosophy of social science.

Elster online 2013