Neo-darwinism and Simon's bureaucratic antihero
By: DENNARD, Linda F
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ArticlePublisher: Thousand Oaks : SAGE, February 1995Administration & Society 26, 4, p. 464-487Abstract: Decision making, as a form of Darwinism, has reduced our sense of what it means to be a human being to the practical art of adaptation to a hostile environment. In reality, however, the practicality of decision making to the survival of the species or the American culture is marginal. For Herbert Simon to be able to prescribe administrative behavior, which is essentially problem solving, he must also reduce the heroic nature of human beings to the dreary and uninspiring task of satisficing. Satisficing does not draw on the human capacity for proactive choice and purposeful change. Simon bases his theories on an incomplete view of evolution-especially human evolution. Simon's neo-Darwinism is illustrated and then compared with emerging views on the nature of evolution, the brain, and the human enterprise. The conclusion drawn here is that whether or not we have bounded rationality is really a matter of the choice we make about human purpose
Decision making, as a form of Darwinism, has reduced our sense of what it means to be a human being to the practical art of adaptation to a hostile environment. In reality, however, the practicality of decision making to the survival of the species or the American culture is marginal. For Herbert Simon to be able to prescribe administrative behavior, which is essentially problem solving, he must also reduce the heroic nature of human beings to the dreary and uninspiring task of satisficing. Satisficing does not draw on the human capacity for proactive choice and purposeful change. Simon bases his theories on an incomplete view of evolution-especially human evolution. Simon's neo-Darwinism is illustrated and then compared with emerging views on the nature of evolution, the brain, and the human enterprise. The conclusion drawn here is that whether or not we have bounded rationality is really a matter of the choice we make about human purpose
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