Evidence situations in the social and historical sciences - Rational choice as a heuristic device

In his article in this issue, De Swaan suggested that in order to wed the explication of mechanisms to the analysis of historical processes, one needs a theory of collective action and that, in turn, necessitates the use of rational choice theory. I tried to show that in order to safeguard against ad hoc solutions in low evidence stiuations, one needs guidelines on which motives are and which are not likely in a given situation of constraints. Rational choice in general could be a very suitable instrument for such a heuristic device. However, without an explicit theory of preferences, the value of rational choice theory is very limited for low evidence situations. Because of the strong dominance of economists in the field of rational choice theory, this limitation of the theory has not received the attention it deserves. It is precisely in this area of structurally embedded preferences that the rational choice heuristic device for low evidence situations should be developed further in the future