The Robot鈥檚 Rebellion by Keith E. Stanovich, University of Chicago Press, $27.50, ISBN 0226770893 Reviewed by Mike Holderness
WHAT, asked the shop assistant as I was paying for my groceries, is that book about? I was sort of hoping that it would rehabilitate free will, I answered, but at the moment it seems to be a defence of rational choice theory in capitalism. You never know, he reassured me, there might be a surprise ending鈥�
And Keith Stanovich, who holds a research chair in applied cognitive science at the University of Toronto, does provide one in The Robot鈥檚 Rebellion. I鈥檇 gone for groceries in the middle of his exposition of the theory that economic factors operate according to a certain, rather limited, definition of 鈥渞ationality鈥�. That 鈥渞ationality鈥�, Stanovich goes on to argue, is little more than the satiation of wants.
Advertisement
If Homo economicus existed, he argues, they would be 鈥渨antons鈥� in the sense that an unsocialised infant has nothing but wants. The species does not exist, because even children have what he calls 鈥渟econd-order desires鈥�: there are things they want to want (and so on). It is in cultivating this higher rationality that he sees our opportunity to transcend the control of blind replicators 鈥� that is, both of our genes and of the memes that are, in the words of biologist Richard Dawkins, 鈥渧iruses of the mind鈥�. Thus we avoid being the robots of the title.
Logical puzzles remain here. How can a brain built by genes and inhabited by a mind infected by memes transcend either? Stanovich points to 鈥渋nstitutional rationality鈥� 鈥� what you might call society 鈥� but it would take at least another book to flesh this out.
His major conclusion is that chasing after a definition of 鈥渃onsciousness鈥� is a red herring. Those who seek to understand how the brain makes mind would do better to focus on rationality, properly defined. That he should conclude on the way that the theory underpinning the so-called 鈥渇ree-market economics鈥� by which so much of our life and work is run is bunkum is interesting. That he barely alludes to the other obvious conclusion 鈥� that religion is a major obstacle to the rationality he seeks 鈥� is faintly alarming.