Doug is to be thanked for voicing a kind of tautologous argument common   
in the discipline.  Note:  
   
1. The false dichotomy between "rational" in the way he defines it, and   
"irrational," meaning that no sense can be made of what people do.  The   
implied argument is that if people are not raving loonies, then they   
must be neoclassical agents.  
   
2. The implicit ontological individualism, that is the assumption that a   
theory of society *must* begin with a theory of individual action.  
   
I'm also always startled by arguments that take the form "if assumption   
A is wrong, then economics as I practice it is wrong, and since I can't   
accept that, assumption A must be right."  Typically "I" is expanded to   
"we" in these statements, but a "we" excluding heterodoxy.  
  
I don't think anyone is arguing that people are silly or that they don't   
formulate and pursue projects, thoughtfully and reflectively.  Indeed   
heterodoxies have taken that a lot more seriously than orthodoxy, with   
attention to knowledge and subjectivity.  We still need, perhaps, more   
attention to the role of responsibility in individual action -- cases in   
which someone else's condition is ethically salient to the actor in   
question.  On my reading, Austrian and PK approaches, while richer than   
neoclassical aproaches, still prefer to think in terms of rugged   
individuals.  
   
Best,   
  
Colin Danby