Why use the term "rational" to modify choice? In other words, when a person uses the phrase "rational choice," what is she trying to tell the listener that she could not also tell him if she used the word "choice?" My more basic question is: when one uses the phrase "theory of rational choice," what goal does she have besides that which she would have if she used the phrase "theory of choice?" Perhaps a good answer is the former phrase tells the listener that the speaker is getting ready to tell him her opinion of what she means by "rational." This implies that she will tell what she regards as the difference between rational and irrational. If this is so, then "theory of rational choice" is very different from the "theory of choice," as I understand it. I am also confident that it is very different from what the vast majority of economists, along with the movers and shakers in the history of thought, have in mind when they do their business. For example, when these people say that economics assumes self interest, they do not mean that it assumes selfishness. Economics as a "theory of RATIONAL choice," by this definition, is more restrictive because it does not attempt to contemplate choice from the viewpoint of the individual whose behavior is being described. By this definition, economics is elitist. It aims to understand, describe, and predict behavior not from the viewpoint of the person behaving but from the viewpoint of the student of behavior. Economics as a theory of rational choice, by this definition, makes no necessary distinction between humans and animals, such as capuchin monkeys and Japanese macaques. But, of course, one does not have to be a rocket scientist to know that there is a difference. Human behavior has resulted in the complex trading systems, and in products that were beyond contemplation by the previous generation of humans, and certainly incomprehensible to the highest levels of animals. I agree with Alan that something metaphysical is at work here. Humanness is metaphysical. The human creates the blueprint for the machine that measures the activity of the mind. The machine cannot logically or chronologically measure the activity that created it. Pat Gunning