This paper explores Elinor Ostrom's account of practical reason through the conceptual lens provided by a typology of dimensions of rational conduct advanced by Amartya Sen. On Sen's view, self-interested behaviour has three independent, and separable, features: self-centred welfare, self-welfare goal and self-goal choice. We suggest that Ostrom is committed to a version of rational choice theory that retains the assumptions of self-welfare goal and self-goal choice but, by acknowledging that people's welfare is affected by factors beyond their material consumption, departs from the assumption of self-welfare goal. We argue that this departure is not necessarily driven by an acknowledgement, along Senian lines, that people may have reasons for action other than the single-minded pursuit of their own goals, but rather by Ostrom's belief that the decision problem people face is so complex that maximising behaviour is rendered impossible. We illustrate this argument by analysing how Elinor Ostrom's position differs not only from Sen's but also from that of her husband and long-time collaborator Vincent Ostrom, who in his analysis of the covenantal aspects of rule-making seems to depart from the assumptions of instrumental rationality and preference-satisfaction.

本文通过阿马蒂亚·森提出的理性行为维度类型学所提供的概念镜头，探讨了埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆对实践理性的解释。在森看来，自利行为具有三个独立且可分离的特征：以自我为中心的福利、自我-福利目标和自我目标选择。我们认为奥斯特罗姆致力于理性选择理论的一种版本，该理论保留了自我福利目标和自我目标选择的假设，但通过承认人们的福利受到物质消费以外的因素的影响，背离了自我福利的假设。福利目标。我们认为，这种背离不一定是因为承认，沿着塞尼安派的路线，人们可能有行动的理由，而不是一心一意地追求自己的目标，而是因为奥斯特罗姆相信人们面临的决策问题是如此复杂最大化行为变得不可能。我们通过分析埃莉诺·奥斯特罗姆的立场不仅与森的立场不同，而且与她的丈夫和长期合作者文森特·奥斯特罗姆的立场有何不同来说明这一论点，文森特·奥斯特罗姆在对规则制定的契约方面的分析中似乎背离了工具性的假设。理性和偏好满足。