Asymmetrical, symmetrical and artifactual man: group size and cooperation in James Buchanan’s constitutional economics
揭示詹姆斯·布坎南对人性的复杂看法，区分自然人与人为人、对称人与不对称人，并论证这一本体论对其公共选择与宪政经济学至关重要。
Abstract Economics is frequently criticised for relying on a narrow and limited view of human beings. This may be particularly true of economic analyses of non-market decisions in which individuals often appear reduced to self-interested automata who maximise a given objective function. In this article, we show that the approach of one of the founders of public choice and constitutional political economy, James Buchanan, contradicts this view. Even though he assumed individuals were rational and self-interested, Buchanan nevertheless had a sophisticated view of human nature. He distinguished between a natural and artifactual man, but also between (what we term) symmetrical and asymmetrical man. This is not only important to demonstrate the richness of the ontology of an influential economist, but also because, we also show, Buchanan’s public choice and constitutional economics cannot be understood without a reference to this ontology.