Rationality and irrationality: Venice merchant
Introduction.
There is a complementary duality between rationality and irrationality in individuals, since these are never totally rational, or totally irrational, their actions, decision making, and behaviors, they are framed by the complementarity of these opposed terms. William Shakespeare, has managed to portray this in his work the merchant of Venice. So in relation we will observe the different situations and characters that are presented within the work.
Developing.
To start, it is necessary to have a small synopsis of the work. In Venice, a merchant called Antonio agrees to serve as a loan guarantor who has made his friend Bassanio to a Jew named Shylock, the loan has been without interest, but with the condition that Antonio firm a contract in which it is stipulated that ifDo not pay within the established period Shylock will have the right to cut a pound of meat from the place he wants. Bassanio has asked for the loan to be able to conquer a rich heiress called Porcia.
Now with a minimum context in mind we continue to observe the characters. Let’s start with Antonio, a classic merchant of the time, we first have it as that rational entrepreneur who is aware of the uncertainty that his investments generate, and therefore always diversifies the risk, as a method to minimize the impact that the loss can have to haveof some of their merchandise.
We see this evidenced in one of the conversations he is having with their friends in which they mention the anguish they would be feeling if they had "committed their fortune to such risky companies" to which Antonio responds: no, believe me, to God thank you, notI have exposed all my fortune in a single speculation or on a single ship. Although misfortune is paid in my businesses this year, everything I have will take away;And therefore does not cause my sadness.
However, Antonio apparently is not as prudent as he could expect, because because of wanting to help his friend Bassanio decides to serve as a guarantee of the money he has requested, and he does not even knowing that at the time he does not have anyOf his goods, or with money, “I have at this time all my wealth in the sea, I do not find my money and it would be impossible for methat your investments will totally or partially recover, and therefore everything can support this loan is assumption. This implies that Antonio cannot have all the money in time to pay the debt, since for his bad luck all his ships have wrecked.
When I was a child, if I lost an arrow, it immediateanother frequently. I quote this example of my childhood because I intend to talk to Candor’s language. I owe you a lot, and, as with young people without brake, what I owe you is lost;But if you consent to venture the second arrow in the same direction you threw the first, I am sure that, carefully observing your flight, I will find both, or at least return the last one you have risky, without stopping being yourDiscount grateful for the first.
This shows Bassanio as a risky character willing to lose everything, lover of his passions and mostly irrational. Shylock is another of the characters in the work, this is a Jewish lender, classical representation of the usurer of the time, is a rational man who acts to increase his wealth, interests the money he lends waiting for a gain, andattachment to the laws of Venice. Assumes the risk of lending money even knowing the lack of liquidity in which Antonio is,
Your fortune is very exposed. He has a ship in course for Tripoli, another that sails to the Indies and just told me in the rialto that another in Mexico and another on the way to England, without having many other distant speculations. But, my friend, ships are nothing more than tables and sailors men;There are thieves in the sea, as well as on earth, there is no lack of thieves in sea, that is, pirates. They have to fear in addition to the waves, winds and busts.
He is aware of all the uncertainty that the money generates given the conditions, even so, he decides to lend the money since Antonio offers enough guarantees, but not before making sure that this signs a contract, which knows that through institutional mechanisms he will be supportedby the laws of Venice that are inviolable since they give a guarantee of the city’s commercial prosperity.
But then when they are offering him the triple the money he had lent to Bassanio, since by the shipwreck of Antonio’s merchandise he could not pay on time, Shylock decides to reject him, influenced by his feelings of hatred and revenge, he decides to insist on cuttingA piece of meat to Antonio, as agreed in the contract. This does not seem a very rational behavior, because if it were so, I would have preferred to increase its wealth, therefore, the decisions it makes would be irrational. Although not quite, since from another point we could interpret that for Shylock revenge from Antonio would represent more utility with only a modest opportunity cost, and therefore the rational choice would be to maximize its usefulness by choosing to cut Antonio’s meat.
We also have Porcia a rich heiress, who cannot choose who would like to marry, because his father before he died has decided that all his suitors must face three chests, one gold, one of silver, and one of lead,And inside one of these is a portrait of Porcia, who chooses the chest with the portrait can marry Porcia, but whoever chooses the mistake can never marry anyone else.
This situation can be analyzed from games theory [Footnoteref: 6], since it represents a social interaction, in which players Porcia’s father and suitors;The strategies for the suitors calculate that you can choose, and the strategies of the selected father in which to put the portrait of Porcia;The payment or profit in this case would be Porcia and her fortune, the institutions or rules of the game that the suitors who lose cannot marry anyone else, this serves to reduce the sample of players to those who consider Porcia as irreplaceable;And the second rule, that the suitors who lose cannot count anything about the chest they have chosen, serves to avoid coalitions within the game.
Another way of seeing from an economic point, the decision that the suitors have to make, can be from the expected utility theory [Footnoteref: 9], since this scenario could take it as a situation in which the decisions of the players do notThey affect the payments of others, and therefore it would not be an interactive situation, but we would only focus on decision -making that the suitors would face, so that if they are rational they will seek to maximize their utility.
But let’s think, I don’t think that the father’s ideal was his daughter married who was more rational in an economic sense, but if we observed the chests they had inscriptions, the gold said “whoever chooses me will have what many men want", The silver said" whoever chooses me will have what he deserves ", and the lead said" whoever chooses me to give or risk everything he possesses ", so we could attribute that the father wanted to choose the husband of his daughter to establish in qualitiesMorales.
Let’s see what was inside each of the chests: the gold contained a skull and a writing that said. You have heard many times that everything that shines is not gold. More than one man has sacrificed his life to enjoy my eyes. The golden graves contain worms. If you had been as prudent as resolved, young body and old man gives soul, this paper would not have been your answer.
Seven times he has tried the fire to the metal and seven times the trial that has never erred. There are many men who only hug the shadows and only reach the shadow of happiness. I know there are foolish ones that like me have a silver exterior, but whatever the woman with whom you marry my head will always be yours. Thus, my Lord, good trip;I say goodbye. The longer I will stay here for a fool. I came to make the court with a fool’s head and come back with two. Goodbye, friendly Porcia;I will fulfill my promise, and I will cope with patience my sad destiny.
Porcia’s father an unconventional thinker expected his daughter to marry that man who was not interested. Likewise, it seems very evident that the suitors were not choosing the chest based on rational decision -making, but they chose according to their personalities, their ways of thinking, their feelings, and what they believed that corresponded to them.
Conclusion.
In conclusion, we have previously seen different characters and situations, and what is deduced from there is that we are not portrayed in Shakespeare’s work what we would call a homoeconomicus today, because when looking at the characters we realize the particularitiesof their decisions, as their actions can be contradictory to their beliefs, and as they are not in search of improving efficiency, or increasing their wealth, or making the most rational decisions, but are guided by their emotions, and represent that rational duality-Rerational that composes individuals.
As real behavior in real life is common, it does not accompany the theoretical ideas, or such fictional terms. But as we have seen the fact that this homoeconomicus exists is what allows us to take situations such as those presented in the merchant of Venice and we can observe them from an economic point of view, an example of this issues such as rational behavior. A outgoing attribute of the economic model is its emphasis on rational behavior. The rational behavior is derived from the conscious choice, based on the available and incorporated information, of that course of action that maximizes the usefulness of the decision maker. Another outgoing attribute of this model is linked to the emphasis on the search for efficiency.
The economic model responds to the premise that individuals, guided by their own interest, in the persistent and active search for their highest level of satisfaction (utility), behave rationally (make decisions – they find those means – that are linked toits highest possible satisfaction level). The aggregate behavior of such individuals leads to a balance situation, which corresponds to the most efficient provisions, since those with less efficiency have been eliminated given the possibility of competence.
Bibliography.
- BAFICO HERNÁN, Quiroga Eduardo, & Salvatierra Juan, “Models of Behavior as Analysis of the Business Objective” Administrative Sciences 3, No.6 (July 2015) 69-81,
- Koçaslan, Gelengül. “Homoeconomicus: The Ultimate Representative of Ration,
- Neumann, John V. & Oskar Morgenstern. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. United States of America: Princeton University Press, 1953.
- Shakespeare, William. The merchant of Venice. Bogotá: Modern Graphics, Universal Editions, 2005.
- Williams, John D. The Complet Strategyst. United States of America: The Rand Corporation, 1954.
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