Editing Individualism (section)

=== Methodological individualism ===
[[Methodological individualism]] is the view that phenomena can only be understood by examining how they result from the motivations and actions of individual agents.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/methodological-individualism/|title=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|first=Joseph|last=Heath|chapter=Methodological Individualism |editor-first=Edward N.|editor-last=Zalta|date=1 January 2015|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|via=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy}}</ref> In economics, people's behavior is explained in terms of [[rational choice theory|rational choice]]s, as constrained by prices and incomes. The economist accepts individuals' preferences as givens. [[Gary Becker|Becker]] and [[George Stigler|Stigler]] provide a forceful statement of this view:
<blockquote>On the traditional view, an explanation of economic phenomena that reaches a difference in tastes between people or times is the terminus of the argument: the problem is abandoned at this point to whoever studies and explains tastes (psychologists? anthropologists? phrenologists? sociobiologists?). On our preferred interpretation, one never reaches this impasse: the economist continues to search for differences in prices or incomes to explain any differences or changes in behavior.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Stigler|first=George|author2=Gary Becker|date=Mar 1977|title=De gustibus non est disputandum|journal=American Economic Review|volume=67|issue=2|page=76|jstor=1807222}}</ref></blockquote>