It’s easy to dismiss people who vote differently from us as selfish or brainwashed. But our own choices are shaped by self-interest, values and culture too. As Victorians prepare to vote, whose lives and interests are we willing to consider beyond our own?

This November, all Victorians will have to vote in a state election. Perhaps more than ever, voting is becoming increasingly difficult. I have talked to a lot of disgruntled Labor supporters who will not be voting in the way that they have done for all of their lives. So who are they going to vote for and how will they decide?

In sociology and economics, ‘rational fools’ and ‘cultural dopes’ are two caricatures used to illustrate how complex human beings can be reduced to one-dimensional types. Economist Amartya Sen portrays a rational fool as someone who always makes decisions based on self-interest and expected consequences. Sociologist Harold Garfinkel describes a cultural dope as someone who mindlessly follows social norms and rules.

I think that most of us use these caricatures when we describe people who vote differently from us. We reason that they either follow the narrow logic that best serves their own interests and that of their family – a rational fool – or are brainwashed by the media, religion or political ideology – a cultural dope.

Yet none of us think we can be pinned down to one of these caricatures.

Classical sociologist Max Weber offers a sophisticated way of understanding why we might be perceived as ‘rational fools’. He distinguishes between different forms of rational action. Purposeful rationality is concerned with achieving a particular end. Its logic is pragmatic, calculable and largely unemotional. A lot of us would subscribe to this kind of reasoning.

Value rationality is different. This occurs when we act according to an intrinsic value, regardless of its success or practical consequences. Someone may vote for a party because they believe acting on climate change is morally more important than their own economic interests.

Weber also distinguished between formal and substantive rationality at an institutional level. Formal rationality is concerned with rules, procedures and consistency, while substantive rationality reflects the underlying values those rules are meant to serve. Weber pointed to modern bureaucracy as the preeminent example of these forms of........

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