plannerspace: Rationale Planning and Decision-Planning

Planning

is the process by which he selects a course of action (a set of means) for the

attainment of his ends. It is “good” planning if these means are likely to attain the

ends or maximize the chances of their attainment. It is by the process of rational

choice that the best adaptation of means to ends is likely to be achieved.

- Banfield, Edward C. Reprinted from the International Social Science Journal Vol. XI No.3, 1959, with the permission of UNESCO. Retrieved from http://www.pmf.unizg.hr/_download/repository/Banfield_Ends_and_Means_in_Planning.pdf.

Process of Preparing a Rational Plan

a rational decision is one made in the following manner:

(a) the decision-maker lists all the opportunities for action open to him;

(b) he identifies all the con sequences which would follow from the adoption of

each of the possible actions; and

the preferred set of consequences.

RATIONAL PLANNING

A rational decision is one in which alternatives and consequences are considered as fully as the decision-maker, given the time and other resources available to him, can afford to consider them.

A plan (unless we depart very far from customary usage) is a decision with regard to a

course of action. A course of action is a sequence of acts which are mutually related

as means and are therefore viewed as a unit; it is the unit which is the plan. Planning,

then, as defined here, is to be distinguished from what we may call “opportunistic

decision-making”, which is choosing (rationally or not) actions that are not mutually

related as a single means. The rational selection of a course of action, i.e. the making

of a rational plan, involves essentially the same procedure as any rational choice:

every possible course of action must be listed, all the consequences which would

follow from each course must he identified, and that course selected the consequences

of which are preferred.

The process by which a plan is rationally made may conveniently he described under

four main headings:

1. Analysis of the situation. The planner must lay down in prospect every possible

course of action which would lead to the attainment of the ends sought. His task is to

imagine how the actor may get from where he is to where he wants to be, but his

imagination must work within certain conditions which are fixed by the situation,

especially by the resources at his disposal (not merely possessions, of course, but legal

and other authority, information, time, executive skill, and so on) and by the obstacles

in his way. His opportunity area consists of the courses of action “really” open to him,

i.e. those which he is not precluded from taking by some limiting condition. It may be,

of course, that he has no opportunity area at all - that there is absolutely no way by

which the ends sought may be achieved - or that the opportunity area is a very

restricted one.

2. End reduction and elaboration. An end is an image of a future state of affairs

towards which action is oriented. The formulation of the end may be extremely vague

and diffuse. If so it may have to be reduced to specific or “operational” terms before it

can serve as a criterion of choice in the concrete circumstances. The formulation of

the end may be elliptical; in this case the planner must clearly explain the meaning in

full. An end may be thought of as having both active and contextual elements. The

active elements are those features of the future situation which are actively sought; the

contextual are those which, while not actively sought, nevertheless cannot be

sacrificed without loss. (The man who burned down his house in order to get the rats

out of the cellar ignored a contextual end in his effort to achieve an active one.) The

planner’s task is to identify and clarify the contextual as well as the active

components of the ends. If they are not fully consistent, he must also “order” them,

i.e. he must discover the relative value to be attached to each under the various

concrete circum stances envisaged in the courses of action or, as an economist would

say, prepare an “indifference map”.

3. The design of courses of action. Courses of action may have a more or a less

general character. At the most general level, a developing course of action implies a

description of the “key” actions to be taken or the commitments to be made. These

constitute the premises upon which any less general course of action is based, e.g. at

the “programme” or “operations” levels. In other words, decisions of a less general

character represent choices from among those alternatives which are not precluded by

the more general decisions already taken. A developing course of action may be

chosen arbitrarily or capriciously and a programmed course of action based upon it

may then be selected with elaborate consideration of alternatives and consequences: in

such a case there is “functional rationality” but “substantive irrationality”.

4. The comparative evaluation of consequences. If the plan is to be rational, all

consequences—not merely those intended by the planner—must be taken into

account. To a large extent, then, good planning is a search for unintended

consequences which might follow from the attainment of the active or contextual

ends. The planner cannot pick and choose among the consequences of a given course

of action: he must take them all, the unwanted along with the wanted, as a set. Their

evaluation therefore must be in terms of the net value attached to each set. If all values

could be expressed in terms of a common numerical index (e.g. prices) this would

raise no great difficulties. In practice, however, the planner must somehow strike a

balance between essentially unlike intangibles. He must decide, for example, whether

X amount of damage to a beautiful view is justified by Y amount of increase in

driving safety.

Despite this lack, some general observations are possible. While the Chicago Housing Authority may be a rather extreme case, there are compelling reasons which militate against planning and rationality on the part of all organizations.

1. Organizations do not lay out courses of action, because the future is highly

uncertain. There are very few matters about which reliable predictions can be made

for more than five years ahead.

2. When it is possible to decide upon a course of action well in advance it is likely to

be imprudent to do so, or at least to do so publicly (as, of course, a public agency

ordinarily must). For to advertise in advance the actions that are to be taken is to

invite opposition to them and to give the opposition a great advantage. This is a

principle which many city planners have learned to their cost.

3. Organizations, especially public ones, do not consider fundamental alternatives

because usually there are circumstances which preclude them, at least in the short run,

from doing anything very different from what they are already doing. Some of these

circumstances may be the result of choices which the organization has already made;

others may be externally imposed.

4. Organizations have a decided preference for present rather than future effects. One

might think that public organizations, at least, would be more willing than are persons

to postpone satisfactions—that, in the language of economics, they would discount the

future less heavily. They do not seem to, however, and this is another reason why they

do not plan ahead.

5. The reason they discount the future so heavily is, perhaps, that they must

continually be preoccupied with the present necessity of maintaining what Barnard

has called the “economy of incentives”.

6. The end of organizational maintenance—of keeping the organization going for the

sake of keeping it going—is usually more important than any substantive end.

7. The end-system of an organization is rarely, if ever, a clear and coherent picture of

a desirable future toward which action is to be directed.

8. It follows that serious reflection on the ends of the organization, and especially any

attempt to state ends in precise and realistic terms, is likely to be destructive to the

organization.

9. It follows also that organizations do not as a rule attempt to maximize the

attainment of their ends or (to say the same thing in different words) to use resources

efficiently.

10. Laying out courses of action, clarifying ends, and evaluating alternatives are

costly procedures which take time and money and cannot he carried out without the

active participation of the chief executives.

11. Rationality, as defined above, is less likely to he found in public than in private

organizations. One reason for this is that the public agency’s ends often reflect

compromise among essentially incompatible interests.

12. Whether or not conflict is built into the end-system, the end-systems of public

organizations are vastly more complex than those of private ones.

Integrative Approaches to Planning

In recent years, planning practice has been characterized by its heterodox nature of many different specializations and disciplines working in separation of one another on different scales. With so many disciplines and diverse experiences, cities still suffer from many chronic urban problems. Because of theinadequacy in planning practice and processes, many urban problems related to social justice, spatial segregation based on socioeconomic classification of the population, inequitable distribution of resources and services, unemployment, traffic congestion, urban sprawl and fragmentation, environmental pollution and degradation, resources depletion, and unsustainable nature of urban form have occurred (Visser, 2001). With the lack of an overarching multi-scalar planning framework, many of these severe problems will continue to occur, grow, and fester. Based on this realization, in the past half century there has been a recent push in the planning community towards formulating more integrated approaches to planning to deal with complex urban realities. Recognizing the proliferation of the aforementioned urban problems, two key reasons are identified to support the formulation of a new integrated planning practice. First, planning practice is heterogeneous. There are many competing, evolving, and complementary sets of ideas and subjects that are scattered across a continuum of different specializations. This evident isolation and segregation of different and separate planning disciplines seems to hinder planning practitioners to confront the notoriously complex urban realities and interrelated and messy urban problems. The challenge that these problems pose is not confined to the fact that they are messy and complex, but it also stems from their cross-disciplinary nature. This means that a single problem, although it has its roots in a single field, context, or scale, can extend to affect many other areas, planning aspects, and scales. This trans-disciplinary nature of city and metropolitan problems calls for an interdisciplinary bridging in planning practice, without which practitioners will grow unable to engender consensus over important planning decisions, what to do, and most importantly, what not to do. Second, plans and projects are conducted in many planning fields and sectors for different purposes, at different times and on different scales, which produces high levels of dysfunctionality and institutional and decision-making fragmentation (Pieterse, 2002). Because these projects are usually bound to the scale and magnitude they are attempting to approach, seldom do they account for each other. However, urban problems do not have boundaries to their impacts or effects which permeate across all scales varying from local to regional, and even national, or in some known cases global. In fact, these urban problems perpetually extend across space and time. Planning issues that seem to have local impacts can also have more serious and detrimental regional and national impacts when considered in aggregate. This suggests the importance of across-space and time planning approaches that account for short and long-term consequences and multiple levels of impacts of city and metropolitan scale problems including local, regional, and national levels.

To that end, there is an increasingly perceived need for a multidisciplinary integrated planning approach to provide better tools to guide actions towards the development of healthy cities, improvement of human conditions, and ultimately a better urbanism. By thoughtfully employing elements of integrative planning in the decision-making process, decision makers can focus their attention on identifying the real current and foreseeable future needs of the community and channel their efforts towards satisfying these needs through the physical development of the city and the reordering and rectification of urban space.

The divergence, segmentation, and segregation of planning efforts of different agencies that may result in duplication of analyses and waste of time and resources are prime driving forces for streamlining these efforts. Many sectors of planning, which tend to have their own goals, visions, policies, and strategies, need to be combined together and linked to one another. Under

different names, such as comprehensive, regional, or master plans, comprehensive planning originally emerged to meet this particular need.

Proponents of comprehensive planning perceive it as necessary rational tool that incorporates multiple essential elements of planning including physical land use planning and social, economic, and environmental aspects to safeguard public interest and guide the city’s long-range future (Friedmann, 1971). Conversely, accusations of comprehensive planning failure made by its opponents rely on a number of reasons in support of their argument. Opponents of

integrative comprehensive planning approaches ground their argument on the practical difficulties in coping with multilayered problems and cooperating with multiple policy domains that makes crafting adequate plans prohibitively insurmountable. These difficulties stem from the limitation of individual planners and institutional settings that seem to be overwhelmed by numerous practical complications. As such, integrative comprehensive planning is often accused of offering an impractical and overly ambitious approach. It reflects unrealistically ideal assumptions of human capacity and socioeconomic, structural, and organizational settings. The rational-comprehensive approach neglects quintessential characteristics of real-world decision-making situations, namely the fallibility of human comprehension ability, the limitation in resources, time, and access to information, the multiplicity of competing rational actors and power structure imbalance (Forester, 1989). The assumption of comprehensive intellectual

human abilities is an invidiously problematic one. Humans cannot comprehend everything nor can they even fully comprehend one planning aspect (Lindblom, 1959). They tend to rely on simplification of intricate issues to reach satisfactory decisions rather than optimal solutions, based on which process important possible outcomes, alternative potential policies, and affected values are often neglected or overlooked (Lindblom, 1959). As such, planning comprehensively seems beyond human cognitive ability and institutional, technical and organizational capacity (Lindblom, 1959).

Both truth and rationality are context-dependent and mean different things to different people. Although it exists in separation from our seemingly neatly compartmentalized and deeply conflicted belief, universal rationality is received, filtered, interpreted, manipulated and constructed differently, reflecting the diversity of frame of reference of each individual. Because of its constructed nature, universal rationality cannot be realized as, or in, a single form. This divergence in views of rationality is greatly influenced by personal values, experiences, and power relations (Camillus, 1982). There is a struggle between power and reason which results in the prevalence of power over rationality whenever they clash in practice. Rationality alone seems insufficient to assuage power. With the presence of power, the role of rationality is usually underestimated and diminished or, worse yet, utilized to serve hegemonic interests. In fact, universal rationality has long been used by technocratic elites to solidify superiority over others as a way of manipulation, intimidation and exclusion. In this regard, decisions are not made based on facts, but rather facts are often made based on predetermined decisions. This does not mean that planners cannot act rationally or rely on a certain degree of common rationality and reason. This is because acting rationally and sensibly is different than relying on universal rationality. Conflict occurrence does not necessarily indicate our inability to reach consensus, and the absence of universal rules that can be applied in every situation does not necessarily lead to a lack of consensus on common foundations of rationality and reason. However, this common rationality and reason, which can only go as far as common sense, is not elaborate enough to act in separation of contextual details of planning practice in different jurisdictions. As such, rationality beyond common sense is hard to gain wide acceptance and therefore its generalizability and universality is simply beyond the realm of possibility.

This context-laden nature of planning problems and solutions suggests that truth or rationality depends primarily on the context within which these problems were generated. Ignoring the importance of context by relying on allegations of monolithic planning rationality allows no room for public participation and only hinders the planners’ ability to innovate new ideas. This suggests the reliance on alternative narratives that are cognizant of contextual differences and

attentively cautious in interpreting certain narratives, claims of truth and universal rationality.

Contextualization of planning problems suggests orchestration and facilitation of efforts and participation in order to generate much needed debates about the appropriateness of solutions, and nature and scale of response. Debate does not necessarily mean undermining other points of view or that quarreling would ensue. Through debate and consensus building, brilliant ideas can surface and only the most effective argument can prevail. Further, best alternatives can be evaluated, arguments can be sharpened, and good ideas can also be improved by discussion and feedback from each other. Questioning who wins and who loses based on what decisions and by what mechanisms helps deconstruct and debunk allegations of spoken and unspoken universal truth that often produces such mechanisms and patterns. Without this counter-hegemonic discourse whose goal is to unmask taken for-granted truths, hidden constructedness will remain ever hidden and legitimized by political and bureaucratic constituents for the purpose of only self-aggrandizement (Robbins, 2004).

The Role of Power and Politics in Plan-making and Plan Implementation

Power and politics have a significant role in plan-making and implementation. Planning inherently relies on means of communicative and interactive discourse, through which hegemonic power habitually permeates. The misconception of planning as a merely scientific and technical endeavor resulted in planners’ inability to deal with, and confront, the many types of power. Due to this evident political illiteracy, many planners fail to gain political interest and in turn their plans appear to lack, in many cases, proper implementation. The lack of engagement in political processes and the failure to manage successful plan implementation represents poor practice and a misconception of planners as technically-astute individuals whose field of influence is confined to their workstation located in their cubical. This technocratic confinement of planning and planners created a gap between what’s being done, which is merely influenced by political forces; and what people want to see happen in their communities in the future, which planners often claim to capture and engender in their plans.

Making influential decisions means making action-oriented decisions, on one hand, and being able to successfully implement them, on the other. This however cannot be attained without realizing and utilizing both soft and hard power as a means to arrive to this end of being influential. By relying onelements of soft power, including discussion, negotiation, mediation, diplomacy, and even argument, people can reach agreements and common ground on some of the most formidable and severely disputed issues. In contradistinction, hard power personifies operation-oriented actions and plans, implementation and enforcement mechanisms, political clout, economic incentives, collective social actions and even revolutions, and any other necessary means to change undesirable conditions. Hence, planning should depart from the idealized notion of neutrality or the notion of being inherently consensus-based. The challenge remains for planners to be able to develop expertise and skills not only to anticipate and respond to future power influence and agenda setting, but also to counteract its implications on

democratic planning practice. This calls for the realization that neither the utter dominance of the power approach nor the complete elimination or negligence of the existence of the power approach work in practice. The need to be in touch with reality (Flyvbjerg, 2001), with its wicked face and the existence of power dynamics and relations, calls for the insightful understanding of power structure by acknowledging its existence and impacts, on one hand, and the innovation and employment of creative integrative planning tools that utilize power to delimit, counteract, and neutralize power, on the other hand. This requires proactive involvement in the political and social arenas of decision-making. Wielding power for planners, on one hand, means being able to make decisions that have the potential to change reality; and to wield power, on the other hand, planners should become an active part of the “game” not just the audience, or worse yet, cheerleaders.

An Agenda for an Alternative Path to an Integrative Approach to Planning

Proposition (1): with this in mind, a mature adaptive application of planning theory should incorporate an examination of the development of cities in the past, the relationship between political and economic forces and cultural and social structures, and understanding of how power relationships shape political realities and decision-making. While discourse can provide part of the explanation, a further step is to engender a deep understanding of the structures of power that not only guide discourse but in many cases generate it.

Proposition (2): an effective planning theory should consider the adaptive sustainable planning model as an overarching normative framework and ideal of a useful integrative approach to planning problems. Under the auspices of the notion of adaptive sustainability, this model encompasses two key components (sustainable planning amalgamated to adaptive learning and consensus building), which makes it exceptionally functional and enhances its applicability. While sustainable planning provides process guidance, or “rules of engagement,” adaptive learning and application provides institutional resilience and governance, or “mechanisms of engagement.” This approach encompasses adequate procedural aspects, the institutional ability to create political alliances, and the power to influence outcomes with the flexibility to accommodate different social and spatial contexts, and the aspiration to promote legitimate public input in pursuance of the common good. Given its holistic merits, integrative adaptive sustainable planning is equally concerned with short and long-term consequences. Employing

available resources and seeking to obtain new resources to satiate community’s needs (Visser, 2001), this approach effectively aims to assess current and future community’s needs, limitations, and opportunities and establish frameworks for collaboratively setting visions, goals, policies, and strategies to meet these needs in a timely fashion (Camillus, 1982).

First: rules of engagement: every decision made by planners and policy makers personifies a

profound challenge of how to maintain a speedy growth pattern to keep up with cutting-edge

technological advancement, population demand, and growth requirements, while at the same time safeguard social justice (for current and future generations) and promote environmental protection. These problems and challenges suggest the need to rely on new strategies of planning and development.

As illustrated in figure 1, the sustainability model conceptualizes planning as a triangle that personifies a synergistic integration of three main competing interests including equity, economy, and the environment, or what is known as the “3 Es” (Campbell and Fainstein, 2003). Although planning is ideally intended to enhance economic growth, preserve the environment, and foster social justice, practically different planners, depending on their background, vision, and value system, act differently, which leads to one of these outcomes or another. This model suggests that sustainable planning can be attained through the mindful balance of these three conflicting planning goals within the society.

Setting sustainability as a desired target has three practical benefits for planning. The first practical benefit is that sustainability can be used as a template against which to objectively judge certain plans, based on the extent to which they adhere to these sustainability concerns, and to confront and evaluate frequent claims and allegations of sustainability. The second practical benefit is, once a number of proposed plans, scenarios, or polices are identified to be sustainable based on the first measure, this model provides a reference point based on which we can assess them and select the most sustainable one based on its vicinity to attaining sustainability, which resides at the center of the triangle. Despite its incommensurable nature, sustainability is something that we can acquire more of. The closer a certain plan is to the center, the more sustainable it is deemed and therefore it is the more preferred one compared to other proposed sustainable plans. Sustainability provides a path to a desirable and

appropriate outcome. It is therefore a means to an end, not an end by itself. It helps us set goals, objectives, and visions for the future. It also poses a reminder of what planning is most concerned with; spearheading the quest of satiating the interests of all groups, addressing and resolving conflicts, and promoting a better quality of life for all. Third, using this model helps not only in understanding planning and its priorities and successfully managing these common clashes of interest (Campbell, 1996), but also in providing an adequate normative framework to organize the practice and scholarship of planning, on one hand, and a stance that orients us, on the other. This does not mean that following the sustainability model will ensure elimination of these conflicts. On the contrary, following this model will in fact trigger conflicts and generate debate, which are real and healthy. They are real because they are inevitable and occur in every planning decision; and healthy because they tend to produce and carry on fruitful and meaningful debate among different actors and sectors of planning that boosts acceptance and willingness to question and be questioned, and in turn generate more robust and informed decisions.

Second: mechanisms of engagement: the second element of the proposed integrative planning

emanates from, and responds to, the critiques of sustainability as an integrative planning discourse and its political and institutional challenges. Akin to other planning approaches, sustainability seems to provide an ambitious approach that attempts to cover a great deal of ground, which may impose difficulties in institutional settings, governmental cooperation, and decision-making mechanisms. Such integrated planning approaches are often challenged by political and institutional realities, established planning and decision-making practices and bureaucratic processes. Bureaucratic processes, which were once believed to stimulate and integrate local decisions into larger schemes, appear to not only limit the capacity and influence of these decisions, but may also resist such integrated approaches (Wank, 1996). The complex decision-making process related to the institutional configuration of each community, where organizations display complex hierarchal relationships, makes it hard for any new integrative planning approach to succeed. In particular, planning agencies operate under different jurisdictions with different legal and institutional basis. This divergence of different modes of government in various realms of social and institutional life of communities constitutes a major challenge to the integration of planning systems (Meadowcroft, 1997). However, this argument of cooperation mishaps can be turned on its heels. The fact that we have cooperation difficulties on both individual and institutional levels does not suggest that finding a meaningful resolution is insurmountable. On the contrary, these difficulties serve as the crisis/tragedy narrative that justifies developing this integrative approach. It is imperative for this approach to realize that real-life planning had, has, and will always have many obstacles in the way of making and adopting plans, which suggests that the assumption of a single approach capable of resolving all of these problems is unrealistic at best.

Adaptive management incorporates an assessment of the past and current planning status and a formulation of a response to change the status quo. This requires the development of general rules and guidelines for urban affairs, free access of information acquisition and dissemination, and a developmentally incremental social learning process that encompasses technological, educational and information systems.

Relying on technical, political and democratic participation processes, it integrates planning processes with the institutional structure of local, state, and federal governments to allow for more power and incorporate citizenry participation in the process. As such, it, building on the bottom-up perspective, serves as a device to facilitate communication across all levels of the government structures to ensure that the development of the city as an urban settlement

is conducted in a way that benefits a broader range of its inhabitants (Visser, 2001).

participatory planning to allow for real cooperation, generate feedback mechanisms, and meet the need for flexibility and adaptability. Through participatory planning, the sustainable planning agenda can be shifted towards ongoing, evolving, and transformative learning, where insights from a broad range of stakeholders and disciplines can be garnered. By engaging in dialectic discourses, planners and their communities can learn about not only their arguments and that of others, but also about themselves as well as others and therefore can form and reform their social and political interactions and relationships. Through consensus building processes and inter-discursive communication that equally involve and inform all affected and interested stakeholders without the dominance of one over the other, all participants can freely speak, listen to each other, and question the status quo. To chart the course to a desirable and acceptable future for their communities, planners, working as facilitators, need to connect with their communities and work closely with people on identifying and addressing issues that most concern them.

Proposition (3): the creation of viable directions for new integrative planning paradigms is contingent upon the cultivation of locally engaged, yet regionally in tune efforts; the redefining of an ever-changing and impermanent language of planning difference; and the acknowledgment of global political and economic realities as connected webs of local transformations. Under these conditions, planning practice should be transformed from something transferable to something that emanates from within “here and now.” While confining planning efforts to the local level will only foster fragmentation, working together in unity will build a planning community that perpetuates a larger scale effort able to confront power on its own terrain (Gibson-Graham, 2006).

Proposition (4): the value system, which appears to be highly diverse, poses a challenge of how such greatly diverse interests and orientations can come to terms with a distinct and conclusive definition of an integrative approach to planning practice that not only captures the essence of such a sophisticated, diverse, and mature field, but also satiates this heterogeneity in specializations, interests, and educational and practical backgrounds. Regardless of what definition we may produce, or how well the definition is able to precisely and comprehensively outline the new approach to planning, seeking consensus on what this approach is will always be a major challenge that calls for effective practical solutions. Consequently, the real challenge, reflecting the struggle that planners face everyday in their decisions, is to figure out ways for people to accept a definition of this integrated approach, whatever may be, and live with it.

In a nutshell, undesired consequences often happen not because of lack of planning, but because of inadequacy in planning processes, decisions, policies, and outcome. This inadequacy includes intentional or unintentional separation of planning from the political process, planners’ unawareness of power structures, inconsistency of decisions and segregation of planning specializations that tend to alienate different planning practitioners from one another. Planners need a well-defined frame of reference to what they do, and not do, based on which they can operate knowing what they can do, when to do certain things and when to refrain form doing others. Defining an alternative planning approach will provide planners with a comprehensive lens through which they can see the world and therefore insightfully interact with it. While integrative planning approaches are deemed necessary and

desirable, the adaptive sustainability model emerges as a compelling and useful model in providing these important characteristics for the development of the field. Without such adequate approaches, it would be hard for planners to mark solid and firm ground, on which they can build, identify, and develop planning as a discipline and as a profession.

1. What are the types of rationality, their similarities and differences?

Practical Rationality Weber designates every way of life that views and judges worldly activity in relation to the individual's purely pragmatic and egoistic interests as practical rational. Pragmatic action in terms of everyday interests is ascendant, and given practical ends are attained by careful weighing and increasingly precise calculation of the most adequate means ([1946] 1958f, p. 293 [266]). Thus, this type of rationality exists as a manifestation of man's capacity for means-end rational action.

Theoretical Rationality (intellectual rationality) This type of rationality involves a conscious mastery of reality through the construction of increasingly precise abstract concepts rather than through action. Since a cognitive confrontation with one's experience pre- vails here, such thought processes as logical deduction and induction, the attribution of causality, and the formation of symbolic "meanings" are typical. More generally, all abstract cognitive processes, in all their ex- pansive active forms, denote theoretical rationality.

Unlike the means-end rational action that provides the foundation for purely adaptive practical rationality, theoretical rationalization processes are undergirded and given their momentum, Weber argues, by the natural "metaphysical need" and "irrepressible quest" of thinkers and systematiz- ers to transcend sheer given routine and to supply the random events of everyday life with a coherent "meaning.

Substantive Rationality Like practical rationality though unlike theoretical rationality, substantive rationality directly orders action into patterns. It does so, however, not on the basis of a purely means-end calculation of solutions to routine problems but in relation to a past, present, or potential "value postulate" (1968, pp. 85-86 [44-45]). Not simply a single value, such as positive evaluation of wealth or of the fulfillment of duty, a value postulate im- plies entire clusters of values that vary in comprehensiveness, internal consistency, and content. Thus, this type of rationality exists as a mani- festation of man's inherent capacity for value-rational action. A substantive rationality may be circumscribed, organizing only a de- limited area of life and leaving all others untouched. Friendship, for example, whenever it involves adherence to such values as loyalty, com- passion, and mutual assistance, constitutes a substantive rationality. Com- munism, feudalism, hedonism, egalitarianism, Calvinism, socialism, Bud- dhism, Hinduism, and the Renaissance view of life, no less than all aesthetic notions of "the beautiful," are also examples of substantive rationalities, however far they may diverge in their capacity to organize action as well as in their value content (1968, pp. 44-45 [85]).

. Instead, a radical perspectivism prevails in which the exis- tence of a rationalization process depends on an individual's implied or stated, unconscious or conscious, preference for certain ultimate values and the systematization of his or her action to conform to these values. These values acquire "rationality" merely from their status as consistent value postulates. Similarly, the "irrational" is not fixed and intrinsically "irrational" but results from the ideal-typical incompatibility of one ulti- mate constellation of values with another: Something is not of itself "irrational," but rather becomes so when ex- amined from a specific "rational" standpoint. Every religious person is "irrational" for every irreligious person, and every hedonist likewise views every ascetic way of life as "irrational," even if, measured in terms of its ultimate values, a "rationalization" has taken place. This essay, if it can make any contribution at all, aims to expose the multifaceted nature of a concept-the "rational"-that only appears to be a simple one. [(1930) 1958a, p. 53, n. 9 (35, n. 1); my translation, emphasis in original]12

Formal Rationality Unlike the intercivilizational and epoch-transcending character of the prac- tical, theoretical, and substantive types of rationality, formal rationality generally14 relates to spheres of life and a structure of domination that acquired specific and delineated boundaries only with industrialization: most significantly, the economic, legal, and scientific spheres, and the bureaucratic form of domination. Whereas practical rationality always indicates a diffuse tendency to calculate and to solve routine problems by means-end rational patterns of action in reference to pragmatic self- interests, formal rationality ultimately legitimates a similar means-end rational calculation by reference back to universally applied rules, laws, or regulation.

Practical and formal types of rationality are based typically on man's capacity for means-end rational action; substantive rationality derives typically from value-rational action. Even though theoretical rationality, on the other hand, is rooted in abstract cognitive processes instead of action, rational action-and even patterns of rational action-may follow indirectly from theoretical rational thinking.

Substantive, formal, and theoretical types of rationality do not, in We- ber's scheme, remain simply amorphous sociocultural regularities of action. Instead, given configurations of facilitating sociological and historical fac- tors, they are institutionalized as normative regularities of action with-in "legitimate orders" :17 organizations,18 traditional (patriarchal, patri- monial, feudal) and rational-legal (bureaucratic) forms of domination, types of economic structures, ethical doctrines, classes, and strata. The diffuse, problem-solving character of practical rationality generally con- fines it to the domain of routine, everyday, pragmatic difficulties.

CONSCIOUS MASTERY OF FRAGMENTED REALITIES

THROUGH REGULARITIES OF ACTION

Type of Rationality	Mental Processes	Relation to Action	Mental Processes
Theoretical	Various abstract processes	Indirect	Values or purely theoretical problems
Practical	Means-end calculation	Direct	Interests
Formal	Means-end calculation	Direct	Rules, laws, regulations
Substantive	Subordination of realities	Direct	Values to values

Weber defines an "ethical" standard as ". . . a specific type of value- rational belief among individuals which, as a consequence of this belief, imposes a normative element upon human action that claims the quality of the 'morally good' in the same way that action which claims the status of the 'beautiful' is measured against aesthetic standards" (1968, p. 36 [19]; translation altered, emphasis in original)

Ethical rationality does not involve simply the memorization of rules for proper conduct that putatively contain the cumulative wisdom of past generations. Instead, ethical action implies, first, an imperative for cQn- formity to a moral good that is felt to be internally binding or obligatory

In sum, substantive rationality is the only type of rationality that possesses the analytical potential to introduce methodical rational ways of life. Although theoretical and formal types of rationality are also capable of indirect and direct conscious mastery of reality, neither introduces con- sistent attitudes toward life. Even though endowed with the capacity to do so, practical rational patterns of action remain simply reactions to heterogeneous realities. Thus, the practical rational way of life, char- acterized by a means-end rational calculation of interests, lacks the me- thodical element called forth when values, particularly those believed in as ethical standards, regulate action "from within." Only substantive ra- tionality possesses the analytical potential to master-or rationalize- reality comprehensively. It does so by consciously and methodically or- ganizing action into patterns that are consistent with explicit value con- stellation.

-Abukhater, A. B. E. D. (2009). Rethinking planning theory and practice: a glimmer of light

for prospects of integrated planning to combat complex urban realities. Theoretical and

Empirical Researches in Urban Management, (11), 64. Retrieved from:

http://www.um.ase.ro/No11/5.pdf

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Saturday, November 4, 2017

Rational Planning and Decision-Making

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