The concept of rationality used throughout this study is at the heart of modern economic analysis, and it cannot be denied that it has great intuitiv… - Kenneth Arrow

May I remark, especially for the benefit of economists, that consideration of the medical care market and of the insurance situation represents not only an application of economic principles but also a reconsideration of some of the principles that we take for granted.

The idealist doctrine then may be summed up by saying that each individual has two orderings, one which governs him in his everyday actions, and one which would be relevant under some ideal conditions and which is in some sense truer than the first ordering. It is the latter which is considered relevant to social choice, and it is assumed that there is complete unanimity with regard to the truer individual ordering.

Strictly speaking, decision theory really is concerned only with the fourth part of the division given above, that is, the determination of the computational methods for optimization. Given the determination of the other three factors―the objective function, the range of policy alternatives, and the model―the ideal picture is that someone, presumable the firm that hires the operations researcher, hands him, on a silver platter, an objective function. By talking to the engineers, or by looking into a few scientific laws, he determines the policy alternatives available and also the model.