Fast and Slow: Technical Communicators, Rational Agents, and Behavioral Economics

A growing body of behavioral economics research provides insight into the human decisionmaking process. While this research is useful for rhetoricians in determining what rhetorical appeals will effectively persuade audiences, it also raises ethical concerns. In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman explains the decision-making process as having a fast, intuitive, and emotional System 1 and a slow, logical, and calculating System 2. This paper examines the principles and techniques of argument in this book and considers the ethical implications of his model of the human mind. Kahneman's advice on communication, based on studies of human decision-making, affirms the practices of technical communicators. However, we conclude that technical communicators and rhetoricians should remain skeptical of excessively narrow definitions of rationality and of the kinds of values and social contexts that define deliberative rhetoric.