Cartesian constructivism applies reason to individual action and for the design of rules for institutions that are to yield socially optimal outcomes, and constitutes the standard socioeconomic science model. But most of our operating knowledge and ability to decide and perform is nondeliberative. Because such processing capacities are scarce, our brains conserve attention and conceptual and symbolic thought resources, and proceed to delegate most decision making to autonomic processes (including the emotions) that do not require conscious attention.

Emergent arrangements and behaviors, even if initially constructivist, must have fitness properties that incorporate opportunity costs and social environmental challenges invisible to constructivist modeling, but that are an integral part of experience and selection processes. This leads to an alternative, ecological concept of rationality: an emergent order based on trial-and-error cultural and biological coevolutionary change. These processes yield home- and socially-grown rules of action, traditions, and moral principles that underlie emergent (property) rights to act that create social cohesion in personal exchange.