Historians of economic thought are paying greater attention to issues of social ontology (that is, to the assumptions that economists make about the nature of social reality). In this paper, we contribute to this burgeoning literature by exploring the hitherto neglected way in which James Buchanan invoked ontological considerations, concerning in particular the nature of human choice, both in criticizing neoclassical economics and also in setting out his own contributions to constitutional political economy. We focus on Buchanan’s account of man as an artifactual being who has the capacity to choose the kind of person he wishes to become, in particular by selecting the kind of preferences he wishes to have and the kinds of rules under which he wishes to live. We discuss how Buchanan’s thinking on this issue was shaped by his mentor Frank Knight and by the work of British economist G.L.S. Shackle. We then explain why Buchanan was at pains explicitly to describe his argument as ontological in nature. Finally, we contend that Buchanan’s approach would have benefited from further ontological elaboration, in two ways: (i) first, because his arguments would have been stronger had he said more about the attributes of the human agent that help to secure their engagement in thinking creatively about themselves and the rules of society (‘the constitutional moment’); and (ii) second because his account would benefit from a deeper discussion of the interplay between human agency and social structure, especially with regard to the question of which structures might constrain or facilitate creative choices of the kind by which he set such great store.

中文翻译：

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詹姆斯·布坎南论选择的本质：本体论、人造人与政治经济学中的宪法时刻

经济思想史家更加关注社会本体论问题（即经济学家对社会现实本质的假设）。在本文中，我们通过探索詹姆斯·布坎南（James Buchanan）在批评新古典经济学和阐述他自己对宪政政治经济学的贡献时援引本体论考虑（尤其是关于人类选择的性质）的迄今为止被忽视的方式，为这一新兴文学做出贡献。 . 我们关注布坎南将人描述为一个人造存在，他有能力选择他希望成为的那种人，特别是通过选择他希望拥有的偏好类型和他希望生活的规则类型。我们讨论了布坎南在这个问题上的想法是如何被他的导师弗兰克奈特和英国经济学家 GLS Shackle 的工作所塑造的。然后我们解释了为什么布坎南要明确地将他的论点描述为本质上的本体论。最后，我们认为布坎南的方法会从进一步的本体论阐述中受益，在两个方面：（i）第一，因为如果他更多地谈论有助于确保他们参与思考的人类代理的属性，他的论点会更有力创造性地了解自己和社会规则（“宪法时刻”）；(ii) 其次，因为他的叙述将受益于对人类能动性和社会结构之间相互作用的更深入讨论，