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OPPORTUNITY AND PREFERENCE LEARNING

OPPORTUNITY AND PREFERENCE LEARNING Abstract:Robert Sugden has suggested a normative standard of freedom as ‘opportunity’ that is supposed to help realign normative economics – with its traditional rational choice orientation – with behavioural economics. While allowing preferences to be incoherent, he wants to maintain the anti-paternalist stance of orthodox welfare economics. His standard, though, presupposes that people respond to uncertainty about their own future preferences by dismissing any kind of self-constraint. We argue that the approach lacks psychological substance: Sugden's normative benchmark – the ‘responsible person’ – can hardly serve as a convincing role model in a contractarian setting. An alternative concept is introduced, and some implications are briefly discussed. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Economics & Philosophy Cambridge University Press

OPPORTUNITY AND PREFERENCE LEARNING

Schubert, Christian
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 31 (2): 21 – May 5, 2015
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Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 
ISSN
1474-0028
eISSN
0266-2671
DOI
10.1017/S0266267115000139
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract:Robert Sugden has suggested a normative standard of freedom as ‘opportunity’ that is supposed to help realign normative economics – with its traditional rational choice orientation – with behavioural economics. While allowing preferences to be incoherent, he wants to maintain the anti-paternalist stance of orthodox welfare economics. His standard, though, presupposes that people respond to uncertainty about their own future preferences by dismissing any kind of self-constraint. We argue that the approach lacks psychological substance: Sugden's normative benchmark – the ‘responsible person’ – can hardly serve as a convincing role model in a contractarian setting. An alternative concept is introduced, and some implications are briefly discussed.

Journal

Economics & Philosophy – Cambridge University Press

Published: May 5, 2015

Keywords: Opportunity criterion; preference change; reconciliation problem

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