Harry G. Frankfurt has presented a case of a counterfactual intervener CI with knowledge and power to control an agent so he will do A. He concludes that if the agent prefers to do A and there is no intervention by CI, the agent has acted of his own free will and is morally responsible for doing A, though he lacked an alternative possibility. I consider the consequences for freedom and moral responsibility of CI having a complete plan P for (...) all actions of an agent, Lucky, who luckily has preferences that accord with P, and I extend the argument to all citizens of a land, Luckyland, who are like Lucky. I argue the citizens of Luckyland have free will but lack moral responsibility because of the connection between moral responsibility, reactive attitudes and future action. Furthermore, the presence of CI and his plan P may allow free will but is incompatible with freedom of preference. Preference concerns alternatives excluded by CI. I argue that a special higher order preference for the preference structure, a power preference, ends the regress of higher order preference and explains the first order preference. Causal determinism is compatible with freedom of preference explained by a power preference when a power preference would also explain an alternative preference. The remoteness argument for incompatibility fails because of a lack of transitivity causal explanation. The power preference is the self-explained source of freedom of preference. That basic freedom may be limited by government knowledge of our preferences, even if, like Lucky, our preferences do not provoke intervention and we conform of our own free will. (shrink)

One of the reasons for adopting hyperbolic discounting is to explain preference reversals. Another is that this value structure suggests an elegant theory of the will. I examine the capacity of the theory to solve Newcomb's problem. In addition, I compare Ainslie's account with other procedural theories of choice that seem at least equally capable of accommodating reversals of preference.

Two studies investigated the development of infants' visual preferences for the human body shape. In Study 1, infants of 12,15 and 18 months were tested in a standard preferential looking experiment, in which they were shown paired line drawings of typical and scrambled bodies. Results indicated that the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes over typical body shapes, while the younger infants did not show differential responding. In Study 2, 12- and 18-month-olds were tested with (...) the same procedure, except that the typical and scrambled body stimuli were photographic images. The results of Study 2 again indicated that only the 18-month-olds had a reliable preference for the scrambled body shapes. This finding contrasts sharply with infants' precocious preferences for human faces, suggesting that infants' learning about human faces and human bodies follow different developmental trajectories. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past three decades is the view that people's preferences are often constructed in the process of elicitation. This idea is derived from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation (e.g., choice and pricing) give rise to systematically different responses. These preference reversals violate the principle of procedure invariance that is fundamental to all theories of rational choice. If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of (...) options, how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist? This book shows not only the historical roots of preference construction but also the blossoming of the concept within psychology, law, marketing, philosophy, environmental policy, and economics. Decision making is now understood to be a highly contingent form of information processing, sensitive to task complexity, time pressure, response mode, framing, reference points, and other contextual factors. (shrink)

The standard view holds that the degree to which an individual's preferences are satisfied is simply the degree to which the individual prefers the prospect that is realized to the other prospects in her preference domain. In this article, I reject the standard view by showing that it violates one fundamental intuition about degrees of preference satisfaction.

Non-compensatory aggregation rules are applied in a variety of problems such as voting theory, multi-criteria analysis, composite indicators, web ranking algorithms and so on. A major open problem is the fact that non-compensability implies the analytical cost of loosing all available information about intensity of preference, i.e. if some variables are measured on interval or ratio scales, they have to be treated as measured on an ordinal scale. Here this problem has been tackled in its most general formulation, that (...) is when mixed measurement scales (interval, ratio and ordinal) are used and both stochastic and fuzzy uncertainties are present. Objectives of this article are first to present a comprehensive review of useful solutions already proposed in the literature and second to advance the state of the art mainly in the theoretical guarantee that weights have the meaning of importance coefficients and they can be summarized in a voting matrix. This is a key result for using non-compensatory Condorcet consistent rules. A proof on the probability of existence of ties in the voting matrix is also developed. (shrink)

When considering the role of prayer in the lives of believers, most theists agree that one important effect is the psychological impact on the person who is praying. Nevertheless, the way many of us pray, by primarily or solely focusing on our welfare and the welfare of our loved ones, agitates the human tendency towards exclusion. If we take seriously God’s commandment to love the neighbor as the self, we should use prayer, instead, as a prime opportunity to help cultivate (...) a moral character that embraces more inclusion. In this paper, I use Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love as a framework for working towards this more inclusive view of prayer—one that widens our moral circle and awareness to include all human beings, and not just the select ones we have chosen to prefer above all others. It does not follow that we are prohibited from praying for our own welfare or the welfare of our loved ones, but it does mean that using prayer in a way that only (or primarily) shows concern for those whom we prefer is morally problematic. (shrink)

[A slightly revised version of this paper has been accepted by the BJPS] More attention has been devoted to providing evolutionary scenarios accounting for the development of beliefs, or belief-like states, than for desires or preferences. Here I articulate and defend an evolutionary rationale for the development of psychologically real preference states. Preferences token or represent the expected values of discriminated states, available actions, or action-state pairings. The argument is an application the ‘environmental complexity thesis’ found in Godfrey-Smith and (...) Sterelny, although my conclusions differ from Sterelny’s. I argue that tokening expected utilities can, under specified general conditions, be a powerful design solution to the problem of allocating the capacities of an agent in an efficient way. Preferences are for efficient action selection, and are a ‘fuel for success’ in the sense urged by Godfrey-Smith for true beliefs. They will tend to be favoured by selection when environments are complex in ways that matter to an organism, and when organisms have rich behavioural repertoires with heterogenous returns and costs. The rationale suggested here is conditional, especially on contingencies in what design options are available to selection and on trade-offs associated with the costs of generating and processing representations of value. The unqualified efficiency rationale for preferences suggests that organisms should represent expected utilities in a comprehensive and consistent way, but none of them do. In the final stages of the paper I consider some of the ways in which design trade-offs compromise the implementation of preferences in organisms that have them. (shrink)

More attention has been devoted to providing evolutionary accounts of the development of beliefs, or belief-like states, than for desires or preferences. Here I articulate and defend an evolutionary rationale for the development of psychologically real preference states. Preferences token or represent the expected values available actions given discriminated states of world and agent. The argument is an application of the ‘environmental complexity thesis’ found in Godfrey-Smith and Sterelny, although my conclusions differ from Sterelny’s. I argue that tokening expected (...) utilities can, under specified general conditions, be a powerful design solution to the problem of efficiently allocating the capacities of an agent. Preferences are for efficient action selection, and count as a ‘fuel for success’ in the sense urged by Godfrey-Smith for true beliefs. They will tend to be favoured by selection when environments are complex in ways that matter to an organism, and when organisms have large behavioural repertoires with heterogeneous returns and costs.The rationale suggested here is conditional, especially on contingencies in what design options are available to selection and on trade-offs associated with the costs of generating and processing representations of value. The unqualified efficiency rationale for preferences suggests that organisms should represent expected utilities in a comprehensive and consistent way, but none of them do. In the final stages of the paper I consider some of the ways design trade-offs compromise the implementation of preferences in organisms that have them. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 76-78.

Stanford casts original light on the question of why humans moralize some preferences. However, his account leaves some ambiguity around the relationship between the evolutionary function of moralization and the dynamics of tribal formation. Does the model govern these dynamics, or only explain why there are moralizing dispositions that more conventional modeling of the dynamics can exploit?

Statements not only update our current knowledge, but also have other dynamic effects. In particular, suggestions or commands ?upgrade' our preferences by changing the current order among worlds. We present a complete logic of knowledge update plus preference upgrade that works with dynamic-epistemic-style reduction axioms. This system can model changing obligations, conflicting commands, or ?regret'. We then show how to derive reduction axioms from arbitrary definable relation changes. This style of analysis also has a product update version with preferences (...) between actions, as well as worlds. Some illustrations are presented involving defaults and obligations. We conclude that our dynamic framework is viable, while admitting a further extension to more numerical ?utility update'. (shrink)

Various types of continuity for preference relations on a metric space are examined constructively. In particular, necessary and sufficient conditions are given for an order-dense, strongly extensional preference relation on a complete metric space to be continuous. It is also shown, in the spirit of constructive reverse mathematics, that the continuity of sequentially continuous, order-dense preference relations on complete, separable metric spaces is connected to Ishihara's principleBD-ℕ, and therefore is not provable within Bishop-style constructive mathematics alone.

Economists use tastes as a source of information about personal welfare and judge the effects of policies upon preference satisfaction; neoclassical welfare economics is the analytical embodiment of this preference sovereignty norm. For an initial distribution of wealth, the welfare-maximizing outcome is the one that exhausts all possible gains from trade. Gains from trade are defined relative to fixed ordinal preferences. This analytical apparatus consists of both the Pareto principle, which implies that externality-free voluntary trades increase welfare, and (...) applied costbenefit analysis, which attempts to weight costs and benefits when evaluating policies that are not Pareto improvements. (shrink)

This paper argues that Isaac Levi's account of preference reversals is only a limited success. Levi succeeds in showing that an agent acting in accord with his theory may exhibit reversals. Nevertheless, the specific account that Levi presents in order to accommodate the behavior of experimental subjects appears to be disconfirmed by available evidence.

More philosophical effort is spent articulating evolutionary rationales for the development of belief-like capacities than for precursors of desires or preferences. Nobody, though, seriously expects naturally evolved minds to be disinterested epistemologists. We agree that world-representing states won’t pay their way without supporting capacities that prioritise from an organism’s available repertoire of activities in light of stored (and occurrent) information. Some concede that desire-like states would be one way of solving this problem. Taking preferences as my starting point instead of (...) belief-like states, I defend two conclusions. First, psychologically real preference states, which approximately token expected utilities, have a quite general evolutionary rationale. They are a solution to the problem of efficiently allocating capacities with incompatible uses. This argument is a version of the Environmental Complexity Thesis. Second, preferences can plausibly function and naturally evolve without belief-like states, even though the converse claim is incredible. Preferences, that is, can mediate between discriminations of occurrent states (‘internal’ or ‘external’) and the processes selecting activity without mediation by stored indicative representations. By tokening expected utilities of actions conditional on discriminated state, they can increase the rate at which the ‘right thing’ is done at appropriate times, and they can do this without the support of belief-like, world-representing states. Preferences, even incomplete and noisy sets of them, are a fuel for success that will tend to be favoured when environments are complex in ways that matter to an organism, and when the organisms have complex behavioural repertoires with heterogenous returns and costs. (shrink)

Bioethics has entered a new era: as many commentators have noted, the familiar mantra of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice has proven to be an overly simplistic framework for understanding problems that arise in modern medicine, particularly at the intersection of public policy and individual preferences. A tradition of liberal pluralism grounds respect for individual preferences and affirmation of competing conceptions of the good. But we struggle to maintain (or at times explicitly reject) this tradition in the face of individual (...) preferences that we find distasteful, suspect, or even repugnant, especially where the broader social good or respect for equality is at stake. Directed donation presents us with such a dilemma: can we uphold the right of self-determination through respect of individual preferences regarding disposition of transplantable organs while at the same time maintaining an allocation system that reflects values of equity and justice claimed to underlie the socially negotiated practice of transplantation? Or are some preferences simply to be deemed unethical and not respected, even if that leads to a reduction in the number of transplantable organs available and to an apparent disregard for the autonomous decisions of the recently deceased? (shrink)

Preference relations are intensively studied in Economics, but they are also approached in AI, Knowledge Representation, and Conceptual Modelling, as they provide a key concept in a variety of domains of application. In this paper, we propose an ontological foundation of preference relations to formalise their essential aspects across domains. Firstly, we shall discuss what is the ontological status of the relata of a preference relation. Secondly, we investigate the place of preference relations within a rich (...) taxonomy of relations (e.g. we ask whether they are internal or external, essential or contingent, descriptive or nondescriptive relations). Finally, we provide an ontological modelling of preference relation as a module of a foundational (or upper) ontology (viz. OntoUML). The aim of this paper is to provide a sharable foundational theory of preference relation that foster interoperability across the heterogeneous domains of application of preference relations. (shrink)

An individual is said to have a taste for a particular menu, i.e. a subset of available commodities, if he is indifferent between all commodity bundles that contain the same quantity for each commodity which actually is in the menu, whatever the rest of the bundle. Then, a taste is directly defined as a deep property of preferences. As a first result, it is shown that a complete and transitive preference relation over the commodity bundles is equivalent to regular (...) tastes where regularity means that tastes can be derived from a pure qualitative relation between the different commodities. Besides, a preference family based on preference relations corresponding to each particular commodity is said to be rationalizable if there exists a metapreference over commodity bundles which consistently summarizes the preference family and then allows to decide. As a second result, it is shown that if a preference family is rationalizable, then the tastes are organized thanks to a reflexive and transitive qualitative relation between the different commodities. (shrink)

We consider the problem of extending a (complete) order over a set to its power set. The extension axioms we consider generate orderings over sets according to their expected utilities induced by some assignment of utilities over alternatives and probability distributions over sets. The model we propose gives a general and unified exposition of expected utility consistent extensions whilst it allows to emphasize various subtleties, the effects of which seem to be underestimated – particularly in the literature on strategy-proof social (...) choice correspondences. (shrink)

The anti-Specker property, a constructive version of sequential compactness, is used to prove constructively that a pointwise continuous, order-dense preference relation on a compact metric space is uniformly sequentially continuous. It is then shown that Ishihara's principle BD-ℕ implies that a uniformly sequentially continuous, order-dense preference relation on a separable metric space is uniformly continuous. Converses of these two theorems are also proved.

In this article we discuss the validity of previous preferences and advance directives in cases of severe mental illness.

Incidences of organizational wrongdoing have become wide spread throughout the whole business world. The management of organizational wrongdoings is of growing concern in organizations globally, since these types of acts can be detrimental to financial well being. Wrongdoing occurs within organizational settings and organizational members commonly have knowledge of and thus the opportunity to report the wrongdoing. An employee’s decision to report individual or organizational misconduct, i.e. blow the whistle, is a complex phenomenon that is based upon organizational, situational and (...) personal factors. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between value orientations of individuals and choices for particular whistleblowing modes. Our results show that there are significant relationships between these variables. We contribute to the extant literature by choosing Turkey as context as most studies have been conducted in the US and Europe, and little has been reported about the actions taken by employees in non-Western cultures when they observe wrongdoing in their organizations. (shrink)

The concept of preference dominates economic theory today. It performs a triple duty for economists, grounding their theories of individual behavior, welfare, and rationality. Microeconomic theory assumes that individuals act so as to maximize their utility – that is, to maximize the degree to which their preferences are satisfied. Welfare economics defines individual welfare in terms of preference satisfaction or utility, and social welfare as a function of individual preferences. Finally, economists assume that the rational act is the (...) act that maximally satisfies an individual's preferences. The habit of framing problems in terms of the concept of preference is now so entrenched that economists rarely entertain alternatives. (shrink)

If one can get the targets of one's current wants only by acquiring new wants (as in the Prisoner's Dilemma), is it rational to do so? Arguably not. For this could justify adopting unsatisfiable wants, violating the rational duty to maximize one's utility. Further, why cause a want's target if one will not then want it? And people "are" their wants. So if these change, people will not survive to enjoy their wants' targets. I reply that one rationally need not (...) advance one's future wants, only current ones. Furthermore, rational choice seeks not utility (the co-obtaining of a want and its target), but satisfaction (the eventual obtaining of what is now wanted) -- otherwise, it would be irrational to care now about what happens after one dies. Finally, persons survive "rational" changes of values. Thus reflection on the rational revision of values illuminates the conditions on personal identity and the bases and aims of rational choice. (shrink)

This paper revisits Richard Hare's classical and much discussed argument for preference utilitarianism, which relies on the conception of moral deliberation as a process of thought experimentation, with concomitant preference change. The paper focuses on an apparent gap in Hare's reasoning, the so-called No-Conflict Problem. A solution to this difficulty which was proposed in is re-examined and shown to lead to a number of difficulties. The paper therefore also considers an alternative idea, due to Daniel Elstein. This new (...) proposal may well turn out to be the best way of filling the gap in Hare's argument. The paper also examines whether the gap is there to begin with: The problem should perhaps be dissolved rather than solved. This suggestion goes back to an idea of Zeno Vendler. Unfortunately, it turns out that Vendler's move does not save Hare from criticism: It does dissolve the No-Conflict Problem, but at the same time it gives rise to another, potentially more serious difficulty. (shrink)

This paper revisits Richard Hare's classical and much discussed argument for preference utilitarianism, which relies on the conception of moral deliberation as a process of thought experimentation, with concomitant preference change. The paper focuses on an apparent gap in Hare's reasoning, the so-called No-Conflict Problem. A solution to this difficulty which was proposed in is re-examined and shown to lead to a number of difficulties. The paper therefore also considers an alternative idea, due to Daniel Elstein. This new (...) proposal may well turn out to be the best way of filling the gap in Hare's argument. The paper also examines whether the gap is there to begin with: The problem should perhaps be dissolved rather than solved. This suggestion goes back to an idea of Zeno Vendler. Unfortunately, it turns out that Vendler's move does not save Hare from criticism: It does dissolve the No-Conflict Problem, but at the same time it gives rise to another, potentially more serious difficulty. (shrink)

Nearly all studies of consumers’ willingness to engage in ethical or socially responsible purchasing behavior is based on unconstrained survey response methods. In the present article we ask the question of how well does asking consumers the extent to which they care about a specific social or ethical issue relate to how they would behave in a more constrained environment where there is no socially acceptable response. The results of a comparison between traditional survey questions of “intention to purchase” and (...) estimates of individuals willingness-to-pay for social attributes in products reveal that simple survey questions are too “noisy” to provide operationally meaningful information and overstate intentions to a considerable extent. (shrink)