Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: A large number of young children die every year from ingesting poisons by accident.Revealed-preference theory, the foundation of microeconomics, has only two concepts to explain these accidents: beliefs and preferences (that is, utilities revealed by choices).In the beliefpreference language, all we can say is that a child who died of accidental poisoning either believed the poison was safe, and made a mistake, or that the child preferred death to life, and committed suicide.While economic theory may be comfortable calling these accidents only mistakes or expressions of preference, I am not.My goal in this Essay is to acquaint the legal audience with ideas emerging in neuroscience that could potentially be a richer language for talking about cases like accidental child poisoning and, more broadly, about welfare and paternalism in some limited cases.Further development of the framework could lead to a broader view with wider applicability.The idea is that three separable neural systems are relevant for choice and welfare: a hedonic "liking" system (welfare), a "wanting" system that guides choice, and a learning system that, ideally, links information stored in the other systems so that people choose to learn what they truly like.Other multiple-process neuroeconomic accounts use different components but have similar implications.
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Author: Colin F. Camerer
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W83224852