IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v31y2024i1p17-35.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Permissible preference purification: on context-dependent choices and decisive welfare judgements in behavioural welfare economics

Author

Listed:
  • Måns Abrahamson

Abstract

Behavioural welfare economics has lately been challenged on account of its use of the satisfaction of true preferences as a normative criterion. The critique contests what is taken to be an implicit assumption in the literature, namely that true preferences are context-independent. This assumption is considered not only unjustified in the behavioural welfare economics literature but unjustifiable – true preferences are argued to be, at least sometimes, context-dependent. This article explores the implications of this ‘critique of the inner rational agent’. I argue that the critique does not support a wholesale shift away from the use of true preferences as an evaluative standard in normative economics; instead, the critique implies that behavioural welfare economists need to inquire into and establish the ‘source’ of particular context-dependent choices in individuals’ decision-making. The source determines the permissibility of correcting individuals’ context-dependent choices and can, in some situations, support decisive welfare judgements.

Suggested Citation

  • Måns Abrahamson, 2024. "Permissible preference purification: on context-dependent choices and decisive welfare judgements in behavioural welfare economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 17-35, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:31:y:2024:i:1:p:17-35
    DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2023.2257212
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2257212
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2257212?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:31:y:2024:i:1:p:17-35. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.