IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00344899.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Individual Utility in a Context of Asymetric Sensitivity to Pleasure and Pain: An Interpretation of Bentham's Felicific Calculus

Author

Listed:
  • André Lapidus

    (PHARE - Pôle d'Histoire de l'Analyse et des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre)

  • Nathalie Sigot

    (PHARE - Pôle d'Histoire de l'Analyse et des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre)

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring, in a formal way, Bentham's statement that "the pleasure of gaining is not equal to the evil of losing", which belongs to those aspects of the principle of utility left aside by Jevon's reconstruction. Consequently, the agent's preference order will be viewed as depending on his initial situation, and on asymmetric sensitivity to gains and losses, relative to this situation. This leads i) to discuss the coexistence of multiple preference orders, illustrated by Bentham's analysis of the optimal labour contract, and ii) to introduce true deliberation as a consequence of the gap between positive choice and rival assessments of utility.

Suggested Citation

  • André Lapidus & Nathalie Sigot, 2000. "Individual Utility in a Context of Asymetric Sensitivity to Pleasure and Pain: An Interpretation of Bentham's Felicific Calculus," Post-Print hal-00344899, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00344899
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://paris1.hal.science/hal-00344899
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://paris1.hal.science/hal-00344899/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loomes, Graham & Sugden, Robert, 1982. "Regret Theory: An Alternative Theory of Rational Choice under Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 92(368), pages 805-824, December.
    2. Quiggin, John, 1982. "A theory of anticipated utility," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 323-343, December.
    3. Tversky, Amos & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Anomalies: Preference Reversals," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 201-211, Spring.
    4. Nathalie Sigot, 1993. "« Be quiet », mais modérément : le rôle de l'État dans la pensée économique de Jeremy Bentham," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 44(1), pages 23-50.
    5. Grether, David M & Plott, Charles R, 1979. "Economic Theory of Choice and the Preference Reversal Phenomenon," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 623-638, September.
    6. Milton Friedman & L. J. Savage, 1948. "The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 279-279.
    7. Machina, Mark J, 1987. "Choice under Uncertainty: Problems Solved and Unsolved," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 121-154, Summer.
    8. Holt, Charles A, 1986. "Preference Reversals and the Independence Axiom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 508-515, June.
    9. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. André Lapidus, 2000. "La rationalité du choix passionnel : En quête de l'héritage de David Hume," Post-Print hal-00343939, HAL.
    2. Zhihua Li & Kirsten I. M. Rohde & Peter P. Wakker, 2017. "Improving one’s choices by putting oneself in others’ shoes – An experimental analysis," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 54(1), pages 1-13, February.
    3. A. Baujard, 2006. "From moral welfarism to technical non-welfarism : A step back to Bentham’s felicific calculus of its members," Economics Working Paper Archive (University of Rennes & University of Caen) 200606, Center for Research in Economics and Management (CREM), University of Rennes, University of Caen and CNRS.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2013. "Salience and Consumer Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 121(5), pages 803-843.
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 1989. "Should Social Scientists Care about Choice Anomalies?," Rationality and Society, , vol. 1(1), pages 101-122, July.
    3. Pedro Bordalo & Nicola Gennaioli & Andrei Shleifer, 2012. "Salience Theory of Choice Under Risk," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1243-1285.
    4. Marc Willinger, 1990. "La rénovation des fondements de l'utilité et du risque," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 41(1), pages 5-48.
    5. Buschena, David & Zilberman, David, 1992. "Not Just Another Paper Showing Violations of the Expected Utility Model: The Effects of Alternative Similarity on Risky Choice," CUDARE Working Papers 198603, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    6. Buschena, David E. & Zilberman, David, 1992. "Similarity of Choices and the Performance of the Expected Utility Approach: Empirical Results," 1992 Quantifying Long Run Agricultural Risks and Evaluating Farmer Responses to Risk Meeting, March 22-25, 1992, Orlando, Florida 307868, Regional Research Projects > S-232: Quantifying Long Run Agricultural Risks and Evaluating Farmer Responses to Risk.
    7. Adrian Bruhin & Maha Manai & Luís Santos-Pinto, 2022. "Risk and rationality: The relative importance of probability weighting and choice set dependence," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 139-184, October.
    8. Walther, Herbert, 2003. "Normal-randomness expected utility, time preference and emotional distortions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 253-266, October.
    9. Laurent Denant-Boemont & Olivier L’Haridon, 2013. "La rationalité à l'épreuve de l'économie comportementale," Revue française d'économie, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(2), pages 35-89.
    10. Bikhchandani, Sushil & Segal, Uzi, 2014. "Transitive regret over statistically independent lotteries," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 237-248.
    11. Heutel, Garth, 2019. "Prospect theory and energy efficiency," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 236-254.
    12. Attema, Arthur E. & Brouwer, Werner B.F., 2013. "In search of a preferred preference elicitation method: A test of the internal consistency of choice and matching tasks," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 126-140.
    13. Kobi Kriesler & Shmuel Nitzan, 2009. "Framing-based Choice: A Model of Decision-making Under Risk," Korean Economic Review, Korean Economic Association, vol. 25, pages 65-89.
    14. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    15. Louis Lévy-Garboua, 1999. "Expected Utility and Cognitive Consistency," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-03674666, HAL.
    16. repec:cup:judgdm:v:16:y:2021:i:6:p:1324-1369 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Trabelsi, Mohamed Ali, 2006. "Les nouveaux modèles de décision dans le risque et l’incertain : quel apport ? [The new models of decision under risk or uncertainty : What approach?]," MPRA Paper 25442, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Chi, Yichun & Zhuang, Sheng Chao, 2022. "Regret-based optimal insurance design," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 22-41.
    19. Coelho, Philip R. P. & McClure, James E., 1998. "Social context and the utility of wealth: Addressing the Markowitz challenge," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 305-314, November.
    20. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine & Zacharias Maniadis, 2012. "On the Robustness of Anchoring Effects in WTP and WTA Experiments," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 131-145, May.
    21. Kassas, Bachir & Palma, Marco A. & Zhang, Yvette, 2016. "The role of incentives on preference revelations in auctions versus rankings," Journal of choice modelling, Elsevier, vol. 20(C), pages 73-85.

    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:hal:journl:hal-00344899. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.