The Ecology of Altruistic Motivations in Triadic Social Environments

Angelo Antoci, Pier Luigi Sacco and Stefano Zamagni
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Pier Luigi Sacco: University of Bologna
Stefano Zamagni: University of Bologna

Chapter 19 in The Economics of Reciprocity, Giving and Altruism, 2000, pp 335-351 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract For a long time, economists have maintained that individual preferences are part of the ‘fundamental’ level of description of an economic system. In particular, the widespread acceptance of methodological individualism has led economic analysis to treat preferences as the major ‘economically relevant’ characterization of individuality: the economic agent acts in such a way to maximize (on the basis of their information, computational abilities and so on) the degree of satisfaction of their preferences, and they are all the more rational the more they are able to mirror such preferences into action. In this perspective, thus, preferences are a primum movens that needs no further theoretical explanation, at least in the context of economic analysis.

Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-62745-5_19

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