 Hume's experimental psychology and the idea of erroneous preferencesJournal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2021, vol. 183, issue C, 836-848 Abstract: Hume's Treatise of Human Nature is not only a canonical text of philosophy, but also a pioneering work of psychology, anticipating many findings of modern behavioural economics. According to Hume's theory of mind, the concept of rationality does not apply to choices or moral judgements. But in his theory of justice, Hume explains preference reversals between smaller-sooner and larger-later options in terms of farsighted ‘true’ preferences and psychologically-induced errors of short-sightedness. Anticipating a common idea in behavioural welfare economics, he proposes a role for government in helping individuals to overcome self-control problems in acting justly. I examine Hume's position and assess its coherence. I conclude that Hume's theory of mind is consistent and psychologically well-grounded, but does not support the concepts of true preference and error that appear in his theory of justice. However, the fundamental logic of that theory does not depend on assumptions about self-control problems. Keywords: Hume; Treatise of human nature; Experimental psychology; True preference; Self-control (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:183:y:2021:i:c:p:836-848 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.11.017 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D. More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.