'Preferring that which you desire less': A Condillacian approach to choice under uncertainty

Arnaud Orain

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2011, vol. 18, issue 3, 321-352

Abstract: In his Dissertation sur la liberte (1754b), Condillac propounds a theory of choice that is intrinsically probabilistic. Reflecting on the cases which we would qualify as 'paradoxes in expected utility' he puts these down to common faults, explicable by 'delusions' and 'dominant desires'. This article concerns the revelation of this original procedure of a philosopher who had little interest in mathematics who constructed a clearly probabilistic procedure of choice. By a Bayesian revision of our probabilistic belief and our 'delusions', we sometimes 'prefer that which we desire less' and this way of thinking explain our endogenous changes of preferences.

Keywords: Choice under uncertainty; probability; Condillac; delusions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1080/09672560903318153

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