Normative Behavioral Economics Based on Unconditional Love and Moral Virtue

Vipul Bhatt (), Masao Ogaki and Yuichi Yaguchi
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Yuichi Yaguchi: Graduate Student, Graduate School of Economics, Chuo University, Tokyo, Japan

No 14-E-17, IMES Discussion Paper Series from Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan

Abstract: An important difficulty in many models of behavioral economics is that preferences are endogenous and unstable. Therefore, preferences may not provide the most desirable yardstick to evaluate social states. This paper proposes unconditional love as a candidate for such a yardstick. The concept of unconditional love, although sublime, is often hard to apply for practical policy recommendations. We propose an intermediary learning stage, where learning to unconditionally love is desirable, and policies that promote such learning are deemed to be good. We illustrate the use of this principle in models of endogenous altruism.

Keywords: Normative economics; Behavioral economics; Weak Pareto principle; Principle of learning to unconditionally love; Virtue ethics; Endogenous preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D03 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Normative Behavioural Economics Based on Unconditional Love and Moral Virtue (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ime:imedps:14-e-17

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