On Non-binary Personal Preferences in Society, Economic Theory and Racial Discrimination

Nadeem Naqvi

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: This paper examines some of the consequences for economic theory of the replacement of binary personal preferences by non-binary personal preferences in an Arrow-Debreu society as in Debreu (1959), and reaches the conclusion that there is both much damage to existing theory and greater opportunity for providing formal explanations of such phenomena as discrimination, personal freedoms and power, among others, which are impossible to explain at a formal level on the basis of an economic theory that is founded on a choice theory that is based exclusively on binary relational personal preferences.

Keywords: Choice theory; decision theory; preference; binary relational logic; non-binary relational logic; utility function; expected utility; game theory; theory of value; discrimination; race; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B0 C0 D0 E0 J0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-03-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-evo, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:21522

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