IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/sochwe/v19y2002i3p477-488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Neurobiological measurements of cardinal utility: Hedonimeters or learning algorithms?

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel John Zizzo

    (Department of Economics, Oxford University, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UQ, UK)

Abstract

A neurobiological argument has been used to defend the measurability and interpersonal comparability of cardinal utility. If true, a strong case could be made for the practical relevance of utility-based social welfare functions. In this paper I demonstrate that the current evidence does not corroborate the cardinal measurability and comparability of utility. Electrical stimulation of brain parts, or asymmetries in brain hemispherical activation, cannot be used to build a hedonimeter. The role of the neurotransmitter dopamine is that of a saliency detector or alternatively one validating adaptive learning models, but either way is not that of a general cardinal utility measure.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel John Zizzo, 2002. "Neurobiological measurements of cardinal utility: Hedonimeters or learning algorithms?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 19(3), pages 477-488.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:19:y:2002:i:3:p:477-488
    Note: Received: 3 March 2000/Accepted: 8 January 2001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00355/papers/2019003/20190477.pdf
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sgroi, Daniel & Zizzo, Daniel John, 2009. "Learning to play 3×3 games: Neural networks as bounded-rational players," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 27-38, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:19:y:2002:i:3:p:477-488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.