IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/009251.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Utilitarianism and Economic Behavior. Looking for Benthamite Traces

Author

Listed:
  • Jimena Hurtado
  • Johanna Mick

Abstract

In spite of the use of a utilitarian language in Rational Choice Theory, economists do not acknowledge any link to this current of moral philosophy, and have made great efforts to rid economics from its legacy. In this document we aim at assessing these efforts retracing their history from Pareto to Samuelson in order to determine how close they came to their ideal of formulating a positive science rid of what they called any metaphysical traces.

Suggested Citation

  • Jimena Hurtado & Johanna Mick, 2011. "Utilitarianism and Economic Behavior. Looking for Benthamite Traces," Documentos CEDE 9251, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:009251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/8284/dcede2011-44.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Morgan, Mary S., 2006. "Economic Man as Model Man: Ideal Types, Idealization and Caricatures," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-27, March.
    2. Hausman,Daniel M. & McPherson,Michael S., 2006. "Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521608664, December.
    3. D. Wade Hands, 2011. "Back To The Ordinalist Revolution: Behavioral Economic Concerns In Early Modern Consumer Choice Theory," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(2), pages 386-410, May.
    4. Esther-Mirjam Sent, 2004. "Behavioral Economics: How Psychology Made Its (Limited) Way Back Into Economics," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 735-760, Winter.
    5. Daniel Kahneman & Richard H. Thaler, 2006. "Anomalies: Utility Maximization and Experienced Utility," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 221-234, Winter.
    6. Hausman,Daniel M. & McPherson,Michael S., 2006. "Economic Analysis, Moral Philosophy and Public Policy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521846295.
    7. Warke, Tom, 2000. "Mathematical Fitness in the Evolution of the Utility Concept from Bentham to Jevons to Marshall," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 5-27, March.
    8. Marchionatti, Roberto & Gambino, Enrico, 1997. "Pareto and Political Economy as a Science: Methodological Revolution and Analytical Advances in Economic Theory in the 1890s," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(6), pages 1322-1348, December.
    9. Maas,Harro, 2005. "William Stanley Jevons and the Making of Modern Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521827126.
    10. Luigino Bruni & Robert Sugden, 2007. "The road not taken: how psychology was removed from economics, and how it might be brought back," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(516), pages 146-173, January.
    11. Shira B. Lewin, 1996. "Economics and Psychology: Lessons for Our Own Day from the Early Twentieth Century," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 1293-1323, September.
    12. Alan R. Sweezy, 1934. "The Interpretation of Subjective Value Theory in the Writings of the Austrian Economists," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 1(3), pages 176-185.
    13. Luigino Bruni & Francesco Guala, 2001. "Vilfredo Pareto and the Epistemological Foundations of Choice Theory," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 33(1), pages 21-49, Spring.
    14. Ivan Moscati, 2007. "History of consumer demand theory 1871 - 1971: A Neo-Kantian rational reconstruction," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 119-156.
    15. Sigot, Nathalie, 2002. "Jevons's Debt to Bentham: Mathematical Economy, Morals and Psychology," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 70(2), pages 262-278, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edwards, José, 2017. "Journal of the History of Economic Thought preprints - Harry Helson’s Adaptation-Level Theory, Happiness Treadmills, and Behavioral Economics," SocArXiv 6cvbh, Center for Open Science.
    2. Drakopoulos, Stavros A. & Katselidis, Ioannis, 2017. "The Relationship between Psychology and Economics: Insights from the History of Economic Thought," MPRA Paper 77485, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Stavros, Drakopoulos, 2021. "The Relation of Neoclassical Economics to other Disciplines: The case of Physics and Psychology," MPRA Paper 106597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Dorian Jullien, 2018. "Under Risk, Over Time, Regarding Other People: Language and Rationality within Three Dimensions," Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, in: Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality, volume 36, pages 119-155, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Stavros A. Drakopoulos, 2020. "Pay Level Comparisons in Job Satisfaction Research and Mainstream Economic Methodology," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 825-842, March.
    6. Harro Maas, 2005. "Jevons, Mill And The Private Laboratory Of The Mind," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 73(5), pages 620-649, September.
    7. Senderski, Marcin, 2014. "Ecumenical foundations? On the coexistence of Austrian and neoclassical views on utility," MPRA Paper 67024, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Drakopoulos, Stavros A., 2023. "The Economics of Wellbeing and Psychology: An Historical and Methodological Viewpoint," MPRA Paper 117891, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Petracca, Enrico, 2015. "A tale of paradigm clash: Simon, situated cognition and the interpretation of bounded rationality," MPRA Paper 64517, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Floris Heukelom, 2007. "Kahneman and Tversky and the Origin of Behavioral Economics," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-003/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    11. Francesco GUALA, 2017. "Preferences: Neither Behavioural nor Mental," Departmental Working Papers 2017-05, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    12. Anna Justyna Parzonko & Agata Balińska & Anna Sieczko, 2021. "Pro-Environmental Behaviors of Generation Z in the Context of the Concept of Homo Socio-Oeconomicus," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(6), pages 1-18, March.
    13. Bogusław Czarny, 2011. "The Debate on the Nature of Welfare Economics in the Contemporary Methodology of Economics," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 27.
    14. Martin Binder, 2009. "Some Considerations Regarding the Problem of Multidimensional Utility," Jena Economics Research Papers 2009-099, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    15. Jonathan B. Wight, 2011. "Ethics and Critical Thinking," Chapters, in: Gail M. Hoyt & KimMarie McGoldrick (ed.), International Handbook on Teaching and Learning Economics, chapter 18, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Vitaliy Vasilievich Biryukov & Elena Vasilievna Romanenko, 2017. "Economic Behavior of Business Entities, Culture and Institutions: Specifics of their Interrelations in Conditions of Neo-Industrialization," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(4A), pages 370-385.
    17. Jimena Hurtado, 2005. "The Utilitarian Foundations Of The Economic Approach To Human Behavior," Documentos CEDE 3633, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    18. Luca Timponelli, 2021. "From Pareto to Bridgman: The Operational Turn of Samuelson, Sraffa and Leontief," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 303-328, June.
    19. Ludovic Ragni, 2012. "What Vilfredo Pareto Brought to the Economics of Knowledge," Chapters, in: Richard Arena & Agnès Festré & Nathalie Lazaric (ed.), Handbook of Knowledge and Economics, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Sheila Dow, 2010. "The Psychology of Financial Markets: Keynes, Minsky and Emotional Finance," Chapters, in: Dimitri B. Papadimitriou & L. Randall Wray (ed.), The Elgar Companion to Hyman Minsky, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Utilitarianism; Rational Choice Theory; Axiom of Revealed Preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
    • B21 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Microeconomics
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:col:000089:009251. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.html .

    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.