IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jeborg/v183y2021icp849-860.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Satisfaction in action: Hume's endogenous theory of preferences and the virtues of commerce

Author

Listed:
  • Matson, Erik W.

Abstract

Hume's theory of preferences would, from a contemporary point of view, be labelled an endogenous theory. He sees preferences largely as comparative desires that are formed and affected by the psychological process of sympathy. His view of preferences relates to his economic philosophy. Despite his understanding of preferences, Hume is, unlike some other thinkers with related perspectives like Thorstein Veblen, optimistic about the prospects of commercial society, claiming in one of his essays that the ages of commerce and refinement are both the happiest and the most virtuous. An important reason for his optimism lies in the fact that he understands happiness or well-being to largely consist in the process of actively pursuing one's preferences, not simply in the state of having one's preferences satisfied.

Suggested Citation

  • Matson, Erik W., 2021. "Satisfaction in action: Hume's endogenous theory of preferences and the virtues of commerce," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 849-860.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:183:y:2021:i:c:p:849-860
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2020.11.018
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167268120304236
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jebo.2020.11.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Maria Pia Paganelli, 2012. "David Hume on public credit," History of Economic Ideas, Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa - Roma, vol. 20(1), pages 31-43.
    2. Ernst Fehr & Karla Hoff, 2011. "Introduction: Tastes, Castes and Culture: the Influence of Society on Preferences," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(556), pages 396-412, November.
    3. Frank H. Knight, 1922. "Ethics and the Economic Interpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 36(3), pages 454-481.
    4. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    5. Frank H. Knight, 1923. "The Ethics of Competition," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 37(4), pages 579-624.
    6. Hausman,Daniel M., 2012. "Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107695122, December.
    7. Gerardo Infante & Guilhem Lecouteux & Robert Sugden, 2016. "Preference purification and the inner rational agent: a critique of the conventional wisdom of behavioural welfare economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(1), pages 1-25, March.
    8. Stephen Edgell & Rick Tilman, 1989. "The Intellectual Antecedents of Thorstein Veblen: A Reappraisal," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 1003-1026, December.
    9. Hausman,Daniel M., 2012. "Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107015432, December.
    10. Ernst Fehr & Karla Hoff, 2011. "Tastes, castes, and culture: The influence of society on preferences," ECON - Working Papers 026, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Samuel Bowles, 1998. "Endogenous Preferences: The Cultural Consequences of Markets and Other Economic Institutions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 75-111, March.
    12. Knight, Frank H., 1923. "The Ethics of Competition," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 37, pages 579-624, August.
    13. Elias L. Khalil, 2010. "Adam Smith’S Concept Of Self‐Command As A Solution To Dynamic Inconsistency And The Commitment Problem," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 177-191, January.
    14. Margaret Schabas, 2014. ""Let your science be human": David Hume and the honourable merchant," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(6), pages 977-990, December.
    15. Knight, Frank H., 1922. "Ethics and the Economic Interpretation," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 36, pages 454-481, May.
    16. Robert Sugden, 2005. "Why rationality is not a consequence of Hume's theory of choice," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 113-118.
    17. Sugden, Robert, 2006. "Hume'S Non-Instrumental And Non-Propositional Decision Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(3), pages 365-391, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Charles Delmotte & Malte Dold, 2022. "Dynamic preferences and the behavioral case against sin taxes," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 80-99, March.
    2. Erik W. Matson & Daniel B. Klein, 2022. "Convention without convening," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 1-24, March.

    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. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron, 2016. "Climate policy when preferences are endogenous – and sometimes they are," INET Oxford Working Papers 2016-04, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    2. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron & Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Pigou pushes preferences: decarbonisation and endogenous values," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-16, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    3. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron & Spuler, Fiona & Stern, Nicholas, 2022. "The economics of climate change with endogenous preferences," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Bartling, Björn & Özdemir, Yagiz, 2023. "The limits to moral erosion in markets: Social norms and the replacement excuse," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 143-160.
    5. Adriani, Fabrizio & Pompeo, Monika & Sonderegger, Silvia, 2022. "Gender effects in the battle of the sexes: A tale of two countries," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 165-178.
    6. Åsbjørn Melkevik, 2019. "A Theory of Business Eunomics: The Means–Ends Relation in Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 293-305, November.
    7. Wang, Mei & Rieger, Marc Oliver & Hens, Thorsten, 2016. "How time preferences differ: Evidence from 53 countries," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 115-135.
    8. Jacobs Martin, 2016. "Accounting for Changing Tastes: Approaches to Explaining Unstable Individual Preferences," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 121-183, August.
    9. Roberto Fumagalli, 2016. "Decision sciences and the new case for paternalism: three welfare-related justificatory challenges," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 47(2), pages 459-480, August.
    10. Brandts, Jordi & Riedl, Arno, 2020. "Market interaction and efficient cooperation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    11. Erik W. Matson, 2023. "Ethical Economics or Economical Ethics? Considerations out of Carl Menger," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 36(2), pages 311-330, June.
    12. Alain Cohn & Michel André Maréchal, 2016. "Priming in economics," ECON - Working Papers 226, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    13. Antoinette Baujard, 2022. "Ethics and Technique in Welfare Economics: How Welfarism Evolves in the Making," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 73(6), pages 1039-1053.
    14. Meier, Stephan & Pierce, Lamar & Vaccaro, Antonino & La Cara, Barbara, 2016. "Trust and in-group favoritism in a culture of crime," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 78-92.
    15. Abigail Barr & Anna Hochleitner & Silvia Sonderegger, 2023. "Does increasing inequality threaten social stability? Evidence from the lab," Discussion Papers 2023-13, The Centre for Decision Research and Experimental Economics, School of Economics, University of Nottingham.
    16. Guilhem Lecouteux & Ivan Mitrouchev, 2022. "Preference Purification in Behavioural Welfare Economics: an Impossibility Result," GREDEG Working Papers 2022-31, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    17. Muhammad Badiuzzaman & John Cameron & Mansoob Murshed, 2013. "Livelihood Decisions Under the Shadow of Conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2013-006, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Annie Tubadji & Toby Denney & Don J. Webber, 2021. "Cultural relativity in consumers' rates of adoption of artificial intelligence," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(3), pages 1234-1251, July.
    19. Kremena Bachmann & Thorsten Hens, 2016. "Is there Swissness in investment decision behavior and investment competence?," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 30(3), pages 233-275, August.
    20. Matson, Erik W., 2021. "David Hume, economic rationality, and policy: Symposium introduction," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 183(C), pages 833-835.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    David Hume; Endogenous preferences; Sympathy; Economic philosophy; Commercial society;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:eee:jeborg:v:183:y:2021:i:c:p:849-860. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jebo .

    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.