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Show Chapter III. The Utility-Maximizing Model of Rationality: Informal Interpretations 124 Moreover, Sen has argued that the theory of revealed preference has not succeeded in detaching the concept of utility from inaccessible mental states. For the notion that an individual expresses or reveals his expected utility rankings in his behavior presupposes that there is, indeed, some internal 35 mental state his behavior reveals. Then it is an open and empirical question whether his observable behavior actually does express that state, or whether it is motivated by covert, strategic ends. If it is covertly motivated, there exists an instrumental relationship between his overt behavior and the covert ends it promotes. If one of his preferences is to conceal his true preferences, then he maximizes utility by expressing false preferences in his overt behavior. Therefore, either the agent's behavior itself satisfies his preferences - thus maximizing utility constitutively, or else it is instrumental to the satisfaction of covert preferences - thus maximizing utility instrumentally. Structurally, the behavioral interpretation of utility has the same infelicitous consequences as the psychoanalytic interpretation. The following chapter pursues further some of the infelicities attendant on the behavioral interpretation of utilitymaximization. 35 Amartya K. Sen, "Behavior and the Concept of Preference," op. cit. Note 32. © Adrian Piper Research Archive Foundation Berlin |
