This book is about preferences, principally as they figure in economics. It also explores their uses in everyday language and action, how they are understood in psychology and how they figure in philosophical reflection on action and morality. The book clarifies and for the most part defends the way in which economists invoke preferences to explain, predict and assess behavior and outcomes. Hausman argues, however, that the predictions and explanations economists offer rely on theories of preference formation that are (...) in need of further development, and he criticizes attempts to define welfare in terms of preferences and to define preferences in terms of choices or self-interest. The analysis clarifies the relations between rational choice theory and philosophical accounts of human action. The book also assembles the materials out of which models of preference formation and modification can be constructed, and it comments on how reason and emotion shape preferences. (shrink)

Joshua Gert and Wlodek Rabinowicz have developed frameworks for value relations that are rich enough to allow for non-standard value relations such as parity. Yet their frameworks do not allow for any non-standard preference relations. In this paper, I shall defend a symmetry between values and preferences, namely, that for every value relation, there is a corresponding preference relation, and vice versa. I claim that if the arguments that there are non-standard value relations are (...) cogent, these arguments, mutatis mutandis, also show that there are non-standard preference relations. Hence frameworks of Gert and Rabinowicz's type are either inadequate since there are cogent arguments for both non-standard value and preference relations and these frameworks deny this, or they lack support since the arguments for non-standard value relations are unconvincing. Instead, I propose a simpler framework that allows for both non-standard value and preference relations. (shrink)

This article examines criticisms of cost-benefit analysis and the contingent valuation method from methodological and moral philosophical perspectives. Both perspectives argue that what should be elicited for public decisions are attitudes or values, not preferences, and that respondents should be treated as citizens and not consumers. The moral philosophical criticism argues in favour of deliberative approaches over cost-benefit analysis. The methodological perspective is here criticized for overemphasizing the importance of protest responses and anomalies and biases in contingent valuation, and for (...) failing to provide the necessary information needed to make public decisions over the allocation of scarce goods. The moral philosophical perspective is criticized for: failing to provide criteria for distinguishing between values and preferences, assuming impartiality requires expression of values and not preferences; failing to recognize the diversity of forms of expression of values, including expression of values through monetary evaluation; and assuming that cost-benefit analysis is necessarily an implementation of a utilitarian political philosophy. The article concludes by showing that deliberative decision-making mechanisms can be overly demanding on citizens, and argues for greater openness in the potential moral justifications of cost-benefit analysis. Key Words: cost-benefit analysis • values • preference aggregation • democracy • willingness to pay. (shrink)

Environmental change requires individuals and institutions to facilitate adaptive governance. However, facilitating adaptive governance may be difficult because resource users’ perceptions of desirable ways of life vary. These perceptions influence preferences related to environmental governance and may stem from the ways individuals subjectively value their work and their connections to their environment. This paper uses a value-based approach to examine individual and institutional preferences for adaptive governance in Carelmapu, Chile. We show that two groups had different value (...) frames rooted in divergent ontologies which influenced their actions related to adaptive governance, creating conflict. (shrink)

It is usually assumed that individuals base their preferences for products or other items on the utility or value associated with the items. However, there is evidence that the attentional selection of an item alone already modulates the preference for that item. For instance, Janiszewski, Kuo, and Tavassoli (2013, Journal of Consumer Research) used unknown consumer products in a series of studies and found that, in a preference choice task, former target products in a visual-search task were (...) preferred to former distractor products. However, it remained unclear whether such effects can be observed when individuals have pre-existing attitudes towards products and whether attentional-selection can change the perceived value of products. Hence, the aim of the present research was to replicate the attentional-selection effect on choice with known products and examine whether selective attention affects the perceived value of products beyond choosing the items. In two experiments, we replicated the attentional-selection effect on item preference in a choice task. Items that had served as targets in the search task were preferred to previous distractors. Introducing a response deadline in the preference-choice task in Experiment 2 did not further increase this effect. However, the value of former targets was rated higher than that of former distractors. Hence, the present results indicate that attentional selection not only affects preference choices but can also increase the value of attended and selected items. (shrink)

Incidences of organizational wrongdoing have become wide spread throughout the whole business world. The management of organizational wrongdoings is of growing concern in organizations globally, since these types of acts can be detrimental to financial well being. Wrongdoing occurs within organizational settings and organizational members commonly have knowledge of and thus the opportunity to report the wrongdoing. An employee’s decision to report individual or organizational misconduct, i.e. blow the whistle, is a complex phenomenon that is based upon organizational, situational and (...) personal factors. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between value orientations of individuals and choices for particular whistleblowing modes. Our results show that there are significant relationships between these variables. We contribute to the extant literature by choosing Turkey as context as most studies have been conducted in the US and Europe, and little has been reported about the actions taken by employees in non-Western cultures when they observe wrongdoing in their organizations. (shrink)

This paper examines relationships between accountants’ personal values and their moral reasoning. In particular, we hypothesize that there is an inverse relationship between accountants’ “Conformity” values and principled moral reasoning. This investigation is important because the literature suggests that conformity with rule-based standards may be one reason for professional accountants’ relatively lower scores on measures of moral reasoning (Abdolmohammadi et al. J Bus Ethics 16 (1997) 1717). We administered the Rokeach Values Survey (RVS) (Rokeach: 1973, The Nature of Human Values (...) (The Free Press, New York)) and the Defining Issues Test (DIT) (Rest: 1979, Development in Judgment Moral Issues (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)) to164 graduating accounting students enrolled in capstone courses at two universities in the Northeastern United States. As potential entrants into the accounting profession, these subjects bring their values and moral reasoning to bear on attitudes and behaviors in the workplace. We find a highly significant inverse relationship between “Conformity” values and principled moral reasoning (i.e., those who prefer Conformity values have lower levels of moral reasoning). However, we also find that accounting students as a group do not prefer Conformity values above other values such as Self-actualization and Idealism, and we find positive relationships between Self-actualization and Idealism values and moral reasoning. Implications for values and ethics research are discussed. (shrink)

This article seeks to defend prioritarianism against a pair of challenges from Michael Otsuka and Alex Voorhoeve. Otsuka and Voorhoeve first argue that prioritarianism makes implausible recommendations in one-person cases under conditions of risk, as it fails to allow that it is reasonable to act to maximize expected utility, rather than expected weighted benefits, in such cases. I show that, in response, prioritarians can either reject Otsuka and Voorhoeve's claim, by means of appealing to a distinction between personal and impersonal (...) value, or alternatively they can harmlessly accommodate it, by means of appealing to the status of prioritarianism as a view about the moral value of outcomes, rather than as an account of all-things-considered reasonable action. Otsuka and Voorhoeve secondly claim that prioritarianism fails to explain a divergence in our considered moral judgement between one-person and many-person cases. I show that the prioritarian has two alternative, and independently plausible, lines of response to this charge, one more concessive and the other more unyielding. Hence, neither of Otsuka and Voorhoeve's challenges need seriously trouble the prioritarian. (shrink)

Background Physician-assisted suicide is a controversial issue and has sometimes raised emotion-laden reactions. Against this backdrop, we have analyzed how Swedish physicians are reasoning about physician-assisted suicide if it were to be legalized. Methods and participants We conducted a cross-sectional study and analyzed 819 randomly selected physicians’ responses from general practitioners, geriatricians, internists, oncologists, psychiatrists, surgeons, and all palliativists. Apart from the main questions about their attitude toward physician-assisted suicide, we also asked what would happen with the respondents’ own trust (...) in healthcare if physician-assisted suicide were legalized. Response options were that trust would decrease, not be influenced, or would increase. Results We identified a strong statistical association between on the one hand those whose own trust would increase and who were pro physician-assisted suicide, and on the other hand those who were against physician-assisted suicide and whose own trust would decrease [relative risk: 16.7 (95% confidence interval: 10.2–27.2)]. Among those whose own trust would not be influenced (n = 456), 60% were pro pysician-assisted suicide, 16% were against, and 24% were undecided. Of those whose trust would increase or not be influenced, a large majority supported autonomy-based arguments, whereas those whose trust would decrease supported non-maleficence-based arguments. Conclusion Analyzing the answers after having divided respondents into those whose own trust in healthcare would decrease or increase and not be influenced brings about interesting results such as how the three groups prioritize arguments for and against physician-assisted suicide. This way of analyzing the data seems to be a promising strategy when identifying value-impregnated factual claims. (shrink)

Monitoring and assistive technologies (MATs) are being used more frequently in healthcare. A central ethical concern is the compatibility of these systems with the moral preferences of their users—an issue especially relevant to participatory approaches within the ethics-by-design debate. However, users’ incapacity to communicate preferences or to participate in design processes, e.g., due to dementia, presents a hurdle for participatory ethics-by-design approaches. In this paper, we explore the question of how the value preferences of users in the field of (...) dementia care can be integrated into AI-based MATs. First, we briefly introduce different ethics-by-design approaches and explain the challenges they face in dementia care. Next, we introduce a novel approach for addressing these challenges. Through a qualitative content analysis of interviews with persons with dementia and their family caregivers (n = 27), we identified multiple ideal–typical value preference profiles. We then applied these profiles in a computer simulation, by which we also introduce the concept of ethical compliance quantification to scale the moral preferences of the interviewees for the simulation. Finally, we discuss study results, the advantages of using computer simulations, and general study limitations before drawing conclusions for further research. The study contributes to the ongoing debate on participatory ethics-by-design by defining on the basis of empirical data ideal–typical value preference frameworks that can be used to guide MAT actions and their outcomes. Going forward, MAT end-users with dementia and other communication-impaired persons could be enabled to choose a value profile that best fits their moral preferences. (shrink)

Existence value refers to the value humans ascribe to the existence of something, regard­less of whether it is or will be of any particular use to them. This existence value based on preference satisfaction should be taken into account in evaluating activities that come with a risk of species extinction. There are two main objections. The first is that on the preference satisfaction interpretation, the concept lacks moral importance because satisfying people’s preferences may involve no (...) good or well-being for them. However, existence value can be based on a restricted version of the preference satisfaction theory, which is not vulnerable to the skeptical arguments about the link between preference satisfaction and well-being. The second objection is that even if preference satisfaction can be linked to well-being, understanding existence value in terms of individual preference satisfaction is incoherent, because existence value reflects disinterested preferences that involve no benefits to the individual. However, the fact that existence value may involve disinterested preferences does not threaten the coherence of the concept, but suggests that it does not fit smoothly into the “utilitarian” or “welfarist” framework it is commonly considered within. A pluralistic normative approach based on prima facie duties can be an alternative to standard utilitarian-style approaches for considering existence value in concrete cases involving a risk of species extinction, such as through deep sea mining. (shrink)

What distinguishes preference utilitarianism from other utilitarian positions is the axiological component: the view concerning what is intrinsically valuable. According to PU, intrinsic value is based on preferences. Intrinsically valuable states are connected to our preferences being satisfied.

The study examines a model proposing relationships between personal values, positive (i.e., benefits) and negative (i.e., threats) appraisal of immigrants, and social contact. Based on a values-attitudes-behavior paradigm, the study extends previous work on personal values and attitudes to immigrants by examining not only negative but also positive appraisal and their connection with social contact with immigrants. Using a representative sample of 1,600 adults in the majority population in Israel, results showed that higher preference for anxiety-avoidance values (self-enhancement and (...) conservation) was related to higher levels of perceived threat and lower levels of benefit, while higher preference for anxiety-free values (self-transcendence and openness to change) was related to higher levels of perceived benefits and lower levels of threat. Greater opportunities for contact and perceived benefits and lower levels of threats were related to more social contact. The model showed good fit across the total sample, and across four diverse immigrant groups in Israel (diaspora immigrants from the Former Soviet Union, Ethiopia and Western countries, and asylum seekers). In line with a Stereotype Content Model, which suggests that group-specific stereotypes are related to social structural characteristics of the group, associations between variables differed by group. Results strengthen a theoretical conceptualization that posits an indirect relationship between personal value preferences and behavior through group appraisal. They highlight the importance of comprehensive conceptualizations including both positive and negative appraisal of immigrants, which take into account the way different groups may be appraised by the majority population. (shrink)

The article presents the results of a survey of Odessa residents as part of a study of the motivational and value preferences of townsfolk in the field of fitness. It has been established that the determining motives for choosing a place for fitness are the individual trainer's approach to the client, personal comfort and convenient location of the fitness club. It was revealed that respondents have an interest in innovative training, but it has not yet acquired the character of (...) a trend. We also obtained data about the significance of playing sports under the supervision of a personal trainer and sports physician. The collected empirical material served as the basis for revealing the behavioral patterns of townspeople and allowed to identify three groups of city residents who are characterized by different motivational and value preferences in the field of fitness. The first ones are focused on personal achievements, the second – on health, good physical form, good time among like-minded people, the third – on the development of special skills, achievements and opportunities to escape from problems. Based on the survey, it was also revealed that the overall physical development of the child is the leading physical motivation for children to do sports, and despite the fact that children may have certain achievements in sports, parents do not attach much importance to them. (shrink)

According to Wlodek Rabinowicz's fitting-attitude analysis of comparative value, it is possible to analyse both standard and non-standard value relations in terms of the standard preference relations and two levels of normativity. In a recent article, however, Johan Gustafsson has argued that Rabinowicz's analysis violates a principle of value–preference symmetry, according to which for any value relation, there is a corresponding preference relation. Gustafsson has proposed an alternative analysis which respects this principle and (...) which allegedly accounts for the idea that originally motivated Rabinowicz's analysis, namely, that in some cases different preference relations between a pair of items are equally permissible. The goal of my article is to show that the arguments offered by Gustafsson in favour of his account do not succeed. In particular, I argue that Gustafsson faces a dilemma: either he abandons the principle of value–preference symmetry or he cannot make conceptual room for multiple permissible preferences. (shrink)

The present study investigated relations between personality and values on the one hand and compensation preferences on the other. We hypothesized that HEXACO Honesty-Humility and self-transcendence versus self-enhancement values predict preference for higher relative compensation level and that HEXACO Openness to Experience and openness to change versus conservation values predict preference for compensation variability. Furthermore, we expected perceived utility of money and risk aversion to mediate the respective relations. The hypotheses were tested using a sample of 2,210 employees (...) from a large international organization. The results provided support for the direct and mediated relations between personality and values on the one hand and preferences for compensation variability and level on the other. (shrink)

In the past 40 years, a global shift has taken place towards a constellation of values known as “expansive values”, which de-emphasize pursuits of money, possessions, and status, and instead focus on quality of life and humanistic goals. This study investigated what students holding expansive values desired in business school course content and student quality of life, and how these preferences differed from students holding materialistic values. Results revealed a number of different factors that were associated only with expansive values, (...) though on a few factors the two student values cohorts shared similar preferences or had inverse preferences. One clear implication of this study is that business schools need to consider offering more ethics classes in order to satisfy the growing number of students with expansive values. (shrink)

This paper outlines a conceptual framework for a sufficiency economy, defining sufficiency as the space between a generalizable notion of human wellbeing and ungeneralisable excess. It assumes an objective and universal concept of human needs to define a ‘floor’ and the concept of planetary boundaries to define a ‘ceiling’. This is set up as an alternative to the dominant preference satisfaction theory of value. It begins with a brief survey of the potential contributions of sufficientarianism and limitarianism to (...) this endeavor before outlining a theory of objective, universal human need. This recognizes the contextual variable nature of need satisfiers and the distinct methodology required to adjudicate necessities. It then turns to the planetary boundaries literature and utilizes a sequence of causal and normative reasoning to derive an operational ceiling and the concept of ungeneralisable luxuries. The final section addresses how the concepts of floors and ceilings might be operationalized via forms of dialogic democracy but noting the absence of any such institutions at the global level. Its policy conclusion is that a safe climate cannot be achieved through supply-side mitigation alone, and that fair demand-side mitigation necessarily requires a clear distinction between necessities and unnecessary luxuries, between which (hopefully) lies a space of sufficiency. (shrink)

Philosophical aesthetics is an area in which many strands of contemporary philosophical thinking meet. The contributors to this volume are aware of the wider logical, epistemological, moral and metaphysical implications raised by conceptual problems specific to aesthetics. Three themes recur and are taken up from different angles in several of the papers: pleasure – its nature and role in the experience of art and beauty; preference – figuring prominently in aesthetic appraising, appreciating and judging; and value – aesthetic (...) value in particular, and the status of value in general. As these themes interweave, the complexities of aesthetics bring into focus some of the central issues in the philosophy of mind. The authors argue their cases with professional expertise and perceptive understanding of the arts, making significant and original contributions. This book should be of interest not only to philosophers but also to the readers who know, care and theorise about the arts. All the essays were commissioned for this volume, which is part of an informal series of books emerging from meetings sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation. (shrink)

This paper deals with the equilibria of games when the agents have multiple objectives and, therefore, their utilities cannot be represented by a single value, but by a vector containing the various dimensions of the utility. Our approach allows the incorporation of partial information about the preferences of the agents into the model, and permits the identification of the set of equilibria in accordance with this information. We also propose an additional conservative criterion which can be applied in this (...) framework in order to predict the results of interaction. The potential application of the theoretical results is shown with an analysis of a mixed oligopoly in which the agents value additional objectives other than their own benefit. These objectives are related to social welfare and to the profit of the industry. The flexibility of our approach provides a general theoretical framework for the analysis of a wide range of strategic economic models. (shrink)

Background: In the USA, the Food and Drug Administration waiver of informed consent permits certain emergency research only if community consultation occurs. However, uncertainty exists regarding how to define the community or their representatives.Objective: To collect data on the actual preferences and values of a group—those at risk for stroke—most directly affected by the waiver of informed consent for emergency research.Design: Face to face focused interviews were conducted with 12 patients who were hospitalised with a stroke diagnosis in the previous (...) year. The interviews were audiotaped and a transcript based method was used for their analysis.Results: All 12 participants felt “that it was important that new treatments for stroke be developed”, but they were initially confused about the distinction between “research for stroke” and “emergency research for stroke”. However, after explanation, most expressed willingness to participate in the latter. In the absence of a surrogate to give informed consent in a stroke emergency situation, the majority said they would want the physician to “go ahead and enrol them in the trial”.Conclusions: This study is the first to identify the values and concerns of individuals most directly affected by stroke emergency research. Further interviews and focus groups are needed to develop and test a validated questionnaire on the preferences and values surrounding emergency research for stroke. (shrink)

This chapter demonstrates how the reflexive governance approach is applied to innovative institutional design of the science–policy interface in global and local public goods provision. To achieve this objective, it discusses methodological options for sustainability valuation, explaining different valuation methods used in various real-world applications. The chapter highlights those methods that are conceptually and practically suitable for evaluating policies, programs, and projects where sustainability is a key factor. It also reviews sustainability valuation methods, which mix analytical and collective methods that (...) require knowledge and provide learning opportunities during the valuation process, resulting in a transparent process. Different types of evaluation and institutional structures also influence the result of sustainability valuation. (shrink)

Within the past few years, a new generation has joined the ranks of business managers or is preparing to become business managers: Generation Z (Gen Z), described as individuals born between 1995 and 2010. This paper has two aims: (1) to assess the Gen Z cohort framed by their value orientation preferences (VOP) and the importance given to principled moral reasoning (PMR) using values and cognitive moral reasoning theories and (2) to compare this information about the Gen Z cohort (...) to prior generations. Using the Rokeach Value Survey and the Moral Reasoning Inventory, we uncovered support for our expectations that Gen Zs would have a balanced set of VOP—that is, similar preferences for a personal and a social value orientation and similar preferences for a competence and moral value orientation. Further, Gen Z preferences are unlike prior generations. The importance given to principled moral reasoning to resolve ethical dilemmas is lower than Baby Boomers and Gen Xers but surprisingly higher than Millennials as found in prior studies. Implications of these discoveries and suggestions for future research are presented. (shrink)

According to Wlodek Rabinowicz's (2008) fitting-attitude analysis of value relations, two items are on a par if and only if it is both permissible to strictly prefer one to the other and permissible to have the opposite strict preference. Rabinowicz’s account is subject, however, to one important objection: if strict preferences involve betterness judgements, then his analysis contrasts with the intuitive understanding of parity. In this paper, I examine Rabinowicz’s three responses to this objection and argue that they (...) do not succeed. I then propose an alternative solution. I argue that the objection can be avoided if we ‘relativize’ Rabinowicz’s account and define parity in terms of opposite strict preferences between two items that are only relatively permissible, rather than permissible simpliciter. I argue that this account of parity can be defended if we take seriously the distinction between sufficient and decisive reason for a preference relation. I also show that, on the basis of this distinction, we can arrive at a more extensive taxonomy of value relations than the one proposed by Rabinowicz. (shrink)

We consider choice correspondences that assign a subset to every choice set of alternatives, where the total set of alternatives is an arbitrary finite or infinite set. We focus on the relations between several extensions of the condition of independence of irrelevant alternatives on one hand, and conditions on the revealed preference relation on sets, notably the weak axiom of revealed preference, on the other hand. We also establish the connection between the condition of independence of irrelevant alternatives (...) and so-called strong sets; the latter characterize a social choice correspondence satisfying independence of irrelevant alternatives. (shrink)

We applaud Shen et al. (2024) for offering a framework to address how to return research results from digital phenotyping within the discipline of psychiatry. However, given the value-laden nature...

Don Juanism is a type of consciousness, value system, and mode of behavior specific to amorous–erotic relationships. It reflects an overall image of Don Juan as presented in Molière’s famous comedy...

. Consistent valuation and societal prioritization of risks presupposes comparability among risks, that is, in order to rank risks in order of severity, and allocate risk preventative resources accordingly, we must be able to determine whether one risk is better or worse than another, and by how much. It is often claimed, however, that some risks are not amenable to this kind of comparison because they are incommensurable, which roughly means that they are not comparable with respect to a common (...) cardinal measure. The aim of this thesis is to i) consider what it means to say that two risks are incommensurable, ii) explore if incomparability - comparison failure with respect to a common ordinal scale - ever occurs, and how to model it if it does. Essay I is a critical examination of the most prominent argument for incomparability, the so-called small improvement argument. It is argued that the argument fails because it conflates incomparability and a kind of evaluative indeterminacy. Essay II outlines so-called margin of error principles for comparative value judgements. They are based on the idea that if a proposition concerning the value relation between two value-bearing options is true, but there are sufficiently similar cases in which it is false, it is not available to be known. The usefulness of these principles is demonstrated by utilizing them in an epistemological case against SIA. Essay III presents a novel account of incomplete preference orderings which acknowledges that incomparability can vary in degrees. This is achieved by means of a probabilistic analysis of preferences. (shrink)

An influential thought-experiment by Derek Parfit sought to establish that people have a preference for unpleasant events to lie in the past rather than the future. In recent discussions of Parfit’s argument, this purported preference is modelled as a discounting phenomenon, as is the tensed emotion of relief, which Arthur Prior argued demonstrated that there is an objective metaphysical difference between the past and the future. Looking at recent work demonstrating some psychological past/future asymmetries that are more clearly (...) instances of discounting I argue that this existing philosophical literature fails to distinguish between what are clearly two quite different psychological phenomena. This affects recent attempts to respond to Prior’s metaphysical argument, because it is not clear that they have identified the right phenomenon to be explained. It also affects Parfit’s thought-experiment, because the purported unitary ‘preference’ may in fact be an amalgam of these two quite different psychological phenomena. (shrink)

This article explored the role of personality disposition and value preference as predictors of social well-being in the context of ecological setting. Ecological contexts like rural and urban are critical, particularly in a developing country like India, because they represent significant disparities and variations in the lived experiences of the people. The participants ( n = 360) from the age range of 15–65 years (M = 33.50, SD = 11.99) were drawn from two ecological settings, that is, rural (...) (Gorakhpur Region, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, India) and urban (National Capital Region of Delhi, India) and from both the genders. They completed the measures of social well-being, value preference and personality dispositions. The results showed that the different facets of social well-being were differentially related to the aspects of personality and value preference. Ecological setting had significant influence on the measures of personality disposition, value preference and social well-being. Regression analysis showed that except neuroticism, all other factors of personality had consistent positive contribution as the predictors of social well-being. It was also observed that social value and growth factors of value preference had significant contribution, whereas personal value and protection—factors of value preference—had negative contribution as the predictors of social well-being. (shrink)