Words Worth Noting - June 29, 2022

“a person who drank cyanide because he felt a compelling desire to do so would also be considered rational under the present aim standard. The obvious difficulty of this standard is that it permits virtually any behavior to be considered rational merely by asserting that a person prefers it.”

Robert H. Frank, Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions (criticizing the philosophical “present aim theory” doctrine of rationality, which is essentially the economists’ “revealed preference” doctrine although he doesn’t say so):