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The utility of goods or actions? A neurophilosophical assessment of a recent neuroeconomic controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2022

Enrico Petracca Open the ORCID record for Enrico Petracca [Opens in a new window]
Enrico Petracca*
Affiliation:
School of Economics, Management and Statistics, University of Bologna, Italy
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The paper provides a neurophilosophical assessment of a controversy between two neuroeconomic models that compete to identify the putative object of neural utility: goods or actions. We raise two objections to the common view that sees the ‘good-based’ model prevailing over the ‘action-based’ model. First, we suggest extending neuroeconomic model discrimination to all of the models’ neurophilosophical assumptions, showing that action-based assumptions are necessary to explain real-world value-based decisions. Second, we show that the good-based model’s presumption of introducing a normative neural definition of economic choice would arbitrarily restrict the domain of economic choice and consequently of economics.

Keywords

Utilityeconomic choiceneuroeconomicsneurophilosophical assessmentmodel discrimination
Type
Article
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , November 2023 , pp. 351 - 372
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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