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On Sat, 13 Mar 2004, Pat Gunning apparently wrote: 
> Bill Williams asks for evidence that individuals perceive 
> utility and he doubts that it can be provided. It seems to 
> me that acceptance of the assumption that individuals 
> perceive utility is a prerequisite for entry in the club 
> of economists. 
 
This is wrong, I think. (See below.)  It also plays a bit with words.  The utility of an
object may be perceived(i.e., it is perceived to be useful), a notion that I think of as
closer to original use of the term in economics. (?) I suspect this is Pat's usage, but
I'm not sure.  I think it should be his usage in any case, since he wants to refer to
something that "motivates" choice.  I.e., something ex ante. Modern economists, in
contrast, tend to use 'utility' to denote some psychological experience that is crudely
conceptualized as the "net" pleasures and pains resulting from a course of action.  If
this is ex post (i.e., is reference to the actual experience) it cannot motivate anything.
Of course expectations of such experiences can be offered in place as motivator.  The
utility of this conceptualization has always been unclear, and so we end up in these
discussions ...
 
 
> I take it (1) that the main interest of economics is the 
> market economy and (2) that economists since Adam Smith 
> (and before of course) have described it by referring to 
> the choices of actors. 
 
As Veblen pointed out, this teleological bent puts social science at odds with natural
science, where the effort to eradicate teleological explanation as anything other than
heuristic has been part and parcel of explanatory success. Naturally some people within
the club of economists will hope for an emulation of natural science in this area. (That
is not my view, which hews toward Donald Davidson.)
 
 
> Since the marginal utility revolution of the late 19th 
> century, they have used the word "utility" to refer to 
> that which motivates the choice of one alternative over 
> another. 
 
Of course the entire behaviorist movement in economics, however abortive one may judge it
(as I do), was bent on discarding reference to utility as an explanatory strategy. Still
we welcome Samuelson, Houthakker, etc into the "club of economists".
 
Alan Isaac 
 
 
 
 
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