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A colleague has an interesting question to which I thought this 
newsgroup might be able to respond: 
 
        Can anyone help me find out about the origin and development of the 
current use of the term "incentive?" 
         It is used now as a noun roughly synonymous with "inducement" and 
generally in a context where the incentive is thought to play a part in a 
person's rational calculation of the course of action best suited to 
advance 
his interests. 
        It used to be used primarily as an adjective to describe something 
which aroused strong feelings (the OED gives "Lord Shaftesbury made an 
incentive speech in the House of Lords" as an example) - or when used as a 
noun, it meant an incitement or provocation.  That is - the word used to 
carry connotations associated with especially passionate and irrational 
motivations to action. 
        I am interested in (1)when "incentive" became a common term in 
economic discourse in particular and (2)the shift in association from the 
passions to rationality; or perhaps more accurately, the end of the 
importance of the distinction between appeals to rationality and appeals to 
the passions (contemporary conceptions of "incentives" and "preferences" 
etc. tend to collapse that distinction). 
 
 
 ...  any clues??? 
 
 
        Please reply to [log in to unmask] 
 
Craufurd D. Goodwin  
Department of Economics, Duke University 
E-mail: [log in to unmask] 
 
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