----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- I must echo Robin Neill's earlier puzzlement about this whole conversation. There seems to be an underlying assumption that utility is a "thing" that can be "measured," and that, more specifically, it is connected with a subjective feeling (a hedonic conception of utility) that neuroeconomics could pinpoint. >From an Austrian perspective, this whole view is misguided. Utility is not measurable, cardinal, or hedonic. If I may quote myself from my chapter on the Austrian Marginalists in the Blackwell Companion to the History of Economic Thought: For Menger, the subjectivity of value is what underlies his discussion of marginal utility. It is only after he has defined value that he moves on to talk about utility. In defining utility, he simply refers to it as "the capacity of a thing to serve for the satisfaction of human needs, and hence (provided the utility is recognized) it is a general prerequisite of goods-character" (1981 [1871]: 119). In Menger's conception of marginalism, utility is not understood as a cardinal value that can be totalled up, nor is it even anything "measureable" in any meaningful way. It is, as Menger notes, understood as a "capacity," and one that is in the eye of the beholder. Utility is not the same as value, as value can only be applied to economic goods. Utility is therefore necessary for value, but it is not sufficient. Non-economic goods have utility but not value, as they do not figure into the economizing decisions humans make. More precisely, non-economic goods are ones where "the satisfaction of human needs does not depend upon the availability of concrete quantities of [them]" (1981 [1871]: 119). Non-economic goods like air do not have to be judged in terms of specific concrete quantities, rather they are ominpresent in some sense. If the Austrian view is correct, and it may not be, the search for utility as a measurable hedonic in the brain is fruitless. Utility is just the economic actor's judgment of an object as having the capacity to help her achieve some end. Value is what happens when utility meets the economizing decisions of human actors. Steven Horwitz ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]