Why the Received Models of Considering Preference Change Must Fail

Abstract

First, the paper discusses the extent to which preference change is a topic of normative rationality; it confirms as one main issue the economists’ search for a rational decision rule in cases in which the agent himself envisages to have changing preferences. Then it introduces so-called global decision models and shows that all the received economic models for dealing with preference change have that shape. The final section states two examples for global decision models, one with extrinsic, belief-induced and one with intrinsic preference change, and interprets each of them in two different scenarios in which different strategies are intuitively reasonable – the point being that global decision models cannot provide sufficient information for stating adequate decision rules. What the missing information might be is at least indicated at the end.