Permissible preference purification: on context-dependent choices and decisive welfare judgements in behavioural welfare economics

Abstract

Behavioural welfare economics has lately been challenged on account of its use of the satisfaction of true preferences as a normative criterion.The critique contests what is taken to be an implicit assumption in the literature, namely that true preferences are context-independent.This assumption is considered not only unjustified in the behavioural welfare economics literature but unjustifiabletrue preferences are argued to be, at least sometimes, context-dependent.This article explores the implications of this 'critique of the inner rational agent'.I argue that the critique does not support a wholesale shift away from the use of true preferences as an evaluative standard in normative economics; instead, the critique implies that behavioural welfare economists need to inquire into and establish the 'source' of particular context-dependent choices in individuals' decision-making.The source determines the permissibility of correcting individuals' context-dependent choices and can, in some situations, support decisive welfare judgements.

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