Preferences , Metapreferences , and Morality BENJAMIN MARROW

T humans have certain desires is a fundamental truth of our nature and a central premise of economic theory. One may disagree about what those desires comprise or whether such desires are morally good or even beneficial for our interests, but one cannot doubt the existence of preferences across choices and alternatives. Economists, rational choice theorists, and many political scientists operate under the assumption that individual agents in the market and in the community have (somewhat) stable preferences and that individuals act according to these preferences. That we have desires about desires is far less clear, but as important a concept. As Plato notably discussed through his concept of akrasia1, the process of acting against one’s better judgment, there seems to exist a disconnect between one’s desires and one’s preferences about those desires. We all have desires that we desire not to have; at the same time, we often wish that certain beneficial activities constituted our desires. Despite the apparent implications for the social sciences, the topic of metapreferences heretofore has been discussed primarily within the realm of philosophy. Philosophers of mind have discussed the concept of metapreferences as it relates to the will and human autonomy.2 According to certain philosophers, the ability to evaluate our own preferences and to act against our first order preferences is what differentiates humans from non-humans and renders us free with respect to our will. In social sciences, meanwhile, much of the discussion of metapreferences has focused on specific explanatory applications—for example, on reasons why people commit suicide or on questions of social choice stability—or on reasons for why traditional economic preference theory may be insufficient in modeling human behavior.3 Scholarship regarding the application of metapreferences in the social sciences has been sparse, and those who have discussed it have not fully considered the objects or content of our metapreferences. In this paper, I will examine the formation and application of metapreferences to