I’m probably missing the point and going off on a tangent…

Of course revealed preference / WTP don’t let you make interpersonal comparisons. But they do let you make internal comparisons, they let you flatten multiple internal values into a single one. Of course, this is only in theory, and perhaps only marginal value, not actual value. But they let you see how many hedons the person thinks coming in first is worth, in a way that captures both the hedons your planner is measuring and the separate value of coming in first.

If your planner values hedons and can make interpersonal comparisons of hedons, why shouldn’t your planner trust people to translate other values into hedons, and use this to make interpersonal comparisons?

I’m probably missing the point and going off on a tangent…

Of course revealed preference / WTP don’t let you make interpersonal comparisons. But they do let you make internal comparisons, they let you flatten multiple internal values into a single one. Of course, this is only in theory, and perhaps only marginal value, not actual value. But they let you see how many hedons the person thinks coming in first is worth, in a way that captures both the hedons your planner is measuring and the separate value of coming in first.

If your planner values hedons and can make interpersonal comparisons of hedons, why shouldn’t your planner trust people to translate other values into hedons, and use this to make interpersonal comparisons?

It’s not odd. Revealed preference reveals an ordinal ranking. It shows us how things stack up. But there is no way to attach comparable cardinal values to an ordinal rank ordering.

Willingness to pay gives us a sort of cardinal measure for ordinal preferences, but not really. It is really just an ordinal ordering of money/decision pairs. It tells us nothing about how the individual values money, so there is still no valid interpersonal comparison.

One of the main reasons folks like value hedonism is that it seems to provide a medium for interpersonal comparisons. But I don’t think so. Different people value pain and pleasure differently, so a subjective states with the same amount/intensity of pleasure/pain may not be equally valuable. So while you can directly measure hedons, you can’t directly measure the value of hedons. That’s my view. In the post I was just toying with different efficiency standards without defending one.

It’s not odd. Revealed preference reveals an ordinal ranking. It shows us how things stack up. But there is no way to attach comparable cardinal values to an ordinal rank ordering.

Willingness to pay gives us a sort of cardinal measure for ordinal preferences, but not really. It is really just an ordinal ordering of money/decision pairs. It tells us nothing about how the individual values money, so there is still no valid interpersonal comparison.

One of the main reasons folks like value hedonism is that it seems to provide a medium for interpersonal comparisons. But I don’t think so. Different people value pain and pleasure differently, so a subjective states with the same amount/intensity of pleasure/pain may not be equally valuable. So while you can directly measure hedons, you can’t directly measure the value of hedons. That’s my view. In the post I was just toying with different efficiency standards without defending one.

I think this asymmetric approach reflects inconsistency between your assumptions and your beliefs. I don’t have much sympathy with this kind of value pluralism. I might have sympathy for different parts of the individual, especially heuristics, having different values.

Phrasing things in terms of willingness to pay reduces multiple values to a single one; I’ll call it utiles, since you’ve artificially claimed hedons. Of course, you don’t expect people to have completely coherent preferences, but at this point in your essay, you discover that these problems exist even with a single value being compared to money (or, really, a single value being compared to real choices). You seem to admit in your description of the miser that the problem is poor heuristics, not the complications of multiple values.

I think this asymmetric approach reflects inconsistency between your assumptions and your beliefs. I don’t have much sympathy with this kind of value pluralism. I might have sympathy for different parts of the individual, especially heuristics, having different values.

Phrasing things in terms of willingness to pay reduces multiple values to a single one; I’ll call it utiles, since you’ve artificially claimed hedons. Of course, you don’t expect people to have completely coherent preferences, but at this point in your essay, you discover that these problems exist even with a single value being compared to money (or, really, a single value being compared to real choices). You seem to admit in your description of the miser that the problem is poor heuristics, not the complications of multiple values.