In some sense, there isn't a decision. In order to sort of pick out what is happening and see its rationality, you have to see a stretch of time. If if we recognize that the utility or pleasure we're going to get from our choices is uncertain, we solved that with either saying, oh, and i'm doing it over a lifetime. It's intertemporal utility maxinization. Or i might say, i'll do expected utility, which is a really sterile, narrow concept. And i think that view of the economic project is a, i used to like it. I don't like it so much any more. There's something robotic about it. At only
Where do our deepest personal values come from? Can we choose those values? Philosopher and author Agnes Callard of the University of Chicago talks about her book, Aspiration, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Callard explores the challenge of aspiration--who we are versus who we would like to become. How does aspiration work? How can we transform ourselves when we cannot know how it will feel to be transformed? Callard discusses these questions and more in this provocative episode.