Friday, November 6, 2015

Do we incorporate the opportunity cost of considering options?

It seems to me that we take peoples' goals as given. That is, fundamental and unquestionable from our outside perspective. But do we assume that peoples' goals are also just given *to them*? That is, that they don't have to think about them? We know that subjective orderings change and we can all say we've experienced moments of uncertainty as to which option we want to take when making a choice, so that leads me to the conclusion that subjective orderings can enter states that maybe aren't perfectly ordered, specifically in cases of uncertainty and indifference. If people have to think about ends, then there's an opportunity cost to continuing to try to make an optimal decision. What's to say that incorrect choices aren't made in these cases? Does the theory as it currently exists deal with this problem? (If so, how?) Or does it open up a hole through which behaviorism can enter?

link: http://bit.ly/1MOh07z