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Article
Behavioral Economics and Deficient Willpower: Searching for Akrasia
Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy (2016)
  • Mario J Rizzo
Abstract
In Section A and B, I set up the analysis by investigating the constitutive requirements of weak-willed behavior and the role of willpower as a motivational force. In Section C, I discuss true preferences or the rational revision of plans as alternative standards against which we may be able to discern deficient willpower. In Section D, I show how the analysts’ own value judgments may contaminate the assessment of a less-than-rational deviation from the agent’s previous intentions. This is contrary to a basic principle of new paternalism that the agent’s underlying valuations should rule. Section E reformulates the issue of deficient willpower as an allocative choice on a par with the bias-free judgments people can be hypothesized to make when they are purely akratic. Section F is a critique of both standard and behavioral economists insofar as they each rule out on methodological grounds the absence of decisive or final judgments. I emphasize the idea of a process of tentative decisionmaking. In Section G, I show that neither regret nor self-constraining behavior offer much hope for the paternalist agenda. The final part offers a summary and conclusions.
Keywords
  • paternalism,
  • self-regulation,
  • plan revision,
  • incentives,
  • decisionmaking
Publication Date
2016
Citation Information
Mario J Rizzo. "Behavioral Economics and Deficient Willpower: Searching for Akrasia" Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy Vol. 14 Iss. Special Issue (2016) p. 789 - 806
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/mario_rizzo/51/