Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/31858 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2005
Series/Report no.: 
Papers on Economics and Evolution No. 0507
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems, Jena
Abstract: 
Demand theory grew out of the revision of utilitarianism. The original, Benthamite program - based on a naturalistic, hedonic interpretation of behavior - was replaced by an abstract, subjectivist approach, a motivational mechanics. The implications - expressed exclusively in observable quantities, prices, and incomes - were developed in demand theory. The paper discusses major steps and consequences of the revision together with more recent partial revocations and attempts at reintroducing a naturalistic interpretation. The latter can be enhanced, it is argued, by integrating the (non-utilitarian) theory of wants, a long-standing, but currently much neglected, source of empirical reflections on the motivations of economic behavior.
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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