I’m not sure what you mean by disallow. As a purely descriptive matter about how actually existing humans actually are: I agree, people don’t have a single utility function for all circumstances; people don’t have utility functions at all! As a normative matter—well, I just interpret this as meaning that humans are fairly stupid on an absolute scale. If it turns out that our deepest hearts’ desires are contradictory when rigorously listed out, then this is a unspeakably horrible tragedy from our perspective—but what can I say? Something has to give; it’s not up to us.
It’s only a tragedy if it’s otherwise possible to get everything we want… but actually getting what we want is a tragedy for humans anyway, so that’s nothing worse. As for humans being stupid on an absolute scale, I don’t necessarily disagree, but I don’t think that examination of goals can tell you that. The only way to make a choice is by reference to a goal, so you can’t rationally choose your goal(s).
I’m not sure what you mean by disallow. As a purely descriptive matter about how actually existing humans actually are: I agree, people don’t have a single utility function for all circumstances; people don’t have utility functions at all! As a normative matter—well, I just interpret this as meaning that humans are fairly stupid on an absolute scale. If it turns out that our deepest hearts’ desires are contradictory when rigorously listed out, then this is a unspeakably horrible tragedy from our perspective—but what can I say? Something has to give; it’s not up to us.
It’s only a tragedy if it’s otherwise possible to get everything we want… but actually getting what we want is a tragedy for humans anyway, so that’s nothing worse. As for humans being stupid on an absolute scale, I don’t necessarily disagree, but I don’t think that examination of goals can tell you that. The only way to make a choice is by reference to a goal, so you can’t rationally choose your goal(s).