I don’t think there are true preferences. In one situation you have one tendency, in another situation you have another tendency, and “preference” is what it looks like when you try to categorize tendencies. But categorization is a passive and not an active process: if every day of the week I eat dinner at 6, I can generalize to say “I prefer to eat dinner at 6″, but it would be false to say that some stable preference toward dinner at 6 is what causes my behavior on each day.
I think the best way to salvage preferences is to consider them as tendencies in reflective equilibrium. I’ll explain that more later.
I don’t think there are true preferences. In one situation you have one tendency, in another situation you have another tendency, and “preference” is what it looks like when you try to categorize tendencies. But categorization is a passive and not an active process: if every day of the week I eat dinner at 6, I can generalize to say “I prefer to eat dinner at 6″, but it would be false to say that some stable preference toward dinner at 6 is what causes my behavior on each day.
I think the best way to salvage preferences is to consider them as tendencies in reflective equilibrium. I’ll explain that more later.
Just thought I’d link to the place where you address this question so that others don’t have to go digging around.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/6pm/secrets_of_the_eliminati/