The food preferrence example is rather self defeating. Most people don’t mechanically and predictably choose X over y and z when all are available...they also have preferences for variety, trying new things, impressing people they are with, and and so on. People whose preferences are both predictable and incoherent can be gamed… but that doesnt mean everyone has coherent preferences, because coherent preferences need to be defined against a limited framework (without randomness or meta preferences).. and because having messy, unpredictable preferences protects you against being gamed as well as predictable and coherent preferences.
A similar pattern emerges when considering ethics. Under the assumption that ethics=utilitarianism, the ethical person needs to have consistent preferences… but the assumption is doing a lot of the lifting. Utitarianism is a latecomer, and WEIRD. Most people run on a mishmash of virtue theory and deontology.
Proveable consistency and proveable inconsistency both require unrealistically precise and predictable behaviour. There’s an argument that if you are going to be precise and predictable, you should also be coherent, but it doesn’t show that people actually have UFs.
The food preferrence example is rather self defeating. Most people don’t mechanically and predictably choose X over y and z when all are available...they also have preferences for variety, trying new things, impressing people they are with, and and so on. People whose preferences are both predictable and incoherent can be gamed… but that doesnt mean everyone has coherent preferences, because coherent preferences need to be defined against a limited framework (without randomness or meta preferences).. and because having messy, unpredictable preferences protects you against being gamed as well as predictable and coherent preferences.
A similar pattern emerges when considering ethics. Under the assumption that ethics=utilitarianism, the ethical person needs to have consistent preferences… but the assumption is doing a lot of the lifting. Utitarianism is a latecomer, and WEIRD. Most people run on a mishmash of virtue theory and deontology.
Proveable consistency and proveable inconsistency both require unrealistically precise and predictable behaviour. There’s an argument that if you are going to be precise and predictable, you should also be coherent, but it doesn’t show that people actually have UFs.