I agree that “unbounded utilities” don’t refer to anything at all in the usual sense of “utility function” and that this observation is basically as old as VNM itself.
I usually cite de Blanc 2007 to point out that unbounded utilities are just totally busted for non-dogmatic priors (but this is also a formalization of a much older argument about “contagion”).
The point of these posts was to observe that this isn’t just an artifact of utility functions, and that changing the formalism doesn’t help you get around the problems. So this isn’t really an argument against utility functions, it’s a much more direct argument against a certain kind of preferences. There just don’t exist any transitive preferences with unbounded-utility-like-behavior and weak outcome-lottery dominance.
Oh, that’s a good citation, thanks. I’ve used that rough argument in the past, knowing I’d copied it from someone, but I had no recollection of what specifically or that it had been made more formal. Now I know!
My comment above was largely just intended as “how come nobody listens when I say it?” grumbling. :P
I agree that “unbounded utilities” don’t refer to anything at all in the usual sense of “utility function” and that this observation is basically as old as VNM itself.
I usually cite de Blanc 2007 to point out that unbounded utilities are just totally busted for non-dogmatic priors (but this is also a formalization of a much older argument about “contagion”).
The point of these posts was to observe that this isn’t just an artifact of utility functions, and that changing the formalism doesn’t help you get around the problems. So this isn’t really an argument against utility functions, it’s a much more direct argument against a certain kind of preferences. There just don’t exist any transitive preferences with unbounded-utility-like-behavior and weak outcome-lottery dominance.
Oh, that’s a good citation, thanks. I’ve used that rough argument in the past, knowing I’d copied it from someone, but I had no recollection of what specifically or that it had been made more formal. Now I know!
My comment above was largely just intended as “how come nobody listens when I say it?” grumbling. :P