Suppose you’re walking down the street when you see a chicken trapped under a large rock. You can save it or not. If you save it, it costs you nothing except for your time. Would you save it?
If you would save the chicken, then you think its life is worth 10 seconds of your life, which means you value its life as about 1⁄200,000,000th of your life as a lower bound.
In your view, how much do I think the chicken’s life is worth if I would either save it or not save it, depending on factors I can’t reliably predict or control? If I would save it one day, but not save it the next? If I would save a chicken now, and eat a chicken later?
I don’t take such tendencies to be “revealed preferences” in any strong sense if they are not stable under reflective equilibrium. And I don’t have any belief that I should save the chicken.
Edit: Removed some stuff about tendencies, because it was actually tangential to the point.
Suppose you’re walking down the street when you see a chicken trapped under a large rock. You can save it or not. If you save it, it costs you nothing except for your time. Would you save it?
Maybe.
Realistically, it would depend on my mood, and any number of other factors.
Why?
If you would save the chicken, then you think its life is worth 10 seconds of your life, which means you value its life as about 1⁄200,000,000th of your life as a lower bound.
In your view, how much do I think the chicken’s life is worth if I would either save it or not save it, depending on factors I can’t reliably predict or control? If I would save it one day, but not save it the next? If I would save a chicken now, and eat a chicken later?
I don’t take such tendencies to be “revealed preferences” in any strong sense if they are not stable under reflective equilibrium. And I don’t have any belief that I should save the chicken.
Edit: Removed some stuff about tendencies, because it was actually tangential to the point.