Wanting, Liking, and Learning: Neuroscience and Paternalism

Abstract

A large number of young children die every year from ingesting poisons by accident. Revealed-preference theory, the foundation of microeconomics, has only two concepts to explain these accidents: beliefs and preferences (that is, utilities revealed by choices). In the beliefpreference language, all we can say is that a child who died of accidental poisoning either believed the poison was safe, and made a mistake, or that the child preferred death to life, and committed suicide. While economic theory may be comfortable calling these accidents only mistakes or expressions of preference, I am not. My goal in this Essay is to acquaint the legal audience with ideas emerging in neuroscience that could potentially be a richer language for talking about cases like accidental child poisoning and, more broadly, about welfare and paternalism in some limited cases. Further development of the framework could lead to a broader view with wider applicability. The idea is that three separable neural systems are relevant for choice and welfare: a hedonic “liking” system (welfare), a “wanting” system that guides choice, and a learning system that, ideally, links information stored in the other systems so that people choose to learn what they truly like. Other multiple-process neuroeconomic accounts use different components but have similar implications.