Jun Hyun Ji
July 2025
My wife is upset about the undone dishes.
I ask, “Why didn’t you just tell me to do it?”
She says, “Because you should want to do it.”
preference over preferences. In addition to preferring outcomes, the agent likes a preference if she prefers behaving as if she holds that preference:
preferring \(x\) to \(y\)is preferred to
preferring \(y\) to \(x\)if she values the act of willingly giving up \(y\) for \(x\) more than giving up \(x\) for \(y\). I show that a preference over the acts of choosing has a unique representation that identifies the agent's second-order preference, which induces all standard menu preferences in the literature on self-control. Unlike how outcomes are ranked, the value of preferences is relative to contextual factors—e.g., counterintuitively, the best act of choosing may only be feasible when the best outcome is unavailable. My model also accommodates preferences over others’ preferences, analyzing choices that condition on others’ choices and the social signaling value of choice. Applications include paternalistic interventions and the problem of choosing who should choose. I discuss how these preferences can be observed.