David M. Kreps, Arguing About Tastes

Everybody, even economists, concedes that people’s motivations change at least occasionally. Opinions sharply diverge, however, on whether this matters for economics as a social science. One group of naysayers, let’s call them “pragmatists”, argues that economics focuses on topics or decision horizons where motivational change—unless driven by changing information—has no relevance. Another group, the “reductionists”, claims that all such changes can be reduced to a stable internal motivation...