Mimetic desire in theory of value: The way out of hedonic dead-ends

Violations of the axiom of choice have been evidenced soon after the inception of expected utility theory. To rescue the latter, contemporaneous theories of choice initiated by economics or psychology have sought solutions in the psychological foundations laid out by the forerunner of marginal utility theory, Bentham. The most famous of these is certainly well-being psychology by Kahneman and his co-authors. These attempts ignore the hedonic critique, which attacked marginal utility theory for its psychological foundations at the onset of the marginal revolution, and called for its exploration. In the first chapter, it will be shown that the accusation of teleological hedonism was never answered by marginal utility theory. Yet the development of this answer defines the evolution of utility theory from cardinalism to the revealed preference approach, which denied any influence of the utility concept on choice. The second chapter will demonstrate that Loomes and Sugden's regret theory, Kahneman's well-being psychology and Ainslie's picoeconomics are also liable to the points made by the hedonic critique and cannot salvage utility-based choice theory. Slote's theory rational satisficing makes a valid point against the hegemony of optimizing in rationality but does not pull choice out of its conventional hedonic rut. Girard's theory of mimetic desire offers the psychological foundations of desire that the hedonic critique was missing. We explore promising implications of this theory for the theory of consumption and competition. In the third chapter, McCabe, Rigdon and Smith's trust and reciprocity hypothesis is challenged. We hypothesize that a trusting relationship is not instrumental, that is not undertaken for the purpose of a better outcome and that second player's reciprocity is not a reward to risk taking. Results from three trust games with elicited intentions and beliefs show evidence that people do not signal their intentions by undertaking a risk. Moreover, evidence appears that reciprocity, if anything, does not reward kindness but self-interested intentions. These results suggest further explorations of mimetic desire implications for reciprocity.