Money as tool, money as drug: The biological psychology of a strong incentive

When one wishes to formulate, evaluate and implement public policies, the existence of a plurality of social actors, with interest in the policy being assessed, generates a conflictual situation. How such a conflict should be dealt with? This paper defends the thesis articulated in the following points: (1) Different metrics are linked to different objectives and values. To use only one measurement unit (on the grounds of the so-called commensurability principle) for incorporating a plurality of dimensions, objectives and values, implies reductionism necessarily. (2) Point (1) can be proven as a matter of formal logic by drawing on the work of Geach about moral philosophy. This theoretical demonstration is an original contribution of this article. Moreover, here the distinction between predicative and attributive adjectives is formalised and definitions are provided. Predicative adjectives are further distinguished into the new categories of absolute and relative ones. The new concepts of set commensurability and rod commensurability are introduced too. (3) Weak comparability of values, which is grounded on incommensurability, is proposed as the main methodological foundation of well-being evaluation. Incommensurability does not imply incomparability; on the contrary incommensurability is the only possible way to compare societal options under a plurality of policy objectives. Weak comparability can be implemented by using multicriteria evaluation, which is a formal framework for applied consequentialism under incommensurability.

What makes institutions 'real'? One central notion has been emerging recently in sociology, which is 'performativity', a term borrowed from the philosophy of language. I propose a neurolinguistic approach to performativity that is based on John Searle's theory of institutions, especially his concept of a 'status function' and his explanation of rule-following as a neurophysiological disposition. Positing a status function is a performative act. I proceed in two steps to establish the neurolinguistic framework. First, I apply the concept of 'conceptual blending' borrowed from cognitive science on the status function, and give empirical applications from the research on performativity in financial markets. Second, I sketch the underlying neuroscience framework following the neural theory of metaphor, which I illustrate empirically with examples from behavioral finance and neuroeconomics.performativity, Searle's theory of institutions, conceptual blending, emergence of markets, neural theory of metaphor, neuroeconomics,

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