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What good are facts? The “drug” value of money as an exemplar of all non-instrumental value

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2006

George Ainslie*
Affiliation:
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Coatesville, PA19320http://www.Picoeconomics.com

Abstract

An emotional value for money is clearly demonstrable beyond its value for getting goods, but this value need not be ascribed to human preparedness for altruism or play. Emotion is a motivated process, and our temptation to “overgraze” positive emotions selects for emotional patterns that are paced by adequately rare occasions. As a much-competed-for tool, money makes an excellent occasion for emotional reward – a prize with value beyond its tool value – but this is true also of the other facts by which we pace our emotions.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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References

Notes

The author of this commentary is employed by a government agency and as such this commentary is considered a work of the U.S. government and not subject to copyright within the United States.

1. An irreplaceable term, despite abuse by deconstructionists, for patterns of information that might or might not be factual.