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Organizations and their effectiveness-2016/Key concept definitions
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== Utility == === John Stuart Mill === The principle of utility describes "actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain; by unhappiness, pain and the privation of pleasure." === Bo === Rational and Utility: Rational: An agent who is attempting to optimize something. Could be anything. Please note that someone can be attempting to optimize the "wrong" variable, or might be using "wrong" information in their optimization -- and they can still be rational. Utility: Whatever is being optimized above. Given this, the two definitions directly above are arguably so broad to be unfalsifiable. Fair point! The purpose is to justify mathematics of optimization being applied to behavior. === Romain === Real-valued function representing preferences over choices. That is, suppose there are many alternatives $x_1, ..., x_n$. Suppose I have well-defined preferences over those choices (that is, for each pair of choices, I can say which one I prefer). A utility function is a function over those choices is function such that if I prefer $x_i$ to $x_j$, then $u(x_i) \geq u(x_j)$. === Mike === Utility is just a representation of an individual's preferences. If the preferences are well-behaved, then utility can be represented as a continuous function (as Romain describes above). We like preferences that can be represented by a utility function, because then the notion of "optimal choice" is well-defined (as long as the set of things the individual can choose from is well-behaved). On the board, it said, "utility (with no condition)," presumably referring to the use of the word in sentences like, "Choice A gives him more utility than choice B." This is just another way to that the individual prefers A to B. Note that preferences are defined on the set of all possible choices and not just on the set of choices that are feasible to the decision maker. Also, utility functions do not need to always be increasing--representing preferences with a utility function does not imply that "more is always better."
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