首页
登录
职称英语
In the preceding chapter, economic welfare was taken broadly to consist of th
In the preceding chapter, economic welfare was taken broadly to consist of th
游客
2025-05-11
19
管理
问题
In the preceding chapter, economic welfare was taken broadly to consist of that group of satisfactions and dissatisfactions which can be brought into relation with a money measure. We have now to observe that this relation is not a direct one, but is mediated through desires and aversions. That is to say, the money that a person is prepared to offer for a thing measures directly, not the satisfaction he will get from the thing, but-the intensity of his desire for it. This distinction, obvious when stated, has been somewhat obscured for English-speaking students by the employment of the term utility - which naturally carries an association with satisfaction - to represent intensity of desire. Thus, when one thing is desired by a person more keenly than another, it is said to possess a greater utility to that person. Several writers have endeavored to get rid of the confusion which this use of words generates by substituting "utility" in the above sense for some other term, such as "desirability". The term "desiredness" seems, however, to be preferable, because, since it cannot be taken to have any ethical implication, it is less ambiguous. I shall myself employ that term.
Generally speaking, everybody prefers present pleasures or satisfactions of given magnitude to future pleasures or satisfactions of equal magnitude, even when the latter are perfectly certain to occur. But this preference for present pleasures does not - the idea is self-contradictory - imply that a present pleasure of given magnitude is any greater than a future pleasure of the same magnitude. It implies only that our telescopic faculty is defective, and that we, therefore, see future pleasures, as it were, on a diminished scale. That this is the right explanation is proved by the fact that exactly the same diminution is experienced when, apart from our tendency to forget ungratifying incidents, we contemplate the past.
Our analysis also suggests that economic welfare could be increased by some rightly chosen degree of differentiation in favor of saving. Nobody, of course, holds that the State should force its citizens to act as though so much objective wealth now and in the future were of exactly equal importance. In view of the uncertainty of productive developments, to say nothing of the mortality of nations and eventually of the human race itself, this would not, even in the extremest theory, be sound policy. But there is wide agreement that the State should protect the interests of the future in some degree against the effects of our irrational discounting and of our preference for ourselves over our descendants. The whole movement for "conservation" in the United States is based on this conviction.
It is the clear duty of Government, which is the trustee for unborn generations as well as for its present citizens, to watch over, and, if need be, by legislative enactment, to defend, the exhaustible natural resources of the country from rash and reckless spoliation.
Plainly, if we assume adequate competence on the part of governments, there is a valid case for some artificial encouragement to investment, particularly to investments the return from which will only begin to appear after the lapse of many years. It must, however, be remembered that, so long as people are left free to decide for themselves how much work they will do, interference, by fiscal or any other means , with the way they employ the resources that their work yields to them may react to diminish the aggregate amount of this work and so of those resources. [br] In the opening paragraph, why does the author prefer to use the term "desiredness"?
选项
A、Because it seems more catchy and refers to a specific semantic field.
B、Because nobody else has ever used the word before, it therefore exemplifies the author’s original and unique ideas.
C、Because it helps native English speakers to grasp the conceptual idea expressed in this passage.
D、Because it clears any misunderstanding relating to the distinction made in the first paragraph.
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/4071127.html
相关试题推荐
Ideally,anatomicalinvestigationconsistsofacombinationofdescriptiveande
YoungJohnshowednoconsistencywhenhedidexcellentworkthefirstpartofth
China’seconomicreformisaimedatseparatingenterprisesfromthegovernment.
Theeconomicforceswhichmayaffectthenewpublicofferingofstockincludesu
Intheprecedingchapter,economicwelfarewastakenbroadlytoconsistofth
Intheprecedingchapter,economicwelfarewastakenbroadlytoconsistofth
Intheprecedingchapter,economicwelfarewastakenbroadlytoconsistofth
Intheprecedingchapter,economicwelfarewastakenbroadlytoconsistofth
Hisattitudetowardsocialwelfarelegislation,basedentirelyonhisperception
China’seconomicreformisaimedatseparatingenterprisesfromthegovernment.
随机试题
Treesareusefultomaninthreeimportantways:theyprovidehimwithwood
(natural)______speaking,livingincityismoreexpensivethaninvillage.Natur
爆炸性气体环境根据爆炸性气体混合物出现的频繁程度和持续时间分类,在正常运行时可能
哪种药物与氨基糖苷类抗生素合用可能出现呼吸抑制或呼吸停止A、西咪替丁 B、硫糖
检验流行性脑脊髓膜炎最敏感的实验室检查是( )。A.特异性抗原检测 B.脑脊
从所给的四个选项中,选择最合适的一个填入问号处,使之呈现一定的规律性: A.如
当()时,证券公司及其营业部可以协助期货公司向客户提示风险。A.期货市场行情
下列各项中,不属于政府财务会计要素的是()。A.资产 B.负债 C.净
两人轻声谈话的声强级为40dB,热闹市场上噪声的声强级为80dB。市场上噪声的声
根据《建设工程施工劳务分包合同(示范文本)》GF-2003-0214,应由劳务分
最新回复
(
0
)