Notes On Diminishing Marginal Utility
1. Value scale is a psychological notion used to explain the process of choice. All action is always in the “now.” The scale of values can change between the two “nows” as a result of the first most highly valued goal’s being satisfied or for any other reason. The scale after the first most urgent need is satisfied need not remain as it was with that first goal lopped off. Let’s say the scale is: eat a bite of honey, watch TV, eat a sandwich. Eating a bite of honey can cause me, quite unexpectedly, to want to eat another bite 5 seconds later and even receive greater pleasure from it. But no matter how pleasant, the eating of honey is the first most urgent goal on the value scale at both t1 and t2.
2. Satiation: I’m planning to eat 2 bites of honey. But after I eat the first bite (at t1), I no longer want the second one. Or: I prefer to watch TV to eating the second bite (at t2). So, the value scale has changed despite by intention to maintain it. Happens all the time.
3. If two or more goals are satisfied at the same time, then the value scale does not change, but no observer can find out which goal was first on the value scale, which, second, etc., though the actor himself still knows.
If one goal is satisfied at t1, and another at t2, etc., then one can find out (namely, that the goal satisfied earlier was more urgent than the goal satisfied later), but it is always possible to err in this conclusion, if the value scale has changed in the time period between t1 and t2.