Annotated Bibliography

This document is a growing list of references to works directly relevant to the common currency topic. I'll add entries and annotations as and when I have the time. I'll also add links to pages where those references are directly discussed on this site.

Ainslie, G. 1992. Picoeconomics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [ Publisher ]

Chapter 2 of this book is focused on arguments for and against motivational commensurability, and makes specific and repeated reference to common currencies, internal marketplaces, etc. 

Ainslie, G. 2001. Breakdown of Will, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [ Publisher ]

Chapter 2 of this book is focused on arguments for and against motivational commensurability, and makes specific and repeated reference to common currencies, internal marketplaces, etc. In some ways this chapter is a shortened version of the second chapter of (Ainslie 1992). But there are also significant differences.

Chib, V.S., Rangel, A., Shimojo, S. and O’Doherty, J.P. (2009) Evidence for a Common Representation of Decision Values for Dissimilar Goods in Human Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex. The Journal of Neuroscience. Vol 29(39) pp.12315–12320. [Publisher link - may be behind paywall] [DOI: 10.1523/ JNEUROSCI.2575-09.2009]

Notable paper contributing to the case that there is in fact a single neural valuation system for all reward modalities. See Neural processing of rewards in different modalities takes place in the same way (in humans) – An Evidence hook (on this site).

Haig D (2006) Intrapersonal conflict. In: Jones M, Fabian AC (eds) Conflict. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 8–22.

Essay suggesting connections between intragenomic conflict (which is interesting and cool) and intrapersonal conflict. Few people have thought about conflict as deeply and with such flair as David Haig. And he does explicitly link some of what he says to the notion of a common currency. I'm working on a response to this paper, under the title 'Intragenomic conflict and common currencies'. 

Shizgal, P. & Conover, K. 1998. On the neural computation of utility, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 5(2), pp. 37-43. [ Publisher’s site – may be behind a paywall ] [ Preprint version at CogPrints ] [ doi: 10.1111/1467-8721.ep10772715 ]

This paper includes a brief and forceful statement of an argument for a currency thesis, and a review of some important experiments where rats made choices between brain stimulation reward (BSR) and gustatory rewards. The experiments show that choice patterns were sensitive to the opportunity cost in the other reward modality. (e.g. When BSR was made more expensive by making the amount of sugar solution that was given up by taking it greater, less BSR was chosen.) Essential reading.

Sterelny, K. (2003) Thought in a Hostile World. Oxford: Blackwell. [Publisher link.]

Chapter 5 of this book considers what evolutionary problems might have been solved by the evolution of something like a system of preferences (hence the chapter title "The Descent of Preference"). Sterelny's position is partially eliminativist about preferences: many creatures can, he argues, solve their behaviour allocation problems without having a system of preferences. By implication, this seems to suggest that common currencies will be relatively rare. See Important Sources: Kim Sterelny (on this site).

Version history

First posted: 2013-03-07.
Updated 2013-03-25; 2013-04-18.