But it is also a failure from a broader philosophical standpoint. In retrospect, the man who is about to end his life because all his desires where satisfied probably does not value the things he used to value anymore. In which case -- where is utility?
It's just abstracting away those details. Utility theory allows you to ground your problem in biology by specifying biologically plausible preferences. But if that's not important for your problem, you don't have to.
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I have to go back to my original comment: maximization of utility is inherent in utility theory. If you stop looking at utility as a function to be maximized, the whole thing falls apart.
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I can't parse this. Are you saying it's tautological? Or something else?
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