The Brain Is not “As-If” – Taking Stock of the Neuroscientific Approach on Decision Making

Abstract

How do we make decisions? This question has long engaged researchers from various disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, economics, and cognitive neuroscience. Recently, a new discipline – neuroeconomics – emerged, devoted to addressing exactly this question by means of interdisciplinary endeavors. Broadly stated, neuroeconomics sets out “to promote interdisciplinary collaborations on the topics lying at the intersection of the brain and decision sciences in the hope of advancing both theory and research in decision making” (Society for Neuroeconomics, www.neuroeconomics.org), so that it can be used “for discrim‐ inating among standard economic models” (Maskin, 2008, p. 1788) and thus inform economic theory.