European Human Rights Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

European Human Rights - Essay Example It also seeks to promote the rights of women and children, as well as of minorities and displaced persons. ‘Margin of appreciation’ is a doctrine that was first developed and applied in the case law of European Court and Commission of Human Rights. It is a concept developed by the European Union where different member states’ courts can interpret the Convention of Human Rights differently (Greer, 2000, p.5). The doctrine does not have universal litigation for all convention rights, since it has higher profile for some convention rights i.e. right to property; however, it has lower profile on other rights in the conventions. Moreover, there is no simple and clear method of describing how the doctrine works; further, the doctrine’s nature is that of uneven and unpredictable. Due to the nature of margin of appreciation, there is need for much structure, precision supervision and regularity in its application (Greer, 2000, p.5). The European Union formulated th e margin of appreciation since its member states comprise of diverse cultural and legal traditions embraced thus, it was difficult to identify uniform European standards of human rights. Moreover, the doctrine provides the flexibility needed to avoid damaging rows between the European Court, General, and the Member States. Additionally it permits the Court to balance the autonomy of Member States with their obligations under the Convention. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the contemporary practice of margin of appreciation in applying of Convention rights and freedoms. The paper will explore the logical flaws in the margin doctrine as currently conceived and the way they contribute in devaluing the convention. Moreover, the role of the Strasbourg Organ in the supervision of administering of the doctrine in its Member States is also discussed. Finally, an assessment of the efficiency and consistency of supervision is analyzed. Margin of appreciation The European Commission o f Human Rights endorsed margin of appreciation on the grounds that the national authorities are better placed to judge than the Strasbourg institutions. This doctrine is applicable in connection with articles of the convention providing some accommodations or limitation clauses. Some of the areas where Member States have been accorded margin of appreciation by the European Union convention on human rights are protection of morals, determining the mandate of the judiciary, prevention of crime and disorder and matters pertaining to national economy and security. In determining the scope of marginal of appreciation, the courts consider firstly, the subject matter of the protected right, i.e. a narrow margin is issued if the subject matter being protected is considered fundamental. Secondly, the aim and the interest of set restriction are also considered. Therefore, the margin of appreciation is determined by the effects of a restriction on other people in the society. Moreover, there a re European consensus standards, which are applicable to all Member States. In such cases, there is less need for application of margin of appreciation (Kleijkamp, 1999, p.50). However, there is concern in that uncontrolled margin of appreciation is devaluing the rights and freedoms provided by the Human Rights Convention. States that have the norm of human rights relativism can exploit this doctrine to cartel the exercise of human

Valentine and Funeral Blues Essay Example for Free

Valentine and Funeral Blues Essay In the poem Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy, love affected the poet in various ways which made her view love in a new and different way, revolving her perspective of love on an onion. In the poem Funeral Blues the poet W. H. Auden was also deeply affected by love, to the point that his lover became everything to him. In Valentine the poet, Carol Ann Duffy, metaphorically expresses her perspective of love through an onion, and uses this unique view of love to illustrate its evolution from good to bad. In the poem (Valentine), Duffy rejects every other romantic gift â€Å"Not a red rose or a satin heart† and â€Å"not a cute card or a kissogram† and instead presents her lover with an onion, granting him with an uncommon yet more meaningful version of love, instead of the usual cliched versions. The poet repeats the phrase â€Å"I give you an onion† to reinforce her choice, showing that she is confident and sure for what she has chosen. She describes the onion as â€Å"a moon wrapped in brown paper† which â€Å"promises light†, the â€Å"brown paper† supports the fact that the onion is a gift, which will be unwrapped to reveal a â€Å"light†. Comparing the onion to the moon suggest a romantic atmosphere, the moonlight symbolises their love being revealed, showing purity and peace. As the poem continues, the poet shows how love evolves â€Å"the careful undressing of love† as the relationship grows, the â€Å"light† strengthens causing the lovers to discover the darker personalities of one another. The poet also hints that, like the moon’s surface, love is bumpy and hard. In the third stanza, Duffy moves onto the negative side of love. As love progresses â€Å"it will blind you with tears† here, the poet uses the tears caused by cutting an onion to illustrate how the excitement of love causes a person to focus on nothing but their lover, overlooking the rest of the world around them. Also, Duffy implies how a person also gets blinded to their lover’s faults and instead focuses on their good features. Another negative affect caused by love are the relationship troubles â€Å"†¦your reflection a wobbling photo of grief† shedding tears while in love is unavoidable –similar to crying while cutting an onion– scarring the relationship. The â€Å"photo† represents their happy memories, which became depressing and heartbreaking to remember. To defend her negative thoughts on love, Duffy states that she is â€Å"trying to be truthful† this supports how she’s greatly affected by love, and is exploring it thoroughly. Carol Ann Duffy suggests how love is passionate â€Å"its fierce kiss will stay on your lips†, a kiss which is usually sweet is contrasted with â€Å"fierce† to exaggerate how the kiss is full of feeling, leaving a stinging feeling on the lips. The word â€Å"fierce† also implies an animal like characteristic provoked by love, as the animal attacks its prey in a â€Å"possessive† way. The poet also brings up a person’s want for a never ending relationship â€Å"faithful as we are, for as long as we are† but in reality, love ends as soon as the â€Å"possessive† need for each other dies out. The poets negative thoughts of a long lasting love are reinforced in â€Å"†¦shrink it to a wedding ring if you like. Lethal† Duffy gives the option of marriage, even though she’s against it and believes that it’ll end badly. The phrase â€Å"shrink it to a wedding ring† emphasises the weakening of love, especially after marriage as it becomes â€Å"lethal† and deadly. The wedding ring will become a burden â€Å"will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife† the repetition of the verb â€Å"clings† implies the painful grip marriage causes, which is then reinforced by the word â€Å"knife† as it slices and hurts the former lovers. In the poem Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden, the poet is mourning over the death of his lover. The poet ignores everything and directs all his attention on the funeral of his lover â€Å"stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone†¦ silence the pianos† as if the outside world is frozen and unchanging. Auden also hints his want for respect towards his lover for requesting â€Å"silence† and his anxiety in â€Å"bring out the coffin, let the mourners come† as if impatiently wanting to start mourning over his love. The word â€Å"coffin† symbolises the death of their love, along with his lover, that their love is forever gone and buried away. In the second stanza, Auden mentions â€Å"aeroplanes circle moaning the sky† here, the â€Å"aeroplanes† is a metaphor for the mourners, as their wails of sadness fill the air around him, â€Å"scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead† the constant crying of the mourners seem to be mocking the poet, always confirming his lovers death, reminding him that he’s never coming back. As the poem continues, the poet realises how truly important his lover was to him â€Å"he was my north†¦ my Sunday rest†¦ my talk, my song† this indicates that he was his lover was everything to him, from the most ordinary â€Å"my Sunday rest† to the most wonderful â€Å"my song†, conveys how powerful their love was and how much it affected them. Auden describes his love as his â€Å"week†, â€Å"noon† and â€Å"midnight† comparing him to time, which is never ending and always present, implying their future together. Their love was so strong that Auden was certain for a future together, never imagining of a life without him â€Å"I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong†, this reinforces how their love has died, that his everything is dead, and therefore part of him is dead as well. At the end of the poem, Auden’s perspective of life changes â€Å"the stars are not wanted†¦ pack up the moon†¦ pour away the ocean† the world has lost its appeal, life has become meaningless and useless. The stars, moon and oceans which usually hold amazing beauty, have become worthless and featureless, similar to the poets life. In the last verse, Auden has completely given up on life â€Å"for nothing now can ever come to any good† he doesn’t see any future for him, he is blinded by his dead lover, nothing can make him happy anymore.

Teaching Philosophy Statement :: Teachers Progressivism Education Essays

Teaching Philosophy Statement Ever since I was born and could comprehend, my parents hammered into my brain the need to excel. Not just to excel in general but to excel over everyone else. My parents are very competitive and believe the world is the same way. In their mind, it is them vs. everyone else in any and everything they do. I was encouraged to compete against my two older brothers to be the best in everything we did. This included sports such as soccer when we were younger, baseball, and most importantly, football. It also included academic areas such as grades and extracurricular activities such as student council. Whoever was doing the best at the time would be held up on a pedestal figuratively as a person for us to emulate. This upbringing instilled in me a need to get great grades, lift zealously to do better in those sports and be bigger than everyone else, and to also do excellent in sports. I got great grades all through grade school and high school and also was an all valley tackle in high school in football. I was one of the â€Å"smart† football players. After looking at the different characteristics of each philosophy, I realize that I have been raised as and become an essentialist. I believe essentialism to be the best teaching method to force the students to learn. Essentialism puts an emphasis on academics. What is the purpose of school? Basically, the purpose for the teacher is to teach students information while the purpose for the students is to learn the information. That means the point of going to school is to learn academics. Score one for the essentialists. Essentialism also goes by the theory of promotion based on the mastery of the material gone over in class. How else could someone be promoted on to something harder or higher? By not mastering previous material? No. Academic subjects usually build on content in each field until the top is reached. Here, to excel, one must know and know well all the previous material to deal with the subject.

Mill individuality essay Essay

Within Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ it is clear that he has a high regard for the issues surrounding freedom and it’s limits. Mill is an advocate of negative freedom, as a liberal he believes that there should be no restraints on an individual’s freedom unless it is hindering the freedom or health of another person. One of the main reasons as to why Mill values liberty is because it contributes to personal development. Thus Mill argues that in order for individuals to develop they should be able to perform ‘experiments’ in living’, which allow individuals to go through a system of trial and error until they find their own appropriate way of life. Moreover, experiments in living are beneficial to society as they provide a different way of living different from that of custom and help tackle the tyranny of public opinion. Thus it can therefore be argued that Mill’s account on personal liberty does in fact ensure the development of society and the individual. The first way in which Mill’s account of freedom ensures the development of the individual and society, is that it promotes the truth. The link between personal freedom and truth is one of vital importance to Mill. Personal liberty allows people to come to opinions and ideas that that they can then go and share and spread with other individuals. Thus creating a pluralist society whereby ideas are tolerated, by virtue of them being expressed. In order to create such a society ‘geniuses’ are needed to introduce new ways of thinking into society and to challenge the old ways of life. For such people to exist we need freedom in society to practice our individuality. Mill states that even if an opinion or individual lifestyle is false or offensive it should be allowed to be expressed, as it will have strengthen the true opinion or right way of life and allow those holding that opinion to have greater faith in it. For example, a scientist needs the freedom to experiment in order to discover new truths about the natural world and share these ideas with the rest of humanity. However, should we express discoveries that are wrong? Surely this would be a waste or time. Mill would argue that because even false options have value, we should allow them to be expressed. A false discovery could spur on others to be clearer about what the truth might be, it could even be a step that we take to discover the real truth. Mill does not think that once truth or a good way of individuality is discovered, we should remain complacent with it. This would allow society to become stagnant and proven truths could develop into custom. This would therefore be detrimental to human individuality as individuals will become ‘sheeps’ and follow custom blindly. Custom does not educate or improve an individual’s well being, indeed Mill argues that ‘he who does anything but follow custom, makes no choice’ Mill’s solution to this is to revisit and reconsider truths, so that they remain lively. It is also true that by not reconsidering customs and public opinions, they could come to rule society, resulting in a ‘mediocre’ society. Only if there is individual freedom, we can avoid truths becoming ‘dead dogma’. If personal liberty did not exist, society would become stagnant and individuals would not question the ways of life around them, meaning that neither society nor individual develop. It is therefore vital to have personal freedom so that individuals are allowed to question ways of life and society can develop. Mill also believes that personal freedom is important because it promotes individuals with a means to develop on a personal level. Mill believes without ‘experiments in living’ human beings lose what it means to he truly human. In order to be truly human, an individual needs to interpret and adapt the experiences of others and themselves to suit their own moral codes. Individually is the development and expression of ones own character, as opposed to going along with customs and traditions imposed on society from previous generations. Mill illustrated this himself in the example he gives about Christianity, arguing that the Christian moral system cannot be derived from the New Testament alone, there are also ideas from the Old Testament. This therefore implies that much like the Christian tradition, individuals should derive their own individuality from previous experiences, however experiment with it so that it is their own private morality. Mill approvingly quotes the German politician Von Humboldt who argues that each persons vision of morality ‘is the most harmonious development of his powers to complete a consistent whole’. Each persons powers are different, as are there desires and emotions which need to be developed to be ‘complete and consistent’. Therefore each persons development is individual to them, thus following custom or public opinion stagnates their individual growth, as they are nit experimenting their faculties. However, it would be easy to criticise this, what if someone else’s individuality and experiments in living interfere or undermine my way of experimenting. Mill would simply apply his ‘harm principle’ to such a situation. As long as my way of life does not harm or infringe on other peoples rights and their own freedom then I am allowed to act on any way that pleases me. It can be argued that such a restraint protects society from damaging behaviour but also improves me as a person as I am not indulging in selfish acts. Indeed it is beneficial to society to have eccentricity, because without it, it can be argued that people will become submissive, weak willed and without strong opinions. Society will lose it means to progressing further. Mill talks about this to am extent in his chapter on democracy. He argues that in order for society to develop we need ‘two opposing parties’, one that is defined by tradition and pragmatism and the other by social progress. However, it can be argued that by giving people the means to be eccentrics you are threatening social order and putting society at whole at a risk ( the opposite of what Mill says his theory does). However , like most problems that surround the idea of negative liberty, mill would argue that as long as the experiment in living is within the limits of the harm principle them it should be allowed. This personal liberty not only provides people with a means to experiment their own ways of living, but also allows society to flourish as eccentricity and geniuses (provided by liberty) can enlighten individuals and governments into new ways of living. Furthermore, to treat human beings with no individuality and not provide them with a means of experimenting in their living, is to assume that they are all the same. Mill argues that we are all different in our desires and in what will make us happy. Imposing a specific lifestyle on all members of society would be like treating an orchid, sunflower and cactus all in the same way. The conditions in which the orchids thrive could kill the sunflower. Much like plants, human beings differ too much to attempt to make all members of society conform to one model of the good life. However, speaking from a Marxist perspective we could argue that human beings should only focus on ‘need satisfaction’. This would mean that all individuals have the same needs such as food, water and shelter. Marx argued that in order to live a true human existence, human beings should focus on satisfying those needs equally. Therefore, Mill’s argument that individuals are different would prove to be invalid to Marx. Although Marx makes a valid point, it would be in cohesive to argue that all human beings do actually have the same needs. For example, someone with disabilities is going to have more needs than a non disabled person. Thus it is true that different human beings have different needs in order to create this individual identity. How can society progress if all human beings are treated the same? Surely it is only because of difference in ideas that human human being have come so far. To treat a hard working person the same as a lazy person seems unjust, their individuality is different and their desires too are different. Treating them the same would not amount to higher levels of liberty. Thus personal liberty does ensure developments in society and the individuals. One of the main objections to Mill’s individuality argument is that there are many situations in which utility may conflict with individual freedom. The idea that utility and conflict can conflict is illustrated by the potential drug addict. If a state prevents an individual from buying an extremely addictive drug, for example heroin, although we take away their individual freedom we are also contributing to their utility, and the utility of others as taking drugs can affect others indirectly. The harm principle is difficult to apply in such a situation, because it implies that only acts that are infringing on the liberty of another person or causing them harm should be stopped. Therefore it can be argued that society needs a source of paternalism. Conservatives argue that Mill has given human beings more rationality than they really possess. Conservatives see human beings as rationally imperfect creatures who need guidance. Mill gives special emphasis to the faculty of reason. For Mill it is reason that enables us to use our liberty effectively and even improve it. Conservatives to argue that there us too much weight given to human reason and not enough emphasis on their other characteristics. Although Mill does mention the importance of desires and impulses he assumes that reason can be the way in which we control them. Human beings ,as imperfect creatures, are driven more by hate, jealousy, sexual desire than they are by reason, if we take these irrational human drives into account, it may be necessary to consider restricting freedom in specific areas that mill would not accept, for example their sexual lives. Without such paternal restraints it can be said that individuals will cause harm to themselves and also to society. Therefore no one benefits from personal liberty, instead people are at a disadvantage from it. An argument is given by Lord Devlin as to why personal development could be dangerous of the moral frameworks of society. Devlin argued against the harm principle and negative freedom in the 1950s, during the time of the Wolfenden report, which argued that the law should not interfere with the private lives of its citizens. However Devlin argued that if the law failed to enforce common moral values, society would begin to disintegrate. To sum up Devlin’s argument, he argued that im order for society to be stable there needs to be a common morality which is public, and not private, it is the governments responsibility to ensure that the welfare of society is looked after, so it is legitimate that governments can pass paternal laws, on the basis of presenting moral values. An example that Devlin uses for his public morality is one of the drunk man. Say a man is to get drunk every night on the private sphere of his own home, it can be argued that as long as the man isn’t harming society he is free to do this. However what if a quarter of the population is getting drunk every night, that will have negative effects on society and peoples individuality. So society should not tolerate practices that conflict with these common moral values. If these common moral values were aimed at preventing harm to others then Mill would agree, however Devlin was someone who disapproved of self actions, for example drunkenness and homosexual activity. He appeals to social utility and the importance of social cohesion as a way to make society a better place. However is Devlin right to say that actions such as homosexuality lead tot he break down of society? Society had now come to accept legally homosexuals, and society has not broken down. Moreover, how are individuals and society’s expected to make moral progress without being allowed to experiment with different practices. Should we really give up the prospect of a developed tolerant society in the name of cohesion, whereby everyone is following one set of rules? To conclude Mill’s account of personal liberty ensures the development of individuals and society, by allowing the truth to come forward and allow individuals to use their own reason to choose their own ways of life. Society is protected from following custom and becoming stagnant, and also becomes more tolerant to absurd ideas. It is also true that personal liberty is needed so that society can progress into greater things. For example it would be easy to regard feminist and gay thighs thinkers as geniuses as they have pioneered some of the more equal and tolerant laws of this day and age.

Essay Topics for Mba Students

this is an Economics Case Study. Assignment Overview: This assignment is based on an article published in The Scandinavian Journal of Economics called ‘Neuroeconomics: Why Economics Needs Brains’, in 2004, Vol. 106, Issue 3, page 555-79. The article is already attached to this assignment question. Please read the article carefully before attempting this exercise. You will also need to draw on other resources available through the library as well as external resources. Please note that you need to provide clear references for your sources when citing research and data.Learning Objectives: This assignment is designed to encourage you to think about the application of concepts learned in this unit in a real world scenario. This assignment, indeed, is challenging as it raises a question to some of the fundamental assumptions behind the existing economic theories, for example, how rational (from your ? rst lecture) an economic agent is ! Economists are asking this question fo r a while and try to open up the ‘black-box’ by examining the brain mechanism to inform economic theory. 1 As a result the new discipline has emerged called Neuroeconomics.We hope that this assignment will expand the horizon of your thoughts in identifying the limitation of existing economic theories. Assessment: Your score on this assignment contributes towards 30% of your ? nal score for this unit. Although you can work in group, this is not a group assignment and you must submit answers individually. Please check the Academic Honesty and Misconduct section in the Unit Guide. You will be graded on your use of appropriate economic theory and concepts, the clarity of exposition and overall quality of your answers.Questions: Answer all questions. Limit the word count of your assignment to less than 3000. Please use diagrams in your answer when appropriate. 1. What is Neuroeconomics? Provide two examples that standard economics failed to explain but the Neuroeconomics can (examples have to be di? erent from those examples provided in our article). [6 marks] 2. Explain how di? erent lobes of a human brain are interconnected in response to your examples that you suggest for question 1. Which feature(s) of human brain function does work well in these examples? [6 marks] 3.What are the key assumptions of Neuroeconomics? How do they di? er as compared to standard economics? [6 marks] 4. Is it possible to explain Global Financial Crisis (GFC) with the help of Neuroeconomics? Explain. [6 marks] 5. Suppose, you are holding a senior marketing executive position in your company. Is it possible to use the knowledge of Neuroeconomics to promote the sales of your company? Explain. [6 marks] 2 Scand. J. of Economics 106(3), 555–579, 2004 DOI: 10. 1111/j. 1467-9442. 2004. 00378. x Neuroeconomics: Why Economics Needs Brains* Colin F. CamererCalifornia Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA [email  protected] caltech. edu George Loewenstein Carneg ie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA [email  protected] cmu. edu Drazen Prelec MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA [email  protected] edu Abstract Neuroeconomics uses knowledge about brain mechanisms to inform economic theory. It opens up the ‘‘black box’’ of the brain, much as organizational economics opened up the theory of the firm. Neuroscientists use many tools—including brain imaging, behavior of patients with brain damage, animal behavior and recording single neuron activity.The key insight for economics is that the brain is composed of multiple systems which interact. Controlled systems (‘‘executive function’’) interrupt automatic ones. Brain evidence complicates standard assumptions about basic preference, to include homeostasis and other kinds of state-dependence, and shows emotional activation in ambiguous choice and strategic interaction. Keywords: Behavioral economics; neuroscience; neuroeconomics; brai n imaging JEL classification: C91; D81 I. IntroductionIn a strict sense, all economic activity must involve the human brain. Yet, economics has achieved much success with a program that sidestepped the * We thank participants at the Russell Sage Foundation-sponsored conference on Neurobehavioral Economics (May 1997) at Carnegie-Mellon, the Princeton workshop on Neural Economics (December 2000) and the Arizona conference (March 2001). This research was supported by NSF grant SBR-9601236 and by the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences, where the authors visited during 1997–1998.David Laibson’s presentation at the Princeton conference was particularly helpful, as were comments and suggestions from referees, John Dickhaut, Paul Zak, a paper by Jen Shang, and conversations with John Allman, Greg Berns, Jonathan Cohen, Angus Deaton, Dave Grether, Brian Knutson, David Laibson, Danica Mijovic-Prelec, Read Montague, Charlie Plott, Matthew Rabin, Peter Shizgal and St eve Quartz. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 56 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec biological and cognitive sciences that focus on the brain, in favor of the maximization style of classical physics, with agents choosing consumption bundles having the highest utility subject to a budget constraint, and allocations determined by equilibrium constraints. Later tools extended the model to include utility tradeoffs with uncertainty and time, Bayesian processing of information, and rationality of expectations about the economy and about the actions of other players in a game.Of course these economic tools have proved useful. But it is important to remember that before the emergence of revealed preference, many economists had doubts about the rationality of choice. In 1925, Viner (pp. 373–374), lamented that ‘‘Human behavior, in general, and presumably, therefore, also in the market place, is not under the constant and detailed guidance of careful and accurate hedonic calculations, but is the product of an unstable and unrational complex of reflex actions, impulses, instincts, habits, customs, fashions and hysteria. ’ At the same time, economists feared that this ‘‘unstable and unrational complex’’ of influences could not be measured directly. Jevons (1871) wrote, ‘‘I hesitate to say that men will ever have the means of measuring directly the feelings of the human heart. It is from the quantitative effects of the feelings that we must estimate their comparative amounts. ’’ The practice of assuming that unobserved utilities are revealed by observed choices— revealed preference—arose as a last resort, from skepticism about the ability to ‘‘measure directly’’ feelings and thoughts. But Jevons was wr ong.Feelings and thoughts can be measured directly now, because of recent breakthroughs in neuroscience. If neural mechanisms do not always produce rational choice and judgment, the brain evidence has the potential to suggest better theory. The theory of the firm provides an optimistic analogy. Traditional models treated the firm as a black box which produces output based on inputs of capital and labor and a production function. This simplification is useful but modern views open the black box and study the contracting practices inside the firm—viz. , how capitalowners hire and control labor.Likewise, neuroeconomics could model the details of what goes on inside the consumer mind just as organizational economics models what goes on inside firms. This paper presents some of the basic ideas and methods in neuroscience, and speculates about areas of economics where brain research is likely to affect predictions; see also Zak (2004), and Camerer, Loewenstein and Prelec (2004) for more details. We postpone most discussion of why economists should care about neuroscience to the conclusion. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 557 II.Neuroscience Methods Many different methods are used in neuroscience. Since each method has strengths and weaknesses, research findings are usually embraced only after they are corroborated by more than one method. Like filling in a crossword puzzle, clues from one method help fill in what is learned from other methods. Much neural evidence comes from studies of the brains of non-human animals (typically rats and primates). The ‘‘animal model’’ is useful because the human brain is basically a mammalian brain covered by a folded cortex which is responsible for higher functions like language and long-term planning.Animal brains can also be deliberately damaged and stimulated, and their tissues studied. Many human physiological reactions can be easily measured and used to make inferences about neural functioning. For example, pupil dilation is correlated with mental effort; see Kahneman and Peavler (1969). Blood pressure, skin conductance (sweating) and heart rate are correlated with anxiety, sexual arousal, mental concentration and other motivational states; see Levenson (1988).Emotional states can be reliably measured by coding facial expressions and recording movements of facial muscles (positive emotions flex cheekbones and negative emotions lead to eyebrow furrowing); see Ekman (1992). Brain imaging: Brain imaging is the great leap forward in neuroscientific measurement. Most brain imaging involves a comparison of people performing different tasks—an ‘‘experimental’’ task E and a ‘‘control’’ task C. The difference between images taken during E and C shows what part of the brain is differentially activated by E.The oldest imaging method, electro-encephalogra m (or EEG) measures electrical activity on the outside of the brain using scale electrodes. EEG records timing of activity very precisely ($1 millisecond) but spatial resolution is poor and it does not directly record interior brain activity. Positron emission topography (PET) is a newer technique, which measures blood flow in the brain using positron emissions after a weakly radioactive blood injection. PET gives better spatial resolution than EEG, but poorer temporal resolution and is limited to short tasks (because the radioactivity decays rapidly).However, PET usually requires averaging over fewer trials than fMRI. The newest method is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI measures changes in blood oxygenation, which indicates brain activity because the brain effectively ‘‘overshoots’’ in providing oxygenated blood to active parts of the brain. Oxygenated blood has different magnetic properties from deoxygenated blood, which creates the sig nal picked up by fMRI. Unfortunately, the signal is weak, so drawing inferences requires repeated # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 558 C. F. Camerer, G.Loewenstein and D. Prelec sampling and many trials. Spatial resolution in fMRI is better than PET ($3 millimeter3 ‘‘voxels’’). But technology is improving rapidly. Single-neuron measurement: Even fMRI only measures activity of ‘‘circuits’’ consisting of thousands of neurons. In single neuron measurement, tiny electrodes are inserted into the brain, each measuring a single neuron’s firing. Because the electrodes damage neurons, this method is only used on animals and special human populations (when neurosurgeons use implanted electrodes to locate the source of epileptic convulsions).Because of the focus on animals, single neuron measurement has so far shed far more light on basic emotional and motivational processes than on higher-level processes su ch as language and consciousness. Psychopathology: Chronic mental illnesses (e. g. , schizophrenia), developmental disorders (e. g. , autism), and degenerative diseases of the nervous system (e. g. , Parkinson’s Disease (PD)) help us understand how the brain works. Most forms of illness have been associated with specific brain areas. In some cases, the progression of illness has a localized path in the brain.For example, PD initially affects the basal ganglia, spreading only later to the cortex. The early symptoms of PD therefore provide clues about the specific role of basal ganglia in brain functioning; see Lieberman (2000). Brain damage in humans: Localized brain damage, produced by accidents and strokes, and patients who underwent radical neurosurgical procedures, are an especially rich source of insights; see e. g. Damasio (1994). If patients with known damage to area X perform a particular task more poorly than ‘‘normal’’ patients, the differen ce is a clue that area X is necessary to do that task.Often a single patient with a one-of-a-kind lesion changes the entire view in the field (much as a single crash day in the stock markets— October 19, 1987—changed academic views of financial market operations). For example, patient ‘‘S. M. ’’ has bilateral amygdala damage. She can recognize all facial expressions except fear; and she does not perceive faces as untrustworthy the way others do. This is powerful evidence that the human amygdala is crucial for judging who is afraid and who to distrust. ‘‘Virtual lesions’’ can also be created by ‘transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)’’, which creates temporary local disruption to brain regions using magnetic fields. III. Stylized Facts about the Brain We now review some basic facts about the brain, emphasizing those of special interest to economists. Figure 1 shows a ‘‘sagittal’à ¢â‚¬â„¢ slice of the human brain, with some areas that are mentioned below indicated. It has four lobes—from front to back (left to right, clockwise in Figure 1), frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal. The frontal lobe is thought to be the locus # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004.Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains ANTERIOR CINGULATE 559 PREFRONTAL CORTEX NUCLEUS ACCUMBENS PUTAMEN AMYGDALA HIPPOCAMPUS CAUDATE Fig. 1. Human brain (frontal pole left) regions of potential interest to economists of planning, cognitive control and integration of cross-brain input. Parietal areas govern motor action. The occipital lobe is where visual processing occurs. The temporal lobes are important for memory, recognition and emotion. Neurons from different areas are interconnected, which enables the brain to respond to complex stimuli in an integrated way.When an automated insurance broker calls and says, ‘‘Don’t you want earthquake insura nce? Press 1 for more information’’ the occipital lobe ‘‘pictures’’ your house collapsing; the temporal lobe feels a negative emotion; and the frontal lobe receives the emotional signal and weighs it against the likely cost of insurance. If the frontal lobe ‘‘decides’’ you should find out more, the parietal lobe directs your finger to press 1 on your phone. A crucial fact is that the human brain is basically a mammalian brain with a larger cortex.This means human behavior will generally be a compromise between highly evolved animal emotions and instincts, and more recently evolved human deliberation and foresight; see e. g. Loewenstein (1996). It also means we can learn a lot about humans from studying primates (who share more than 98% of our genes) and other animals. Three features of human brain function are notable: automaticity, modularity and sense-making. According to a prominent neuroscientist, Gazzaniga (1988) wrote: # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 560 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec ‘Human brain architecture is organized in terms of functional modules capable of working both cooperatively and independently. These modules can carry out their functions in parallel and outside of conscious experience. The modules can effect internal and external behaviors, and do this at regular intervals. Monitoring all this is a left-brain-based system called the interpreter. The interpreter considers all the outputs of the functional modules as soon as they are made and immediately constructs a hypothesis as to why particular actions occurred. In fact the interpreter need not be privy to why a particular module responded.Nonetheless, it will take the behavior at face value and fit the event into the large ongoing mental schema (belief system) that it has already constructed. ’’ Many brain activities are automatic parallel, rapid processes whic h typically occur without awareness. Automaticity implies that ‘‘people’’— i. e. , the deliberative cortex and the language processing which articulates a person’s reasons for their own behavior—may genuinely not know the cause of their own behavior. 1 Automaticity means that overcoming some habits is only possible with cognitive effort, which is scarce.But the power of the brain to automatize also explains why tasks which are so challenging to brain and body resources that they seem impossibly difficult at first—windsurfing, driving a car, paying attention to four screens at once in a trading room—can be done automatically after enough practice. 2 At the same time, when good performance becomes automatic (in the form of ‘‘procedural knowledge’’) it is typically hard to articulate, which means human capital of this sort is difficult to reproduce by teaching others. The different brain modules are often neuroanatomically separated (like organs of the body).Some kinds of modularity are really remarkable: The ‘‘facial fusiform area’’ (FFA) is specialized for facial recognition; ‘‘somatosensory cortex’’ has areas corresponding directly to different parts of the body (body parts with more nerve endings, like the mouth, have more corresponding brain tissue); features of visual images are neurally encoded in different brain areas, reproducing the external visual 1 For example, 40-millisecond flashes of angry or happy faces, followed immediately by a neutral ‘‘mask’’ face, activate the amygdala even though people are completely unaware of whether they saw a happy or angry face; see Whalen, Rauch, Etcoff, McInerney, Lee and Jenike (1998). 2 Lo and Repin (2002) recorded psychophysiological measures (like skin conductance and heart rate) with actual foreign exchange traders during their work. They found that more experienced traders showed lower emotional responses to market events that set the hearts of less experienced traders pounding. Their discovery suggests that responding to market events becomes partially automated, which produces less biological reaction in experienced traders. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 561 rganization of the elements internally (‘‘retinotopic mapping’’); and there are separate language areas, Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas,3 for semantics and for comprehension and grammar. Many neuroscientists think there is a specialized ‘‘mentalizing’’ (or ‘‘theory of mind’’) module, which controls a person’s inferences about what other people believe, or feel, or might do; see e. g. Fletcher, Happe, Frith, Baker, Dolan, Frackowiak and Frith (1995). Such a module presumably supports a whole range of cri tical human functions—decoding emotions, understanding of social rules, emotions, language, strategic concepts (bluffing)—and has obvious importance for economic transactions.Modularity is important for neuroeconomics because it invites tests that map theoretical distinctions onto separate brain areas. For example, if people play games against other people differently than they make decisions (a ‘‘game against nature’’), as is presumed in economic theory, those two tasks should activate some different brain areas. However, the modularity hypothesis should not be taken too far. Most complex behaviors of interest to economics require collaboration among more specialized modules and functions. So the brain is like a large company—branch offices specialize in different functions, but also communicate to one another, and communicate more feverishly when an important decision is being made.Attention in neuroeconomics is therefore focused not just on specific regions, but also on finding ‘‘circuits’’ or collaborative systems of specialized regions which create choice and judgment. The brain’s powerful drive toward sense-making leads us to strive to interpret our own behavior. The human brain is like a monkey brain with a cortical ‘‘press secretary’’ who is glib at concocting explanations for behavior, and privileges deliberative explanations over cruder ones; cf. Nisbett and Wilson (1977) and Wegner and Wheatley (1999). An important feature of this sense-making is that it is highly dependent on expectations; in psychological terms, it is ‘‘top down’’ as opposed to ‘‘bottom-up’’.For example, when people are given incomplete pictures, their brains often automatically fill in the missing elements so that there is never any awareness that anything is missing. In other settings, the brain’s imposition of order can make it detect patterns where there are none; see Gilovich (1991). When subjects listen to music and watch flashing Christmas tree lights at the same time, they mistakenly report that the two are synchronized. Mistaken beliefs in sports streaks, as evidenced by Gilovich, Vallone and Tversky (1985), and seeing spurious patterns in time series like stock-price data (‘‘technical analysis’’) may come from ‘‘too much’’ sense-making.Patients with Wernicke damage can babble sentences of words which make no sense strung together. Broca patients’ sentences make sense but they often ‘‘can’t find just the right word’’. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 3 562 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec Top-down encoding also implies the brain misses images it does not expect to see. A dramatic example is ‘‘change-blindness’’. In an amusing study t itled ‘‘Gorillas in our Midst’’, subjects watch a video of six people passing a basketball and count the passes made by one ‘‘team’’ (indicated by jersey color). Forty seconds into the film clip, a gorilla walks into the center of the game, turns to the camera, thumps its chest, and then walks off.Although the gorilla cavorts onscreen for a full total of nine seconds, about one-half of the subjects remain oblivious to the intrusion, even when pointedly asked whether they had seen ‘‘the gorilla walking across the screen’’; see Simons and Chabris (1999). When the brain does assimilate information, it does so rapidly and efficiently, ‘‘overwriting’’ what was previously believed. This can create a powerful ‘‘hindsight bias’’ in which events seem, after the fact, to have been predictable even when they were not. Hindsight bias is probably important in agency r elations when an agent takes an informed action and a principal ‘‘second-guesses’’ the agent if the action turns out badly. This adds a special source of risk to the agent’s income and may lead to other behaviors like herding, diffusion of responsibility, inefficiencies from ‘‘covering your ass’’, excessive labor turnover, and so on.We emphasize these properties of the brain, which are rapid and often implicit (subconscious), because they depart the most from conscious deliberation that may take place in complex economic decisions like saving for retirement and computing asset values. Our emphasis does not deny the importance of deliberation. The presence of other mechanisms just means that the right models should include many components and how they interact. IV. Topics in Neuroeconomics Preferences Thinking about the brain suggests several shortcomings with the standard economic concept of preference. 1. Feelings of pleasu re and pain originate in homeostatic mechanisms that detect departures from a ‘‘set-point’’ or ideal level, and attempt to restore equilibrium. In some cases, these attempts do not require additional voluntary actions, e. g. when monitors for body temperature trigger sweating to cool you off and shivering to warm you up. In other cases, the homeostatic processes operate by changing momentary preferences, a process called ‘‘alliesthesia’’; see Cabanac (1979). When the core body temperature falls below the 98. 6F set-point, almost anything that raises body temperature (such as placing one’s hand in warm water) feels good, and the opposite is true when body temperature is too high. Similarly, monitors for blood sugar levels, intestinal distention and many other variables trigger hunger. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 563Homeostasis means preferences are â €˜â€˜state-dependent’’ in a special way: the states are internal to the body and both affect preferences and act as information signals which provoke equilibration. Some kinds of homeostatic state-dependence are ‘‘contagious’’ across people—for example, the menstrual cycles of females living together tend to converge over time. Perhaps ‘‘waves’’ of panic and euphoria in markets work in a similar way, correlating responses so that internal states become macroeconomic states (as in the ‘‘animal spirits’’, which, in Keynes’s view, were a cause of business cycles). 2. Inferring preferences from a choice does not tell us everything we need to know. Consider the hypothetical case of two people, Al and Naucia, who both refuse to buy peanuts at a reasonable price; cf. Romer (2000).The refusal to buy reveals a common disutility for peanuts. But Al turned down the peanuts because h e is allergic: consuming peanuts causes a prickly rash, shortens his breath, and could even be fatal. Naucia turned down the peanuts because she ate a huge bag of peanuts at a circus years ago, and subsequently got nauseous from eating too much candy at the same time. Since then, her gustatory system associates peanuts with illness and she refuses them at reasonable prices. While Al and Naucia both revealed an identical disutility, a neurally detailed account tells us more. Al has an inelastic demand for peanuts—you can’t pay him enough to eat them! while Naucia would try a fistful for the right price. Their tastes will also change over time differently: Al’s allergy will not be cured by repeated consumption, while Naucia’s distaste might be easily changed if she tried peanuts once and didn’t get sick. Another example suggests how concepts of preference can be even wider of the mark by neglecting the nature of biological state-dependence: Nobody ch ooses to fall asleep at the wheel while driving. Of course, an imaginative rational-choice economist—or a satirist—could posit a tradeoff between ‘‘sleep utility’’ and ‘‘risk of plowing into a tree utility’’ and infer that a dead sleeper must have had higher u(sleep) than u(plowing into a tree).But this ‘‘explanation’’ is just tautology. It is more useful to think of the ‘‘choice’’ as resulting from the interaction of multiple systems—an automatic biological system which homeostatically shuts down the body when it is tired, and a controlled cognitive system which fights off sleep when closing your eyes can be fatal, and sometimes loses the fight. For economists, it is natural to model these phenomena by assuming that momentary preferences depend on biological states. This raises a deep question of whether the cortex is aware about the nature of the processes a nd allocates cognitive effort (probably cingulate activity) to control them.For example, Loewenstein, O’Donoghue and Rabin (in press) suggest that people neglect mean-reversion in biological states, which explains stylized # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 564 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec facts like suicide resulting from temporary depression, and shoppers buying more food when they are hungry. 4 3. A third problem with preferences is that there are different types of utilities which do not always coincide. Kahneman (1994) distinguishes four types: remembered utility, anticipated utility, choice utility and experienced utility. Remembered utility is what people recall liking; anticipated utility is what they expect to like; choice utility is what they reveal by choosing (classical revealed preference); and experienced utility is what they actually like when they consume.It is likely that the four types of utility are produced, to some extent, in separate brain regions. For example, Berridge and Robinson (1998) have found distinct brain regions for ‘‘wanting’’ and ‘‘liking’’, which correspond roughly to choice utility and experienced utility. The fact that these areas are dissociated allows a wedge between those two kinds of utility. Similarly, a wedge between remembered and experienced utility can be created by features of human memory which are adaptive for general purposes (but maladaptive for remembering precisely how something felt), such as repression of memories for severe pain in childbirth and other traumatic ordeals (e. g. , outdoor adventures led by author GL).If the different types of utility are produced by different regions, they will not always match up. Examples are easy to find. Infants reveal a choice utility by putting dirt in their mouths, but they don’t rationally anticipate liking it. Addicts often report drug craving (wanting) which leads to consumption (choosing) that they say is not particularly pleasurable (experiencing). Compulsive shoppers buy goods (revealing choice utility) which they never use (no experienced utility). When decisions are rare, like getting pregnant, deciding whether to go to college, signing up for pension contributions, buying a house, or declaring war, there is no reason to think the four types of utility will necessarily match up.This possibility is important because it means that the standard analysis of welfare, which assumes that choices anticipate experiences, is incomplete. In repeated situations with clear feedback, human learning may bring the four types of utilities together gradually. The rational choice model of consistent and coherent preferences can then be characterized as a limiting case of a neural model with multiple utility types, under certain learning conditions. 4. A fourth problem with preference is that people are assumed to value money for what it can purchase —that is, the utility of income is indirect, and Biological state-dependence also affects tipping.Most economic models suggest that the key variable affecting tipping behavior is how often a person returns to a restaurant. While this variable does influence tips slightly, a much stronger variable is how many alcoholic drinks the tipper had; see Conlin, Lynn and O’Donoghue (2003). # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 4 Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 565 should be derived from direct utilities for goods that will be purchased with money. But roughly speaking, it appears that similar brain circuitry— dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain—is active for a wide variety of rewarding experiences—drugs, food, attractive faces, humor—and money rewards. This means money may be directly rewarding, and its loss painful.This might explain why workaholics and the very wealthy keep working long hours after they ‘â₠¬Ëœshould be’’ retired or cutting back (i. e. , when the marginal utility of goods purchased with their marginal income is very low). Similarly, the immediate ‘‘pain of paying’’ can make wealthy individuals reluctant to spend when they should, and predicts unconventional effects of pricing—e. g. a preference for fixed payment plans rather than marginal-use pricing; see Prelec and Loewenstein (1998). 5. A common principle in economic modeling is that the utility of income depends only on the value of the goods and services it can buy, and is independent of the source of income.But Loewenstein and Issacharoff (1994) found that selling prices for earned goods were larger when the allocated good was earned than when it was unearned. Zink, Pagnoni, Martin-Skurski, Chappelow and Berns (2004) also found that when subjects earned money (by responding correctly to a stimulus), rather than just receiving equivalent rewards with no effort, there w as greater activity in a midbrain reward region called the striatum. Earned money is literally more rewarding, in the brain, than unearned money. The fact that brain utility depends on the source of income is potentially important for welfare and tax policies. 6. Addiction is an important topic for economics because it seems to resist rational explanation.Becker and Murphy (1988) suggest that addiction and other changes in taste can be modeled by allowing current utility to depend on a stock of previous consumption. They add the assumption that consumers understand the habit formation, which implies that behavior responds to expected future prices. 5 While variants of this model are a useful workhorse, other approaches are possible. It is relevant to rational models of addiction that every substance to which humans may become biologically addicted is also potentially addictive for rats. Addictive substances appear therefore to be ‘‘hijacking’’ primitive rew ard circuitry in the ‘‘old’’ part of the human brain.Although this fact does not disprove the rational model (since 5 Evidence in favor of the rational-addiction view is that measured price elasticities for addictive goods like cigarettes are similar to those of other goods (roughly A0. 5 and A2), and there is some evidence that current consumption does respond to expected future prices; cf. Gruber and Koszegi (2001) and Hung (2001). However, data limitations make it difficult to rule out alternative explanations (e. g. , smokers may be substituting into higher-nicotine cigarettes when prices go up). # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 566 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec ecently-evolved cortex may override rat-brain circuitry), it does show that rational intertemporal planning is not necessary to create the addictive phenomena of tolerance, craving and withdrawal. It also highlights the need for economic models of the pr imitive reward circuitry, which would apply equally to man and rat. Another awkward fact for rational-addiction models is that most addicts quit and relapse regularly. And while rational addicts should buy drugs in large quantities at discounted prices, and self-ration them out of inventory, addicts usually buy in small packages; cf. Wertenbroch (1998). These facts suggest a struggle between a visceral desire or drugs and cortical awareness that drug use is a losing proposition in the long run; relapse occurs when the visceral desire wins the struggle. It is also remarkable that repeated drug use conditions the user to expect drug administration after certain cues appear (e. g. , shooting up in a certain neighborhood or only smoking in the car). Laibson (2001) created a pioneering formal model of cue-dependent use, showing that there are multiple equilibria in which cues either trigger use or are ignored. The more elaborate model of Bernheim and Rangel (in press), is a paradigmatic example of how economic theory can be deeply rooted in neuroscientific details. They assume that when a person is in a hot state they use drugs; in a cold state, whether they use is a rational choice.A variable S, from 0 to N, summarizes the person’s history of drug use. When he uses, S goes up; when he abstains S goes down. They characterize destructively addictive drugs and prove that the value function is declining in the drug-use history variable S. By assuming the cold state reflects the person’s true welfare, they can also do welfare analysis and compare the efficiency effects of policies like laissezfaire, drug bans, sin taxes and regulated dispensation. Decision-making under Risk and Uncertainty Perhaps the most rapid progress in neuroeconomics will be made in the study of risky decision-making. We focus on three topics: risk judgments, risky choice and probability.Risk and ambiguity: In most economic analyses risk is equated with variation of outcomes. But for most people, risk has more dimensions (particularly emotional ones). Studies have long shown that potential outcomes which are catastrophic and difficult to control are perceived as more risky (controlling for statistical likelihood); see Peters and Slovic (2000). Business executives say risk is the chance of loss, especially a large loss, often approximated by semivariance (the variance of the loss portion of an outcome distribution); see Luce and Weber (1986), MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1986) and recent interest in ‘‘value-at-risk’’ measures in finance. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004.Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 567 Fig. 2. Opening the brain at the Sylvian fissure (between temporal and frontal lobes) shows the insula cortex (frontal pole is on the right). Illustration courtesy of Ralph Adolphs These properties are exemplified by the fear of flying (which is statistically much safer than driving) phobias and public outcry to dangers which are horrifying, but rare (like kidnappings of children and terrorist bombings). Since economic transactions are inherently interpersonal, emotions which are activated by social risks, like shame and fear of public speaking could also influence economic activity in interesting ways.A lot is known about the neural processes underlying affective responses to risks; see Loewenstein, Hsee, Welch and Weber (2001). Much aversion to risks is driven by immediate fear responses, which are largely traceable to a small area of the brain called the amygdala; cf. LeDoux (1996). The amygdala is an ‘‘internal ‘hypochondriac’ ’’ which provides ‘‘quick and dirty’’ emotional signals in response to potential fears. But the amygdala also receives cortical inputs which can moderate or override its responses. 6 An interesting experiment illustrating cortical override begins with fearconditioning—repeatedly admi nistering a tone cue followed by a painful electric shock.Once the tone becomes associated in the animal’s mind with the shock, the animal shows signs of fear after the tone is played, but before 6 For example, people exhibit fear reactions to films of torture, but are less afraid when they are told the people portrayed are actors and asked to judge some unemotional properties of the films. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 568 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec ` the shock arrives (the tone is called a ‘‘conditioned stimulus’’ a la Pavlov’s famous salivating dogs). When the tone is played repeatedly but not followed by a shock, the animal’s fear response is gradually ‘‘extinguished’’. At this point, a Bayesian might conclude that the animal has simply ‘‘unlearned’’ the connection between the tone and the shock (the posterior probability P(shockjtone ) has fallen).But the neural reality is more nuanced than that. If the shock is then readministered following the tone, after a long period of extinction, the animal immediately relearns the tone–shock relation and feels fear very rapidly. 7 Furthermore, if the connections between the cortex and the amygdala are severed, the animal’s original fear response to the tone immediately reappears. This means the fear response to the tone has not disappeared in the amygdala, it is simply being suppressed by the cortex. Another dimension of risky choice is ‘‘ambiguity’’—missing information about probabilities people would like to know but don’t (e. g. , the Ellsberg paradox).Using fMRI, Hsu and Camerer (2004) found that the insula cortex was differentially activated when people chose certain money amounts rather than ambiguous gambles. The insula (shown in Figure 2) is a region that processes information from the nervous system about bodi ly states—such as physical pain, hunger, the pain of social exclusion, disgusting odors and choking. This tentative evidence suggests a neural basis for pessimism or ‘‘fear of the unknown’’ influencing choices. Risky choice: Like risk judgments, choices among risky gambles involve an interplay of cognitive and affective processes. A well-known study reported in Bechara, Damasio, Tranel and Damasio (1997) illustrates such collaboration.Patients suffering prefrontal damage (which, as discussed above, produces a disconnect between cognitive and affective systems) and normal subjects chose cards from one of four decks. Two decks had more cards with extreme wins and losses (and negative expected value); two decks had less extreme outcomes but positive expected value (EV), and subjects had to learn these deck compositions by trial-and-error. They compared behavior of normal subjects with patients who had damage to prefrontal cortex (PFC; which limits the a bility to receive emotional ‘‘somatic markers’’ and creates indecision). Both groups exhibited similar skin conductance reactions (an indication of fear) immediately after large-loss cards were encountered. 7 This is hard to reconcile with a standard Bayesian analysis because the ame ‘‘likelihood evidence’’ (i. e. , frequency of shock following a tone) which takes many trials to condition fear in the first part of the experiment raises the posterior rapidly in just one or two trials in the later part of the experiment. If the animal had a low prior belief that tones might be followed by shocks, this could explain slow updating in the first part. But since the animal’s revealed posterior belief after the extinction is also low, there is no simple way to explain why updating is so rapid after the fear is reinstalled. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 569Howe ver, normal subjects learned to avoid those risky ‘‘bad decks’’ but the prefrontal-damage patients rapidly returned to the bad decks shortly after suffering a loss. In fact, even among normal subjects, those who were lowest in emotional reactivity acted more like the prefrontal patients; see Peters and Slovic (2000). Homeostasis in the body implies that people will adapt to changes and, consequently, are more sensitive to changes than to absolute levels. Kahneman and Tversky (1979) suggest the same principle applies to gains and losses of money from a point of reference and, furthermore, that the pain of loss is stronger than the pleasure of equal-sized gains.Imaging studies show that gains and losses are fundamentally different because losses produce more overall activation and slower response times, and there are differences in which areas are active during gain and loss; see Camerer, Johnson, Rymon and Sen (1993) and Smith and Dickhaut (2002). Dickhaut, McCabe, Nagode, Rustichini and Pardo (2003) found more activity in the orbitofrontal cortex when thinking about gains compared to losses, and more activity in inferior parietal and cerebellar areas when thinking about losses. O’Doherty, Kringelbach, Rolls, Jornak and Andrews (2001) found that losses differentially activated lateral OFC and gains activated medial OFC. Knutson, Westdorp, Kaiser and Hommer (2000) found strong activation in mesial PFC on both gain and loss trials, and additional activation in anterior cingulate and thalamus during loss trials.Single-neuron measurement by Schultz and colleagues, as reported in Schultz and Dickinson (2000), and Glimcher (2002) in monkeys has isolated specific neurons which correspond remarkably closely to familiar economic ideas of utility and belief. Schulz isolates dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental ‘‘midbrain’’ and Glimcher studies the lateral inferior parietal (LIP) area. The midbrain neuron s fire at rates which are monotonic in reward amount and probability (i. e. , they ‘‘encode’’ reward and probability). The LIP neurons seem to encode expected value in games with mixed-strategy equilibria that monkeys play against computerized opponents. An interesting fact for neuroeconomics is that all the violations of standard utility theories exhibited in human choice experiments over money have been replicated with animals.For example, in ‘‘Allais paradox’’ choices people appear to overweight low probabilities, give a quantum jump in weight to certain outcomes, and do not distinguish sharply enough between intermediate probabilities; see e. g. Prelec (1998). Rats show this pattern too, and also show other expected utility violations; see e. g. Battalio, Kagel and Green (1995). People also exhibit ‘‘context-dependence’’: whether A is chosen more often than B can depend on the presence of an irrelevant third choice C (which is dominated and never chosen). Context-dependence means people compare choices within a set rather than assigning separate numerical utilities. Honeybees exhibit the same pattern; see Shafir, Waite and Smith (2002). The striking # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 570 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec arallelism of choices across species suggests that the human neural circuitry for these decisions is ‘‘old’’, and perhaps specially adapted to the challenges all species face—foraging, reproduction and survival—but not necessarily consistent with rationality axioms. Gambling: Economics has never provided a satisfactory theory of why people both insure and gamble. Including emotions and other neuroscientific constructs might help. Like drug addiction, the study of pathological gambling is a useful test case where simple theories of rationality take us only so far. About 1% of the people wh o gamble are ‘‘pathological’’—they report losing control, ‘‘chasing losses’’, and harming their personal and work relationships; cf. National Research Council (1999).Pathological gamblers are overwhelmingly male. They drink, smoke and use drugs much more frequently than average. Many have a favorite game or sport they gamble on. Gambling incidence is correlated among twins, and genetic evidence shows that pathologicals are more likely to have a certain gene allele (D2Al), which means that larger thrills are needed to get modest jolts of pleasure; see Comings (1998). One study shows that treatment with naltrexone, a drug that blocks the operation of opiate receptors in the brain, reduces the urge to gamble; see e. g. Moreyra, Aibanez, Saiz-Ruiz, Nissenson and Blanco (2000). 8 Game Theory and Social PreferencesIn strategic interactions (games), knowing how another person thinks is critical to predicting that person’s be havior. Many neuroscientists believe there is a specialized ‘‘mind-reading’’ (or ‘‘theory of mind’’) area which controls reasoning about what others believe and might do. Social preferences: McCabe, Houser, Ryan, Smith and Trouard (2001) used fMRI to measure brain activity when subjects played games involving trust, cooperation and punishment. They found that players who cooperated more often with others showed increased activation in Broadmann area 10 (thought to be one part of the mind-reading circuitry) and in the thalamus (part of the emotional ‘‘limbic’’ system).Their finding is nicely corroborated by Hill and Sally (2002), who compared normal and autistic subjects playing ultimatum games, in which a proposer offers a take-it-or-leave-it division of a sum of money to a responder. Autists often have trouble figuring out what other people think and believe, and are thought to have deficits in area 10. A bout a quarter of their autistic adults offered nothing in the ultimatum game, which is consistent with an inability to imagine why others would regard an offer of zero as unfair and reject it. The same drug has been used to successfully treat ‘‘compulsive shopping’’; see McElroy, Satlin, Pope, Keck and Hudson (1991). # The editors of theScandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 8 Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 571 One of the most telling neuroscientific findings comes from Sanfey, Rilling, Aaronson, Nystrom, Leigh and Cohen’s (2003) fMRI study of ultimatum bargaining. By imaging the brains of subjects responding to offers, they found that very unfair offers ($1 or $2 out of $10) differentially activated prefrontal cortex (PFC), anterior cingulate (ACC) and insula cortex. The insula cortex is known to be activated during the experience of negative emotions like pain and disgust. ACC is an ‘‘executive function’’ are a which often receives inputs from many areas and resolves conflicts among them. After an unfair offer, the brain (ACC) struggles to resolve the conflict between wanting money (PFC) and disliking the ‘‘disgust’’ of being treated unfairly (insula). Whether players reject unfair offers or not can be predicted rather reliably (a correlation of 0. 45) by the level of their insula activity. It is natural to speculate that the insula is a neural locus of the distaste for inequality or unfair treatment posited by recent models of social utility, which have been successfully used to explain robust ultimatum rejections, public goods contributions, and trust and gift-exchange results in experiments; see Fehr and Gachter (2000) and Camerer (2003, Ch. 2). 10 ?In a similar vein, de Quervain, Fischbacher, Treyer, Schellhammer, Schynyder, Buck and Fehr (2004) used PET imaging to explore the nature of costly third-party punishment by players A, after B played a trust game with player C and C decided how much to repay. When C repaid too little, the players A often punished C at a cost to themselves. They found that when players A inflicted an economic punishment, a reward region in the striatum (the nucleus accumbens) was activated—‘‘revenge tastes sweet’’. When punishment was costly, regions in prefrontal cortex and orbitofrontal cortex were differentially active, which indicates that players are responding to the cost of punishment. Zak, Matzner and Kurzban 2003) explored the role of hormones in trust games. In a canonical trust game, one player can invest up to $10 which is tripled. A second ‘‘trustee’’ player can keep or repay as much of the tripled investment as they want. Zak et al. measured eight hormones at different points in the trust game. They find an increase in oxytocin—a hormone 9 The ACC also contains ‘‘spindle cells’’—large neurons shape d like spindles, which are almost unique to human brains; see Allman, Hakeem, Erwin, Nimchinsky and Hof (2001). These cells are probably important for the activities which distinguish humans from our primate cousins, such as language, cognitive control and complex decision-making. 0 The fact that the insula is activated when unfair/offers are rejected shows how neuroeconomics can deliver fresh predictions: it predicts that low offers are less likely to be rejected by patients with insula damage, and more likely to be rejected if the insula is stimulated indirectly (e. g. , by exposure to disgusting odors). We don’t know if these predictions are true, but no current model would have made them. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 572 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec which rises during social bonding (such as breast-feeding)—in the trustee if the first player ‘‘trusts’’ her by investing a lot.Interesting eviden ce of social preferences comes from studies with monkeys. Brosnan and de Waal (2003) find that monkeys will reject small rewards (cucumbers) when they see other animals getting better rewards (grapes, which they like more). Hauser, Chen, Chen and Chuang (2003) also find that tamarins act altruistically toward other tamarins who have benefited them in the past. These studies imply that we may share many properties of social preference with monkey cousins. Iterated thinking: Another area of game theory where neuroscience should prove useful is iterated strategic thinking. A central concept in game theory is that players think about what others will do, and about what thers think they will do, and this reasoning (or some other process, like learning, evolution or imitation) results in a mutually consistent equilibrium in which each player guesses correctly what others will do (and chooses their own best response given those beliefs). From a neural view, iterated thinking consumes scarc e working memory and also requires one player to put herself in another player’s ‘‘mind’’. There may be no generic human capacity to do this beyond a couple of steps. Studies of experimental choices, and payoff information subjects look up on a computer screen, suggest 1–2 steps of reasoning are typical in most populations; cf. e. g.Costa-Gomes, Crawford and Broseta (2001), Johnson, Camerer, Sen and Tymon (2002), and see Camerer, Ho and Chong (2004). 11 Bhatt and Camerer (2004) find differential activation in the insula in players who are poor strategic thinkers, which they interpret as reflecting self-focus that harms strategizing. V. Conclusions Economics parted company from psychology in the early twentieth century after economists became skeptical that basic psychological forces could be measured without inferring them from behavior (and then, circularly, using those inferred forces to predict behavior). Neuroscience makes this measurement possible for the first time. It gives a new way to open the ‘‘black box’’ which is the building block of economic systems—the human mind.More ambitiously, students are often bewildered that the models of human nature offered in different social sciences are so different, and often contradictory. Economists emphasize rationality; psychologists 11 It is important to note, however, that principles like backward induction and computation of equilibrium can be easily taught in these experiments. That means these principles are not computationally difficult, per se, they are simply unnatural. In terms of neural economizing, this means these principles should be treated like efficient tools which the brain is not readilyequipped with, but which have low ‘‘marginal costs’’ once they are acquired. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 73 emphasize cognitive limits and sensitivity of choices to contexts; anthropologists emphasize acculturation; and sociologists emphasize norms and social constraint. An identical question on a final exam in each of the fields about trust, for example, would have different ‘‘correct’’ answers in each of the fields. It is possible that a biological basis for behavior in neuroscience, perhaps combined with all-purpose tools like learning models or game theory, could provide some unification across the social sciences; cf. Gintis (2003). Most economists we talk to are curious about neuroscience but skeptical of whether we need it to do economics.The tradition of ignoring the inside of the ‘‘black box’’ is so deeply ingrained that learning about the brain seems like a luxury we can live without. But it is inevitable that neuroscience will have some impact on economics, eventually. If nothing else, brain fMRI imaging will alter what psychologists believe, leading to a ripple effect which will eventually inform economic theories that are increasingly responsive to psychological evidence. Furthermore, since some neuroscientists are already thinking about economics, a field called neuroeconomics will arise whether we like it or not. So it makes sense to initiate a dialogue with the neuroscientists right away. Economics could continue to chug along, paying no attention to cognitive neuroscience.But, to ignore a major new stream of relevant data is always a dangerous strategy scientifically. It is not as if economic theory has given us the final word on, e. g. , advertising effectiveness, dysfunctional consumption (alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, crime), and business cycle and stock market fluctuations. It is hard to believe that a growing familiarity with brain functioning will not lead to better theories for these and other economic domains, perhaps surprisingly soon. In what way might neuroscience contribute to economics? First, in the applied domai n, neuroscience measurements have a comparative advantage when other sources of data are unreliable or biased, as is often the case with surveys and self-reports.Since neuroscientists are ‘‘asking the brain, not the person’’, it is possible that direct measurements will generate more reliable indices of some variables which are important to economics (e. g. , consumer confidence, and perhaps even welfare). Second, basic neuroeconomics research will ideally be able to link hypotheses about specific brain mechanisms (location, and activation) with unobservable intermediate variables (utilities, beliefs, planning ahead), and with observable behavior (such as choices). One class of fruitful tasks is those where some theories assume choice A and choice B are made by a common mechanism, but a closer neural look might suggest otherwise.For example, a standard assumption in utility theory is that marginal rates of substitution exist across very different bundles of goods (and, as a corollary, that all goods can be priced in money terms). But some tradeoffs are simply # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. 574 C. F. Camerer, G. Loewenstein and D. Prelec too difficult or morally repulsive (e. g. , selling a body part). Elicited preferences often vary substantially with descriptions and procedures; e. g. Ariely, Loewenstein and Prelec (2003). Neuroscience might tell us precisely what a ‘‘difficult’’ choice or a ‘‘sacred preference’’ is, and why descriptions and procedures matter. 12 A third payoff from neuroscience is to suggest that economic choices which are considered different in theory are using similar brain circuitry.For example, studies cited above found that insula cortex is active when players in ultimatum games receive low offers, when people choose ambiguous gambles or money, when people see faces of others who have cooperated with them, and in players who are poor strategic thinkers. This suggests a possible link between these types of games and choices which would never have been suggested by current theory. A fourth potential payoff from neuroscience is to add precision to functions and parameters in standard economic models. For instance, which substances are cross-addictive is an empirical question which can guide theorizing about dynamic substitution and complementarity. A ‘‘priming dose’’ of cocaine enhances craving for heroin, for example; cf. Gardner and Lowinson (1991).Work on brain structure could add details to theories of human capital and labor market discrimination. 13 The point is that knowing which neural mechanisms are involved tell us something about the nature of the behavior. For example, if the oxytocin hormone is released when you are trusted, and being trusted sparks reciprocation, then raising oxytocin exogeneously could increase trustworthy behavior (if the brain doesn’t adjust fo r the exogeneity and ‘‘undo’’ its effect). In another example, Lerner, Small and Loewenstein (in press) show that changing moods exogeneously changes buying and selling prices for goods. The basic point is that understanding the effects of biological and emotional processes like hormone 2 Grether, Plott, Rowe, Sereno and Allman (2004) study a related problem—what happens in second-price Vickrey auctions when people learn to bid their valuations (a dominant strategy). They find that the anterior cingulate is more active before people learn to bid their values, which is a neural way of saying that bidding valuations is not transparent. 13 It has been known for some time that brains rapidly and unconsciously (‘‘implicitly’’) associate same-race names with good words (‘‘Chip-sunshine’’ for a white person) and opposite-race names with bad words (‘‘Malik-evil’’); see e. g. McConn ell and Leibold (2001). This fact provides a neural source discrimination which is neither a taste nor a judgment of skill based on race (as economic models usually assume).Opposite-race faces also activate the amygdala, an area which processes fear; cf. Phelps, O’Connor, Cunningham, Funayama, Gatenby, Gore and Banaji (2000). Importantly, implicit racial associations can be disabled by first showing people pictures of faces of familiar other-race members (e. g. , showing Caucasians a picture of actor Denzel Washington). This shows that the implicit racial association is not a ‘‘taste’’ in the conventional economic sense (e. g. it may not respond to prices). It is a cognitive impulse which interacts with other aspects of cognition. # The editors of the Scandinavian Journal of Economics 2004. Neuroeconomics: why economics needs brains 575 elease and moods will lead to new types of predictions about how variations in these processes affect economic beha vior. In the empirical contracts literature there is, surprisingly, no adverse selection and moral hazard in the market for automobile insurance; cf. Chiappori, Abbring, Heckman and Pinquet (2001). But there is plenty of moral hazard in healthcare use and worker behavior. A neural explanation is that driving performance is both optimistic (everyone thinks they are an above-average driver, so poor drivers do not purchase fuller coverage) and automatic (and is therefore unaffected by whether drivers are insured) but healthcare purchases and labor effort are deliberative.This suggests that ‘‘degree of automaticity’’ is a variable that can be usefully included in contracting models. Will it ever be possible to create formal models of how these brain features interact? The answer is definitely ‘‘Yes’’, because models already exist; cf. e. g. Benhabib and Bisin (2004), Loewenstein and O’Donoghue (2004) and Bernheim and Rangel (in press). A key step is to think of behavior as resulting from the interaction of a small number of neural systems—such as automatic and controlled processes, or ‘‘hot’’ affect and ‘‘cold’’ cognition, or a module that chooses and a modu

A Dysfunctional Behavior Involving a Drunkard Parent

A Dysfunctional Behavior Involving a Drunkard Parent The following behavioral therapy plan has been designed to deal with a dysfunctional behavior involving a drunkard parent. The parent is a father of three who is a habitual drunkard and this habit is adversely affecting the finances of the family. He spends most of his free time, especially after work, at drinking joints.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on A Dysfunctional Behavior Involving a Drunkard Parent specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The habit is also affecting the fatherly responsibility and expectations of the parent. However, no one among the family members is willing to talk about the habit which has seen family ties subsequently threatened and deteriorate due to fatherly negligence and irresponsibility. As a therapist, I would opt for conditioning and learning to help the father overcome this behavior. The most immediate response to the behavior will be a positive reinforcement of classical conditioning whic h refers to a method of learning where the conditioned response is supposed to initiate the occurrence of an unconditioned response. A person is thought to associate the occurrence of one signal with the automatic response of a second signal that will always follow the first one. In behavioral therapy, classical conditioning is used to change the unconditioned stimulus by successfully substituting it with another desired stimulus in order to overcome the dysfunctional habit. Initially, the person would have a certain dysfunctional habit that he or she has always associated with a certain uncontrolled stimulus. The desired unconditioned stimulus is gradually introduced while reducing the undesired one. In this case, the conditioned stimulus will be an alarm clock that goes on at exactly 4 pm signifying the end of working time. Thus, the father relates the alarm signal to free time and every time the alarm goes on, he knows he is free from duty and drives to his usual drinking joints. Hence, drinking is the unconditioned stimulus that should be done away with, while the big task is to identify another activity that will substitute visiting the drinking places. More so, the father has to be trained to always associate free time with the identified behavior. Through classical conditioning, he is introduced to golf as a game and subsequently as the unconditioned stimulus. He is gradually trained to associate the alarm clock with golf. Once it goes on, he is reminded of an appointment with the golf course and thus leaves the office to go and play golf. It is expected that with time, he will start to associate the alarm with the game and in the process he will shun drinking. Once done with classical conditioning, operant conditioning should follow. In operant or instrumental conditioning, a person is left to choose on the right action against the dysfunctional behavior according to its consequences. A person is made fully aware of the behavior they are engaging in, a nd the probable consequences. It is then left upon them to voluntarily make a decision over the same.Advertising Looking for essay on psychology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Operant conditioning may lead to punishment or reinforcement. Punishment occurs when the affected person takes up the new behavior less frequently while reinforcement occurs when the affected person goes on with the new behavior more frequently than before. Conditioning may be said to be extinct if the affected person shows no change following the introduction of a new trait. The case of a drunk and irresponsible father demands that he is reminded of the societal expectations. Effort should also be made to make him realize the negligence he has subjected the family to and the mismanagement of family finances. The father should also be briefed on the current consequences of his behavior as well as what might befall the family in the future as a result of his drinking habit and then the idea of engaging in golf as a game to help utilize free time should be introduced. This should be made to sound like the best option compared to drinking. A few merits of engaging in sports over drinking should convince the father. The father should also be explained to that that playing golf will not only help him manage free time but also slowly quit drinking. The father is then left to decide on his own on the best action to take with playing golf having been put as the best alternative. During this time, it is expected that he will evaluate the consequences of daily drinking on the family and compare the consequences should he opt to spend his free time doing something else. Observational learning should closely follow operant conditioning. Here, the affected person is left to act on his behavior through observing others. In behavioral therapy, the therapist identifies various personalities with outstanding character in society who act as role models. Some might be those who were once faced with a similar condition. The client is then allowed to observe their lifestyle, character, personality as well as the generalized behavior of such persons. He/she is most likely to be tempted to ape certain positive traits from such models. Hence, through observation and copying, the affected person may eventually drop the bad trait in an attempt to be like the role model. Once again, observational learning does not call for reinforcement but learning through observation just like little children do in the course of their behavioral development. Thus, the therapist will only be entitled to identifying the models and the whole task of observation is left to the client.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on A Dysfunctional Behavior Involving a Drunkard Parent specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Referring to the client in this scenario, I need to identify a few examples of people who were once irresponsible drinkers who will serve as models. I will also sample out some parents with exemplary family set ups that I will use to persuade and encourage my client to keenly observe how such parents manage and raise their families. I will then allow my client to keep observing the families as I asses his progress. The client is advised to only watch out for positive traits that might help him quit drinking and not trying to copy the whole social lifestyle of the model. Having properly gone through classical conditioning and operant conditioning, I am convinced the client will eventually opt for golf after work over drinking. He might eventually quit drinking. In conclusion, behavioral therapy majorly depends on the client’s willingness to drop a certain behavior as well as the methods employed by the therapist. The three approaches explained above are however the best methods used to encourage behavioral change. Once somebody has an alternative for a certain behavior, he is given time to ponder on the consequences and make a decision. The same person is then encouraged to uphold the same decision by observing those who have excelled through the same way. In this manner, one is able to successfully go through dysfunctional behavior therapy and achieve behavioral transformation.

Free Essays on The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers By Alexander Dumas Historical Fiction The protagonist of this book is d’Artagnon. A young Frenchman from Gascony. Who dreams of becoming a Musketeer. The antagonist of this book is the Cardinal, who wishes to expose the queen’s love affair with the Duke of Buckingham. d’Artagnon stands in the way of his plans. This book is about a young man d’Artagnon who comes to Paris to be a musketeer on his way he meets three musketeer’s Porthos, Athos and Aramis who serve the king. d’Artagnon falls in love with Constance de Bonacieux. The kings wife Anne has fallen in love with the duke of Buckingham to show how much she loves him she gives him a twelve stud diamond bracelet that her husband gave to her on her last birthday. Milady de Winter one of the Cardinal’s spies steals two studs off the bracelet, and gives them to the king. But at the same time the duke had two more put on and d’Artagnon rushes back to give them to the queen before a banquet in witch the king has ordered Anne to wear. Constance the queen’s seamstress knows all about the queen’s secrets, therefore the cardinal wants to improson her and get those secrets, and he does. Later Constance is sent to a convent were lady de Winter poisons her with wine before d’Artagnon reaches her . d’Artagnon later finds out that Athos, who was once a lord of France and was married to lady de Winter and he discovered that she was marked with the fleur de lit witch means she is a terrible villain, he has the right to sentence her to death he hangs her from a tree but she survives. They all swear revenge. She is sent to England to kill duke Buckingham. She is imprisoned by the duke but she manipulates the guard and convinces the guard to murder’s the duke of Buckingham. d’Artagnon, athos and Porthos and an executioner who branded her with the fleur de lit. they execute her and are not punished because they have the letter that the cardinal w... Free Essays on The Three Musketeers Free Essays on The Three Musketeers The Three Musketeers By Alexander Dumas Historical Fiction The protagonist of this book is d’Artagnon. A young Frenchman from Gascony. Who dreams of becoming a Musketeer. The antagonist of this book is the Cardinal, who wishes to expose the queen’s love affair with the Duke of Buckingham. d’Artagnon stands in the way of his plans. This book is about a young man d’Artagnon who comes to Paris to be a musketeer on his way he meets three musketeer’s Porthos, Athos and Aramis who serve the king. d’Artagnon falls in love with Constance de Bonacieux. The kings wife Anne has fallen in love with the duke of Buckingham to show how much she loves him she gives him a twelve stud diamond bracelet that her husband gave to her on her last birthday. Milady de Winter one of the Cardinal’s spies steals two studs off the bracelet, and gives them to the king. But at the same time the duke had two more put on and d’Artagnon rushes back to give them to the queen before a banquet in witch the king has ordered Anne to wear. Constance the queen’s seamstress knows all about the queen’s secrets, therefore the cardinal wants to improson her and get those secrets, and he does. Later Constance is sent to a convent were lady de Winter poisons her with wine before d’Artagnon reaches her . d’Artagnon later finds out that Athos, who was once a lord of France and was married to lady de Winter and he discovered that she was marked with the fleur de lit witch means she is a terrible villain, he has the right to sentence her to death he hangs her from a tree but she survives. They all swear revenge. She is sent to England to kill duke Buckingham. She is imprisoned by the duke but she manipulates the guard and convinces the guard to murder’s the duke of Buckingham. d’Artagnon, athos and Porthos and an executioner who branded her with the fleur de lit. they execute her and are not punished because they have the letter that the cardinal w... Free Essays on The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas’ novel â€Å"The Three Musketeers† remains extremely exciting and funny. This novel keeps the reader on the edge the entire time, wondering what will happen next. The novel follows four men that remain insupportable: D’Artagna, Athos, Porthos and Aramis in their heroic acts, D’Artagnan’s love interests and the continues scandals between the Queen, King and Duke of Buckingham. The end of this novel is the best part. It leaves the reader jaw dropped in amazement. The most important characters are the four best friends: D’Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis. It has become apparent that D’Artagnan is the central character of the novel, Dumas has portrayed the reader that not only is D’Artagnan still a brave, noble, intelligent and ambitious young man. But is also very crafty and romantic. He is driven by love, and tends to often find himself in love with more than one person at a time. This has been a steady flaw of D’Artagnans from the very beginning of the novel, to the very end. Throughout the novel D’Artagnan turns to Athos for guidance. Athos is the most important of the three musketeers. He is also a father figure to D’Artagnan. This may be because he is also the oldest of his comrades. However He is still young at heart and loves being a musketeer. This becomes more evident in the last half of the novel. Aramis on the other hand, is constantly announcing he is only temporarily in the muskete ers, and that any day now he will r! eturn to the church to pursue his true calling. By the end of the novel the reader can almost predict what he will say next. This makes Aramis a predictable character, however the reader can count of the level-minded advice of Aramis to call reason to a situation. Aramis has a mysterious mistress; her name is Madame de Chevreuse. He tries to keep her existence and identity hidden from his friends however by the end of the novel all four men know the truth. Por...