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i
Measuring Utility
ii
Oxford Studies in the Histor y of Economics

Series Editor: Steven G. Medema, PhD,
University Distinguished Professor of Economics,
University of Colorado Denver
This series publishes leading-edge scholarship by historians of economics and social science,
drawing upon approaches from intellectual history, the history of ideas, and the history of
the natural and social sciences. It embraces the history of economic thinking from ancient
times to the present, the evolution of the discipline itself, the relationship of economics to
other fields of inquiry, and the diffusion of economic ideas within the discipline and to the
policy realm and broader publics. This enlarged scope affords the possibility of looking anew
at the intellectual, social, and professional forces that have surrounded and conditioned ec-
onomics’ continued development.
iii
Measuring Utility
From the Marginal Revolution
to Behavioral Economics
Ivan Moscati
1
iv
1
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the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
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Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

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v
For Mila, Elia, Anita and, in memory, for my dad

vi
vii
CO N T E N T S
List of Figures and Tables ix
Prologue 1
PART ONE: Utility Measurement in Early Utility Theories, 1870–1910

1. When Unit-Based Measurement Ruled the World: An Interdisciplinary Overview,
1870–1910 15
2. Is There a Unit of Utility? Jevons, Menger, and Walras on the Measurability of Utility,
1870–1910 25
3. Still on the Quest for a Unit: Utility Measurement in Wieser, Böhm-Bawerk,
Edgeworth, Fisher, and Marshall, 1880–1910 49
PART TWO: Ordinal and Cardinal Utility and Early Empirical Measurements
of Utility, 1900–1945
4. Fundamental Measurement, Sensation Differences, and the British Controversy
on Psychological Measurement, 1910–1940 69
5. Ordinal Utility: Pareto and the Austrians, 1900–1915 79
6. Cardinal Utility: How It Entered Economic Analysis from Pareto to Samuelson,
1915–1945 95
7. Going Empirical: The Econometric and Experimental Approaches to Utility
Measurement of Frisch and Thurstone, 1925–1945 117
PART THREE: From Debating Expected Utility Theory to Redefining

Utility Measurement, 1945–1955
8. Stevens and the Operational Definition of Measurement in Psychology,
1935–1950 139
9. The Expected Utility Theory and Measurement Theory of von Neumann and
Morgenstern, 1944–1947 147
10. What Is That Function? Friedman, Savage, Marschak, Samuelson, and Baumol on
EUT, 1947–1950 163
11. From Chicago to Paris: The Debate Continues, 1950–1952 177
12. Conventions, Operations, Predictions: Redefining Utility Measurement,
1952–1955 193
vii
( viii ) Contents
PART FOUR: Expected Utility Theory and Experimental Utility Measurement,

1950–1985
13. Experimental Utility Measurement: The Age of Confidence I, 1950–1960 217
14. Marschak and Utility Measurement at Yale: The Age of Confidence II,
1960–1965 239
15. From Utility Measurement to the Representational Theory of Measurement:
The Case of Suppes, 1950–1970 247
16. Measuring Utility, Destabilizing EUT: Behavioral Economics
Begins, 1965–1985 261
Epilogue 281
Acknowledgments 285
References 289
Name Index 313
Subject Index 317
ix
F IGU R E S A N D TA B L E S
FIGURES
7.1 Indifference curve elicited by Thurstone 126

10.1 Friedman and Savage’s utility curves and risk attitudes 167
13.1 Utility curve elicited by Mosteller and Nogee 221
13.2 Utility curve elicited by Davidson, Suppes, and Siegel 233
16.1 Utility curves elicited by Karmarkar 268
TABLES
2.1 Menger’s utility numbers 35

2.2 Forms of utility and forms of measurement 45
x
xi
Measuring Utility
xii
1
Prologue
S ince the origins of economic thought, economists have attempted to explain what
determines the exchange value of commodities, that is, the ratio at which one com-
modity exchanges with other commodities or, in modern terms, its relative price. According
to economists such as Adam Smith, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx, the ex-
change value of a commodity ultimately depends on the quantity of labor needed to produce
it. This theory, called the labor theory of value, dominated economic thought from around
1770 to 1870.
From 1871 to 1874, William Stanley Jevons in England, Carl Menger in Austria, and
Léon Walras, a Frenchman based at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, independ-
ently put forward a different explanation of exchange value. They argued that the exchange
value of a commodity depends on the utility that it has for the individuals in the economy
and more precisely on the marginal utility of the commodity. This latter notion is the addi-
tional utility associated with an individual’s consumption of an additional unit of the com-
modity. Based on the notion of marginal utility and the assumption that the marginal utility
of each commodity diminishes as an individual consumes a larger quantity of it, Jevons,
Menger, and Walras were able to construct comprehensive theories of price, exchange, and
markets that quickly rose to prominence among economists. This major change in the his-
tory of political economy is called the marginal revolution.
Although the notion of utility had played some role in economic thought even before
1870, it was only with the marginal revolution that utility took center stage in economic
analysis. Between 1870 and the 1920s, in the works of Jevons, Menger, Walras, and the
other economists who embraced and developed the marginal approach, utility became the
basic factor explaining prices, consumer behavior, the demand for commodities, market
equilibria, bilateral exchanges, and it also became a key variable in the evaluation of the ef-
ficiency of the economic allocation of goods. Over the course of the twentieth century, the
concept of utility further expanded its reach and became the basis of attempts to analyze the
economic decisions of individuals under uncertainty, in strategic situations, and when time,
that is, present and future, is at issue.
During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, utility has maintained its promi-
nent role in mainstream economic analysis, and even approaches critical of the mainstream,
such as behavioral economics, have often made use of the utility notion. Thus, while be-
havioral economists have criticized certain mainstream models based on utility, such as
2
( 2 ) Prologue
expected utility theory, and have put forward alternative models, such as prospect theory,
these behavioral models are often based on some modified version of the utility notion, such
as the notion of “subjective value” or “experienced utility.”
There is, however, a problem at the heart of the scientific story of the utility con-
cept: utility cannot be observed and measured in a straightforward way. Since the marginal
revolution, this circumstance has generated a number of discussions and developments in
economics, not least because critics often pointed to the apparent unmeasurability of utility
as a crucial flaw in the theory. Over the course of time, utility theorists have offered a variety
of possible solutions to the issue of the measurability of utility: from the idea that utility can
be measured directly by introspection, through the idea that, although not directly meas-
urable, utility can be measured indirectly from willingness to pay, market data, or choice
behavior, to the idea that utility theory is in fact independent of the measurability of utility.
Some economists have argued that since utility is not observable, it should be ruled out
from economic analysis, while others have devised econometric or experimental methods
to measure utility.
In this book, I reconstruct the history of utility measurement in economics, from the
marginal revolution of the 1870s to the beginning of behavioral economics in the mid-
1980s, with four goals in mind.
I.1. FOUR GOALS
I.1.1. History of Utility Measurement and History
of Utility Theory
The first goal is historical in nature and is met by reconstructing in detail economists’ ideas
and discussions about utility measurement and investigating how these ideas and discussions
influenced the development of utility theory. I also study the economists’ attempts to
measure utility empirically and focus in particular on the experimental measurements of
utility that began as early as 1930.
My historical reconstruction is based not only on economists’ published works but also
on their letters and personal recollections, as well as other archival materials. Since ideas
about utility measurement, like all other ideas, walk with men’s legs, I also pay attention
to the personal connections and institutional contexts that explain why and how certain
economists engaged in the theory or practice of utility measurement. Although bits and
pieces of the history of utility measurement can be found in several works devoted to the
history of utility analysis,1 to the best of my knowledge, this book offers the first comprehen-
sive, integrated, and historically rich account of the history of utility measurement from the
1870s to the mid-1980s.
1. See in particular Stigler 1950; Schumpeter 1954; Majumdar 1958; Howey 1960; Chipman
1976; Farquhar 1984; Fishburn 1989; Ingrao and Israel 1990; Mandler 1999; Guala 2000; Giocoli
2003b; Montesano 2006; Dardi 2008; Hands 2010; Heukelom 2014; Baccelli and Mongin 2016.
3
P ro lo g u e ( 3 )
The narrative ends in 1985, the year in which John Hershey and Paul Schoemaker, two
early behavioral economists, published an article that made it definitely clear that the ex-
perimental measurement of utility based on expected utility theory was plagued by a va-
riety of biases. After 1985, several new research programs related to utility measurement
began, such as the experimental measurement of utility conducted within nonexpected-
utility frameworks, attempts to measure utility-related concepts such as experienced utility
or remembered utility, or, more recently, the measurement of the activity of a specific pop-
ulation of neurons in the human brain, which is interpreted as the measurement of utility.
Dealing appropriately with the post-1985 developments in the history of utility measure-
ment would probably require another book. Moreover, these research programs are still on-
going and therefore do not yet lend themselves to proper historiographical study. For these
reasons, 1985 is a suitable terminus for the narrative.
I.1.2. The Interplay between Utility Analysis

and the Understanding of Measurement
There is a complication in the otherwise already intricate and multifaceted history of utility
measurement: between 1870 and 1985, economists’ understanding of the very notion of
measurement changed; they came to understand what it means to measure a thing differ-
ently. Thus, while early utility theorists univocally associated the measurability of utility
with the possibility of identifying a unit of utility that could be used to assess utility ratios, in
the mid-1930s, economists such as Oskar Lange and Roy Allen began advocating a broader
view of measurement, according to which utility is measurable even if no utility unit is avail-
able. In the early 1950s, Milton Friedman and other economists elaborated an even broader
view of utility measurement as consisting of the conventional and prediction-oriented as-
signment of numbers to objects.
The second main goal of this book is to bring into focus the interplay among the evo-
lution of utility analysis, economists’ ideas about utility measurement, and their concep-
tion of what measurement in general means. Some of my fellow historians of economics,
most notably Marcel Boumans (2005; 2007; 2015) and Mary Morgan (2001; 2007; Klein
and Morgan 2001), have adopted a measurement viewpoint to analyze some important
episodes in the history of economics, such as discussions concerning the construction of
price index numbers or the measures of the velocity of money. However, such studies have
not addressed the history of utility theory.
My focus on the interplay between economists’ understanding of measurement and
their utility analyses leads me to revise in many important aspects the canonical his-
tory of utility analysis. Among other things, I argue that the traditional dichotomy be-
tween cardinal utility and ordinal utility is conceptually too threadbare and barren to
clothe an accurate narrative of the history of utility theory, that a third form of utility
consistent with the unit-based conception of measurement, namely ratio-scale utility,
should be added to the traditional dichotomy, and that the utility theories of Jevons and
the other early utility theorists belong in the ratio-scale utility camp rather than the car-
dinal utility camp.
4
( 4 ) Prologue
I.1.3. Utility Measurement, Psychological Measurement,

Measurement Theory
The third goal of the book is interdisciplinary in nature and is to explore the relationships
among the history of utility measurement in economics, the history of the measurement of
sensations and intellectual abilities in psychology, and the history of measurement theory
in general.
The initial idea for this book derived from reading Joel Michell’s Measurement in
Psychology: A Critical History of a Methodological Concept (1999). Although Michell does
not discuss utility theory, his work points to important similarities between the history of
sensation measurement in psychology and the history of utility measurement in economics.
Michell’s book convinced me that comparing these two histories might contribute to a better
understanding of the history of utility measurement. Following this conviction, I explore
here the relations between the history of empirical psychology and the history of utility
theory and show that although the two histories have proceeded in a largely independent
way, some significant intersections and similarities between them exist.
With respect to the relationship between the history of utility measurement and the his-
tory of measurement theory in general, I argue, among other things, that the “representa-
tional theory of measurement,” which was elaborated by philosopher Patrick Suppes and
his coauthors between 1958 and 1971 and quickly rose to prominence in measurement
theory, originated in the research in utility theory that Suppes conducted in the early and
mid-1950s.
I.1.4. The Epistemological Dimension of Utility

Measurement
In Inventing Temperature, his book on the history of thermometry, Hasok Chang (2004,
6) remarks that measurement is “a locus where the problems of foundationalism are revealed
with stark clarity.” This is certainly true for the specific case of the measurement of utility. My
fourth goal in this book is to discuss some primarily foundational, that is, epistemological,
problems related to utility measurement. I do this in each of the sections that close the four
parts of the book.
The first epistemological issue has been already mentioned and concerns the very under-
standing of measurement. Which forms of quantitative assessment of utility did the utility
theorists of the period 1870–1985 consider to be actual utility measurement? And how has
their understanding of measurement influenced their utility theories?
The second epistemological issue concerns the scope of the utility concept. How broadly
has the utility concept been defined in the history of utility? And how has the scope of the
utility concept affected the approach to utility measurement? In this respect, the general
trend was toward the broadening of the notion of utility, which quickly lost its initial, narrow
identification with the notions of pleasure ( Jevons) or need (Menger) to become an all-
encompassing concept capable of capturing any possible motivation to human action. The
transformation of the utility notion into an all-encompassing black box made it difficult to
5
P ro lo g u e ( 5 )
identify a clear psychological correlate for it. This difficulty, in turn, undermined psycho-
logical introspection as a plausible device to measure utility directly and paved the way to
the idea that utility can be measured only indirectly through its effects on some observable
variable, such as willingness to pay or choice behavior.
The third issue regards the epistemological status of utility and its measures. I contrast
two main views of this status, the “mentalist view” and the “instrumentalist view.” According
to the mentalist view, the concept of utility refers to some existing mental entity. The mental
correlate of utility may vary from one economist to another—it was pleasure for Jevons,
need for Menger, desire for Irving Fisher, and preference for Vilfredo Pareto. Nevertheless,
somewhere in the individual’s mind, this entity exists, and the magnitude of this mental en-
tity is the actual “measurand,” that is, the magnitude that the utility measure should express
numerically. According to the instrumentalist view, by contrast, utility is only a parameter or
a variable that appears in a model that has proven useful for describing or predicting some
relevant class of economic phenomena. This parameter does not necessarily have any corre-
late in the individual’s mind, and measuring utility amounts to “calibrating the model.” That
is, the numerical value assigned to the utility parameter is the value that, when inserted into
the model, allows the model to best describe or predict the class of economic phenomena
it refers to. Among those who advocated an instrumentalist view of utility and its measures
were Walras and Friedman.
The fourth epistemological issue concerns the kind of data that legitimately can be used
to measure utility. Generally speaking, we can say that the early utility theorists typically
relied on psychological data obtained by introspection, while after 1900, psychological data
lost importance in favor of choice data that, in principle, can be retrieved by experimental
or statistical observations. However, at least until the rise of the experimental approach to
utility measurement in the 1950s, distinctions between introspection and observation, pref-
erence and choice, and mind and behavior remained very much abstract and pertained more
to the rhetoric of utility measurement than to its practice.
Like other parts of economic theory, utility theory has multiple scientific aims, which
are usually grouped into the broad categories of “descriptive” and “normative.” The fifth
epistemological issue concerns the relationship between utility measurement and the spe-
cific aim for which the utility measures are used. For instance, utility measures obtained by
“calibrating the model” can be legitimately used for prediction, but it is more difficult to use
them for explanation without ending up in a circular argument.
Having explained the four main goals that have oriented my reconstruction of the history
of utility measurement from 1870 to 1985, I now provide an overview of the story told in
the book.
I.2. THE STORY
I.2.1. Utility Measurement in Early Utility Theories, 1870–1910
The book is divided into four parts. Part I covers the period 1870–1910 and discusses the
issue of utility measurement in the theories of Jevons, Menger, Walras, and other early
utility theorists. In order to illustrate the broad intellectual context within which the early
6
( 6 ) Prologue
discussions on utility measurement took place, chapter 1 reviews the history of the under-
standing of measurement in philosophy, physics, psychology, mathematics, and areas of eco-
nomics before and beyond marginal utility theory. This review shows that between 1870 and
1910, all these disciplines were dominated by what I have called the unit-based or, equiv-
alently, ratio-scale conception of measurement. According to this conception, measuring
the property of an object consists of comparing it with some other object that is taken as
a unit and then assessing the numerical ratio between the unit and the object to be meas-
ured. Chapter 1 also shows that late-nineteenth-century discussions of measurement in
mathematics established the cardinal–ordinal terminology that later passed into economics.
However, the mathematical concept of cardinal number is different from the economic con-
cept of cardinal utility, which entered the scene only in the 1930s.
Chapter 2 discusses how Jevons, Menger, and Walras addressed the issue of the measur-
ability of utility. The three founders of marginal utility theory identified measurement with
unit-based measurement and, accordingly, searched for a unit of utility that could be used to
assess utility ratios. The outcomes of this search were diverse and ranged from Jevons’s idea
that a unit to measure utility, although not available at present, may become so in the fu-
ture, to Walras’s assertion that although utility cannot be measured, constructing economic
theory as if it were measurable is a scientifically legitimate procedure. In the final section
of chapter 2, I argue that the current notion of cardinal utility is inadequate to understand
the utility theories of Jevons, Menger, and Walras and accordingly contend that the three
founders of marginal utility theory were not cardinalists in the modern sense of the term.
Chapter 3 moves to the second generation of marginalists and examines how Friedrich
von Wieser, Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Francis Ysidro Edgeworth, Irving Fisher, and Alfred
Marshall conceived of measurement and how, based on this conception, they addressed the
issue of the measurability of utility. Their respective approaches to utility measurement were
highly diverse. Wieser summed the utilities of goods as if they were measurable in terms
of some unit. Böhm-Bawerk claimed that individuals can assess utility ratios. Edgeworth
suggested the just-perceivable increment of pleasure as a unit to measure utility on the basis
of introspection. Fisher proposed adopting a utility unit that could be derived from observ-
able relations between commodities. Marshall took willingness to pay as an indirect measure
of utility. Despite the diversity of their approaches, all these economists identified meas-
urement with unit-based measurement. Therefore, just like Jevons, Menger, and Walras, so
Wieser, Böhm-Bawerk, Edgeworth, Fisher, and Marshall were also not cardinalists in the
current sense of the term.
I.2.2. Ordinal and Cardinal Utility and Early Empirical

Measurements of Utility, 1900–1945
Part II deals with the emergence of the notions of ordinal and cardinal utility during the pe-
riod 1900–1945 and discusses two early attempts to give an empirical content to the notion
of utility. As c hapter 1 does, c hapter 4 broadens the narrative beyond utility measurement
and reconstructs the discussions of measurement that took place in physics, philosophy,
and psychology between 1910 and 1940. In physics and philosophy, the most influential
discussion on measurement was that presented by Cambridge physicist Norman Robert
7
P ro lo g u e ( 7 )
Campbell. Campbell articulated a theory of fundamental and derived measurement that ul-
timately maintained the identification of measurement with unit-based measurement. In the
1920s, psychologists such as William Brown and Godfrey Thomson in England and Louis
Leon Thurstone in the United States argued that some of their quantification techniques
were capable of delivering unit-based measurement of sensations. Physicists denied this,
and the resulting clash of views generated a controversy that engaged British physicists and
psychologists from 1932 to 1940. The controversy ended in deadlock, with physicists and
psychologists unable to find agreement on the definition of measurement.
Chapter 5 deals with the ordinal revolution in utility analysis inaugurated by Vilfredo
Pareto around 1900. The fundamental notion of Pareto’s analysis was that of preference,
and he conceived of utility as a numerical index expressing the preference relations between
commodities. While Pareto’s ordinal approach to utility analysis was highly innovative, his
understanding of measurement remained the unit-based one. The second part of the chapter
reconstructs an important debate on the measurability of utility that took place in Austria in the
late 1900s and early 1910s. Franz Čuhel and Ludwig von Mises rejected Böhm-Bawerk’s idea
that individuals can assess utility ratios, and, independently of Pareto, both advocated an ordinal
approach to utility. Especially through Mises’s influence, the ordinal approach to utility rose to
prominence among Austrian economists after World War I. In the final part of c hapter 5, I re-
view the differences between the Austrian and the Paretian approaches to ordinal utility.
Chapter 6 reconstructs the progressive definition and stabilization of the current notion
of cardinal utility as utility unique up to positive linear transformations. This notion was the
eventual outcome of a long-lasting discussion, inaugurated by Pareto himself, regarding an
individual’s capacity to rank transitions among different combinations of goods. This discus-
sion continued through the 1920s and early 1930s and underwent a decisive acceleration
from 1934 to 1938, that is, during the conclusive phase of the ordinal revolution. In this
latter period, the main protagonists of the debate were Oskar Lange, Henry Phelps Brown,
Roy Allen, Franz Alt, and Paul Samuelson. In the discussions that led to the definition of car-
dinal utility, some of these utility theorists began to envisage a broader notion of measure-
ment according to which utility can be measurable even if no utility unit is available. Until
the mid-1940s, however, cardinal utility remained peripheral in utility analysis.
Chapter 7 discusses two early attempts to measure utility empirically. In 1926, Ragnar
Frisch of Norway applied an econometric approach to measure the marginal utility of money.
In 1930, Thurstone, the American psychologist whose methods for measuring sensations
are discussed in c hapter 4, conducted a laboratory experiment to elicit the indifference
curves of an individual. The idea of applying the experimental methods of psychology to
economics was suggested to Thurstone by Henry Schultz, his economist colleague at the
University of Chicago. Notably, both Frisch and Thurstone intended measurement in the
unit-based sense. Most commentators of the 1930s and early 1940s judged the assumptions
underlying both Frisch’s and Thurstone’s utility measurements to be highly problematic
and therefore remained skeptical about the significance of their respective measurements.
Among the most vocal critics of Thurstone’s experiment were Allen Wallis and Friedman,
then two young economists and statisticians who had studied at the University of Chicago
under Schultz. The limited impact of Frisch’s and Thurstone’s pioneering studies notwith-
standing, they nevertheless represent significant episodes in the history of the empirical
measurement of utility
8
( 8 ) Prologue
I.2.3. From Debating Expected Utility Theory to Redefining

Utility Measurement, 1945–1955
While discussions of the measurability of utility before 1944 focused on the utility used to
analyze decision-making between risk-free alternatives, after that year, discussions centered
on the utility used to analyze decision-making between risky alternatives. The changing
factor was the publication in 1944 of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern’s Theory
of Games and Economic Behavior. In this book, von Neumann and Morgenstern put forward
an axiomatic version of expected utility theory (EUT), a theory of decision-making under
risk originally advanced by Daniel Bernoulli in the eighteenth century. Part III focuses on
the 1945–1955 debate on utility measurement that was originated by von Neumann and
Morgenstern’s EUT.
As c hapters 1 and 4 did, chapter 8 broadens the narrative beyond utility measurement
and discusses an important outcome of the British controversy over psychological meas-
urement of the 1930s, namely the operational definition of measurement put forward by
American psychologist Stanley Smith Stevens in 1946. For Stevens, measurement consists
of the assignment of numbers to objects according to certain rules. Since there are various
rules for assigning numbers to objects, there are various forms, or scales, of measurement.
From this operational viewpoint, unit-based measurement is just a particular, and quite re-
strictive, form of measurement. Stevens’s definition of measurement was broad enough to
include the psychologists’ quantification practices as measurement and quickly became
canonical in psychology. In the final section of chapter 8, I point out some drawbacks of
Stevens’s operational theory of measurement.
Chapter 9 discusses von Neumann and Morgenstern’s axiomatic version of EUT and its
differences from Bernoulli’s nonaxiomatic EUT. In Theory of Games, the nature of the car-
dinal utility function u featured in von Neumann and Morgenstern’s EUT and its relation-
ship with the riskless utility function U of previous utility analysis remained ambiguous. In
their book, von Neumann and Morgenstern also put forward an axiomatic theory of meas-
urement, which presents some similarities to Stevens’s measurement theory but had no im-
mediate impact on utility analysis.
Chapter 10 reconstructs the debate on EUT from 1947, when the second edition of
Theory of Games was published, to April 1950. In this period, a number of eminent American
economists, including Friedman, Leonard Jimmie Savage, Jacob Marschak, Samuelson, and
William Baumol, wrote papers in which they took stances on the validity of EUT and the
nature of the cardinal utility function u featured in it. Friedman, Savage, and Marschak
supported EUT, although for different reasons, while Samuelson and Baumol rejected it.
Regarding the nature of the utility function u, however, they all shared the view that it is in-
terchangeable with the utility function U that the earlier utility theorists had used to analyze
choices between riskless alternatives.
Chapter 11 studies the second phase of the debate on EUT, starting in May 1950, when
Samuelson, Savage, Marschak, Friedman, and Baumol began an intense exchange of letters.
In their correspondence, these economists addressed several fundamental issues concerning
EUT: they argued about the exact assumptions underlying EUT, quarreled over whether
these assumptions should be considered compelling requisites for rational behavior under
risk, discussed the descriptive validity and simplicity of EUT, and, finally, debated the nature
9
P ro lo g u e ( 9 )
of the von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function u featured in EUT. This correspondence

modified the views of all five economists involved and, notably, transformed Samuelson into
a supporter of EUT. From the perspective of our narrative, the most important single ex-
change is probably that between Friedman and Baumol; over the course of it, Friedman came
to argue that the utility functions u and U are not linear transformations of each other, and
accordingly, the expected value of U, even if available, cannot be used to make predictions
about choice behavior under risk. Friedman’s interpretation was quickly adopted by Baumol
and Samuelson and later became standard in economics. After this epistolary exchange of
1950–1951, the American advocates of EUT went public. Their first major opportunity to
do so was a prominent conference that took place in Paris in May 1952, where Friedman,
Savage, Marschak, and Samuelson advocated EUT in the face of attacks from French econ-
omist Maurice Allais and other opponents of the theory. Later in the year, in October 1952,
a symposium on EUT featuring contributions by Samuelson and Savage in support of the
theory was published in Econometrica. The Paris conference and the Econometrica sympo-
sium saw the emergence of EUT as the mainstream economic model of decision-making
under risk.
Chapter 12 analyzes the third phase of the EUT debate, which ranges from the end of
1952 to 1955. The issues concerning utility measurement gained an autonomous status in
this phase, and discussion shifted from the question “What does the utility function u fea-
tured in EUT measure?” to the question “What does it mean, in general, to measure utility?”
Friedman and Savage, along with three other utility theorists, Robert Strotz, Armen Alchian,
and Daniel Ellsberg, came to elaborate a novel conception of utility measurement similar to
Stevens’s concept of measurement. With this step, they definitively liberated utility meas-
urement from its remaining ties with units and ratios. According to these five economists,
measuring utility consists of assigning numbers to objects by following a definite set of op-
erations. While the particular way of assigning utility numbers to objects is largely arbitrary
and conventional, the assigned numbers should allow the economist to predict the choice
behavior of individuals. The novel notion of measurement advocated by Friedman, Savage,
Strotz, Alchian, and Ellsberg became standard among mainstream utility theorists, and its
success goes far toward explaining the peaceful cohabitation of cardinal and ordinal utility
within utility analysis that began in the mid-1950 and has continued to the present day.
I.2.4. Expected Utility Theory and Experimental Utility

Measurement, 1950–1985
EUT suggests a handy way to measure the von Neumann–Morgenstern cardinal utility func-
tion u of an individual on the basis of his choices between risky options. Beginning in 1950,
a number of researchers attempted to implement this suggestion in controlled laboratory
experiments. In particular, these researchers focused on lotteries and other gambles with
monetary payoffs, and from their experimental subjects’ choices regarding these monetary
risky options, they inferred the utility function u, which they typically interpreted as the
utility of riskless money. Part IV reconstructs the experimental attempts to measure the
utility of money between 1950 and 1985 within the framework provided by EUT and shows
that this history displays a definite trajectory: from a confidence in EUT and the EUT-based
10
( 10 ) Prologue
measurement of utility in the 1950s to a skepticism that from the mid-1970s haunted the
validity of EUT as well as the significance of the utility measures obtained through it.
Chapter 13 discusses the EUT-based experimental measurements of the utility of money
that were conducted in the 1950s at Harvard and Stanford by three groups of scholars: stat-
istician Frederick Mosteller and psychologist Philip Nogee (1951), philosophers Donald
Davidson and Suppes with the collaboration of psychologist Sidney Siegel (1957), and
Suppes and his student Karol Valpreda Walsh (1959). These three groups of scholars were
confident about both EUT and the possibility of measuring utility through it. They designed
their experiments so as to neutralize some psychological factors that could jeopardize the
validity of the theory and spoil the significance of the experimental measurements of utility
and concluded that their experimental findings supported both the experimental measura-
bility of utility based on EUT and the descriptive validity of the theory.
Chapter 14 continues the history of the EUT-based experimental measurement of
the utility of money by discussing two further laboratory experiments performed at Yale
University in the early 1960s, one by economist Trenery Dolbear (1963), the other by psy-
chologist Gordon Becker and statistician Morris DeGroot in association with Marschak
(1964). There are some differences in the design of the experiments of the 1950s and those
of the 1960s, but, like Mosteller, Suppes, and their coauthors, Dolbear, Marschak, Becker,
and DeGroot also assessed their experimental findings as validating EUT: the theory was
not 100 percent correct, but in an approximate sense, it appeared to be an acceptable de-
scriptive theory of decision-making under risk.
Chapter 15 offers a conclusion to the history of measurement theory begun in c hapter 1
and continued through chapters 4, 8, 9, and 12 by reconstructing the origins of the “repre-
sentational theory of measurement” in the early work of Suppes. In particular, c hapter 15
shows that Suppes’s superseding of the unit-based understanding of measurement that he
had embraced in the early 1950s, his endorsement of a liberal definition of measurement à
la Stevens in the mid-1950s, his conceiving the project of an axiomatic underpinning of this
notion of measurement in the late 1950s, and the realization of this project during the 1960s
all have their origins in the utility analysis research he conducted from 1953 to 1957 within
the Stanford Value Theory Project. The representational theory of measurement found its
full-fledged expression in Foundations of Measurement (1971), a book coauthored by David
Krantz, Duncan Luce, Suppes, and Amos Tversky, and quickly became the dominant theory
of measurement.
Between the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s, apparently, no further EUT-based experi-
mental study on utility measurement was published. The first part of chapter 16 shows how
the validity of EUT was increasingly called into question in this period, independently of
any measurement issues. The choice patterns violating EUT originally conceived by Allais
and Ellsberg were confirmed in actual laboratory experiments. Between the late 1960s
and the early 1970s, other decision patterns violating EUT were highlighted by a group of
young psychologists based at the University of Michigan: Sarah Lichtenstein, Paul Slovic,
and Tversky, who, as discussed in chapter 15, was also working in those years on the repre-
sentational theory of measurement. The experimental findings of Lichtenstein, Slovic, and
Tversky were published in a series of works that are considered seminal in the field that from
the late 1980s began to be called behavioral economics. The new experimenters who engaged
with the EUT-based measurement of utility from the mid-1970s, namely Uday S. Karmarkar
1
P ro lo g u e ( 11 )
(1974), Mark McCord and Richard de Neufville (1983), and Hershey, Howard Kunreuther,
and Schoemaker (1982), were skeptical about the theory and aimed to falsify it. In contrast
to Mosteller, Suppes, and the other experimenters of the 1950s and 1960s, they used their
psychological insights to show that different elicitation methods to measure utility, which
according to EUT should produce the same outcome, in fact generate different measures.
These experimental findings undermined the earlier confidence that EUT makes it possible
to measure utility. More generally, these findings contributed to destabilizing EUT as the
dominant economic model of decision-making under risk and helped foster the blossoming
of non-EUT models that began in the mid-1970s and has continued to the present. The
history recounted in this book ends in 1985, when Hershey and Schoemaker published an-
other article that definitively put the problem of the inconsistency between different EUT-
based utility measures on the map of decision theorists.
I.3. NOT DISCUSSED HERE
Although this book provides a fairly comprehensive history of utility measurement from
1870 to 1985, some parts of that history are not discussed here.
First, the book focuses on the measurement of individual utility rather than social wel-
fare. In economic theory, social welfare is typically conceived as a function of individual
utility, and the measurability of social welfare depends on assumptions concerning the
measurability of individual utility and the possibility of comparing the utilities of different
individuals. Here I concentrate on issues concerning the measurement of individual utility
and deal with the measurement of social welfare only insofar as the latter issue is relevant to
the former, as it is in the case of Marshall’s utility analysis.
Second, although the book discusses Frisch’s 1926 pioneering attempt to measure utility
using econometric methods, it does not cover subsequent developments in the econometric
analysis of demand and choice behavior. In particular, it does not deal with the econometric
approach to demand analysis developed by Richard Stone (1954), Henri Theil (1965),
Angus Deaton (Deaton and Muellbauer 1980), and others, or with the analysis of discrete
choices initiated by Daniel McFadden (1974).2 Both latter research programs focus, in fact,
on the empirical applications of utility theory—for example, the specification of the de-
mand functions for various commodities, the estimation of demand elasticities, or the anal-
ysis and prediction of choices concerning transportation, occupation, or education—while
utility measurement plays only a peripheral role in them. Moreover, when the two programs
do deal with utility measurement, they rely on several auxiliary assumptions that concern
the parametric form of the utility function to be estimated, the possibility of using aggre-
gate data to estimate individual utility, or the statistical properties of the data employed to
estimate the utility functions. In my opinion, the presence of these auxiliary assumptions
obscures the specificity of the problems connected to utility measurement. I have therefore
preferred to focus on the history of the experimental measurement of utility, which allows
the problems of utility measurement to emerge with much more clarity.
2. For reviews, see Brown and Deaton 1972; Deaton 1986; Manski 2001; McFadden 2014.
12
( 12 ) Prologue
Third, the book does not deal with revealed preference theory. This theory was originally
introduced by Samuelson (1938b) as an approach to consumption analysis independent of
the notion of utility. Hendrik Houthakker (1950) showed that the revealed preference ap-
proach and the utility-based approach are, in fact, equivalent. More precisely, Houthakker
proved that a consistency assumption on consumption choices, later called the Strong
Axiom of Revealed Preference, provides an exact characterization of utility theory in terms
of choice behavior. Economists contributing to the revealed preference research program
in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s worked out different systems of revealed preference axioms
and applied these axioms to areas of economics beyond consumption analysis, such as so-
cial choice theory. However, they did not use revealed preference theory to measure utility.
In a paper published in the late 1960s, Sidney Afriat (1967) advocated a more applied ap-
proach to revealed preferences and put forward a nonparametric method to construct utility
functions rationalizing observed choices. However, not even Afriat applied his method to ac-
tual choice data. Concrete attempts to construct, and in this sense measure, utility functions
by using nonparametric methods à la Afriat began only in the 1990s, that is, after the 1985
terminus chosen for the narrative.3
Finally, this book is not a methodological appraisal of the history of utility measurement
informed by some normative philosophy of science. My goal is not to argue that someone
did utility measurement scientifically right and someone else did it wrong. Rather, the
book provides historical understanding and clarification of the epistemological issues that
economists dealing with utility measurement have faced and of the diverse ways in which
they have attempted to address these issues.
I.4. READERSHIP AND ST YLE
This book is intended for three audiences: historians of economics and other behavioral
sciences, especially psychology; economists, in particular mainstream choice theorists and
behavioral economists; and philosophers of science, especially those working on the meth-
odology of economics. The book is written at a level suitable for all three audiences, and
mathematical and other technical components of the narrative are presented accordingly.
For those who do not read the story from beginning to end, each chapter begins with a
brief introduction that should help the selective reader to understand at which point of the
narrative he or she has landed. Moreover, numerous wrapping-up points are distributed over
the course of the book and should assist any readers who have gotten lost in the vast land of
utility measurement to find their way home.
3. On the history of revealed preference theory, see Hands 2013a; Hands 2014; Hands 2017. On
the post-1985 developments of the theory, see also Cherchye et al. 2009; Moscati and Tubaro 2011;
Chambers and Echenique 2016.
13
PA RT O N E
Utility Measurement in Early

Utility Theories, 1870–1910
14
15
CH A P T E R 1
When Unit-Based Measurement

Ruled the World
An Interdisciplinary Overview, 1870–1910
I ssues concerning the possibility of measuring different types of objects, the practical ways
of measuring these objects, and the very meaning of measurement have been discussed
since ancient times and within several different fields of inquiry. In order to illustrate the
broad intellectual context within which the early discussions of utility measurement took
place, this chapter reviews the understanding of measurement in philosophy, physics, psy-
chology, mathematics, and areas of economics before and beyond the emergence of mar-
ginal utility theory. The review focuses on the period between 1870 and 1910, that is, the
period of the rise and stabilization of marginal utility theory.
This review shows that in the period under consideration, a specific notion of measure-
ment dominated all these disciplines. Some historians of measurement theory, such as Joel
Michell (1999) and myself in previous works (e.g., Moscati 2013b), have called this notion
the “classical view of measurement.” I have come to believe, however, that it is preferable to
call it “unit-based measurement” or, equivalently, “ratio-scale measurement,” because these
expressions make the key measurement-theoretic feature of the notion at issue more explicit.
According to the unit-based view of measurement, measuring the property of an object (e.g.,
the length of a table) consists of comparing it with some other object that displays the same prop
erty and is taken as a unit (e.g., a meter-long ruler) and then assessing the numerical ratio be-
tween the unit and the object to be measured (if the ratio is three to one, the table of our example
is three meters long). The unit of measurement is arbitrary (the meter can be replaced by the
yard), while the zero point is not (a zero length is the same in terms of both meters and yards).
As we see in parts II and III of this book, beginning in the 1930s, other forms of meas-
urement besides unit-based measurement were accepted, and different measurement forms
were characterized in terms of the mathematical transformations the numerical measures
could be subjected to. From this new perspective, unit-based measurement is characterized
by proportional transformations F(x) of the form F(x) = αx, where α is an arbitrary posi-
tive constant. The arbitrariness of α expresses mathematically the arbitrariness of the unit
16
( 16 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories
of measurement. In the case of meters and yards, since a yard is equal to 0.9144 meter,
α = 0.9144. Proportional transformations do not modify the ratio between numerical meas-
ures, and this explains the name “ratio-scale measurement.” For instance, if x and y are the
lengths of two tables measured in yards and the ratio between these measures is four, that
is, x/y = 4, this ratio does not change if the two lengths are measured in meters, since x/y =
αx/αy = 4.
In the late nineteenth century, mathematicians identified the key condition warranting
ratio-scale measurement in the possibility of adding objects in a sense analogous to that in
which numbers are summed (two tables can be “added” by placing them end to end, and
the length of the resulting surface is equal to the sum of the lengths of the two single tables).
Late-nineteenth-century discussions of measurement in mathematics are relevant for our
narrative also because they established the cardinal–ordinal terminology that later passed
into economics. However, the mathematical concept of cardinal number is significantly dif-
ferent from the current economic concept of cardinal utility, which in effect entered the
scene only in the 1930s.
1.1. MEASUREMENT IN PHILOSOPHY
The unit-based understanding of measurement dates back to Aristotle. He strictly separated

the notions of quality and quantity and associated the notion of measurement with those of
quantity, unit, and number. Aristotle argued that a number is either one unit or a plurality
of units (Metaphysics, bk. X, chap. 1) and defined quantity as that which is divisible into two
or more constituent parts of which each is by nature a unit (V, 13). Measuring, in this phi-
losophy, means assessing the number of units constituting a quantity, and measurement is
in fact the specific way in which a quantity qua quantity is known (X, 1). Similar ideas can
be found in Euclid, who defined measurement as a sort of relationship in respect of size be-
tween two magnitudes of the same kind (Elements, bk. V, definition 3), in which the lesser
magnitude measures the greater, while the greater is said to be a multiple of the lesser.
Ancient and medieval scholars recognized that some qualities, although not measurable
in the unit-based sense, admit of predication by the qualifiers more and less. Aristotle him-
self observed that a thing may be whiter, more beautiful, or warmer than another and that
the same thing may exhibit a quality in different degrees at different moments (Categories,
chap. 5), but he did not investigate measurement issues with respect to these kinds of quali-
ties. In the Middle Ages, these issues were taken up in the context of theological discussions
(e.g., can the virtue of charity increase or decrease?), but these medieval debates did not lead
to any modification of the unit-based understanding of measurement. Thus, in his Rules for
the Direction of the Mind, René Descartes ([1628] 1999, 64) continued to contrast ordering
with measuring: “All the relations which may possibly obtain between entities of the same
kind should be placed under one or other of two categories, viz. order or measure.”1
1. Since this is the first quotation in the book from a text not written in English, it is useful to
explain here how I deal with such texts and their English translations. Here and in other quotations
from non-English texts, the reference is to their English translations, when available. However, the
available English translations have been modified when this seemed appropriate. When no English
translation was available, the translation is mine.
17
W h e n U n i t - Ba s e d M e a s u r e m e n t Ru l e d t h e Wo r l d ( 17 )
The distinction between properly measurable quantities and entities only admitting
predication by the qualifiers more and less is also found in the distinction between ex-
tensive and intensive magnitudes introduced by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure
Reason ([1787] 1997, 288–292). For Kant, extensive magnitudes refer to spatial and
temporal dimensions, are made of homogeneous parts, and thus can be measured in
units. Intensive magnitudes, by contrast, are related to perception, cannot be conceived
as composed of parts, and have only degrees; that is, one intensive magnitude can be
larger or smaller than another. As instances of intensive magnitudes, Kant mentioned
the same entities Aristotle referred to as qualities admitting predication by the qualifiers
more and less, namely, color and warmth (292). Kant’s distinction between extensive and
intensive magnitudes lived on in philosophy well into the twentieth century, whereby
extensive magnitude generally meant a magnitude measurable in the unit-based sense,
while intensive magnitudes were conceived of as things that could be ranked but not
measured.
1.2. MEASUREMENT IN PHYSICS
Although the quantitative natural philosophy that arose during the scientific revolution was
in many ways opposed to Aristotle’s qualitative physics, Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and
the other important natural philosophers of the period endorsed Aristotle’s view of meas-
urement. For example, in his Arithmetica Universalis (1707), Newton defined number as
“the abstracted Ratio of any Quantity to another Quantity of the same kind, which we take
for Unity” (quoted in Michell 2007, 20). More than 150 years later, at the very beginning
of his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, the eminent Scottish physicist James Clerk
Maxwell (1873, 1) expressed the same view: “Every expression of a Quantity consists of
two . . . components. One of these is . . . a certain known quantity . . ., which is taken as a
standard of reference. The other component is the number of times the standard is to be
taken in order to make up the required quantity.”
Between 1870 and 1910, the unit-based understanding of measurement remained fun-
damentally undisputed in physics, probably because most of the entities physicists dealt
with in the period were measurable according to a ratio scale. Rather than questioning what
measurement means, physicists focused on practical issues, such as how to attain precision
and reproducibility in measurement tasks (Darrigol 2003).
An important physical magnitude that had long eluded unit-based measurement was
heat. We saw that Aristotle considered the heat of a body as a quality admitting of more
and less, and this view remained the standard one for centuries. From the seventeenth
century, a gradual move toward the quantification of heat commenced: beginning with
Galileo, several types of thermometers were introduced and continuously improved;
different temperature scales were proposed, such as the Fahrenheit (in 1724) and the
Celsius (in 1742) scales; various thermal units were put forward, such as Clemént’s cal-
orie (in 1824), which is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of a kilo-
gram of water by one degree. This move toward quantification notwithstanding, Kant at
the end of the eighteenth century still considered heat an intensive magnitude that could
18
not be measured in the unit-based sense. Around 1850, however, William Thomson
(Lord Kelvin) and James Prescott Joule showed how the thermodynamic properties of
gases could be used to measure temperature in an absolute way, that is, on a ratio scale
(Chang 2004).
1.3. MEASUREMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY
During the period 1870–1910, an important discussion about measurement took place in
psychology in the context of the emergence of psychophysics, which is generally considered
the parent of twentieth-century quantitative and experimental psychology. As we will see,
both advocates and critics of psychological measurement consistently adhered to the unit-
based understanding of measurement.
1.3.1. Fechner’s Psychophysics
Gustav Fechner was a German philosopher and scientist who attempted to overcome the
dualism between mental and physical phenomena by constructing an exact science of the
relations between body and mind, which he called “psychophysics” (Fechner [1860] 1966,
xxvii). For this purpose, Fechner sought to measure sensations, a goal he understood in
terms of unit-based measurement: “Generally the measurement of a magnitude consists of
assessing how many times another magnitude of the same kind taken as a unit is contained
in the former” (38). As the unit of sensation, he took the “just-perceivable difference” of
sensation, that is, the minimal discernible difference of sensation generated by a change in a
physical stimulus. Fechner acknowledged that the change of physical stimulus necessary to
produce a just-perceivable difference of sensation varies with the magnitude of the stimulus.
Thus, if a subject carries an object weighing forty grams, an increment of one gram may be
sufficient to produce the just-perceivable sensation of a heavier object, while if the object
weighs eighty grams, it might be necessary to add two grams to produce the just-perceivable
sensation of a heavier object. However, Fechner assumed that all just-perceivable increments
of sensation are equal, that is, that they are independent of the magnitude of the generating
stimulus. Based on this assumption, he argued that a given sensation can be divided into
equal, just-perceivable increments and is measured—“as if by the bits of a yardstick” (50)—
by the number of increments necessary to generate that sensation starting from the point
where no sensation is perceived. Thus, if the sensation corresponding to carrying an object
of 130 grams can be reached from the zero point of sensation through ten just-perceivable
increments of sensation, the measure of the sensation associated with 130 grams is ten. If
the sensation corresponding to carrying another object can be reached through twenty
just-perceivable increments of sensation, the latter sensation is twice the former. More gen-
erally, Fechner arrived at a logarithmic formula connecting a physical stimulus x to the cor-
responding sensation y, according to which y = αlog(x), where α is a positive constant. This
formula, which will appear again at various points in the next chapters, came to be known as
the Weber-Fechner law.
19
1.3.2. The Debate on Psychophysical Measurement
Psychophysics was subsequently developed by, among others, Wilhelm Wundt (1873–
1874) and Joseph Delboeuf (1873). In the 1870s and 1880s, however, Fechner’s basic claim
that sensations can be measured was attacked from many quarters, a few of which we now
consider.2
French mathematician Jules Tannery argued that the only measurable magnitudes
are those for which we can conceive addition and difference, which is not the case for
sensations: “I can conceive neither the sum of two sensations nor their difference: when
a sensation increases, it becomes another” (Tannery 1875, 1020). Therefore, he reasoned,
sensations cannot be treated with mathematical tools such as differentiation and integration
that presuppose the measurability of the objects to which they apply: “Since we do not know
at all what the difference between two sensations means, how can we speak of the differ-
ential of a sensation? . . . Since we do not know what the sum . . . of two sensations is, what
does integration, i.e. the sum of differentials of sensation, mean?” (877). Based on these
considerations, Tannery attacked the supposed differentiation and integration of sensations
that Fechner had employed to arrive at his logarithmic formula.
German physiologist Johannes von Kries ([1882] 1995) criticized Fechner’s assump-
tion that all just-perceivable differences of sensation are equal. For Kries, the increments
of sensations occurring at different levels of stimuli are not comparable, and thus the claim
that they are equal is meaningless: “If a location on the skin is subjected first to a two-pound
and then to a three-pound load, and subsequently to a ten-pound and then a fifteen-pound
load, . . . the one increment is something quite different from the other; at first they admit
of no comparison. The claim that they may be equal makes absolutely no sense” (291).
Kries went on to criticize Fechner’s claim that a sensation can be divided into equal, just-
perceivable differences of sensation: “A loud tone does not conceal within itself this or that
many faint tones, in the same sense that a foot contains twelve inches or a minute sixty
seconds” (292).
Echoing some of Tannery’s arguments, French philosopher Henri Bergson ([1889]
1960) argued that sensations are not even intensive magnitudes admitting the more and the
less. Different sensations are qualitatively different, and the interpretation of the transition
from sensation S to sensation S΄ as an increase or a decrease is a symbolic but arbitrary “in-
terpretation of quality as quantity” (69). For Bergson, because sensations are qualities, they
are unmeasurable.
Fechner replied to some of these criticisms but did not modify his basic stance. By con-
trast, in their efforts to defend Fechner and psychophysics from these and other attacks,
Delboeuf (1875; 1878; 1883), Wundt (1880), and other psychologists began to argue
that psychophysics does not measure the absolute magnitude of sensations, as in Fechner’s
theory, but rather the magnitude of difference between sensations. Significantly, however,
their revised measurement of sensation differences was still of the unit-based kind, as the
unit by which these differences were to be measured was still the equal, just-perceivable
2. For more on the debate over the measurability of sensations, see Titchener 1905 and
Heidelberger 2004.
20
increment of sensation. This modified solution left many problems open and failed to satisfy
critics of psychophysics such as Tannery (1884; 1888).
1.3.3. Mental Measurement in the 1900s
From the end of the nineteenth century, quantitative psychologists began to extend their
mental measurements from sensations to intellectual abilities. For our purposes, the im-
portant point is that while the object of attempted measurement may have changed, the
understanding of measurement remained that based on units and ratios. For instance, in
his entry on measurement for the Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, American James
Cattell (1902, 57), one of the pioneers of mental measurement, asserted that measurement
“is the determination of a magnitude in terms of a standard unit. . . . A ratio is the basis of all
measurement.”3
1.3.4. Measurement in Psychology: Summing Up
In the period 1870–1910, the emergence of psychophysics stimulated a discussion about

measurement in psychology. Nevertheless, both advocates and critics of psychological
measurement consistently referred to the unit-based understanding of measurement.
The entire debate on psychological measurement, however, may be viewed as originating
from a conflict between the psychologists’ unit-based understanding of measurement and
the fact that their scientific practices did not square with it. On the one hand, psychologists
pursued the scientific goal of making sensations and other mental variables measurable and
elaborated different measurement practices to achieve this goal. But on the other hand, they
consistently adhered to the unit-based understanding of measurement, with the conse-
quence that these practices did not deliver true measurements. As I argue in c hapter 2, the
conflict faced by psychologists was very similar to that faced by Jevons, Menger, and Walras
with their utility theories.
A possible resolution of that conflict in psychology would have involved the superseding
of the unit-based understanding of measurement and the elaboration of a novel definition of
measurement, broad enough to harbor the psychologists’ quantification practices. However, in
the period 1870–1910, such a reconceptualization of measurement did not occur. As discussed
in chapter 8, it was worked out only much later, by Stanley Smith Stevens in the early 1940s.
1.4. MEASUREMENT IN MATHEMATICS
The 1870–1910 period witnessed major developments in mathematics, with mathematicians

addressing explicitly the question of what conditions make a magnitude measurable in a
3. For more on the early history of the measurement of intellectual abilities, see Boring 1929;
Michell 1999.
21
unit-based sense. The key condition came to be identified with the possibility of adding the
objects to be measured in a sense analogous to that in which numbers are summed.
1.4.1. Additivity as a Condition for Measurability
In 1882, and in the context of the debate on psychophysics and the measurability of
sensations, German mathematician Paul Du Bois-Reymond attempted to define the
properties that make a magnitude measurable. By measurement, Du Bois-Reymond
(1882, 23–48) meant the assessment of the ratio between the magnitude and a unit. He
took length as the archetypal form of a measurable magnitude, labeled “linear magnitudes”
those magnitudes analogous to length, and proceeded to indicate six formal properties that
characterized them (23–47). Among other characteristics, he argued, any linear magnitude
can be obtained from the sum of smaller linear magnitudes and can also be divided arbi-
trarily with the result always a linear magnitude.
In 1887, German physicist, physiologist, and philosopher Hermann von Helmholtz
([1887] 1999, 740–741) developed some of Du Bois-Reymond’s ideas and defined a mag-
nitude as measurable if it can be expressed as the sum of some kind of unit. Helmholtz
then put forward a set of features identifying measurable magnitudes, but in contrast to Du
Bois-Reymond, he conceived of these features as empirical conditions to be verified exper-
imentally, rather than as formal properties. In particular, for Helmholtz there must be some
practical procedure to compare two magnitudes and ascertain whether they are alike and a
further procedure analogous to mathematical addition to connect them. For instance, phys-
ical magnitudes such as the weights of two bodies are compared by placing the bodies on the
two pans of a balance, and they are connected by putting the two bodies in the same pan.
However, Helmholtz provided no formal proof that the procedures he indicated were actu-
ally sufficient to make magnitudes measurable on a ratio scale.
The notion of measurement was also discussed by Henri Poincaré, a prominent French
mathematician, physicist, and philosopher of science. In an article on the mathematical
continuum, Poincaré (1893, 26–27) pointed out that order alone is insufficient to make
continuum magnitudes measurable. A first condition of attaining measurability is the transi-
tivity of the equality relation between magnitudes, which means that if magnitude A equals
magnitude B, and magnitude B equals magnitude C, then magnitude A must equal magni-
tude C. Poincaré argued that sensations do not satisfy this transitivity condition and thus are
not measurable (29). As a second condition for the measurability of magnitudes, Poincaré
mentioned their divisibility into n equal parts. He did not elaborate, however, but simply
referred approvingly to Helmholtz’s 1887 article for a thorough treatment of the conditions
required for the measurability of magnitudes. His reference to Helmholtz indicates that,
like the German scientist, Poincaré understood measurement in the unit-based sense. Like
Helmholtz, Poincaré did not provide any formal proof that his or Helmholtz’s conditions
were sufficient to make a magnitude measurable on a ratio scale.
A formal demonstration that a certain set of conditions makes magnitudes measurable
on a ratio scale was given in 1901 by German mathematician Otto Hölder, who applied
to measurement theory the axiomatic approach to geometry launched two years earlier by
David Hilbert (1899). Hölder ([1901] 1996) laid down seven axioms on magnitudes and
2
proved that if magnitudes satisfy them, the ratio between any two magnitudes is well de-
fined, and one magnitude can be taken as a unit to measure the others. In particular, Hölder’s
Axioms III and VI postulate the existence of an associative additive operation between
magnitudes.4 Despite its importance for the theory of measurement, Hölder’s article and his
axiomatization of the concept of measurable magnitude passed unnoticed before the 1930s
(see chapter 4).
1.4.2. Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers
The distinction between cardinal and ordinal numbers appears to have been introduced by
German mathematician Ernst Schröder in 1873. Schröder’s cardinal numbers match the
unit-based understanding of number and measurement as stated by Aristotle: cardinal num-
bers express the total number of units constituting a given quantity, for example, five, and
thus are the relevant ones for its measurement. Ordinal numbers, by contrast, come to the
fore in the process of counting the units belonging to a quantity and express the position of a
specific unit of the quantity, for example, the fifth unit (Schröder 1873, 13–14).
Helmholtz ([1887] 1999, 729) referred approvingly to Schröder’s discussion of cardinal
and ordinal numbers; but while Schröder treated cardinals and ordinals as associated with
two different but equally original functions of number, Helmholtz suggested that ordinals are
more fundamental than cardinals. For Helmholtz, numbers derive from our psychological ca-
pacity of “retaining, in our memory, the sequence in which acts of consciousness successively
occurred in time” (730) and thus are originally ordinal in nature. Cardinal numbers come into
play only when we apply the numbers generated by the internal intuition of time to external ex-
perience, typically in the attempt to determine the amount of objects belonging to a given set.
Although on different theoretical grounds, two other eminent German mathematicians,
Leopold Kronecker ([1887] 1999) and Richard Dedekind ([1888] 1999), also argued that
ordinals are more fundamental than cardinals.5
1.4.3. Cardinals and Ordinals from Mathematics

to Economics
In an article published in 1893 in the political-economy journal Zeitschrift für die Gesamte
Staatswissenschaft, German mathematician and economist Andreas Voigt made cursory
4. Hölder’s axioms are as follows. Axiom I: if a and b are two magnitudes, either a > b, or b > a, or
a = b. Axiom II: for any magnitude a, there exists another magnitude b such that a > b. Axiom III: for
any two magnitudes a and b, there exists a magnitude c such that a + b = c. Axiom IV: a + b > a and
a + b > b. Axiom V: if a > b, there exists a magnitude x, such that b + x = a. Axiom VI (associativity):
(a + b) + c = a + (b + c). Axiom VII fundamentally requires that the order relationship > is preserved
under limits. For an extended discussion of Hölder’s axioms, see Michell 1999, 47–59.
5. Georg Cantor ([1887] 1932), another important German mathematician, disagreed. His
stance was related to the specific meanings he attributed to the terms cardinal number and ordinal
number in his theory of transfinite sets. Although in mathematics these terms have generally been
used according to Cantor’s sense, in economics his terminology has had no significant influence.
23
mention of the distinction between ordinal and cardinal numbers as presented by Helmholtz,
Kronecker, and Dedekind. He also endorsed their view that ordinals come first: “In accord-
ance with the fundamental conceptions of the nature of numbers which mathematics has
developed in recent times, we see the primary form of the number concept in the ordinal
number and not in the cardinal number” (Voigt [1893] 2008, 502). As Torsten Schmidt
and Christian Weber (2008, 498) have noted, this passage seems to mark the first appear-
ance of the terms ordinal and cardinal in an economics paper. His reference to ordinal num-
bers notwithstanding, Voigt thought of measurement in the unit-based sense (Voigt [1893]
2008, 503–504). Moreover, Voigt’s notion of cardinal was not the notion attached to car-
dinal utility in modern microeconomic theory. As explained in chapter 2, cardinal utility is
currently associated with interval-scale measurement and the ranking of utility differences,
while Voigt’s notion of cardinal was the mathematical notion expressing the total number of
units constituting a given quantity and, as such, was unrelated to intervals and differences
(Voigt 1893, 606).
Among the early marginalists, only Francis Ysidro Edgeworth seems to have noticed
Voigt’s paper. As pointed out in c hapter 3, in three Economic Journal articles, Edgeworth
(1894; 1900; 1907) referred to Voigt and his distinction between cardinal and ordinal
numbers, although always in a cursory way. The point to be stressed here is that, like Voigt,
Edgeworth associated cardinal numbers with the availability of a unit and hence with unit-
based measurement.
1.5. MEASUREMENT IN ECONOMICS, BEFORE

AND BEYOND MARGINAL UTILIT Y THEORY
At least since William Petty’s Political Arithmetick (1690), economists have attempted to
measure many things aside from utility, such as the national income, the general price level,
and the quantity and velocity of money. Like utility theorists, economists working in other
areas of economics have also faced a number of theoretical and practical problems in their
measurement attempts.6
An area of economics in which measurement issues were discussed thoroughly, even be-
fore 1870, was the theory of exchange value. Classical economists such as David Ricardo,
as well as later marginalists, attempted to measure the exchange value of commodities. By
measurement, all these authors meant the assessment of the ratio, which in this case was an
exchange ratio, between a given commodity and another commodity, be it money or some
other commodity, taken as a unit. Generally speaking, the problem they faced was that the
unit available to measure exchange value was not fixed and invariable, as are the units used
to measure physical magnitudes.
Even scholars who addressed the issue of the measurability of pleasure or utility prior to
the emergence of marginal utility theory understood the measurement of these feelings in
the unit-based sense. As explained more extensively in chapter 9, Daniel Bernoulli ([1738]
6. On economic measurement beyond utility theory, see Porter 1994; Rima 1995; Klein and
Morgan 2001; Boumans 2005; Boumans 2007; Boumans 2015.
24
1954) argued that the value of a risky proposition for an individual depends on the av-
erage utility (emolumentum medium) that the proposition’s outcomes give to him. However,
Bernoulli did not discuss the theoretical issues related to the measuring and averaging of
utilities, and he identified without further ado the utility of outcomes with that archetypal
ratio-scale measurable magnitude, the length of segments (26). Moreover, Bernoulli talked
of a utility that is “twice as much” (duplum emolumentorum) as another utility (25) and so
implicitly took for granted the possibility of assessing utility ratios.
In the late eighteenth century, Jeremy Bentham claimed that pleasures can be meas-
ured directly by taking as a unit “that pleasure which is the faintest of any that can be dis-
tinguished to be pleasure” (quoted in Halevy 1901, 398). Bentham’s faintest pleasure
evidently resembles the just-perceivable sensation of later psychophysics. The founder of
utilitarianism also suggested an indirect way to measure a pleasure, namely, by the quantity
of money paid to obtain it (410). The soundness of his arguments aside, the point to note
here is that both of Bentham’s measures of pleasure in principle allow for the measurement
of utility in the unit-based sense: in both cases, there is a unit, that is, the “faintest pleasure”
or the monetary unit, which makes the assessment of utility ratios possible.
French engineer Jules Dupuit ([1844] 1952) took, as an indirect measure of the utility
of an object, the maximum price a consumer is willing to pay for it. Although willingness to
pay as a measure of utility presents a number of severe limitations (see c hapters 2 and 3), in
principle it allows for a ratio-scale measurement of utility: there is a definite unit, that is, the
monetary unit, and utility ratios between commodities can be easily assessed by comparing
the maximum prices the consumer is willing to pay for them.7
1.6. SUMMING UP
This concludes our review of the notion of measurement in various disciplines—philosophy,

physics, psychology, mathematics, and economics—before and beyond marginal utility
theory. The review has framed a picture of the broad intellectual context within which the
early discussions of utility measurement took place and has shown that the unit-based un-
derstanding of measurement reigned unrivaled within all these fields of inquiry from their
earliest origins. Given this background, the fact that Jevons, Menger, and Walras identified
measurement with unit-based measurement is hardly surprising.
7. Heinrich Gossen ([1854] 1983) also argued that pleasures are measurable in the unit-based
sense. On Gossen’s understanding of utility measurement, see Stigler 1950.
25
CH A P T E R 2
Is There a Unit of Utility?

Jevons, Menger, and Walras on the Measurability
of Utility, 1870–1910
A s explained in chapter 1, the notion of utility had been used in economic analysis
well before 1870 by scholars such as Daniel Bernoulli and Jules Dupuit. However, it
was only in the 1870s that the utility notion began playing the central role in economic
theory that it has maintained—albeit through a number of transformations—until today.
As discussed in the prologue, from 1871 to 1874, William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, and
Léon Walras independently advanced an explanation of the exchange value of commodities
(i.e., basically, of their price) that contrasted with the then-dominant labor theory of value.
An outline of the evolution of this theory until around 1870 helps to clarify the background
from which the utility theories of Jevons, Menger, and Walras emerged.
The labor theory of value was put forward by Adam Smith ([1776] 1976, 44–45), who
ruled out utility as the determinant of exchange value by using an argument later called
the water–diamond paradox. According to Smith, things such as water have great utility
but often little exchange value; by contrast, things such as diamonds have great exchange
value but frequently little utility. For Smith, this shows that utility does not explain exchange
value. As an alternative explanatory factor, he pinpointed labor. More specifically, Smith
argued that in the primitive state of society that precedes the existence of rents on land and
profits on capital, the exchange ratio between two commodities is directly proportional to
the quantity of labor needed to produce them: “If among a nation of hunters,” he famously
claimed, “it usually costs twice the labour to kill a beaver which it does to kill a deer, one
beaver should naturally exchange for or be worth two deer” (65).
David Ricardo ([1821] 1951) advanced Smith’s labor theory in many respects. In par-
ticular, he contended that the theory explains exchange value in any state of society, that
is, even when rents and profits exist. Moreover, Ricardo stressed that the exchange value
of a commodity depends not only on the quantity of direct labor, that is, the labor directly
used to produce it, but also on the quantity of indirect labor, that is, the labor necessary
to produce the capital employed in the production of the commodity. Restating Smith’s
26
beaver-and-deer example, Ricardo remarked: “Suppose the weapon necessary to kill the
beaver, was constructed with much more labour than that necessary to kill the deer . . .;
[then] one beaver would naturally be of more value than two deer” (23). Finally, Ricardo
showed that if two commodities contain different proportions of direct and indirect labor,
their exchange ratio depends not only on the quantity of labor necessary to produce them
but also on the profit rate prevailing in the economy. Ricardo minimized this problem by
claiming that the effects of the profit rate on exchange value are negligible.
John Stuart Mill (1848; 1871) attempted to systematize Ricardo’s labor theory by dis-
tinguishing three classes of commodities. The first includes ancient sculptures and other
commodities whose supply cannot be increased. The exchange value of these commodities
depends not on the quantity of labor that was necessary to produce them but exclusively
on their demand. Mill’s second class refers to commodities whose supply can be increased
by using the same quantity of labor. For Mill, the exchange value of these commodities
can be wholly explained by the quantity of direct and indirect labor embodied in them.
The third class includes commodities such as corn, whose supply can be increased only
by employing increasing quantities of labor. The exchange value of these commodities
depends partly on the quantity of labor necessary to produce them and partly on their de-
mand. Mill’s classification made evident that the exchange value of several commodities
cannot be explained by the labor theory alone. Moreover, Mill did not address the problem
indicated by Ricardo, namely that if two commodities contain different proportions of di-
rect and indirect labor, their exchange ratio depends not only on labor but also on the
profit rate of the economy. This is the case even if the two commodities belong to Mill’s
second class.1
Jevons, Menger, and Walras were unsatisfied with the labor theory of value, and in op-
position to it put forward a novel theory according to which the exchange value of a com-
modity is determined by its marginal utility. This is the additional utility associated with
an individual’s consumption of an additional unit of the commodity. In particular, Jevons,
Menger, and Walras assumed that the marginal utility of each commodity diminishes as the
individual consumes a larger quantity of it. Based on the idea of diminishing marginal utility,
they solved the water–diamond paradox: since water is usually abundant, its marginal utility
is small, and therefore its exchange value is also small. In contrast, diamonds are typically
scarce, so their marginal utility and therefore their exchange value are typically high. When
water becomes scarce, as in a dry desert, its marginal utility increases, and in situations
of extreme thirst, a glass of water may be worth more than a diamond (see, e.g., Menger
[1871] 1981, 140; Jevons 1879, 86). More important than solving the water–diamond par-
adox was the fact that based on the idea of diminishing marginal utility, Jevons, Menger,
and Walras constructed a unified theory of value that held for all commodities, independ-
ently of the Millian class they belong to, independently of whether they are material or, like
1. In this outline of the evolution of the labor theory of value, I have skipped Karl Marx’s ver-
sion of the theory (1867), because Jevons, Menger, and Walras did not discuss it. Only in the mid-
1880s, when Marx’s ideas became central to the European socialist movement, did marginal utility
theorists such as Philip Wicksteed and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk begin dealing with Marx’s labor
theory and the theory of exploitation associated with it. See more on the reception of Marx’s eco-
nomic thought among early marginalists in Marchionatti 1998.
27
I s T h e r e a U n i t o f U t i l i t y ? ( 27 )
services, immaterial, and independently of whether they are consumption goods or produc-
tive factors. Finally, building on their marginal-utility theories of value, Jevons, Menger, and
Walras were able to construct comprehensive theories of price and markets. The change in
economic analysis associated with their names is called the marginal revolution.
There was one major problem with the new theory, namely that utility and marginal
utility cannot be observed and measured in a straightforward way. Jevons and Walras
explicitly discussed this problem, not least because their critics often pointed to the ap-
parent unmeasurability of utility as a crucial flaw in the new theory. Although Menger
did not address the issue of the measurability of utility in an explicit way, he did take a
tacit stance on it. But how did Jevons, Menger, and Walras conceive of measurement?
According to what conception of measurement did they judge whether utility was meas-
urable or not?
I argue in this chapter that the three founders of marginal utility theory identified
measurement with unit-based measurement and that, accordingly, they searched for a
unit of utility that could be used to assess utility ratios. The outcomes of this search
were diverse and ranged from the idea that a unit to measure utility directly, although
not available at present, may become so in the future, through the claim that marginal
utility is indirectly measured by willingness to pay, to the assertion that although utility
cannot be measured, constructing economic theory as if it were measurable is a scien-
tifically legitimate procedure. In particular, I reconstruct in detail how Jevons, Menger,
and Walras addressed the issue of the measurability of utility on the basis of their unit-
based understanding of measurement. The period covered is from 1871, when Jevons
and Menger published their seminal works, to 1909, when Walras published his last ec-
onomic writing.
In most histories of utility theory, discussions of the measurability of utility in the period
1870–1910 are typically presented in terms of the notion of cardinal utility, and the stance
on utility measurement of Jevons, Menger, and Walras is usually summarized by the state-
ment that they were cardinalists. In the final section of this chapter, I explain why the notion
of cardinal utility is inadequate for understanding the utility theories of the three founders of
marginalism and contend that Jevons, Menger, Walras were not cardinalists.
2.1. JEVONS
One of the main motivations that led Jevons (1835–1882) to write his Theory of Political
Economy (first edition 1871, second edition 1879) was his conviction that exchange value
depends on utility, and more precisely on the law of diminishing marginal utility, rather
than, as argued by classical economists, on labor. He writes in his introduction:
Repeated reflection and inquiry have led me to the somewhat novel opinion, that value
depends entirely upon utility. Prevailing opinions make labour rather than utility the origin
of value; . . . I show, on the contrary, that we have only to trace out carefully the natural laws
of the variation of utility [i.e., the law of diminishing marginal utility] . . ., in order to arrive
at a satisfactory theory of exchange, of which the ordinary laws of supply and demand are a
necessary consequence. (1871, 2)
28
In this section, I argue that Jevons adhered to the unit-based understanding of measurement
and that he therefore faced a contradiction between the importance he assigned to meas-
urement, his unit-based conception of it, and the apparent lack of an appropriate unit to
measure utility.
Jevons contributed not only to utility analysis but also to other parts of economic theory,
as well as to noneconomic disciplines as diverse as formal logic, meteorology, statistics,
and the philosophy of scientific method. Before analyzing his utility theory, it is useful to
consider Jevons’s stance on measurement as it emerges from his works that do not concern
utility analysis.
2.1.1. Jevons on Measurement beyond Utility Analysis
In The Principles of Science, his main work as a philosopher of science, Jevons (1874)
assigned great importance to the measurement of phenomena, which he discussed at length
in chapters 13 and 14, “The Exact Measurement of Phenomena” and “Units and Standards
of Measurements” (313–386). Here Jevons associated the advance of scientific knowledge
with “the invention of suitable instruments of measurement” (313). By measurement, he
meant unit-based measurement: “The result of every measurement is to make known the
purely numerical ratio existing between the magnitude to be measured, and a certain other
magnitude, which should, when possible, be a fixed unit or standard magnitude” (331).
In his work as a scientist, Jevons also assigned great importance to measurement and
engaged in numerous enterprises in empirical measurement. In the 1860s, for example, he
attempted to measure the wear rate of gold coins in the United Kingdom, the variation in
the value of domestic gold as a consequence of the influx of gold from Australia and the
United States, and the annual growth rate of coal consumption in the country. In the 1870s,
he turned to the measurement of business cycles and their supposed relationships to solar
activity cycles. In these enterprises in empirical measurement, some unit of measure was
readily available or could be constructed—be it a weight unit, a temporal unit, or a mon-
etary unit—and thus Jevons’s scientific efforts fit smoothly into the unit-based view of
measurement.2
2.1.2. Pleasure, Economic Calculus, and Utility

Measurement
Unlike Menger and Walras, Jevons was strongly influenced by the utilitarian philosophy of
Jeremy Bentham, according to which human action is governed by the search for pleasure
and the avoidance of pain. Echoing Bentham, Jevons (1871, vii) famously defined eco-
nomics as “a Calculus of Pleasure and Pain.” He was, however, well aware that if the notions
of pleasure and pain are employed with a sufficiently broad meaning, the utilitarian theory
of action becomes tautological: “Call any motive which attracts to a certain action pleasure,
2. For more on Jevons’s empirical measurements, see Peart 1996; Peart 2001; Maas 2005.
29
and that which deters pain, and it becomes impossible to deny that all actions are prompted
by pleasure or by pain” (31).
To avoid this problem and better delimit the scope of the economic calculus, Jevons ad-
vanced the idea that there is a hierarchy of pleasures and pains. At the lowest level of this hi-
erarchy is the “mere physical pleasure or pain” of a man that arises “from his bodily wants and
susceptibilities” (29). At a higher level, we find “mental and moral feelings” (29), which in
themselves may be distinguished by various degrees of elevation. At the highest level of the
hierarchy are pleasures and pains such as uprightness, honor, or public shame. For Jevons,
the economic calculus deals only with the lowest level of the hierarchy:3 “It is the lowest rank
of feelings which we here treat. The calculus of utility aims at supplying the ordinary wants
of man at the least cost of labour. Each labourer, in the absence of other motives, is supposed
to devote his energy to the accumulation of wealth” (32).
The economic calculus is possible, Jevons argued, because pleasure and pain are
“quantities,” where by quantity he meant that which is “capable of being more or less in mag-
nitude” (4). However, being a quantity in this sense does not warrant its measurability,
and Jevons frankly acknowledged that pleasure and pain cannot be measured in the unit-
based sense: “We have no means of defining and measuring quantities of feeling, like we
can measure a mile, or a right angle, or any other physical quantity. . . . We can hardly form
the conception of a unit of pleasure or pain, so that the numerical expression of quantities of
feeling seems to be out of the question” (19).
Jevons’s problem was that at least some parts of his economic calculus, such as the sum
and integration of utility increments in order to obtain total utility (54–56) or the differen-
tiation of total utility to derive the final degree of utility, that is, marginal utility (59–60),
appeared to depend on “the numerical expression of quantities of feeling.” Jevons there-
fore felt obliged to defend the soundness of his utility analysis, which he did with four main
arguments.
2.1.3. Four Arguments in Defense of Utility Analysis
First, Jevons (9–11) speculated that although pleasure and pain could not then be meas-
ured directly, they might become measurable in some near future. In the history of science,
he noted, there were several entities, such as probability, electricity, and heat, that had long
appeared unmeasurable but had recently become amenable to exact measurement: “We
cannot weigh, or gauge, or test the feelings of the mind; there is no unit of . . . suffering, or
enjoyment. . . . If we trace the history of other sciences, we gather no lessons of discourage-
ment. In the case of almost everything which is now exactly measured, we can go back to the
time when the vaguest notions prevailed” (8–9). Here we observe only that Jevons’s hope
that utility would soon become directly measurable was overly optimistic and take note also
of his insistence on an inextricable connection between the possibility of measurement and
the availability of a unit.
3. On this aspect of Jevons’s approach, see Mandler 1999, chap. 4.

30
Second, Jevons claimed that his theory was largely independent of the measurability of
utility because it mainly relied on the direct comparison of different pleasures in order to
determine which is the greater, and it “seldom or never affirm[s]‌that one pleasure is a mul-
tiple of another in quantity” (20). For Jevons, the mind of an individual is able to directly
compare different pleasures just as the balance compares different weights, and insofar as
this mental comparison is feasible, units to measure pleasures are unnecessary: “We only
employ units of measurement . . . to facilitate the comparison of quantities; and if we can
compare the quantities directly, we do not need the units. Now the mind of an individual
is the balance which makes its own comparisons” (19). In this second argument, one may
detect the seeds of an ordinal approach to utility (see chapter 5), which, however, Jevons
did not develop. Moreover, the argument confirms by negation Jevons’s understanding
of measurement: if true measurement were possible, it would employ units and consist
of assessing how many times a pleasure is a multiple of another; luckily, the economic
calculus seldom relies on true measurement, for the mere ranking of pleasures usually
suffices.
Third, Jevons argued that although not directly measurable, pleasure and pain can be
measured through their indirect but observable market effects, notably through prices. In
this respect, he claimed, feelings are analogous to gravity, for both are unobservable but
both can be measured through their effects on, respectively, market prices and physical
bodies: “We can no more . . . measure gravity in its own nature than we can measure a feeling,
but just as we measure gravity by its effects in the motion of a pendulum, so we may esti-
mate . . . feelings by the varying decisions of the human mind. The will is our pendulum, and
its oscillations are minutely registered in all the price lists of the market” (14). Here Jevons
again refers to measurement in relation to a physical force, namely gravity, which is measur-
able in the classical sense.
Although in 1871 he did not know Dupuit’s 1844 article, in his fourth argument, Jevons
put forward an idea similar to that proposed by the French engineer.4 Jevons suggested that
the final degree of utility that a commodity gives to an individual can be measured indi-
rectly by the money he or she is willing to pay to purchase an additional unit. As observed
in chapter 1, money is appealing as a measuring rod since it allows for classical measure-
ment. Jevons, however, specified that money measures utility only if “the general utility
of a person’s income is not affected by the changes of the price of the commodity” (140).
However, this condition is violated for commodities that absorb a significant fraction of a
person’s income, as in the case of bread for the nineteenth-century poor: “When the price
of bread rises much, the resources of poor persons are strained, money becomes scarcer . . .,
and . . . the utility of money, rises” (142). As a consequence, willingness to purchase an addi-
tional unit of bread and possibly other commodities decreases, although the final degree of
utility of that unit may not have changed.
Two general remarks on Jevons’s discussion of the measurability of utility are in order.
4. On Dupuit’s 1844 article, see chapter 1, section 1.5. For more on Jevons and Dupuit’s article,
see section 2.3.2 in this chapter.
31
2.1.4. Measuring Marginal Utility, Not Total Utility
First, as with the other early marginalists, for Jevons, marginal utility rather than total utility
was the key notion “upon which the whole Theory of Economy will be found to turn” (61–
62). Marginal utility, and more specifically the principle of diminishing marginal utility,
determines how commodities are distributed among different uses, the laws of exchange
between them, and the offer of labor. Total utility is of secondary importance and, generally,
also more difficult to assess than marginal utility (61). Accordingly, Jevons’s discussion of
the measurability of utility refers primarily to marginal utility, not total utility. It is marginal
utility that is (at present) indirectly measured by prices (third argument) or by willingness
to pay, at least in some special cases (fourth argument). It is marginal utility that in the future
might even be measured in a direct way (first argument) and whose measurement, in the
end, is seldom employed in the theory of political economy (second argument).
2.1.5. Direct and Indirect Measurement
The second remark concerns the idea of measuring (marginal) utility indirectly by willing-
ness to pay. Indirect measurement will also be discussed in various other places in this book,
but since it enters our main narrative with Jevons, this seems an appropriate place to discuss
some general methodological problems associated with it.5
In indirect measurement, the magnitude of the object x to be measured, which in meas-
urement theory is called the measurand, is inferred from the magnitude of another ob-
ject y. We typically recur to indirect measurement when the measurand x is not directly
observable—as is the case when the measurand is utility—while y is directly observable
and measurable, as is the price of a commodity or the willingness to pay for it (the ques-
tion of what extent willingness to pay is actually observable is not relevant for the present
discussion).
We infer the magnitude of x from the magnitude of y because we assume that there is
some functional relationship F between the two magnitudes: y = F(x). The functional re-
lationship F should be monotonic; otherwise, a single value of y would correspond to mul-
tiple values of x. In the case of utility (x) and willingness to pay (y), we assume that there
is a causal relationship between the two: an individual is willing to pay a certain amount of
money for an object because the object is somehow useful to him or her.
There are two main problems with indirect measurement: first, we may be uncertain
about the exact functional form of the relationship F between x and y; second, y may be af-
fected by other factors k, w, . . . besides x. Economists such as Alfred Marshall (see chapter 3),
who advocated willingness to pay as an indirect measure of utility, typically ignored the first
problem by taking for granted that the two magnitudes are linked by a proportional relation-
ship y = αx. The second problem is the one Jevons referred to in his discussion of willingness
to pay. He noted that an individual’s willingness to pay (y) for a commodity depends not
5. For a more philosophical discussion of the problems associated with indirect measurement,
see Chang 1995 and van Fraassen 2008, chap. 5.
32
only on the utility of the commodity (x) but also on another factor, namely the individual’s
income. If this is the case, taking the direct measure of y as an indirect measure of x becomes
questionable.
There are different ways out of the second problem. For instance, it could be argued that
for some reason or under certain assumptions, the “disturbing” factors k, w, . . . are not op-
erating. Alternatively, it could be claimed that k, w, . . . are indeed operating but that their
effects on y are negligible. Or one may acknowledge that factors k, w, . . . are operating and
that their effects are not negligible but contend that these effects offset each other, so that
ultimately, y depends only on x. In chapter 3, we will see how Marshall justified willingness
to pay as a reliable measure of utility by using some of these argumentative strategies. For the
moment, however, let us return to Jevons.
2.1.6. Utility Measurement for Jevons’s Critics
Anticipating the arguments of Fechner’s critics (see chapter 1, section 1.3.2), several
reviewers of Theory of Political Economy argued that Jevons’s analysis relied on the assump-
tion that utility is measurable but that he was unable to substantiate this assumption. As with
Fechner’s critics, when Jevons’s critics wrote of measurability, they, too, meant unit-based
measurability.
An anonymous reviewer in the Saturday Review argued that the mathematical treat-
ment of utility, and specifically its differentiation, presupposed the measurability of utility
in terms of a unit but that Jevons had not established his own presuppositions: “When a
mathematician wishes to calculate the variations of a force, he begins by telling us distinctly
what is the measure of force. . . . But what is the measure of utility? To this we can discover
no answer in Mr. Jevons’s book” (“Jevons on the Theory of Political Economy” [1871]
1981, 153). In the Glasgow Daily Herald, another anonymous reviewer criticized Jevons’s
assumption that utilities can be added or subtracted on the ground that this kind of ma-
nipulation would require the possession of “some unit of pleasure . . . by which [pleasures]
might be measured” (quoted in Howey 1960, 62). For this reviewer, such a unit was simply
not available.
Classical economist John Elliott Cairnes ([1872] 1981, 150) maintained that Jevons’s ar-
gument that utility, while not directly measurable, may nevertheless be measured indirectly
by prices is circular: “How are we to measure pleasure? . . . We may take exchange-value as
the criterion of utility; and this is the test that Mr. Jevons ultimately adopts. . . . So that what
we come to is this—exchange-value depends upon utility, and utility is measured and can
only be known by exchange-value.” In an 1872 letter to Cairnes, Jevons replied to this criti-
cism by repeating a point he had already made, namely that the method of measuring utility
is indirect but analogous to that used to measure gravity and that insofar as the latter is ap-
propriate, so is the former (Black 1972–1981, 3: 246).
The opinions Jevons expressed in the second edition of the The Theory of Political Economy
(1879) on the measurability of utility are almost identical to those presented in the first edi-
tion, and this suggests that the critical remarks of Cairnes and others did not change Jevons’s
ideas on utility measurement. In his writings from 1879 to 1882, the year he died, Jevons
does not appear to have returned to the issue of the measurability of utility.
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prevented, it is good practice to do so, because the time necessarily
required to establish a new colony, even supposing the cottager
succeeds in saving the swarm, would otherwise be employed in
collecting honey, and in enriching the old hive. Here, then, is one of
the features of this plan—viz., the prevention of swarming. The
period when symptoms of swarming begin to present themselves
may be known by an unusual noise, the appearance of more than
common activity among the bees in the middle box, and, above all,
by a sudden rise of temperature, which will be indicated by the
quicksilver in the thermometer rising to seventy-five degrees, as
scaled on the thermometer in the box; when these symptoms are
apparent, the bee-master may conclude that additional space is
required. The top sliding tin should now be withdrawn from under the
bell-glass, which will open to the bees a new store-room; this they
will soon occupy, and fill with combs and honey of pure whiteness, if
the weather be favourable for their uninterrupted labour. It may be
well here to mention, that if the glass have a small piece of clean
worker comb attached to the perforated ventilating tube, the bees will
more speedily commence their operations in it. When the glass is
nearly filled, which in a good season will be in a very short space of
time, the bees will again require increased accommodation; this will
also be indicated by the thermometer further rising to eighty-five
degrees. The end box, as thereon marked, must now be given them.
Previously to drawing up a slide to enlarge their crowded house, the
manager should carefully take off the empty end box he intends to
open to them, and thoroughly cleanse it, and then smear or dress
the inside of it with a little liquid honey. Thus prepared, he must
return the box to its proper situation, and then withdraw the sliding tin
that hitherto has cut it off from the middle box; by so doing, the store-
room is again enlarged. The bees will commence operations in this
new apartment. This simple operation, performed at the proper time,
generally prevents swarming; by it the queen gains a vast addition to
her dominions, and, consequently, increasing space for the
multiplying population of her domicile. Provided the weather continue
fine, and the thermometer has risen to ninety-five degrees, as
marked on the scale, the remaining tin may be also withdrawn,
thereby giving the bees admittance to another box. There is now no
lack of store-rooms or of employment for our indefatigable labourers.
The cylinder thermometer is required to be occasionally dropped into
the ventilating tube of the side boxes to ascertain their temperature;
for, if exceeding or approaching that of the middle box, it must be
reduced by ventilating: this is done by raising the zinc tops, to allow
the air to pass through the perforations. The grand object of this
system is to keep the end boxes and the bell-glass cooler than the
pavilion or middle box, so as to induce the queen to propagate her
species there and there only, and not in the depriving part of the
hive; by this means the side and upper combs are in no way
discoloured by brood. The queen requires a considerable degree of
warmth; the middle box does not require more ventilation than the
additional openings afford. The bees enjoy coolness in the side
boxes, and thereby the whiteness and purity of the luscious store are
increased."
After the foregoing directions for the working of the hive, it
remains to be told how to obtain possession of the store, and to get
rid of our industrious tenants from the super and end boxes, of which
the super glass will be almost sure to be filled first, having been first
given to them. The operation of taking honey is best performed in the
middle of a fine sunny day. The mode we prefer is as follows:—Pass
an ordinary table-knife all round underneath the rim of the glass, to
loosen the cement, properly called propolis; then take a piece of fine
wire, or a piece of string will do, and, having hold of the two ends,
draw it under the glass very slowly, so as to allow the bees to get out
of the way. Having brought the string through, the glass is now
separated from the hive; but it is as well to leave the glass in its
place for an hour or so; the commotion of the bees will then have
subsided: and another advantage we find is, that the bees suck up
the liquid and seal up the cells broken by the cutting off. You can
then pass underneath the glass two pieces of tin or zinc; the one
may be the proper slide to prevent the inmates of the hive coming
out at the apertures, the other tin keeps all the bees in the glass
close prisoners. After having confined the bees in the glass for a
short time, you must see whether they manifest symptoms of
uneasiness, because, if they do not, it may be concluded that the
queen is among them. In such a case, replace the glass, and
recommence the operation on a future day. It is not often that her
majesty is in the depriving hive or glass; but this circumstance does
sometimes happen, and the removal at such a time must be
avoided. When the bees that are prisoners run about in great
confusion and restlessness, the operator may conclude that the
queen is absent, and that all is right. The glass may be taken away a
little distance off, and placed in a flower-pot or other receptacle,
where it will be safe when inverted and the tin taken away: the bees
will then be glad to make their escape back to their hive. A little
tapping at the sides of the glass will render their tarriance
uncomfortable, and the glass may then be taken into a darkened
room or out-house, with only a small aperture admitting light, which
must be open; the bees, like all insects, make towards the light, and
so escape. The bee-master should brush them off with a feather
from the comb as they can be reached; but on no account, if there
are many bees, should the glass be left, because the bees that are
in the glass will gorge themselves to their full, and speedily bring a
host of others from the adjacent hives, who, in a very little time,
would leave only the empty combs. It is truly marvellous how soon
they will carry all the store back again, if allowed to do so. An empty
glass should be put on to the hive in place of the full one, as it will
attract the bees up, thereby preventing the too close crowding of the
hive; and, if the summer be not too far advanced, they will work more
honey-comb in it.
The removal of the end boxes is a somewhat similar process, but
they should on no account be taken away, at the same time as the
glass, or, indeed, at a time when any other hive is being—robbed we
were going to say, for it is robbery to the bees: they intended the
honey for their winter food, and are much enraged at being deprived
of it. First shut down the dividing tin; the bees in the end box are now
prisoners separated from the hive; keep them so half an hour, and
then take away the box bodily to another part of the garden, or into
the dark out-house, as before recommended.
It may not be out of place here to say something respecting the
enthusiastic inventor of the collateral hive—Thomas Nutt—who was
an inhabitant of Spalding, in Lincolnshire. Having been disabled
during a considerable period by rheumatic fever, he devoted all his
attention to bees, at a time when bee-culture was but little valued;
and, although it must be admitted that two boxes were used side by
side long before Mr. Nutt's day, still it is due to him to state that the
adoption of three boxes was entirely his own idea, and that, so far as
he then knew, the collateral system was his original invention. His
statements have been severely criticised, and it does appear almost
incredible that the weight of honey which he names could have been
produced in one season. But as in the district where he lived there is
grown an immense quantity of mustard seed—the flowers of which
afford excellent forage for bees—the honey harvests there would,
doubtless, be very large. If Mr. Nutt has given his little favourites too
much praise, it will be only charitable now to account for his
statements by an excess of zeal and enthusiasm in this his study of
bee-culture. It may be that the golden harvests he spoke and wrote
of have been so far useful that they have induced many to
commence bee-keeping, some of whom, whilst they condemned his
statements, have themselves written really useful and practical
works on the subject, which otherwise might possibly never have
appeared. As the monks of old kept the lamp of religion burning,
however dimly, until a more enlightened age, so Thomas Nutt may
have assisted in a somewhat similar manner by energetically
propounding his views, and thereby causing other apiarians to rise
up, whose names are now as familiar to us as household words, and
whose works posterity will value. The writer of these pages has often
accompanied Mr. Nutt on his visits to his patrons in the
neighbourhood of London, and seen him perform his operations
regardless of the anger of the bees, and free from all fear of their
stings. He often expatiated on the cruelty of the brimstone match and
suffocation, denouncing the barbarous custom in the following terms:
"You may as well kill the cow for her milk, or the hen for her eggs, as
the bee for its honey; why continue to light the fatal match, when
every cottager in England has the means of saving this most useful
and valuable insect?"
NEIGHBOUR'S IMPROVED SINGLE BOX HIVE.

We have introduced the "Single Box Hive" to suit the
convenience of those who, though desirous of keeping bees on the
improved principle, do not wish to incur the expense or devote the
space which is necessary for Nutt's hive.
It consists of a lower or stock-box a, eleven inches square, nine

inches deep, with three large windows, a thermometer d, as in
Nutt's, being fixed across the front one, protected at the sides by
strips of glass, to prevent the bees obscuring the quicksilver from
sight, b is a cover the same size as the lower hive, large enough to
allow space for a bell-glass nine inches wide, six inches deep. e is
the ventilator between the glass and the stock-hive, intended to
prevent the queen travelling into the super hive, and also, by cooling
the hive, to endeavour to prevent swarming; a sloping pagoda roof,
with an acorn top, completes the upper story. A floor-board with a
block front, as in Nutt's collateral, forms the base, the entrance being
sunk, as before described, and furnished with zinc slides to reduce
or close it as may be required. To stock a hive of this description, it is
necessary to send the stock-box to the party with whom you have
agreed for the supply of a swarm. In the evening of the day the hive
is thus tenanted, remove it to the position it is designed permanently
to occupy; if the swarm has to be procured from a distance, and is
transported by rail or other conveyance, a perforated zinc slide
should be substituted for the plain slide that covers the top, and a
large piece or perforated zinc must also be tacked to the bottom after
the swarm has settled in. Thus securely confined, with a free
circulation of air throughout, bees that have been' swarmed the day
before may be safely sent any distance that will allow of their being
released the day after; because bees, though they provision
themselves for a couple of days, cannot with safety be confined in an
empty hive much longer.
Having now, we will suppose, procured your swarm, and placed it
in a south or south-east aspect, you may, with advantage if the
weather be wet, give a little liquid food: the feeding in this hive is
performed at the top of the stock-box, where the glass is worked.
Our round feeding pan, or the new feeding bottle, may here be used.
Any fancy as to the position may be indulged in, but must be settled
on by the time the bees are set at liberty, because any alteration
afterwards is detrimental to the working of the hive. The bees, on
first issuing forth, carefully mark their new abode and the
surrounding objects, so that, if a change be made, they are
completely thrown out in their observations, which confuses them not
a little, and occasions loss. Bees always return to the same spot; it is
the locality that they know, and if the hive is moved a less distance
than a mile, thousands return to the spot on which the hive has been
accustomed to stand.
Allow your bees to collect honey and build their combs for ten
days or a fortnight. Much now depends on the weather; if fine, by this
time they will require additional room, which will be indicated by the
thermometer d rapidly rising; 100 degrees is the swarming point. The
hive must be kept below this by ventilation.
Access must now be given to the flat bell-glass at the top, which
is done by withdrawing the top slide. In a few hours, sometimes
immediately, the work of comb-building begins in the glass—all the
sooner, if a piece of clean empty comb be placed therein.
It is of service to keep the glass warm by means of a worsted or
baize bag; it prevents the temperature from falling at night, when
much comb-building is carried on, providing the heat is not allowed
to escape. Probably, if all goes on well, in three weeks the glass will
be found filled with fine white honey-comb. When you find that the
comb is well sealed up, it is time to take it off; but if the cells are
unfilled and unsealed, let the labourers complete their work—a little
experience will soon enable the bee-keeper to determine this point.
The plan to be adopted for taking glasses of honey, comb is the
same as described for Nutt's hive.
TAYLOR'S AMATEUR SHALLOW BOX OR EIGHT-

BAR HIVE.
Taylor's Amateur Hive, as seen by reference to the engraving,

consists of three boxes—the lower one, a, is the stock-box, in which
the swarm is first placed; b is the first super; and c, the centre box:
all three boxes are of the same diameter, viz., thirteen and a half
inches square inside, a, the stock-box, is seven and a half inches
deep; b, six and a half inches: both are fitted with eight moveable
bars, each bar being one inch and an eighth wide, with spaces of
half an inch between, and all easily removed by unscrewing the
crown-board, in which are two openings closed by zinc slides. The
middle box, c, has no bars, and is still shallower than either of the
other boxes, being five inches deep. In many localities and seasons,
the third box may not be required. Each box has two windows, one
at the back and another at the side, a zinc shutter, sliding in a
groove, excluding light and retaining warmth. The box c differs from
the others in another respect; instead of bars, it has a grating made
by seven openings, each half an inch wide and nine inches long:
these three boxes stand on a stout floor-board, in which is cut the
entrance way, four inches wide and three-eighths of an inch high.
The floor-board projects so as to support an outer cover of half-inch
wood, surmounted by a sloping roof. This is an effectual protection
from the weather, and is necessary when hives are exposed; of
course, if placed in a bee-house, such protection may be dispensed
with. The outer case is well painted, of a green colour, and when it is
used the hive may be placed in any part of the garden. The
dimensions of this hive, with outside cover, are eighteen inches
square, and two feet six inches high.
Suitable stands are provided, consisting of a stout pedestal with
four feet. Stakes should be driven into the ground to secure the
whole against wind. Height from the ground, four feet three inches.
The bars before alluded to are for the purpose of inducing the
bees to build parallel combs, for without such an arrangement
extraction would be impossible. It is a great convenience, in many
ways, to be able to take out a bar of comb; it gives such a complete
control over the hive.
To ensure comb-building on the bars, pieces of clean worker-
comb should always be carefully preserved; and before a swarm is
put in, either every bar or, if guide comb is not plentiful, every other
bar should have a piece fixed to it in the following manner:—Cut a
piece of clean empty comb of the required size, say two inches
square, not less; heat a common flat iron, with which slightly warm
the bar; then melt a little bees'-wax upon it; draw the comb quickly
over the heated iron, hold it down on the centre of the bar, giving a
very slight movement backwards and forwards; then leave the wax
to grow cold, and, if cleverly managed, the guide will be found firmly
attached. Care must be taken that the pitch or inclination of the comb
be the same as it is in the hives—upwards from the centre of each
comb. A new plan has lately been introduced by Mr. Woodbury, of
Exeter, to facilitate the correct construction of parallel combs.
NEIGHBOUR'S IMPROVED COTTAGE HIVE.

Our Improved Cottage Hive is neatly made of straw, bound with
cane, and therefore very durable.[9] The lower hive is covered with a
wooden top, having in it three holes, through which the bees convey
their honey into three middle-sized bell glasses with ventilators,
which, when filled, hold about 6 lbs. each. There is a hoop at the
bottom, another round the top of the lower hive; to this the wooden
crown-board is fastened. These hoops are a great improvement, and
are less liable to harbour insects than if straw alone were used. The
floor-board, as its name implies, is a wooden board one and a
quarter inch thick, with a projection of three or four inches under the
entrance to form an alighting place. This entrance is cut out of, or
sunk in, the board.
[9] This is the hive referred to by the Bee-Master of the Times,
when he says:—"The second kind of hive I alluded to is made of
straw, and may be purchased at Neighbour's, in Holborn.... It is so
well made that it will last very long. I have had one in constant use
during ten years, and it is still as good as when it was bought."
There are three windows in the lower hive, each closed with a
shutter; these are very useful and interesting for inspecting the
progress made. Across the centre window is a thermometer,
enclosed at the sides by slips of glass. The window shutters being
painted green, add very much to its appearance. The upper hive,
which is merely a cover for the glasses, is a conical-topped hive,
also made of straw bound with cane; a hoop is worked into the straw,
and made sufficiently large to allow the cover to drop over the top
hoop of the lower hive, keeping the whole close, and preventing wet
from drifting in. A zinc ventilator, ornamentally painted, forms the
apex: this is useful in letting the confined hot air pass away in warm
weather. The ventilator is opened by raising it. The dimensions of the
lower or stock-hive are fifteen inches diameter, nine and a half
inches deep outside; its weight, when empty, seven and a half
pounds. The cover, or top hive, is twelve inches deep and fifteen
inches in diameter; the ornamental zinc top being four inches deep.
The whole is about twenty-four inches high. The weight of a hive
packed, including glasses, &c., is about 18 lbs.
These hives have a tasteful appearance in the garden, but they
require some further protection from the weather in the form of a
cover or of a bee-house—contrivances that have yet to be
described. In extreme cold weather, a little additional protection, by
having matting folded round them, will be advisable.
One of the advantages this hive has over the common cottage
hive is, that it affords opportunity for the humane management of
bees. The owner has also the power of taking a glass of honey-comb
of pure quality, free from the extraneous matter known as "bee-
bread," instead of combs that are darkened by having brood hatched
in them. By this system, we have combs newly made and used only
for depositing the honey first put into them; hence the name "virgin
honey." These glasses have a very pretty appearance, and, when
nicely filled, are very convenient for home use or for making
presents. The lower hive is the receptacle for the bees; when a
swarm is placed in this hive, they immediately proceed to fill it with
combs, in which to store honey for themselves, and for cells to breed
in. This hive remains undisturbed.
The best mode of tenanting a hive of this description is by placing
an early and strong swarm in it, which may be generally procured of
a neighbouring bee-keeper; if from a distance, considerable care is
necessary to admit plenty of air; the shaking attendant upon carriage
irritates the bees so much, that, if not well ventilated, there is danger
of the swarm being stifled, and the finer the swarm, the greater the
danger. For the purpose of ventilation, remove the slides and
substitute perforated zinc, wrapping the hive up in a coarse cloth of
open texture (dispensing with the floor-board during transit when the
distance is great).
It is necessary only to send the lower or stock hive to the party
furnishing the swarm, taking the precaution to fix the slides at top
with tacks, as the hive has to be inverted to receive the bees. They
are shaken into it in the usual manner,[10] as they cluster around the
branch of the tree or shrub on which they may have chosen to alight.
After the hiving is accomplished, the hive should be left near to catch
any stragglers, for there will always be a few; towards evening, close
the entrance, and remove them to the exact position they are
intended permanently to occupy. Success depends on this, and also
on their careful removal on the day or evening of swarming. The
following morning the bees labour in the new location, marking well
their habitation before they take flight, and to which they will not fail
to return, loaded with luscious store.
[10] Sometimes swarms alight on trunks of trees or on walls,
where it may be difficult to shake or brush them off. In the Journal
of Horticulture, Mr. Woodbury mentions an instance of this kind,
which he experienced last summer:—"A swarm clustered among
the large branches of a pear-tree, just at their point of union with
the trunk. In this case he merely supported a straw hive just over
the swarm with the left hand, whilst he struck the trunk of the tree
with the open palm of the right. The vibration thus produced sent
the bees up into the hive with great rapidity, and the entire swarm
was speedily hived in the most satisfactory manner." A few whiffs
of smoke will accelerate upward movement of swarms in such
circumstances.
A fortnight must be allowed for filling the stock-hive; then, if the
weather be fine and warm, they will prepare to swarm again, as will
be indicated by the thermometer rising rapidly to 100 degrees or
upwards. One of the zinc slides on the wooden top must now be
withdrawn, and a bell-glass put on, covered and protected by the
upper hive; the other glasses may then be given in the same
manner, a day or two after which, should the weather continue
favourable, all signs of swarming will at once disappear, the bees
now having increased store room, which they will readily fill with
comb. It is often found useful to attach a piece of clean empty honey-
comb to the ventilating tube of the glass; it is an attraction, and
induces the bees to commence working in it sooner than they
otherwise would do. The ventilator should always remain open
during the day, to allow the hot air to pass away from the interior,
thereby contributing to the whiteness and beauty of the work; the
bees enjoy the refreshment of coolness thereby afforded, and they
work the faster for it. At evening, all ventilation should be stopped,
and the glasses wrapped round with flannel or some warm material,
for the reasons mentioned at page 65.
The directions for taking honey are much the same as before
mentioned. Some apiarians, however, consider that deprivation is
more easily accomplished by disconnecting the super over night, in
the manner described at page 58. The bee-keeper, equipped with
bee-dress and gloves, must first raise the glass of comb, and,
blowing a little smoke to intimidate and drive back the bees, wedge it
up all round, an inch or so from the crown-board, by means of three
or four blocks, thus to remain all night. This operation is best
performed a little before dusk. Bees are then less likely to come out,
and if they should do so, will speedily return. The opening in the
crown-board remains unclosed, to afford the bees the opportunity of
descending, and joining the stock-hive below, which they will
naturally do for warmth. The upper straw-hive, or cover for the
glasses, is better placed on for the night. Early in the following
morning, before the bees are much about, the super will be ready for
removal. The few bees that remain within may be speedily induced
to quit, and will fly to the entrance. The slides covering the holes in
the crown-board must be inserted, or an empty glass can be put on,
to take the full one's place. A slide seven and a half inches square is
furnished with the hive; this is useful to remove the glass upon.
The holes in the wooden top of this hive are of a peaked shape,
to act as a preventive against slaughtering any bees whilst pushing
the slide in for the purpose of removing the glass when full. The
tacks before alluded to should be removed from the slides when the
hive is fixed in its place; they are now in the way of cutting off the
glass. The entrance slide is very serviceable during the winter
months, to lessen the passage way, thereby' preventing the
admission of too much cold air: it is also occasionally useful on a
summer evening, to lessen the entrance when moths are
troublesome; for if there be only a small opening, the bees can guard
it, and easily repulse intruders. During the time of gathering, they
require the whole width to remain open.
When the weather is so unfavourable as to prevent the bees
leaving home for a few days after being hived, it will be necessary to
feed them. Bees should not be fed in the midst of winter; the proper
time is in the autumn or in the spring.
The best mode of feeding is at the top of the stock hive. This is
done by using the round feeder.
The bottle feeder may be used instead of the round feeder, and in
the same place, by those who give the preference to that method.
Whilst on the subject of feeding, it may be well to suggest to the
bee-keeper, that, after the honey harvest, he should ascertain the
state of the stock-hive, because we have sometimes found that hives
which were very strong during summer, and which have yielded a
good supply of honey, have been left rather poorly off for the winter.
No doubt, under the impression that those nicely-filled supers which
the bees intended for themselves would be amply sufficient for their
sustenance, they have, for the most part, devoted the space below
to the queen for breeding, little imagining that the precious store
would be taken away, and consequently have left themselves too
small provision for autumn and winter.
The apiarian having, therefore, so richly reaped the fruit of his
bees' labours, it is but right that he should guard against the
labourers themselves suffering any want therefrom. The state of the
interior of the hive may be ascertained by applying a weighing
machine, and the requisite supply administered by feeding. Both
weighing machine and feeder are described further on.
The simplicity and easy management of this hive have
deservedly rendered it an especial favourite, combining, as it does,
real utility with many conveniences to satisfy the curious. Not a few
bee-keepers desire to unite the two qualifications, and no hives
combine these advantages in a greater degree than Neighbour's
improved cottage hive.
IMPROVED COTTAGE HIVE WITHOUT WINDOWS.

This hive is of precisely the same size, construction, and
management as the last mentioned, with the exception that it has no
windows or thermometer in the lower or stock hive. The apiarian,
with this hive, will have to trust more to his own judgment as regards
the likelihood of swarming, and must watch the appearance the bees
present at the entrance. When it is time to put on supers, in order to
prevent swarming, premonition will be given by the unusual numbers
crowding about the entrance, as well as by the heat of the weather,
making it evident that more room is required for the increasing
population.
Not being able to form an idea of the state of the hive in spring
and autumn by looking into the stock-hive, it will be advisable to
adopt the means of weighing. A stock at Michaelmas should weigh
20 lbs., exclusive of the hive, or be made up to that weight by
feeding.
THE LADIES' OBSERVATORY OR CRYSTAL BEE-

HIVE.
The following engraving illustrates the construction of the Ladies'

Observatory Hive. The stock-hive is cylindrical, with a flat top and a
hole in the centre; the dimensions twelve and a half inches inside,
eight and a half inches deep; the outer cover being raised, and made
of stout glass, so as not easily to break. A support, composed of
even wooden bars fixed on a pedestal from the floor-board, is very
useful for the bees to cling to and attach their combs, instead of
resting wholly against the glass.
The floor-board is of mahogany, the border being French
polished. A middle-sized bell-glass, for deprivation, is placed over
the hole; this hole may be closed by a zinc slide. A cover of straw,
eighteen inches deep, fifteen inches wide, with a zinc ventilating top
similar to that affixed to the cottage hive, completes the
arrangements. The weight of the stock-hive and board is about 16
lbs.
This hive is well adapted for those persons who are desirous of
having the opportunity of more closely examining the workmanship
of these industrious and interesting insects, as the whole of the
interior may be exposed to view; it is particularly suitable for a
window or an indoor apiary, and will also be found a valuable
addition to the green-house. Under these circumstances, the
entrance-way should be covered with a flat piece of glass, and an
aperture cut in the sash corresponding with the entrance to the hive;
through the glazed passage the bees may then find egress and
ingress without being able to gain access to the apartment. An
alighting board, four inches wide, must be fixed outside, on a level
with the entrance.
We had a hive of this kind in operation at the Great Exhibitions of
1851 and 1862, fixed after the manner above described. It answered
admirably, and excited much interest and curiosity, though placed
there under many disadvantages.
When a hive of this kind is to be stocked, procure an early and
strong swarm, which must be temporarily hived in a common straw
hive, from which dislodge the bees into the glass hive, but for this
purpose a little preparation will have to be made. Spread a sheet on
the ground, place the mahogany floor-board on it with the support,
put three bricks, or some solid blocks of about the same substance,
upon which the glass will rest; then, with a sharp and sudden blow,
precipitate the swarm out of the straw hive on to the floor-board and
support, place the glass hive on the bricks, and the bees will collect
under the bars and on to the pedestal. In about one hour's time the
whole will have settled quietly and all the stragglers on the board will
have collected together, the swarm hanging pear-shaped from the
bar support; the bricks can now be removed, and the glass put in its
right place on the floor-board. The straw cover being put on the hive,
it can be removed to the place it is destined permanently to occupy.
The light should not be admitted for some days after hiving; if
undisturbed, the bees will speedily build comb, working from the
wooden bars, which are placed there for their assistance and
support. In ten days or a fortnight, if the weather continue fine and
warm, they will prepare to swarm again; the opening at the top must
now be unstopped, and the bell-glass put on, guide-comb having
been previously fixed. The directions given for the improved cottage
hive equally apply to the ladies' observatory hive.
It is advisable, in winter, to furnish the glass stock-hive with more
protection from cold than is afforded by the straw cover alone; some
thick baize, or wrapper of wadding, for which there is space between
the glass hive and the cover, will prevent so much moisture
condensing on the sides of the glass. Moisture is injurious, causing
the combs to grow mouldy; a little protection in the way of wrapping
very much prevents this.
The hole at top is used for supplying food, should the apiarian
fear the stock of honey is in danger of running short; either the bottle
feeder or the round feeder maybe used for the purpose.
COTTAGER'S HIVE, FOR TAKING HONEY IN

STRAW CAPS, WITHOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF
THE BEES.
A very prevalent opinion exists, that bees do better in straw than
in hives made of any other material. Another opinion prevails, viz.,
that the old-fashioned straw hive is the least expensive, the most
simple, and the most productive. Although we cannot go so far as
this, we are willing to admit that a simplified adaptation of the
humane system to the old common straw hive is the most suitable to
put into the hands of that large class of bee-keepers—cottagers. By
these the more fanciful hives will be instantly condemned; besides,
the expense puts them quite beyond the reach of the poorer class.
The object aimed at in planning our Cottager's Hive has been to
furnish a depriving hive that should be at once easy of management,
inexpensive, and convenient. The stock-hive, into which the bees are
first hived, is a round straw hive, having a flat top, with a hole in the
centre. The size of this lower hive is seven or eight inches deep,
fourteen inches across the bottom, finished with a wooden hoop,
which adds very much to the firmness and durability of the hive. The
floor-board is one and a quarter inch thick, with a way sunk therein
for the entrance. A small round mat of straw closes the hole in the
top; this mat may be fixed by wooden pegs. We have now described
what is termed the stock-hive, which is, in fact, an old-fashioned
straw hive, adapted, modernised, and improved to the more
humane, viz., the depriving, system. The weight of the stock-hive,
with its floor-board, is about 7 lbs.
The super or cap hive is about seven inches deep, eight inches in
diameter, and, when filled, contains about 10 lbs. of honey and
comb. A glass window, which is placed at the side, is useful for
inspecting the progress made in filling it!
A common straw hive, sufficiently deep to cover, drops over the
super, keeping the window dark, and fitting close on to the stock-
hive. This cover-hive may be made fast by driving in two skewers,
one on either side, to keep the whole firm. Unless placed in a bee-
house or under a shed, the outside should be painted; or a piece of
oil-cloth, or water-proof covering of any kind, shaped so as to shoot
off the rain, will save the trouble of paint, and answer the purpose. If
no protection of this sort is used, the rain is likely to rot the straw. As
a covering, cottagers often use straight stiff thatching straw, sewed
together; this contrivance is termed a "hackle," and has a pretty
appearance, particularly if a number of hives are in a row. Care has
to be exercised that mice do not make the covering hive a resting-
place. Mortar is often used for fastening round the hive at the
bottom: this is a bad plan, as it forms a harbour for insects; the
wooden hoop fits so close as to leave little necessity for anything of
the kind.
The principle of the depriving system is so much the same with
all our hives, that a good deal of repetition is necessary in describing
in detail the management of each separate variety. The object aimed
at with the cottager's hive, as, indeed, with all our hives, is to provide
a compartment for the bees to live in with their queen, she being the
mother of all. It is intended, by inducing the queen to remain in her
original apartment, that all breeding should be there performed, as
well as the storing of bee-bread and honey, for the winter
sustenance of the bees. The cap hive, or upper chamber, known as
the "super," is for the storing of honey, which the bee-keeper looks
upon as a surplus, and which, at the close of the honey gathering, or
as soon as filled, he intends to deprive the bees of, and appropriate
to his own use, of course taking care to leave sufficient in the lower
or stock hive for winter sustenance.
The mode of stocking a hive of this kind is so familiarly known,
that any who at all understand the hiving of bees into a common
straw hive can make no mistake or find any difficulty in performing it.
Lest these pages should fall into the hands of persons who are not
so acquainted, we will refer them to the directions already given at
pages 21 and 72.
The hive may be smeared inside with a little honey, if at hand; but
this is unimportant, as a clean hive answers well. Some older bee-
keepers prefer to give a little dressing, to encourage the bees to like
their new home.
After the swarm has been in the hive two weeks, the straw super
hive may be put on, first removing the straw mat, to give the bees
access to it. If the hive be a stock, that is, a swarm of the last or
previous years, the super may be put on as soon as the weather is
fine and warm, in May. But much depends on the weather and
strength of the hive, as regards the time occupied, by the bees in
filling the super; in favourable weather a fortnight suffices.
If, on looking in at the little window, the bee-master sees that the
cells are sealed over, the cap of honey may be removed in the mode
already described. The cells near the window are the last to be filled,
so, when they are sealed, it is safe to conclude that the combs in the
unseen parts are also finished.
Sometimes the queen ascends and deposits her eggs; if, on
turning up the super, brood be visible, replace the cap for a few
days, until the young bees quit their cells. When thus emptied, honey
will be deposited in lieu of the brood.
Suitable pedestals for these hives to stand upon may be
obtained. It is important that these be firmly fixed, and the hive also
made fast to the stand, to prevent its being blown over by high
winds.
WOODBURY BAR AND FRAME HIVES.
Mr. Woodbury's Bar and Frame Hive, as originally made, consists

of a wooden box, fourteen and a half inches square inside, nine
inches deep. This is a hive of large size, but the actual habitable
space inside is lessened by the room occupied by the frames, of
which there are ten; these rest on a rabbet a little below the surface,
leaving a space of three-eighths of an inch between the upper side
of the bars and the crown-board. This allows a free passage on the

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Measuring Utility: From the Marginal

Revolution to Behavioral Economics

Behavioral Law And Economics Eyal Zamir

Skepticism and American Faith: from the Revolution to

Conflict Graffiti: From Revolution to Gentrification

Measuring Sustainability Systems H.S. Brandi

Toward Behavioral Transaction Cost Economics:

The Economics of Target Balances: From Lehman to Corona

A World Safe for Commerce: American Foreign Policy from

A Companion to the Russian Revolution 1st Edition

Oxford Studies in the Histor y of Economics

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

You must not circulate this work in any other form

CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress

Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America

For Mila, Elia, Anita and, in memory, for my dad

List of Figures and Tables ix

PART ONE: Utility Measurement in Early Utility Theories, 1870–​1910

PART THREE: From Debating Expected Utility Theory to Redefining

( viii ) Contents

PART FOUR: Expected Utility Theory and Experimental Utility Measurement,

7.1 Indifference curve elicited by Thurstone 126

2.1 Menger’s utility numbers 35

I.1.2. The Interplay between Utility Analysis

I.1.3. Utility Measurement, Psychological Measurement,

I.1.4. The Epistemological Dimension of Utility

I.2.2. Ordinal and Cardinal Utility and Early Empirical

I.2.3. From Debating Expected Utility Theory to Redefining

of the von Neumann–​Morgenstern utility function u featured in EUT. This correspondence

I.2.4. Expected Utility Theory and Experimental Utility

I.3. NOT DISCUSSED HERE

I.4. READERSHIP AND ST YLE

Utility Measurement in Early

When Unit-​Based Measurement

( 16 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

The unit-​based understanding of measurement dates back to Aristotle. He strictly separated

( 18 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

1.3.2. The Debate on Psychophysical Measurement

( 20 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

1.3.3. Mental Measurement in the 1900s

1.3.4. Measurement in Psychology: Summing Up

In the period 1870–​1910, the emergence of psychophysics stimulated a discussion about

The 1870–​1910 period witnessed major developments in mathematics, with mathematicians

1.4.1. Additivity as a Condition for Measurability

( 22 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

1.4.2. Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers

1.4.3. Cardinals and Ordinals from Mathematics

1.5. MEASUREMENT IN ECONOMICS, BEFORE

( 24 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

This concludes our review of the notion of measurement in various disciplines—​philosophy,

Is There a Unit of Utility?

( 26 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

( 28 ) Measurement in Early Utility Theories

2.1.1. Jevons on Measurement beyond Utility Analysis

2.1.2. Pleasure, Economic Calculus, and Utility

2.1.3. Four Arguments in Defense of Utility Analysis

PART ONE: Utility Measurement in Early Utility Theories, 1870–1910

PART THREE: From Debating Expected Utility Theory to Redefining

PART FOUR: Expected Utility Theory and Experimental Utility Measurement,

I.1.2. The Interplay between Utility Analysis

I.1.3. Utility Measurement, Psychological Measurement,

I.1.4. The Epistemological Dimension of Utility

I.2.2. Ordinal and Cardinal Utility and Early Empirical

I.2.3. From Debating Expected Utility Theory to Redefining

of the von Neumann–Morgenstern utility function u featured in EUT. This correspondence

I.2.4. Expected Utility Theory and Experimental Utility

I.3. NOT DISCUSSED HERE

I.4. READERSHIP AND ST YLE

When Unit-Based Measurement

The unit-based understanding of measurement dates back to Aristotle. He strictly separated

1.3.2. The Debate on Psychophysical Measurement

1.3.3. Mental Measurement in the 1900s

1.3.4. Measurement in Psychology: Summing Up

In the period 1870–1910, the emergence of psychophysics stimulated a discussion about

The 1870–1910 period witnessed major developments in mathematics, with mathematicians

1.4.1. Additivity as a Condition for Measurability

1.4.2. Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers

1.4.3. Cardinals and Ordinals from Mathematics

1.5. MEASUREMENT IN ECONOMICS, BEFORE

This concludes our review of the notion of measurement in various disciplines—philosophy,

2.1.1. Jevons on Measurement beyond Utility Analysis

2.1.2. Pleasure, Economic Calculus, and Utility

2.1.3. Four Arguments in Defense of Utility Analysis

2.1.4. Measuring Marginal Utility, Not Total Utility

2.1.5. Direct and Indirect Measurement

2.1.6. Utility Measurement for Jevons’s Critics