Temptation and Self-Control as Duals1

Dekel, Lipman, and Rustichini [2008] attempt "[to identify] the broadest possible set of temptation-driven behavior." They argue that a desire for commitment characterizes such behavior. However, we argue that they go too far by including preferences which are not temptation-driven. We introduce two axioms which are stronger than their Desire for Commitment and weaker than Gul and Pesendorfer’s [2001] Set Betweenness. The …rst axiom, Exclusion, states that the agent would prefer to exclude the worst element of a menu. The second axiom, Inclusion, states that the agent would prefer to include the best element of a menu. Our utility representation is a generalization of Gul and Pesendorfer’s and a special case of Dekel, Lipman, and Rustichini’s. The statements "1 is more tempted than 2" and "1 is more virtuous than 2" are given behavioral meaning and related to our representation.