Petitio Principii in Economic Analysis

The current trend in the economic analysis is to analyze almost everything through the lens of economists. Today while attending the class (and when the class got so much boring that no one cannot resist dreaming), I was thinking much about the economic analysis and its foundations. Maybe it is mostly because I have started to read a book titled The Foundations of Economic Method: A Popperian Perspective. It is a very thought-provoking book. It starts with the point that why methodology does not matter in the mainstream in economics viewpoints. It provides some insight about the issues which is worth reading. As a PhD student, I was expected to have methodology based courses in the EDLE, but unfortunately except one, we did not receive any. Thanks to Prof. Parisi who turned the class of Economic Analysis of Law into a class similar to how to think like an economist about law and how to build models in Law & Economics.
Anyway, I was talking about the importance of economic method. In the modern mainstream economics, which is mostly based on the neoclassical economics (enshrined with lots of insights from game theory and behavioral economics), what matters is the economic value and utility. Roughly speaking everything enters into the utility function in the economic analysis. Needless to say, in order for something to be included in the utility function, it should be quantifiable and for economists monetized. But in addition to many critics of the economic method about non-quantifiability and et cetera, et cetera, there seems to be a fundamental flaw in this kind of reasoning. And that is the extreme reliance of economists on the revealed preferences while studying the utility functions and the value that the individuals attach to the phenomena.
Since the whole idea of at least normative (and at most positive) economics revolves around the pivotal word "incentive", and what makes people to be incentivized to do something or to avoid doing that, is the utility they derive from their economic activities. So the word utility and its definition should be scrutinized very carefully in economics.
It says that everything (i.e., incentives which is almost everything in economics) depends on the utility individuals derive from their choices/activities. The problem is that no one knows about individuals' utility. Just after the fact, on the basis of revealed preferences, the economists say that something which is done had more utility that something forgone, or the choice made is preferable to the choice forgone because it had more utility for the individual. The difference is mostly about the difference between ex-post and ex-ante. What we cannot do is reading the mind of economic men, so we are forced to assume that what people do, had more utility for them than something forgone.
In order to understand the fallacy, let's see what the fallacy of petitio principii is. The key issue in this fallacy, which is also known as the fallacy of "begging the question" is the assumptions made in the process of the argument (and economics is replete with the assumptions). In this fallacy, the asserted part in the conclusion is assumed in the very premises. In such a setting, the argument becomes circular because the same statement is used to prove itself.
In economics we say that the economic choices of people depend upon their utilities they derive from their choices. The same thing could be said about the economic value. When you value something over the other, it means that you are deriving more utility from that "something" over the other "something". So how can we know who values what more? The criterion as I said above is the revealed preference, when someone chooses something over the other, ex-post, it is said that she preferred/valued that thing over the other and hence she derives more utility from that than the thing forgone. So the fallacy lies behind the revealed preference. One can easily see the circularity in the definition of the utility/economic value. What is utility? Utility is something which measures level of satisfaction from an economic activity (including the usefulness of such an activity), what is satisfaction from the economic activity? The act that gives more utility to the actor and it is never known ex-ante.
Fortunately, economics cannot say ex-ante what should be preferred to what, because it is something quite subjective. Different individuals have different tastes and behave on the basis of their individual preferences and economics avoids making value judgment about those preferences. So the good news is that the economics is quite neutral about the preference, and after the preference made, it suggest how we can rationally get to the objective we have chosen. In fact, economics does not deal with the objectives; it just comes into play when we need instruments we are taking to get to those objectives. And the most important tool it uses is the rational behavior which itself is a quite controversial topic to ponder on. But I think this distinction in the concept of rationality cannot be limited just to the ways and methods we are using to get to our objective, but it necessarily spills-over the preferences of individuals too (an issue that will be addressed later) and that is what makes the utility and its definition more important.

Crime and Punishment: the Problem of Proportionality

One of the main principles in criminal law is the proportionality of crime and punishment. Opening every criminal law textbook, one of the main topics which pops up immediately is this proportionality. But to the best of my knowledge there was no study of what really proportionality means. (Of course I am not a criminal law expert and my knowledge about that is quite limited). This proportionality could be studied from many different points of view. From psychology, philosophy, sociology, economics to mathematics!!! Which in my view of one the interesting views should be the psychological one.
Anyhow, to me it seems there is no universal criterion for this proportionality. If there was, the intensity of the punishment to the like crimes in different countries should be the same or at least alike. But it is not. This is an evidence of subjectivity of this proportionality. And it absolutely depends on the anchor points or reference points each society sets in his social norms and code of laws by historical accident or consciously. So it is not enough just to repeat and repeat and emphasize that the crime should be proportional to the punishment, it is also important to embark on the experimental, behavioral and empirical studies to show what these anchor points are.
The importance of this point becomes critical when we take proportionality into fairness and justice consideration. If so, for designing a fair or just or economically optimal criminal system, the perceptions of proportionality in that specific legal system should be studied to find a basis for criminalization. For instance, in some countries, like China, this anchor points are set very high for the economic crimes such as corruption, while in other countries these crimes are responded more gently. As an extreme example, same sex sexual relationships in some countries are not even a crime, while in others responded by capital punishment.
What is clear is the fact that the social norms, religions, ideologies and cultures play a substantial role in creating these reference points. Different historical incidents every society has gone though have significant impact on those points. What encouraged me (a non-expert in criminal studies) to write these few lines was the importance of building models for measuring this proportionality (which is totally context dependent) in different societies by designing experiments and having empirical research on the subject.