Willful

by Richard Robb

  6. Seligman, Flourish, 11.

  7. See Heckman, “Comment.”

  8. Wang, Malhotra, and Murnighan, “Economics Education and Greed,” 655.

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  Acknowledgments

  My most profound thanks go to my editor, Seth Ditchik. Seth conceived of the book nine years ago and nudged me back on track the many times I veered off. He distilled the message into one clear sentence the first time we met: “Besides rational choice and behavioral economics, there’s a third thing—acting on the world—and I think that’s a book.”

  The rest of the wonderful team at Yale worked so hard and cared so much. Karen Olson and Ann-Marie Imbornoni gracefully shepherded a Word document into a book. And when they told me “Julie Carlson is a terrific copyeditor,” they weren’t kidding. Julie—thank you for the vigilance applied to every page.

  Over the years, I have accumulated a debt to many others. I am grateful to Edmund Phelps for showing me that neoclassical economics is not the whole story and to James Heckman for pushing me to treat neoclassical economics with the respect it deserves. With the exception of Professors Heckman and Phelps, no one taught me more than my son, Nathan. Thanks to the students in my seminar, Foundations of Individual Choice, at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in the fall semesters of 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, who let me test my material. I would like to thank David Nirenberg (who p
rovided encouragement twice when I needed it), Stephen Kosslyn, Robert Kiernan, Matthew Wittman, Mike Woodford, Caitlin Cooper (for positive feedback, not only corrections), Jeff Friedman (who showed me how to think more clearly about the limits of what we can know), Roman Frydman, Cora Weissbourd, Valeria Zhavoronkina, and especially an anonymous referee. Sarika Bansal graciously read the book when it was raw and provided me with many corrections, both literary and conceptual.

  In the winter of 2015–2016, I worked side by side on Grove Street mornings and weekends with my daughter, Alice—Alice on the proposal for her book on the science of dreams and me on Willful: How We Choose What We Do. During that happy, productive time I ran lots of ideas by her, so I thank her for all the input.

  I would have been lost without the dedicated editing of Caitlin Campbell. Not only do I value her fact-checking (for example, “Tolstoy didn’t mean what you think he meant, so you have to cut that bit or find a new example”), but I also found her relentless idea-checking amazing. Caitlin is smart, careful, and patient beyond measure. I’m so lucky I found her.

  My funny, loyal, brilliant friend Susan Lee showed me how clear writing could lead to clear thinking, that nothing would be lost by cutting highfalutin words, and how to construct a book that someone outside of my inner circle of friends might be willing to read. I will acknowledge once and for all: when we argued, Susan was (almost) always right. I would also like to thank her husband, Ken Weisshaar, for being a sounding board for Susan while she was helping me and for feeding her ice cream to keep her going.

  Without Reihan Salam, this book would never have been written. Reihan read my article “Nietzsche and the Economics of Becoming,” wrote about it, and brought it to Seth’s attention. Thanks, too, to the publishers who permitted me to quote their songs: Can’t Buy Me Love, words and music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, copyright © 1964 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, copyright renewed, all rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN, 37219, international copyright secured, all rights reserved, reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC; Busted, words and music by Harlan Howard, copyright © 1962 Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, copyright renewed, all rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 424 Church Street, Suite 1200, Nashville, TN, 37219, international copyright secured, all rights reserved, reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC; Another Brick in the Wall, words and music by Roger Waters, copyright © 1979 Roger Waters Music Overseas, Ltd., all rights administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC, all rights reserved, used by permission, reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard, LLC.