  In many models in economics or business a dominantly self-interested homo
economicus is assumed. Unfortunately (or fortunately), humans are in general
not homines economici as e.g. the ultimatum game shows. This leads to the fact
that all these models are at least doubtful. Moreover, economists started to
set a quantitative value for the feeling of social justice, altruism, or envy
and the like to execute utilitarian calculation. Besides being ethically
doubtful, it delivers an explanation in hindsight with little predicting power.
We use examples from game theory to show its arbitrariness. It is even possible
that a stable Nash equilibrium can be calculated while it does not exist at
all, due to the wide differences in human values. Finally, we show that
assigned numbers for envy or altruism and the like do not build a field (in a
mathematical sense). As there is no homomorphism to real numbers or a subset of
it, any calculation is generally invalid or arbitrary. There is no (easy) way
to fix the problem. One has to go back to ethical concepts like the categorical
imperative or use at most semi quantitative approaches like considering knaves
and knights. Mathematically one can only speculate whether e.g. surreal numbers
can make ethics calculable.

General Economics;Economics