Ulysses Pact

Norwegian philosopher Jon Elster formalized the concept in his 1979 book Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality, analyzing precommitment as a strategy to mitigate imperfect rationality. The name draws from Homer's Odyssey, where Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) instructs sailors to bind him to the mast so he can hear the Sirens' song without steering toward death. Elster revised and expanded his analysis in Ulysses Unbound (2000), cementing the term in behavioral economics and decision theory.