Contents
53 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 53
  1. Sunk Costs.Robert Bass - manuscript
    Decision theorists generally object to “honoring sunk costs” – that is, treating the fact that some cost has been incurred in the past as a reason for action, apart from the consideration of expected consequences. This paper critiques the doctrine that sunk costs should never be honored on three levels. As background, the rationale for the doctrine is explained. Then it is shown that if it is always irrational to honor sunk costs, then other common and uncontroversial practices are also (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Expected comparative utility theory: A new theory of instrumental rationality.David Robert - manuscript
    This paper aims to address the question of how one ought to choose when one is uncertain about what outcomes will result from one’s choices, but when one can nevertheless assign probabilities to the different possible outcomes. These choices are commonly referred to as choices (or decisions) under risk. I assume in this paper that one ought to make instrumentally rational choices—more precisely, one ought to adopt suitable means to one’s morally permissible ends. Expected utility (EU) theory is generally accepted (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Against Anti-Fanaticism.Christian Tarsney - manuscript
    Should you be willing to forego any sure good for a tiny probability of a vastly greater good? Fanatics say you should, anti-fanatics say you should not. Anti-fanaticism has great intuitive appeal. But, I argue, these intuitions are untenable, because satisfying them in their full generality is incompatible with three very plausible principles: acyclicity, a minimal dominance principle, and the principle that any outcome can be made better or worse. This argument against anti-fanaticism can be turned into a positive argument (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Can an evidentialist be risk-averse?Hayden Wilkinson - manuscript
    Two key questions of normative decision theory are: 1) whether the probabilities relevant to decision theory are evidential or causal; and 2) whether agents should be risk-neutral, and so maximise the expected value of the outcome, or instead risk-averse (or otherwise sensitive to risk). These questions are typically thought to be independent---that our answer to one bears little on our answer to the other. But there is a surprising argument that they are not. In this paper, I show that evidential (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. What rationality is.Arif Ahmed -
    A choice function C is rational iff: if it allows a path through a sequence of decisions with a particular outcome, then that outcome is amongst the ones that C would have chosen from amongst all the possible outcomes of the sequence. This implies, and it is the strongest definition that implies, that anyone who is irrational could be talked out of their own preferences. It also implies weak but non-vacuous constraints on choices over ends. These do not include alpha (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. A Note on Knowledge-First Decision Theory and Practical Adequacy.Juan Comesaña - forthcoming - In Brian Kim & Matthew McGrath (eds.), Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology. Routledge.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Climate Change, Uncertainty and Policy.Jeroen Hopster - forthcoming - Springer.
    While the foundations of climate science and ethics are well established, fine-grained climate predictions, as well as policy-decisions, are beset with uncertainties. This chapter maps climate uncertainties and classifies them as to their ground, extent and location. A typology of uncertainty is presented, centered along the axes of scientific and moral uncertainty. This typology is illustrated with paradigmatic examples of uncertainty in climate science, climate ethics and climate economics. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the IPCC’s preferred way of representing uncertainties and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  8. The Value of Normative Information.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    This paper explores the idea that it is instrumentally valuable to learn normative truths. We consider an argument for "normative hedging" based on this principle, and examine the structure of decision-making under moral uncertainty that arises from it. But it also turns out that the value of normative information is inconsistent with the principle that learning *empirical* truths is instrumentally valuable. We conclude with a brief comment on "metanormative regress.".
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Time and the Decider.David Spurrett - forthcoming - Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
    Shadmehr and Ahmed’s book is a welcome extension of optimal foraging theory and neuroeconomics, achieved by integrating both with parameters relating to effort and rate of movement. Their most persuasive and prolific data comes from saccades, where times before and after decision are reasonably determinate. Skeletal movements are less likely to exhibit such tidy temporal organisation.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  10. Conditional causal decision theory reduces to evidential decision theory.Mostafa Mohajeri - 2024 - Analytic Philosophy 65 (1):93-106.
    Advocates of Causal Decision Theory (CDT) argue that Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) is inadequate because it gives the wrong result in Newcomb problems. Egan (2007) provides a recipe for converting Newcomb problems to counterexamples to CDT, arguing that CDT is inadequate too. Proposed by Edgington (2011), the Conditional Causal Decision Theory (CCDT) is widely taken uncritically in the recent literature as a version of CDT that conforms to the supposedly correct pre-theoretic judgments about the rationality of acts in Newcomb problems (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. The Argument from Small Improvement is a Red Herring.Thomas Raleigh - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    The much-discussed ‘Argument from Small Improvement’ has been advanced both as a reason to reject (tripartite) Completeness, one of the standard axioms of decision theory, and to accept the possibility of rationally incomparable choices. But this form of argument cannot be an effective basis for either of these conclusions, unless one already has some prior, independent reason to prefer Transitivity to Completeness as a constraint on rational preferences (or rational values). In particular, I show how a reverse argument from small (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Extending Environments To Measure Self-Reflection In Reinforcement Learning.Samuel Allen Alexander, Michael Castaneda, Kevin Compher & Oscar Martinez - 2022 - Journal of Artificial General Intelligence 13 (1).
    We consider an extended notion of reinforcement learning in which the environment can simulate the agent and base its outputs on the agent's hypothetical behavior. Since good performance usually requires paying attention to whatever things the environment's outputs are based on, we argue that for an agent to achieve on-average good performance across many such extended environments, it is necessary for the agent to self-reflect. Thus weighted-average performance over the space of all suitably well-behaved extended environments could be considered a (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  13. Following the Science: Pandemic Policy Making and Reasonable Worst-Case Scenarios.Richard Bradley & Joe Roussos - 2021 - LSE Public Policy Review 1 (4):6.
    The UK has been ‘following the science’ in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in line with the national framework for the use of scientific advice in assessment of risk. We argue that the way in which it does so is unsatisfactory in two important respects. Firstly, pandemic policy making is not based on a comprehensive assessment of policy impacts. And secondly, the focus on reasonable worst-case scenarios as a way of managing uncertainty results in a loss of decision-relevant information and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  14. Hard Choices Made Harder.Ryan Doody - 2021 - In Henrik Andersson & Anders Herlitz (eds.), Value Incommensurability: Ethics, Risk. And Decision-Making. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 247-266.
    How should you evaluate your choices when you’re unsure what their outcomes will be? One popular answer is to rank your options in terms of their expected utilities. But what should you do when you think that the value of their respective outcomes might be incommensurable? In the face of incommensurable values, it no longer makes sense to speak of ranking your options according to expected utility. Are there any general principles to guide us when facing decisions of this kind? (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Uncertain Values: An Axiomatic Approach to Axiological Uncertainty.Stefan Riedener - 2021 - Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter.
    How ought you to evaluate your options if you're uncertain about what's fundamentally valuable? A prominent response is Expected Value Maximisation (EVM)—the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected value across axiologies. But the expected value of an option depends on quantitative probability and value facts, and in particular on value comparisons across axiologies. We need to explain what it is for such facts to hold. Also, EVM (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  16. Why You Should Vote to Change the Outcome.Zach Barnett - 2020 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 48 (4):422-446.
    Prevailing opinion—defended by Jason Brennan and others—is that voting to change the outcome is irrational, since although the payoffs of tipping an election can be quite large, the probability of doing so is extraordinarily small. This paper argues that prevailing opinion is incorrect. Voting is shown to be rational so long as two conditions are satisfied: First, the average social benefit of electing the better candidate must be at least twice as great as the individual cost of voting, and second, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  17. Structuring Decisions Under Deep Uncertainty.Casey Helgeson - 2020 - Topoi 39 (2):257-269.
    Innovative research on decision making under ‘deep uncertainty’ is underway in applied fields such as engineering and operational research, largely outside the view of normative theorists grounded in decision theory. Applied methods and tools for decision support under deep uncertainty go beyond standard decision theory in the attention that they give to the structuring of decisions. Decision structuring is an important part of a broader philosophy of managing uncertainty in decision making, and normative decision theorists can both learn from, and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  18. Options must be external.Justis Koon - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (5):1175-1189.
    Brian Hedden has proposed that any successful account of options for the subjective “ought” must satisfy two constraints: first, it must ensure that we are able to carry out each of the options available to us, and second, it should guarantee that the set of options available to us supervenes on our mental states. In this paper I show that, due to the ever-present possibility of Frankfurt-style cases, these two constraints jointly entail that no agent has any options at any (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  19. Bayesian Decision Theory and Stochastic Independence.Philippe Mongin - 2020 - Philosophy of Science 87 (1):152-178.
    As stochastic independence is essential to the mathematical development of probability theory, it seems that any foundational work on probability should be able to account for this property. Bayesian decision theory appears to be wanting in this respect. Savage’s postulates on preferences under uncertainty entail a subjective expected utility representation, and this asserts only the existence and uniqueness of a subjective probability measure, regardless of its properties. What is missing is a preference condition corresponding to stochastic independence. To fill this (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  20. Deciding without Intending.Alexandra M. Nolte, Wesley Buckwalter, David Rose & John Turri - 2020 - Journal of Cognition 3 (1):12.
    According to a consensus view in philosophy, “deciding” and “intending” are synonymous expressions. Researchers have recently challenged this view with the discovery of a counterexample in which ordinary speakers attribute deciding without intending. The aim of this paper is to investigate the strengths and limits of this discovery. The result of this investigation revealed that the evidence challenging the consensus view is strong. We replicate the initial finding against consensus and extend it by utilizing several new measures, materials, and procedures. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Transformative experience and the knowledge norms for action: Moss on Paul’s challenge to decision theory.Richard Pettigrew - 2020 - In John Schwenkler & Enoch Lambert (eds.), Becoming Someone New: Essays on Transformative Experience, Choice, and Change. Oxford University Press.
    to appear in Lambert, E. and J. Schwenkler (eds.) Transformative Experience (OUP) -/- L. A. Paul (2014, 2015) argues that the possibility of epistemically transformative experiences poses serious and novel problems for the orthodox theory of rational choice, namely, expected utility theory — I call her argument the Utility Ignorance Objection. In a pair of earlier papers, I responded to Paul’s challenge (Pettigrew 2015, 2016), and a number of other philosophers have responded in similar ways (Dougherty, et al. 2015, Harman (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  22. Catastrophic risk.H. Orri Stefánsson - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (11):1-11.
    Catastrophic risk raises questions that are not only of practical importance, but also of great philosophical interest, such as how to define catastrophe and what distinguishes catastrophic outcomes from non-catastrophic ones. Catastrophic risk also raises questions about how to rationally respond to such risks. How to rationally respond arguably partly depends on the severity of the uncertainty, for instance, whether quantitative probabilistic information is available, or whether only comparative likelihood information is available, or neither type of information. Finally, catastrophic risk (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  23. Parity, prospects, and predominance.Ryan Doody - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (4):1077-1095.
    Let’s say that you regard two things as on a par when you don’t prefer one to other and aren’t indifferent between them. What does rationality require of you when choosing between risky options whose outcomes you regard as on a par? According to Prospectism, you are required to choose the option with the best prospects, where an option’s prospects is a probability-distribution over its potential outcomes. In this paper, I argue that Prospectism violates a dominance principle—which I call The (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  24. If There Are No Diachronic Norms of Rationality, Why Does It Seem Like There Are?Ryan Doody - 2019 - Res Philosophica 96 (2):141-173.
    I offer an explanation for why certain sequences of decisions strike us as irrational while others do not. I argue that we have a standing desire to tell flattering yet plausible narratives about ourselves, and that cases of diachronic behavior that strike us as irrational are those in which you had the opportunity to hide something unflattering and failed to do so.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  25. Normative Decision Theory.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Analysis 79 (4):755-772.
    A review of some major topics of debate in normative decision theory from circa 2007 to 2019. Topics discussed include the ongoing debate between causal and evidential decision theory, decision instability, risk-weighted expected utility theory, decision-making with incomplete preferences, and decision-making with imprecise credences.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  26. Measuring Belief and Risk Attitude.Sven Neth - 2019 - Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science 297:354–364.
    Ramsey (1926) sketches a proposal for measuring the subjective probabilities of an agent by their observable preferences, assuming that the agent is an expected utility maximizer. I show how to extend the spirit of Ramsey's method to a strictly wider class of agents: risk-weighted expected utility maximizers (Buchak 2013). In particular, I show how we can measure the risk attitudes of an agent by their observable preferences, assuming that the agent is a risk-weighted expected utility maximizer. Further, we can leverage (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  27. Choosing for Changing Selves.Richard Pettigrew - 2019 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    What we value, like, endorse, want, and prefer changes over the course of our lives. Richard Pettigrew presents a theory of rational decision making for agents who recognise that their values will change over time and whose decisions will affect those future times.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  28. Rationality and Future Discounting.Arif Ahmed - 2018 - Topoi 39 (2):245-256.
    The best justification of time-discounting is roughly that it is rational to care less about your more distant future because there is less of you around to have it. I argue that the standard version of this argument, which treats both psychological continuity and psychological connectedness as reasons to care about your future, can only rationalize an irrational—because exploitable—form of future discounting.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  29. Fear as a Regulator of the Process of Making Life Decisions in the Period of Late Adolescence.Volodymyr Chernobrovkin & Maksym Starodub - 2018 - Psychology and Psychosocial Interventions 1:55-61.
    The article addresses the problem of making life decisions by people during the period of late adolescence; describes the specifics of the influence of various factors, in particular, the sense of life orientations, life position, impulsivity; the questions of the influence of fear on the process of making life decisions by young people; and the influence of various types of fears on this process. -/- The results of the research show that the influence of fears on the process of making (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. Stanley and the Stakes Hypothesis.Michael J. Shaffer - 2017 - The Reasoner 11:73-74.
    The main examples of pragmatic encroachment presented by Jason Stanley involve the idea that knowledge ascription occurs more readily in cases where stakes are low rather than high. This is the stakes hypothesis. In this paper an example is presented showing that in some cases knowledge ascription is more readily appropriate where stakes are high rather than low.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  31. Grounding Reichenbach’s Pragmatic Vindication of Induction.Michael J. Shaffer - 2017 - Polish Journal of Philosophy 11 (1):43-55.
    This paper has three interdependent aims. The first is to make Reichenbach’s views on induction and probabilities clearer, especially as they pertain to his pragmatic justification of induction. The second aim is to show how his view of pragmatic justification arises out of his commitment to extensional empiricism and moots the possibility of a non-pragmatic justification of induction. Finally, and most importantly, a formal decision-theoretic account of Reichenbach’s pragmatic justification is offered in terms both of the minimax principle and the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  32. Revisiting Risk and Rationality: a reply to Pettigrew and Briggs.Lara Buchak - 2015 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45 (5):841-862.
    I have claimed that risk-weighted expected utility maximizers are rational, and that their preferences cannot be captured by expected utility theory. Richard Pettigrew and Rachael Briggs have recently challenged these claims. Both authors argue that only EU-maximizers are rational. In addition, Pettigrew argues that the preferences of REU-maximizers can indeed be captured by EU theory, and Briggs argues that REU-maximizers lose a valuable tool for simplifying their decision problems. I hold that their arguments do not succeed and that my original (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  33. Don’t Be an Ass: Rational Choice and its Limits.Marc Champagne - 2015 - Reason Papers 37 (1):137-147.
    Deliberation is often seen as the site of human freedom, but the binding power of rationality seems to imply that deliberation is, in its own way, a deterministic process. If one knows the starting preferences and circumstances of an agent, then, assuming that the agent is rational and that those preferences and circumstances don’t change, one should be in a position to predict what the agent will decide. However, given that an agent could conceivably confront equally attractive alternatives, it is (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  34. Decision-theoretic approaches to non-knowledge in economics.Ekaterina Svetlova & Henk van Elst - 2015 - In Matthias Gross & Linsey McGoey (eds.), Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies. Routledge. pp. 349-360.
    The aim of this contribution is to provide an overview of conceptual approaches to incorporating a decision maker’s non-knowledge into economic theory. We will focus here on the particular kind of non-knowledge which we consider to be one of the most important for economic discussions: non-knowledge of possible consequence-relevant uncertain events which a decision maker would have to take into account when selecting between different strategies.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Belief and cognitive limitations.Weng Hong Tang - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (1):249-260.
    A number of philosophers have argued that it is hard for finite agents like us to reason and make decisions relying solely on our credences and preferences. They hold that for us to cope with our cognitive limitations, we need binary beliefs as well. For they think that such beliefs, by disposing us to treat certain propositions as true, help us cut down on the number of possibilities we need to consider when we reason. But using Ross and Schroeder as (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   21 citations  
  36. Decision-Making Under Indeterminacy.J. Robert G. Williams - 2014 - Philosophers' Imprint 14.
    Decisions are made under uncertainty when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and one is uncertain to which the act will lead. Decisions are made under indeterminacy when there are distinct outcomes of a given action, and it is indeterminate to which the act will lead. This paper develops a theory of (synchronic and diachronic) decision-making under indeterminacy that portrays the rational response to such situations as inconstant. Rational agents have to capriciously and randomly choose how to resolve (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   73 citations  
  37. Causal Decision Theory: A Counterexample.Arif Ahmed - 2013 - Philosophical Review 122 (2):289-306.
    The essay presents a novel counterexample to Causal Decision Theory (CDT). Its interest is that it generates a case in which CDT violates the very principles that motivated it in the first place. The essay argues that the objection applies to all extant formulations of CDT and that the only way out for that theory is a modification of it that entails incompatibilism. The essay invites the reader to find this consequence of CDT a reason to reject it.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  38. Decision Theory, Philosophical Perspectives.Darren Bradley - 2013 - In Hal Pashler (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Mind. Sage Publications.
    Decision theory is concerned with how agents should act when the consequences of their actions are uncertain. The central principle of contemporary decision theory is that the rational choice is the choice that maximizes subjective expected utility. This entry explains what this means, and discusses the philosophical motivations and consequences of the theory. The entry will consider some of the main problems and paradoxes that decision theory faces, and some of responses that can be given. Finally the entry will briefly (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Akrasia and Uncertainty.Ralph Wedgwood - 2013 - Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 20 (4):483–505.
    According to John Broome, akrasia consists in a failure to intend to do something that one believes one ought to do, and such akrasia is necessarily irrational. In fact, however, failing to intend something that one believes one ought to do is only guaranteed to be irrational if one is certain of a maximally detailed proposition about what one ought to do; if one is uncertain about any part of the full story about what one ought to do, it could (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  40. How Much Ambiguity Aversion? Finding Indifferences between Ellsberg's Risky and Ambiguous Bets.Ken Binmore, Lisa Stewart & Alex Voorhoeve - 2012 - Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 45 (3):215-38.
    Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the principle of insufficient reason. Contrary to our expectations, the principle of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  41. The Many Gods Objection to Pascal’s Wager.Lawrence Pasternack - 2012 - Philo 15 (2):158-178.
    The Many Gods Objection (MGO) is widely viewed as a decisive criticism of Pascal’s Wager. By introducing a plurality of hypotheses with infinite expected utility into the decision matrix, the wagerer is left without adequate grounds to decide between them. However, some have attempted to rebut this objection by employing various criteria drawn from the theological tradition. Unfortunately, such defenses do little good for an argument that is supposed to be an apologetic aimed at atheists and agnostics. The purpose of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  42. Using moral principles to guide decisions.Holly Smith - 2012 - Philosophical Issues 22 (1):369-386.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  43. Aggregating Dependency Graphs into Voting Agendas in Multi-Issue Elections.Stephane Airiau, Ulle Endriss, Umberto Grandi, Daniele Porello & Joel Uckelman - 2011 - In Stephane Airiau, Ulle Endriss, Umberto Grandi, Daniele Porello & Joel Uckelman (eds.), {IJCAI} 2011, Proceedings of the 22nd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, July 16-22, 2011. pp. 18--23.
    Many collective decision making problems have a combinatorial structure: the agents involved must decide on multiple issues and their preferences over one issue may depend on the choices adopted for some of the others. Voting is an attractive method for making collective decisions, but conducting a multi-issue election is challenging. On the one hand, requiring agents to vote by expressing their preferences over all combinations of issues is computationally infeasible; on the other, decomposing the problem into several elections on smaller (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Introspection, Revealed Preference and Neoclassical Economics: A Critical Response to Don Ross on the Robbins-Samuelson Argument Pattern.D. Wade Hands - 2008 - Journal of the History of Economic Thought 30:1-26.
    Abstract: Don Ross’ Economic Theory and Cognitive Science (2005) provides an elaborate philosophical defense of neoclassical economics. He argues that the central features of neoclassical theory are associated with what he calls the Robbins-Samuelson argument pattern and that it can be reconciled with recent developments in experimental and behavioral economics, as well as contemporary cognitive science. This paper argues that Ross’ Robbins-Samuelson argument pattern is not in the work of either Robbins or Samuelson and in many ways is in conflict (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  45. Avoiding certain frustration, reflection, and the cable guy paradox.Brian Kierland, Bradley Monton & Samuel Ruhmkorff - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (3):317 - 333.
    We discuss the cable guy paradox, both as an object of interest in its own right and as something which can be used to illuminate certain issues in the theories of rational choice and belief. We argue that a crucial principle—The Avoid Certain Frustration (ACF) principle—which is used in stating the paradox is false, thus resolving the paradox. We also explain how the paradox gives us new insight into issues related to the Reflection principle. Our general thesis is that principles (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  46. 2006 HES Presidential Address: A Tale of Two Mainstreams: Economics and Philosophy of Natural Science in the mid-Twentieth Century.D. Wade Hands - 2007 - Journal of the History of Economic Thought 29:1-13.
    Abstract: The paper argues that mainstream economics and mainstream philosophy of natural science had much in common during the period 1945-1965. It examines seven common features of the two fields and suggests a number of historical developments that might help explain these similarities. The historical developments include: the Vienna Circle connection, the Samuelson-Harvard-Foundations connection, and the Cold War operations research connection.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Prisoners' Dilemmas and Reciprocal Altruists.John J. Tilley - 1999 - Philosophia 27 (1-2):261-272.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  48. Popper, the Rationality Principle and Economic Explanation.D. Wade Hands - 1991 - In G. K. Shaw (ed.), Economics, Culture, and Education: Essays in Honor of Mark Blaug. Edward Elgar. pp. 108-119.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  49. The infinite regress of optimization.Philippe Mongin - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (2):229-230.
    A comment on Paul Schoemaker's target article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 14 (1991), p. 205-215, "The Quest for Optimality: A Positive Heuristic of Science?" (https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00066140). This comment argues that the optimizing model of decision leads to an infinite regress, once internal costs of decision (i.e., information and computation costs) are duly taken into account.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. Modèle rationnel ou modèle économique de la rationalité?Philippe Mongin - 1984 - Revue Economique 35 (1):9-63.
    This article critically discusses the concept of economic rationality, arguing that it is too narrow and specific to encompass the full concept of practical rationality. Economic rationality is identified here with the use of the optimizing model of decision, as well as of expected utility apparatus to deal with uncertainty. To argue that practical rationality is broader than economic rationality, the article claims that practical rationality includes bounded rationality as a particular case, and that bounded rationality cannot be reduced to (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
1 — 50 / 53