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The Conditionals of Deliberation

Mind 119 (473):1-42 (2010)

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  1. Counterfactual skepticism is (just) skepticism.David Boylan - 2023 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 108 (1):259-286.
    Counterfactual skepticism says that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. While few endorse counterfactual skepticism, the precise costs of the view are disputed and not generally well-understood. I have two aims in this paper. My first and primary aim is to establish, on grounds acceptable to all parties, that counterfactual skepticism is not benign. I argue it leads to significant skepticism about the future: if counterfactual skepticism is true, then we can have only very limited knowledge about the future. I give (...)
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  • Probabilities of conditionals: Updating Adams.Ivano Ciardelli & Adrian Ommundsen - 2024 - Noûs 58 (1):26-53.
    The problem of probabilities of conditionals is one of the long-standing puzzles in philosophy of language. We defend and update Adams' solution to the puzzle: the probability of an epistemic conditional is not the probability of a proposition, but a probability under a supposition. -/- Close inspection of how a triviality result unfolds in a concrete scenario does not provide counterexamples to the view that probabilities of conditionals are conditional probabilities: instead, it supports the conclusion that probabilities of conditionals violate (...)
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  • Counterfactual Decision Theory.Brian Hedden - 2023 - Mind 132 (527):730-761.
    I defend counterfactual decision theory, which says that you should evaluate an action in terms of which outcomes would likely obtain were you to perform it. Counterfactual decision theory has traditionally been subsumed under causal decision theory as a particular formulation of the latter. This is a mistake. Counterfactual decision theory is importantly different from, and superior to, causal decision theory, properly so called. Causation and counterfactuals come apart in three kinds of cases. In cases of overdetermination, an action can (...)
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  • The Material Conditional is Sufficient to Model Deliberation.Giacomo Bonanno - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (1):325-349.
    There is an ongoing debate in the philosophical literature whether the conditionals that are central to deliberation are subjunctive or indicative conditionals and, if the latter, what semantics of the indicative conditional is compatible with the role that conditionals play in deliberation. We propose a possible-world semantics where conditionals of the form “if I take action _a_ the outcome will be _x_” are interpreted as material conditionals. The proposed framework is illustrated with familiar examples and both qualitative and probabilistic beliefs (...)
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  • The Fall of “Adams' Thesis”?Alan Hájek - 2012 - Journal of Logic, Language and Information 21 (2):145-161.
    The so-called ‘Adams’ Thesis’ is often understood as the claim that the assertibility of an indicative conditional equals the corresponding conditional probability—schematically: $${({\rm AT})}\qquad\qquad\quad As(A\rightarrow B)=P({B|A}),{\rm provided}\quad P(A)\neq 0.$$ The Thesis is taken by many to be a touchstone of any theorizing about indicative conditionals. Yet it is unclear exactly what the Thesis is . I suggest some precise statements of it. I then rebut a number of arguments that have been given in its favor. Finally, I offer a new (...)
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  • Yet another anti-molinist argument.Dean Zimmerman - 2009 - In Samuel Newlands & Larry M. Jorgensen (eds.), Metaphysics and the good: themes from the philosophy of Robert Merrihew Adams. New York: Oxford University Press.
    ‘Molinism’, in contemporary usage, is the name for a theory about the workings of divine providence. Its defenders include some of the most prominent contemporary Protestant and Catholic philosophical theologians.¹ Molinism is often said to be the only way to steer a middle..
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  • Obligation and Regret When There is No Fact of the Matter About What Would Have Happened if You Had not Done What You Did.Caspar Hare - 2011 - Noûs 45 (1):190 - 206.
    It is natural to distinguish between objective and subjective senses of.
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  • Risk, Precaution, and Causation.Masaki Ichinose - 2022 - Tetsugaku: International Journal of the Philosophical Association of Japan 6:22-53.
    This paper aims to scrutinize how the notion of risk should be understood and applied to possibly catastrophic cases. I begin with clarifying the standard usage of the notion of risk, particularly emphasizing the conceptual relation between risk and probability. Then, I investigate how to make decisions in the case of seemingly catastrophic disasters by contrasting the precautionary principle with the preventive (prevention) principle. Finally, I examine what kind of causal thinking tends to be actually adopted when we make decisions (...)
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  • Degrees of Assertability.Sam Carter - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (1):19-49.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 1, Page 19-49, January 2022.
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  • Deontic Modality in Rationality and Reasoning.Alessandra Marra - 2019 - Dissertation, Tilburg University
    The present dissertation investigates certain facets of the logical structure of oughts – where “ought” is used as a noun, roughly meaning obligation. I do so by following two lines of inquiry. The first part of the thesis places oughts in the context of practical rationality. The second part of the thesis concerns the inference rules governing arguments about oughts, and specifically the inference rule of Reasoning by Cases. These two lines of inquiry, together, aim to expound upon oughts in (...)
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  • No Surprises.Ian Wells - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (2):389-406.
    The surprise exam paradox is an apparently sound argument to the apparently absurd conclusion that a surprise exam cannot be given within a finite exam period. A closer look at the logic of the paradox shows the argument breaking down immediately. So why do the beginning stages of the argument appear sound in the first place? This paper presents an account of the paradox on which its allure is rooted in a common probabilistic mistake: the base rate fallacy. The account (...)
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  • Backtracking Counterfactuals Revisited.Justin Khoo - 2017 - Mind 126 (503):841-910.
    I discuss three observations about backtracking counterfactuals not predicted by existing theories, and then motivate a theory of counterfactuals that does predict them. On my theory, counterfactuals quantify over a suitably restricted set of historical possibilities from some contextually relevant past time. I motivate each feature of the theory relevant to predicting our three observations about backtracking counterfactuals. The paper concludes with replies to three potential objections.
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  • Self‐Reinforcing and Self‐Frustrating Decisions.Caspar Hare & Brian Hedden - 2015 - Noûs 50 (3):604-628.
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  • Deliberationally useless conditionals.Karolina Krzyżanowska - 2020 - Episteme 17 (1):1-27.
    Decision theorists tend to treat indicative conditionals with reservation, because they can easily lead a deliberating agent astray. However, many indicatives can be very helpful in contexts of deliberation, so denying them all a role in such contexts seems to be overkill. We show that a recently revived inferential view on conditionals provides a straightforward explanation of why some indicatives are unassertable in contexts of deliberation and hints at a way of telling "deliberationally useless" and "deliberationally useful" conditionals apart.
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  • The Real Reason Why the Prisoner’s Dilemma is Not a Newcomb Problem.Mark Thomas Walker - 2014 - Philosophia 42 (3):841-859.
    It is commonly thought, in line with the position defended in an influential paper by David Lewis, that the decision problems faced in the prisoner’s dilemma and the Newcomb situation are essentially the same problem. José Luis Bermúdez has recently attacked the case Lewis makes for this claim. While I think the claim is false, I contend that Bermúdez’s reason for rejecting Lewis’s argument is inadequate, and then outline what I take to be a better reason for doing so.
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  • Rethinking Gibbard’s Riverboat Argument.Karolina Krzyżanowska, Sylvia Wenmackers & Igor Douven - 2014 - Studia Logica 102 (4):771-792.
    According to the Principle of Conditional Non-Contradiction (CNC), conditionals of the form “If p, q” and “If p, not q” cannot both be true, unless p is inconsistent. This principle is widely regarded as an adequacy constraint on any semantics that attributes truth conditions to conditionals. Gibbard has presented an example of a pair of conditionals that, in the context he describes, appear to violate CNC. He concluded from this that conditionals lack truth conditions. We argue that this conclusion is (...)
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  • Old Adams Buried.Ian Rumfitt - 2013 - Analytic Philosophy 54 (2):157-188.
    I present some counterexamples to Adams's Thesis and explain how they undermine arguments that indicative conditionals cannot be truth-evaluable propositions.
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  • Recent Work on Molinism.Ken Perszyk - 2013 - Philosophy Compass 8 (8):755-770.
    Molinism is named after Luis de Molina (1535–1600). Molina and his fellow Jesuits became entangled in a fierce debate over issues involving the doctrine of divine providence, which is a picture of how God runs the world. Molinism reemerged in the 1970s after Alvin Plantinga unwittingly assumed it in his Free Will Defense against the ‘Logical’ Argument from Evil. Molinism has been the subject of vigorous debate in analytic philosophy of religion ever since. The main aim of this essay is (...)
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  • Truth, Conservativeness, and Provability: Reply to Cieslinski.J. Ketland - 2010 - Mind 119 (474):423-436.
    Cieslinski has given an interesting response to Shapiro 1998 and Ketland 1999, which argued that deflationary truth theories are inadequate, since they lack the property of ‘reflective adequacy’. Cieslinski’s response, following Tennant (2002, 2005), aims to explain, without a detour using truth axioms, why someone who accepts the axioms of a theory should also accept its reflection principles. The argument is formulated very clearly (in fact, to justify a different reflection principle), and involves a couple of important assumptions, the crucial (...)
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  • Theories of Providence and Creation.Jonathan L. Kvanvig - 2013 - Res Philosophica 90 (1):49-67.
    Einstein was notoriously confident that God doesn’t play dice with the universe. Perhaps it is a confidence born of a deeper modal presumption: that Godcouldn’t play dice with the universe. If so, such confidence almost certainly disappoints. Even if God doesn’t play dice with the universe, he might. Thus arises the issue here addressed: what implications does this datum have for a proper understanding of divine providence? My interest is in theories that aim to present complete theories of providence, ones (...)
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  • Future Conditionals and DeRose's Thesis.David Barnett - 2012 - Mind 121 (482):407-442.
    In deciding whether to read this paper, it might seem reasonable for you to base your decision on your confidence (i) that, if you read this paper, you will become a better person. It might also seem reasonable for you to base your decision on your confidence (ii) that, if you were to read this paper, you would become a better person. Is there a difference between (i) and (ii)? If so, are you rationally required to base your decision on (...)
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  • Counterfactual antecedent falsity and the epistemic sensitivity of counterfactuals.Brian Leahy - 2018 - Philosophical Studies 175 (1):45-69.
    Why do utterances of counterfactual conditionals typically, but not universally, convey the message that their antecedents are false? I demonstrate that two common theoretical commitments–commitment to the existence of scalar implicature and of informative presupposition—can be supplemented with an independently motivated theory of the presuppositions of competing conditional alternatives to jointly predict this information when and only when it appears. The view works best if indicative and counterfactual conditionals have a closely related semantics, so I conclude by undermining two familiar (...)
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  • Conditionals, Literal Content, and 'DeRose's Thesis': A Reply to Barnett.K. DeRose - 2012 - Mind 121 (482):443-455.
    Against Barnett (2012), I argue that the theory I advance in DeRose 2010 is best construed as one on which ‘"were"ed-up’ future-directed conditionals like ‘If the house were not to be painted, it would soon look quite shabby’ are, in ways important to how they function in deliberation, different in literal content from their ‘straightforward’ counterparts like ‘If the house is not painted, it will soon look quite shabby’. I also defend my way of classifying future-directed conditionals against an attack (...)
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  • Naturalizing Deontic Logic: Indeterminacy, Diagonalization, and Self‐Affirmation.Melissa Fusco - 2018 - Philosophical Perspectives 32 (1):165-187.
    It is an appealing idea that deontic modality is a modality of the open future, and that the indeterminacy of the open future is the key, within natural language, to understanding the deontic modal puzzles that form the traditional subject-matter of deontic logic. In this paper, I pull together three well-studied strands of indeterminism—Thomason (1980)’s settledness operator, the modal base of Kratzer (1981, 1991)’s analysis of modals, and Stalnaker (1978)’s notion of diagonal acceptance—to argue for two theses governing a deontic (...)
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