Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Unexpected Expectations.Alan Hájek - 2014 - Mind 123 (490):533-567.
    A decade ago, Harris Nover and I introduced the Pasadena game, which we argued gives rise to a new paradox in decision theory even more troubling than the St Petersburg paradox. Gwiazda's and Smith's articles in this volume both offer revisionist solutions. I critically engage with both articles. They invite reflections on a number of deep issues in the foundations of decision theory, which I hope to bring out. These issues include: some ways in which orthodox decision theory might be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   18 citations  
  • Is Evaluative Compositionality a Requirement of Rationality?Nicholas J. J. Smith - 2014 - Mind 123 (490):457-502.
    This paper presents a new solution to the problems for orthodox decision theory posed by the Pasadena game and its relatives. I argue that a key question raised by consideration of these gambles is whether evaluative compositionality (as I term it) is a requirement of rationality: is the value that an ideally rational agent places on a gamble determined by the values that she places on its possible outcomes, together with their mode of composition into the gamble (i.e. the probabilities (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   45 citations  
  • A Generalization of the Pasadena Puzzle.Martin Peterson - 2013 - Dialectica 67 (4):597-603.
    By generalizing the Pasadena puzzle introduced by Nover and Hájek (2004) we show that the sum total of value produced by an act can be made to converge to any real number by applying the Riemann rearrangement theorem, even if the scenario faced by the decision maker is non-probabilistic and fully predictable. A wide range of solutions put forward in the literature for solving the original puzzle cannot solve this generalized version of the Pasadena puzzle.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The Bounded Strength of Weak Expectations.J. Sprenger & R. Heesen - 2011 - Mind 120 (479):819-832.
    The rational price of the Pasadena and Altadena games, introduced by Nover and Hájek (2004 ), has been the subject of considerable discussion. Easwaran (2008 ) has suggested that weak expectations — the value to which the average payoffs converge in probability — can give the rational price of such games. We argue against the normative force of weak expectations in the standard framework. Furthermore, we propose to replace this framework by a bounded utility perspective: this shift renders the problem (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Strong and weak expectations.Kenny Easwaran - 2008 - Mind 117 (467):633-641.
    Fine has shown that assigning any value to the Pasadena game is consistent with a certain standard set of axioms for decision theory. However, I suggest that it might be reasonable to believe that the value of an individual game is constrained by the long-run payout of repeated plays of the game. Although there is no value that repeated plays of the Pasadena game converges to in the standard strong sense, I show that there is a weaker sort of convergence (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • The Weirdness of the World.Eric Schwitzgebel - 2024 - Princeton University Press.
    How all philosophical explanations of human consciousness and the fundamental structure of the cosmos are bizarre—and why that’s a good thing Do we live inside a simulated reality or a pocket universe embedded in a larger structure about which we know virtually nothing? Is consciousness a purely physical matter, or might it require something extra, something nonphysical? According to the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, it’s hard to say. In The Weirdness of the World, Schwitzgebel argues that the answers to these fundamental (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Decision Theory Unbound.Zachary Goodsell - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):669-695.
    Countenancing unbounded utility in ethics gives rise to deep puzzles in formal decision theory. Here, these puzzles are taken as an invitation to assess the most fundamental principles relating probability and value, with the aim of demonstrating that unbounded utility in ethics is compatible with a desirable decision theory. The resulting theory frames further discussion of Expected Utility Theory and of principles concerning symmetries of utility.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Fixing Stochastic Dominance.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - forthcoming - The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Decision theorists widely accept a stochastic dominance principle: roughly, if a risky prospect A is at least as probable as another prospect B to result in something at least as good, then A is at least as good as B. Recently, philosophers have applied this principle even in contexts where the values of possible outcomes do not have the structure of the real numbers: this includes cases of incommensurable values and cases of infinite values. But in these contexts the usual (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Unbounded Utility.Zachary Goodsell - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Southern California
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Infinite Prospects.Jeffrey Sanford Russell & Yoaav Isaacs - 2021 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1):178-198.
    People with the kind of preferences that give rise to the St. Petersburg paradox are problematic---but not because there is anything wrong with infinite utilities. Rather, such people cannot assign the St. Petersburg gamble any value that any kind of outcome could possibly have. Their preferences also violate an infinitary generalization of Savage's Sure Thing Principle, which we call the *Countable Sure Thing Principle*, as well as an infinitary generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's Independence axiom, which we call *Countable (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  • Non-Archimedean Preferences Over Countable Lotteries.Jeffrey Sanford Russell - 2020 - Journal of Mathematical Economics 88 (May 2020):180-186.
    We prove a representation theorem for preference relations over countably infinite lotteries that satisfy a generalized form of the Independence axiom, without assuming Continuity. The representing space consists of lexicographically ordered transfinite sequences of bounded real numbers. This result is generalized to preference orders on abstract superconvex spaces.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Surreal Decisions.Eddy Keming Chen & Daniel Rubio - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (1):54-74.
    Although expected utility theory has proven a fruitful and elegant theory in the finite realm, attempts to generalize it to infinite values have resulted in many paradoxes. In this paper, we argue that the use of John Conway's surreal numbers shall provide a firm mathematical foundation for transfinite decision theory. To that end, we prove a surreal representation theorem and show that our surreal decision theory respects dominance reasoning even in the case of infinite values. We then bring our theory (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Why Decision Theory Remains Constructively Incomplete.Luc Lauwers - 2016 - Mind 125 (500):1033-1043.
    The existence of a transitive, complete, and weakly independent relation on the full set of gambles implies the existence of a non-Ramsey set. Therefore, each transitive and weakly independent relation on the set of gambles either is incomplete or does not have an explicit description. Whatever tools decision theory makes available, there will always be decision problems where these tools fail us. In this sense, decision theory remains incomplete.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  • Expectations and Choiceworthiness.J. McKenzie Alexander - 2011 - Mind 120 (479):803-817.
    The Pasadena game is an example of a decision problem which lacks an expected value, as traditionally conceived. Easwaran (2008) has shown that, if we distinguish between two different kinds of expectations, which he calls ‘strong’ and ‘weak’, the Pasadena game lacks a strong expectation but has a weak expectation. Furthermore, he argues that we should use the weak expectation as providing a measure of the value of an individual play of the Pasadena game. By considering a modified version of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Why the Angels Cannot Choose.J. McKenzie Alexander - 2012 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90 (4):619 - 640.
    Decision theory faces a number of problematic gambles which challenge it to say what value an ideal rational agent should assign to the gamble, and why. Yet little attention has been devoted to the question of what an ideal rational agent is, and in what sense decision theory may be said to apply to one. I show that, given one arguably natural set of constraints on the preferences of an idealized rational agent, such an agent is forced to be indifferent (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Complex Expectations.Alan Hájek & Harris Nover - 2008 - Mind 117 (467):643 - 664.
    In our 2004, we introduced two games in the spirit of the St Petersburg game, the Pasadena and Altadena games. As these latter games lack an expectation, we argued that they pose a paradox for decision theory. Terrence Fine has shown that any finite valuations for the Pasadena, Altadena, and St Petersburg games are consistent with the standard decision-theoretic axioms. In particular, one can value the Pasadena game above the other two, a result that conflicts with both our intuitions and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Rationality and indeterminate probabilities.Alan Hájek & Michael Smithson - 2012 - Synthese 187 (1):33-48.
    We argue that indeterminate probabilities are not only rationally permissible for a Bayesian agent, but they may even be rationally required . Our first argument begins by assuming a version of interpretivism: your mental state is the set of probability and utility functions that rationalize your behavioral dispositions as well as possible. This set may consist of multiple probability functions. Then according to interpretivism, this makes it the case that your credal state is indeterminate. Our second argument begins with our (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  • Making Ado Without Expectations.Mark Colyvan & Alan Hájek - 2016 - Mind 125 (499):829-857.
    This paper is a response to Paul Bartha’s ‘Making Do Without Expectations’. We provide an assessment of the strengths and limitations of two notable extensions of standard decision theory: relative expectation theory and Paul Bartha’s relative utility theory. These extensions are designed to provide intuitive answers to some well-known problems in decision theory involving gaps in expectations. We argue that both RET and RUT go some way towards providing solutions to the problems in question but neither extension solves all the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  • Decision theory without finite standard expected value.Luc Lauwers & Peter Vallentyne - 2016 - Economics and Philosophy 32 (3):383-407.
    :We address the question, in decision theory, of how the value of risky options should be assessed when they have no finite standard expected value, that is, where the sum of the probability-weighted payoffs is infinite or not well defined. We endorse, combine and extend the proposal of Easwaran to evaluate options on the basis of their weak expected value, and the proposal of Colyvan to rank options on the basis of their relative expected value.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations