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The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory

Cambridge University Press (1999)

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  1. Conditionals in causal decision theory.John Cantwell - 2013 - Synthese 190 (4):661-679.
    This paper explores the possibility that causal decision theory can be formulated in terms of probabilities of conditionals. It is argued that a generalized Stalnaker semantics in combination with an underlying branching time structure not only provides the basis for a plausible account of the semantics of indicative conditionals, but also that the resulting conditionals have properties that make them well-suited as a basis for formulating causal decision theory. Decision theory (at least if we omit the frills) is not an (...)
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  • Non-Ideal Accessibility.Holly Lawford-Smith - 2013 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 16 (3):653-669.
    What should we do when we won't do as we ought? Suppose it ought to be that the procrastinating professor accept the task of reviewing a book, and actually review the book. It seems clear that given he won't review it, he ought not to accept the task. That is a genuine moral obligation in light of less than perfect circumstances. I want to entertain the possibility that a set of such obligations form something like a 'practical morality'; that which (...)
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  • Learning Conditional Information.Igor Douven - 2012 - Mind and Language 27 (3):239-263.
    Some of the information we receive comes to us in an explicitly conditional form. It is an open question how to model the accommodation of such information in a Bayesian framework. This paper presents data suggesting that there may be no strictly Bayesian account of updating on conditionals. Specifically, the data seem to indicate that such updating at least sometimes proceeds on the basis of explanatory considerations, which famously have no home in standard Bayesian epistemology. The paper also proposes a (...)
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  • Intuitions for inferences.Sinan Dogramaci - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 165 (2):371-399.
    In this paper, I explore a question about deductive reasoning: why am I in a position to immediately infer some deductive consequences of what I know, but not others? I show why the question cannot be answered in the most natural ways of answering it, in particular in Descartes’s way of answering it. I then go on to introduce a new approach to answering the question, an approach inspired by Hume’s view of inductive reasoning.
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  • A problem for the alternative difference measure of confirmation.Nevin Climenhaga - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 164 (3):643-651.
    Among Bayesian confirmation theorists, several quantitative measures of the degree to which an evidential proposition E confirms a hypothesis H have been proposed. According to one popular recent measure, s, the degree to which E confirms H is a function of the equation P(H|E) − P(H|~E). A consequence of s is that when we have two evidential propositions, E1 and E2, such that P(H|E1) = P(H|E2), and P(H|~E1) ≠ P(H|~E2), the confirmation afforded to H by E1 does not equal the (...)
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  • Options and the subjective ought.Brian Hedden - 2012 - Philosophical Studies 158 (2):343-360.
    Options and the subjective ought Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-18 DOI 10.1007/s11098-012-9880-0 Authors Brian Hedden, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116.
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  • Must rational intentions maximize utility?Ralph Wedgwood - 2017 - Philosophical Explorations 20 (sup2):73-92.
    Suppose that it is rational to choose or intend a course of action if and only if the course of action maximizes some sort of expectation of some sort of value. What sort of value should this definition appeal to? According to an influential neo-Humean view, the answer is “Utility”, where utility is defined as a measure of subjective preference. According to a rival neo-Aristotelian view, the answer is “Choiceworthiness”, where choiceworthiness is an irreducibly normative notion of a course of (...)
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  • Toward a Grammar of Bayesian Confirmation.Vincenzo Crupi, Roberto Festa & Carlo Buttasi - 2009 - In M. Suàrez, M. Dorato & M. Rèdei (eds.), EPSA Epistemology and Methodology of Science: Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association. Springer. pp. 73--93.
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  • Weight for Stephen Finlay.Daan Evers - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 163 (3):737-749.
    According to Stephen Finlay, ‘A ought to X’ means that X-ing is more conducive to contextually salient ends than relevant alternatives. This in turn is analysed in terms of probability. I show why this theory of ‘ought’ is hard to square with a theory of a reason’s weight which could explain why ‘A ought to X’ logically entails that the balance of reasons favours that A X-es. I develop two theories of weight to illustrate my point. I first look at (...)
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  • Regret and instability in causal decision theory.James M. Joyce - 2012 - Synthese 187 (1):123-145.
    Andy Egan has recently produced a set of alleged counterexamples to causal decision theory in which agents are forced to decide among causally unratifiable options, thereby making choices they know they will regret. I show that, far from being counterexamples, CDT gets Egan's cases exactly right. Egan thinks otherwise because he has misapplied CDT by requiring agents to make binding choices before they have processed all available information about the causal consequences of their acts. I elucidate CDT in a way (...)
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  • Outright Belief.Ralph Wedgwood - 2012 - Dialectica 66 (3):309–329.
    Sometimes, we think of belief as a phenomenon that comes in degrees – that is, in the many different levels of confidence that a thinker might have in various different propositions. Sometimes, we think of belief as a simple two-place relation that holds between a thinker and a proposition – that is, as what I shall here call "outright belief".
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  • Focused Correlation, Confirmation, and the Jigsaw Puzzle of Variable Evidence.Maximilian Schlosshauer & Gregory Wheeler - 2011 - Philosophy of Science 78 (3):376-92.
    Focused correlation compares the degree of association within an evidence set to the degree of association in that evidence set given that some hypothesis is true. A difference between the confirmation lent to a hypothesis by one evidence set and the confirmation lent to that hypothesis by another evidence set is robustly tracked by a difference in focused correlations of those evidence sets on that hypothesis, provided that all the individual pieces of evidence are equally, positively relevant to that hypothesis. (...)
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  • Belief, Credence, and Pragmatic Encroachment.Jacob Ross & Mark Schroeder - 2014 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2):259-288.
    This paper compares two alternative explanations of pragmatic encroachment on knowledge (i.e., the claim that whether an agent knows that p can depend on pragmatic factors). After reviewing the evidence for such pragmatic encroachment, we ask how it is best explained, assuming it obtains. Several authors have recently argued that the best explanation is provided by a particular account of belief, which we call pragmatic credal reductivism. On this view, what it is for an agent to believe a proposition is (...)
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  • A defense of imprecise credences in inference and decision making1.James M. Joyce - 2010 - Philosophical Perspectives 24 (1):281-323.
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  • Decisions, Diachronic Autonomy, and the Division of Deliberative Labor.Luca Ferrero - 2010 - Philosophers' Imprint 10:1-23.
    It is often argued that future-directed decisions are effective at shaping our future conduct because they give rise, at the time of action, to a decisive reason to act as originally decided. In this paper, I argue that standard accounts of decision-based reasons are unsatisfactory. For they focus either on tie-breaking scenarios or cases of self-directed distal manipulation. I argue that future-directed decisions are better understood as tools for the non-manipulative, intrapersonal division of deliberative labor over time. A future-directed decision (...)
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  • Choosing Rationally and Choosing Correctly.Ralph Wedgwood - 2003 - In Sarah Stroud & Christine Tappolet (eds.), Weakness of will and practical irrationality. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 201--229.
    Let us take an example that Bernard Williams (1981: 102) made famous. Suppose that you want a gin and tonic, and you believe that the stuff in front of you is gin. In fact, however, the stuff is not gin but petrol. So if you drink the stuff (even mixed with tonic), it will be decidedly unpleasant, to say the least. Should you choose to drink the stuff or not?
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  • Conditional Excluded Middle without the Limit Assumption.Eric Swanson - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 85 (2):301-321.
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  • Supposition and desire in a non-classical setting.J. Robert G. Williams - unknown
    *These notes were folded into the published paper "Probability and nonclassical logic*. Revising semantics and logic has consequences for the theory of mind. Standard formal treatments of rational belief and desire make classical assumptions. If we are to challenge the presuppositions, we indicate what is kind of theory is going to take their place. Consider probability theory interpreted as an account of ideal partial belief. But if some propositions are neither true nor false, or are half true, or whatever—then it’s (...)
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  • A unified Bayesian decision theory.Richard Bradley - 2007 - Theory and Decision 63 (3):233-263,.
    This paper provides new foundations for Bayesian Decision Theory based on a representation theorem for preferences defined on a set of prospects containing both factual and conditional possibilities. This use of a rich set of prospects not only provides a framework within which the main theoretical claims of Savage, Ramsey, Jeffrey and others can be stated and compared, but also allows for the postulation of an extended Bayesian model of rational belief and desire from which they can be derived as (...)
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  • Formal Representations of Belief.Franz Huber - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Epistemology is the study of knowledge and justified belief. Belief is thus central to epistemology. It comes in a qualitative form, as when Sophia believes that Vienna is the capital of Austria, and a quantitative form, as when Sophia's degree of belief that Vienna is the capital of Austria is at least twice her degree of belief that tomorrow it will be sunny in Vienna. Formal epistemology, as opposed to mainstream epistemology (Hendricks 2006), is epistemology done in a formal way, (...)
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  • Causation, Coherence and Concepts : a Collection of Essays.Wolfgang Spohn - unknown
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  • Dependency Equilibria and the Causal Structure of Decision and Game Situation.Wolfgang Spohn - unknown
    The paper attempts to rationalize cooperation in the one-shot prisoners' dilemma (PD). It starts by introducing (and preliminarily investigating) a new kind of equilibrium (differing from Aumann's correlated equilibria) according to which the players' actions may be correlated (sect. 2). In PD the Pareto-optimal among these equilibria is joint cooperation. Since these equilibria seem to contradict causal preconceptions, the paper continues with a standard analysis of the causal structure of decision situations (sect. 3). The analysis then raises to a reflexive (...)
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  • The Place of Probability in Science: In Honor of Ellery Eells (1953-2006).Ellery Eells & James H. Fetzer (eds.) - 2010 - Springer.
    To clarify and illuminate the place of probability in science Ellery Eells and James H. Fetzer have brought together some of the most distinguished philosophers ...
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  • Tenable conditionals.J. Robert G. Williams - manuscript
    *This is a project I hope to come back to one day. It stalled, a bit, on the absence of a positive theory of update I could be satisfied with* When should we believe a indicative conditional, and how much confidence in it should we have? Here’s one proposal: one supposes actual the antecedent; and sees under that supposition what credence attaches to the consequent. Thus we suppose that Oswald did not shot Kennedy; and note that under this assumption, Kennedy (...)
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  • Is the conjunction fallacy tied to probabilistic confirmation?Jonah N. Schupbach - 2012 - Synthese 184 (1):13-27.
    Crupi et al. (2008) offer a confirmation-theoretic, Bayesian account of the conjunction fallacy—an error in reasoning that occurs when subjects judge that Pr( h 1 & h 2 | e ) > Pr( h 1 | e ). They introduce three formal conditions that are satisfied by classical conjunction fallacy cases, and they show that these same conditions imply that h 1 & h 2 is confirmed by e to a greater extent than is h 1 alone. Consequently, they suggest (...)
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  • Probability, confirmation, and the conjunction fallacy.Vincenzo Crupi, Branden Fitelson & Katya Tentori - 2007 - Thinking and Reasoning 14 (2):182 – 199.
    The conjunction fallacy has been a key topic in debates on the rationality of human reasoning and its limitations. Despite extensive inquiry, however, the attempt to provide a satisfactory account of the phenomenon has proved challenging. Here we elaborate the suggestion (first discussed by Sides, Osherson, Bonini, & Viale, 2002) that in standard conjunction problems the fallacious probability judgements observed experimentally are typically guided by sound assessments of _confirmation_ relations, meant in terms of contemporary Bayesian confirmation theory. Our main formal (...)
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  • Practical reasoning as figuring out what is best: Against constructivism.Ralph Wedgwood - 2002 - Topoi 21 (1-2):139-152.
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  • The paradox of confirmation.Branden Fitelson - 2006 - Philosophy Compass 1 (1):95–113.
    Hempel first introduced the paradox of confirmation in (Hempel 1937). Since then, a very extensive literature on the paradox has evolved (Vranas 2004). Much of this literature can be seen as responding to Hempel’s subsequent discussions and analyses of the paradox in (Hempel 1945). Recently, it was noted that Hempel’s intuitive (and plausible) resolution of the paradox was inconsistent with his official theory of confirmation (Fitelson & Hawthorne 2006). In this article, we will try to explain how this inconsistency affects (...)
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  • Putting the irrelevance back into the problem of irrelevant conjunction.Branden Fitelson - 2002 - Philosophy of Science 69 (4):611-622.
    Naive deductive accounts of confirmation have the undesirable consequence that if E confirms H, then E also confirms the conjunction H & X, for any X—even if X is utterly irrelevant to H (and E). Bayesian accounts of confirmation also have this property (in the case of deductive evidence). Several Bayesians have attempted to soften the impact of this fact by arguing that—according to Bayesian accounts of confirmation— E will confirm the conjunction H & X less strongly than E confirms (...)
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  • The kinematics of belief and desire.Richard Bradley - 2007 - Synthese 156 (3):513-535.
    Richard Jeffrey regarded the version of Bayesian decision theory he floated in ‘The Logic of Decision’ and the idea of a probability kinematics—a generalisation of Bayesian conditioning to contexts in which the evidence is ‘uncertain’—as his two most important contributions to philosophy. This paper aims to connect them by developing kinematical models for the study of preference change and practical deliberation. Preference change is treated in a manner analogous to Jeffrey’s handling of belief change: not as mechanical outputs of combinations (...)
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  • The Chances of Choices.Reuben Stern - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
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  • Analytic Functionalism.Wolfgang Schwarz - 2015 - In Barry Loewer & Jonathan Schaffer (eds.), A companion to David Lewis. Chichester, West Sussex ;: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 504–518.
    David Lewis's position, often called analytic functionalism, was inspired by Ryle's analytic behaviorism, which took psychological predicates to express complex sets of behavioral dispositions. In this chapter, the author reviews some tenets of Lewis's philosophy of mind and begins with some comments on the methodology Lewis employed in his analysis of psychological terms, which has become standard in functionalist accounts across philosophy. Then, he discusses the difference between what are often called “realizer functionalism” and “role functionalism,” and argues that Lewis (...)
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  • In defense of causal eliminativism.Alice van’T. Hoff - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-22.
    Causal eliminativists maintain that all causal talk is false. The prospects for such a view seem to be stymied by an indispensability argument, charging that any agent must distinguish between effective and ineffective strategies, and that such a distinction must commit that agent to causal notions. However, this argument has been under-explored. The contributions of this paper are twofold: first, I provide a thorough explication of the indispensability argument and the various ways it might be defended. Second, I point to (...)
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  • The rational dimension of understanding.Miloud Belkoniene - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-16.
    It is natural to regard understanding as having a rational dimension, in the sense that understanding seems to require having justification for holding certain beliefs about the world. Some philosophers however argue that justification is not required to gain understanding of phenomena. In the present paper, my intention is to provide a critical examination of the arguments that have been offered against the view that understanding requires justification in order to show that, contrary to what they purport to establish, justification (...)
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  • A plan-based causal decision theory.Gerard J. Rothfus - 2022 - Analysis 82 (2):264-272.
    In ‘An argument against causal decision theory’, Jack Spencer shows that standard formulations of causal decision theory run afoul of his Guaranteed Principle. In the sequential choice problem he employs to make this case, the transgression stems from an awkward discrepancy between how causalists typically value present vs future acts. This note suggests a version of causal decision theory that avoids this incongruity and so respects the Guaranteed Principle in Spencer’s problem. However, this formulation, and hence symmetric appraisal of present (...)
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  • Attitudes, deliberation and decisions.Richard Bradley - 2022 - Synthese 200 (1):1-18.
    In this paper I discuss the challenges of several authors to the claims I make in Decision Theory with a Human Face regarding the relation between preference and choice, the nature of conditional desire, the semantics of conditionals, attitudes to chances and their role in individuating prospects, belief change under growing awareness and choice under ambiguity.
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  • Uncertainty, Rationality, and Agency.Wiebe van der Hoek - 2006 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    This volume concerns Rational Agents - humans, players in a game, software or institutions - which must decide the proper next action in an atmosphere of partial information and uncertainty. The book collects formal accounts of Uncertainty, Rationality and Agency, and also of their interaction. It will benefit researchers in artificial systems which must gather information, reason about it and then make a rational decision on which action to take.
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  • Nuel Belnap on Indeterminism and Free Action.Thomas Müller (ed.) - 2014 - Wien, Austria: Springer.
    This volume seeks to further the use of formal methods in clarifying one of the central problems of philosophy: that of our free human agency and its place in our indeterministic world. It celebrates the important contributions made in this area by Nuel Belnap, American logician and philosopher. Philosophically, indeterminism and free action can seem far apart, but in Belnap’s work, they are intimately linked. This book explores their philosophical interconnectedness through a selection of original research papers that build forth (...)
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  • Preference Change: Approaches From Philosophy, Economics and Psychology.Till Grüne-Yanoff & Sven Ove Hansson - 2009 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    Changing preferencesis a phenomenonoften invoked but rarely properlyaccounted for. Throughout the history of the social sciences, researchers have come against the possibility that their subjects’ preferenceswere affected by the phenomenato be explainedor by otherfactorsnot taken into accountin the explanation.Sporadically, attempts have been made to systematically investigate these in uences, but none of these seems to have had a lasting impact. Today we are still not much further with respect to preference change than we were at the middle of the last (...)
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  • Dynamic Formal Epistemology.Patrick Girard, Olivier Roy & Mathieu Marion (eds.) - 2010 - Berlin, Germany: Springer.
    This volume is a collation of original contributions from the key actors of a new trend in the contemporary theory of knowledge and belief, that we call “dynamic epistemology”. It brings the works of these researchers under a single umbrella by highlighting the coherence of their current themes, and by establishing connections between topics that, up until now, have been investigated independently. It also illustrates how the new analytical toolbox unveils questions about the theory of knowledge, belief, preference, action, and (...)
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  • Bradley Conditionals and Dynamic Choice.Simon M. Huttegger & Gerard J. Rothfus - 2021 - Synthese 199 (3-4):6585-6599.
    One of the main contributions of Richard Bradley’s book is an elegant extension of Jeffrey’s Logic of Decision that countenances the evaluation of conditional prospects. This extension offers a promising new setting in which to model dynamic choice. In Bradley’s framework, plans can be understood as conditionals of an appropriate sort, while dynamic consistency can be viewed as providing a constraint on the evaluation of conditionals across time. In this paper, we study connections between planning conditionals and dynamic consistency.
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  • In Defence of Revealed Preference Theory.Johanna Thoma - 2021 - Economics and Philosophy 37 (2):163-187.
    This paper defends revealed preference theory against a pervasive line of criticism, according to which revealed preference methodology relies on appealing to some mental states, in particular an agent’s beliefs, rendering the project incoherent or unmotivated. I argue that all that is established by these arguments is that revealed preference theorists must accept a limited mentalism in their account of the options an agent should be modelled as choosing between. This is consistent both with an essentially behavioural interpretation of preference (...)
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  • The fine-grainedness of poetry: A new argument against the received view.Daniela Glavaničová & Miloš Kosterec - 2021 - Analysis 81 (2):224-231.
    This paper formulates a new argument against the received view in the philosophy of poetry. The received view consists of three tenets: the unity of poetic form and poetic content; the impossibility of paraphrasing and translating poetry; and the hyperintensionality of poetry. We will explore the same detour via direct quotation that has been used by proponents of the received view. We will argue that the hyperintensionality and unity of quotation do not guarantee its untranslatability, and thus that the inference (...)
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  • The Logic of Partial Supposition.Benjamin Eva & Stephan Hartmann - 2021 - Analysis (2):215-224.
    According to orthodoxy, there are two basic moods of supposition: indicative and subjunctive. The most popular formalizations of the corresponding norms of suppositional judgement are given by Bayesian conditionalization and Lewisian imaging, respectively. It is well known that Bayesian conditionalization can be generalized (via Jeffrey conditionalization) to provide a model for the norms of partial indicative supposition. This raises the question of whether imaging can likewise be generalized to model the norms of ‘partial subjunctive supposition’. The present article casts doubt (...)
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  • Interpreting plural predication: homogeneity and non-maximality.Manuel Križ & Benjamin Spector - 2020 - Linguistics and Philosophy 44 (5):1131-1178.
    Plural definite descriptions across many languages display two well-known properties. First, they can give rise to so-called non-maximal readings, in the sense that they ‘allow for exceptions’. Second, while they tend to have a quasi-universal quantificational force in affirmative sentences, they tend to be interpreted existentially in the scope of negation. Building on previous works, we offer a theory in which sentences containing plural definite expressions trigger a family of possible interpretations, and where general principles of language use account for (...)
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  • Policymaking under scientific uncertainty.Joe Roussos - 2020 - Dissertation, London School of Economics
    Policymakers who seek to make scientifically informed decisions are constantly confronted by scientific uncertainty and expert disagreement. This thesis asks: how can policymakers rationally respond to expert disagreement and scientific uncertainty? This is a work of non-ideal theory, which applies formal philosophical tools developed by ideal theorists to more realistic cases of policymaking under scientific uncertainty. I start with Bayesian approaches to expert testimony and the problem of expert disagreement, arguing that two popular approaches— supra-Bayesianism and the standard model of (...)
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  • Objects of Choice.Wolfgang Schwarz - 2021 - Mind 111.
    Rational agents are supposed to maximize expected utility. But what are the options from which they choose? I outline some constraints on an adequate representation of an agent’s options. The options should, for example, contain no information of which the agent is unsure. But they should be sufficiently rich to distinguish all available acts from one another. These demands often come into conflict, so that there seems to be no adequate representation of the options at all. After reviewing existing proposals (...)
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  • Exploiting Cyclic Preference.Arif Ahmed - 2016 - Mind:fzv218.
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  • Structural Decision Theory.Tung-Ying Wu - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):951-960.
    Judging an act’s causal efficacy plays a crucial role in causal decision theory. A recent development appeals to the causal modeling framework with an emphasis on the analysis of intervention based on the causal Bayes net for clarifying what causally depends on our acts. However, few writers have focused on exploring the usefulness of extending structural causal models to decision problems that are not ideal for intervention analysis. The thesis concludes that structural models provide a more general framework for rational (...)
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  • Conditional desirability: comments on Richard Bradley’s decision theory with a human face.James M. Joyce - 2020 - Synthese 198 (9):8413-8431.
    Richard Bradley’s landmark book Decision Theory with a Human Face makes seminal contributions to nearly every major area of decision theory, as well as most areas of formal epistemology and many areas of semantics. In addition to sketching Bradley’s distinctive semantics for conditional beliefs and desires, I will explain his theory of conditional desire, focusing particularly on his claim that we should not desire events, either positively or negatively, under the supposition that they will occur. I shall argue, to the (...)
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