Most philosophical decision theorists and philosophers of the social sciences believe that decision theory is and should be in the business of providing folk psychological explanations of choice behaviour, and that it can only do so if we understand the preferences, utilities and probabilities that feature in decision-theoretic models as ascriptions of mental states not reducible to choice. The behavioural interpretation of preference and related concepts, still common in economics, is consequently cast as misguided. This paper argues that even those (...) who strive to provide folk psychological explanations should side with the economists, and adopt a behavioural interpretation of the preferences featuring in decision-theoretic models. Under a mentalistic interpretation of preference, decision-theoretic models do not straightforwardly provide ordinary folk psychological explanations. Instead, they involve controversial enough commitments about the mental causes of choice to not only fail to adequately capture much unreflective decision-making, but also many intentional, reason-based and instrumentally rational choices. Satisfactory folk psychological explanation in fact only comes indirectly from inferring more fundamental conative attitudes from a pattern of decision-theoretic preferences. And the behavioural interpretation does a better job at facilitating such inferences. My argument extends to the related concepts of utility and probability. (shrink)

In this paper, I review the literature on rational choice theory to scrutinize a number of criticisms that philosophers have voiced against its usefulness in economics. The paper has three goals: first, I argue that the debates about RCT have been characterized by disunity and confusion about the object under scrutiny, which calls into question the effectiveness of those criticisms. Second, I argue that RCT is not a single and unified choice theory—let alone an empirical theory of human behavior—as some (...) critics seem to suppose. Rather, there are several variants of RCT used in economics. Third, I propose that we think of RCT as a set of distinct research strategies to appreciate its diversity. This account implies that the effectiveness of any criticism depends on the variant of RCT we are considering. (shrink)

My thesis explores alternatives to the orthodox model of decision theory. I criticise it by focusing on motivations that, for different reasons, I believe should not be labelled as a consequence. I start by describing what I call the orthodox theory of choice. I describe both the theories proposed by Von Neumann and Morgenstern, and Savage. This is followed by a discussion of the individuation strategy, and, in particular, John Broome’s proposal of an individuation by justifiers ). I then focus (...) on the Allais’s problem, and on how individuation can be employed to solve the problematic situation in which it puts orthodox decision theory. I argue against the practice of using this strategy as a general solution to cases such as the Allais’s problem. I then extend the concerns raised by the Allais’s problem to motivations that do not concern probabilities. I focus on dynamic decision making, and on a property of certain actions that arises from the passage of time: hope. This is interesting because it is no longer the probabilities that affect the decision maker, but an element that is not even represented in the standard model, namely time. I then describe the Kreps and Porteus’s model ) for a preference for the timing of the resolution of uncertainty, where a preference for either early or late resolution of uncertainty is modelled explicitly. I show how making time an explicit part of the model allows one to model utility as depending on something other than consequences, while not violating dynamic consistency. I use the above case to claim that in some contexts - for example, if the decision maker is deciding for herself, and time is passing - it is preferable to model concerns that do not quite fit the label of a consequence explicitly, because the benefits of doing so surpass the costs. This seems to indicate that decision theory should be moving towards a pluralist approach, where different models are used depending on the decision context. (shrink)

Darwinian evolution is a population-level phenomenon. This paper deals with a structural population concept within the framework of generalized Darwinism, resp. within a generalized theory of evolution. According to some skeptical authors, GD is in need of a valid population concept in order to become a practicable research program. Populations are crucial and basic elements of any evolutionary explanation—biological or cultural—and have to be defined as clearly as possible. I suggest the “causal interactionist population concept”, by R. Millstein for this (...) purpose, and I will try to embed the approach into a generalized evolutionary perspective by mathematically formalizing its key definitions. Using graph-theory, populations as described in the CIPC can serve as proper clusters of evolutionary classification based on the rates of interactions between their elements. I will introduce the concept of a cohesion index as a measurement of possible population candidates within a distribution of elements. The strength of this approach lies in its applicability and interactions are relatively easy to observe. Furthermore, problems of clustering tokens via typicality, e.g. their similarity in intrinsic key characteristics, can be avoided, because CIPC is a external approach. However, some formal problems and conceptual ambiguities occur within a simple version of this CI, which will be addressed in this paper as well as some possible applications. (shrink)