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2Decisions in Dynamic SettingsPSA Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986 (1): 438-449. 1986.The expected utility of an option for a decision maker is defined with respect to probability and utility functions that represent the decision maker’s beliefs and desires. Therefore, as the decision maker’s beliefs and desires change, the expected utility of an opinion may change. Some options are such that their realizations change beliefs and desires in ways that change the expected utilities of the options. If a decision is made among options that include one or more of these special options…Read more
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55Exclusion from the social contractPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 10 (2): 148-169. 2011.Does rational bargaining yield a social contract that is efficient and so inclusive? A core allocation, that is, an allocation that gives each coalition at least as much as it can get on its own, is efficient. However, some coalitional games lack a core allocation, so rationality does not require one in those games. Does rationality therefore permit exclusion from the social contract? I replace realization of a core allocation with another type of equilibrium achievable in every coalitional game…Read more
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21Equilibrium and Rationality: Game Theory Revised by Decision RulesPhilosophical Review 110 (3): 425. 2001.Like many theorists before him, Paul Weirich has set out to find the Holy Grail of classical game theory: the solution concept that identifies the uniquely rational solution to every non-cooperative game. In this book, he reports an intermediate stage in his quest. He cannot actually identify the unique solution for every game but, he believes, he has found a new concept of equilibrium that is a necessary property of that solution.
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6The received view of framingBehavioral and Brain Sciences 45. 2022.The received view of framing has multiple interpretations. I flesh out an interpretation that is more open-minded about framing effects than the extensionality principle that Bermúdez formulates. My interpretation attends to the difference between preferences held all things considered and preferences held putting aside some considerations. It also makes room for decision principles that handle cases without a complete all-things-considered preference-ranking of options.
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11AFTERWORDS Criticism and CounterthesesJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (3): 327-328. 1981.
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14Rational Choice Using Imprecise Probabilities and UtilitiesCambridge University Press. 2021.An agent often does not have precise probabilities or utilities to guide resolution of a decision problem. I advance a principle of rationality for making decisions in such cases. To begin, I represent the doxastic and conative state of an agent with a set of pairs of a probability assignment and a utility assignment. Then I support a decision principle that allows any act that maximizes expected utility according to some pair of assignments in the set. Assuming that computation of an option's e…Read more
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34Rational Responses to RisksOxford University Press. 2020.A philosophical account of risk, such as this book provides, states what risk is, which attitudes to it are rational, and which acts affecting risks are rational. Attention to the nature of risk reveals two types of risk, first, a chance of a bad event, and, second, an act’s risk in the sense of the volatility of its possible outcomes. The distinction is normatively significant because different general principles of rationality govern attitudes to these two types of risk. Rationality strictl…Read more
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118Mild Contraction: Evaluating Loss of Information Due to Loss of BeliefMind 114 (455): 753-757. 2005.This book review describes and evaluates Issac Levi's views about belief revision.
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13Review of Jordan Howard Sobel: Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice (review)Ethics 106 (1): 191-192. 1995.
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25Coordination and HyperrationalityProtoSociology 35 197-214. 2018.Margaret Gilbert (1990) argues that although the rationality of the agents in a standard coordination problem does not suffice for their coordination, a social convention of coordination, understood as the agents’ joint acceptance of a principle requiring their coordination, does the job. Gilbert’s argument targets agents rational in the game-theoretic sense, which following Sobel (1994: Chap. 14), I call hyperrational agents. I agree that hyperrational agents may fail to coordinate in some case…Read more
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27Change in the Decision SciencesLato Sensu: Revue de la Société de Philosophie des Sciences 5 (1): 13-19. 2018.A common type of change in science occurs as theorists generalize a model of a phenomenon by removing some idealizations of the model. This type of change occurs in the decision sciences and also in the normative branch of the decision sciences that treats rational choice. After presenting a general ac-count of model generalization, the paper illustrates generalization of models in normative decision theory. The principal illustration generalizes a standard model of rational choice by removing t…Read more
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40Risk as a ConsequenceTopoi 39 (2): 293-303. 2020.Expected-utility theory advances representation theorems that do not take the risk an act generates as a consequence of the act. However, a principle of expected-utility maximization that explains the rationality of preferences among acts must, for normative accuracy, take the act’s risk as a consequence of the act if the agent cares about the risk. I defend this conclusion against the charge that taking an act’s consequences to comprehend all the agent cares about trivializes the principle of e…Read more
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1Probability and Utility for Decision TheoryDissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. 1977.
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78Interpersonal utility in principles of social choiceErkenntnis 21 (3). 1984.This paper summarizes and rebuts the three standard objections made by social choice theorists against interpersonal utility. The first objection argues that interpersonal utility is measningless. I show that this objection either focuses on irrelevant kinds of meaning or else uses implausible criteria of meaningfulness. The second objection argues that interpersonal utility has no role to play in social choice theory. I show that on the contrary interpersonal utility is useful in formulating go…Read more
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25The Standard of LivingPhilosophical Books 29 (3): 180-183. 1988.This book review evaluate Amartya Sen's views about capabilities and the standard of living.
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63Conventions and social institutionsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 599-618. 1989.This essay examines views of convention advanced by David Lewis and Margaret Gilbert.
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33The contributorsSynthese 176 (1): 149-150. 2010.This lists the contributors to a special issue on realistic standards for decisions.
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15Review of John Kagel, Raymond Battalio, and Leonard Green, ECONOMIC CHOICE THEORY: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF ANIMAL BEHAVIOR (review)Economics and Philosophy 15 (2): 295-302. 1999.Economic theory may explain the behavior of animals. Its application to animals is not straightforward, however.
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22Auguste Comte: Trajectoires positivistes 1798–1998 (review)Isis 96 470-471. 2005.Auguste Comte's version of positivism shares logical positivism's aversion to metaphysics.
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34Decisions without Sharp ProbabilitiesPhilosophia Scientiae 19 213-225. 2015.Adam Elga [Elga 2010] argues that no principle of rationality leads from unsharp probabilities to decisions. He concludes that a perfectly rational agent does not have unsharp probabilities. This paper defends unsharp probabilities. It shows how unsharp probabilities may ground rational decisions
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6Probabilities in decision rulesIn Ellery Eells & James H. Fetzer (eds.), The Place of Probability in Science, Springer. pp. 289--319. 2010.The theory of direct reference suggests revising probability theory so that a probability attaches to a proposition given a way of understanding the proposition. The revisions make probabilities relative but do not change their structure.
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1Models of Decision-Making: Simplifying ChoicesCambridge University Press. 2014.The options in a decision problem generally have outcomes with common features. Putting aside the common features simplifies deliberations, but the simplification requires a philosophical justification that this book provides.
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300Conditional utility and its place in decision theoryJournal of Philosophy 77 (11): 702-715. 1980.Causal decision theory attends to probabilities used to obtain an option's expected utility but for completeness should also attend to utilities of possible outcomes. A suitable formula for an option's expected utility uses a certain type of conditional utility.
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52Labeling Genetically Modified Food: The Philosophical and Legal Debate (edited book)Oup Usa. 2007.Food products with genetically modified ingredients are common, yet many consumers are unaware of this. When polled, consumers say that they want to know whether their food contains GM ingredients, just as many want to know whether their food is natural or organic. Informing consumers is a major motivation for labeling. But labeling need not be mandatory. Consumers who want GM-free products will pay a premium to support voluntary labeling. Why do consumers want to know about GM ingredients? GM f…Read more
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Comte et Mill sur l'économie politiqueRevue Internationale de Philosophie 52 (203): 79-93. 1998.This essay compares the views of Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill on political economy.
Areas of Specialization
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Probability |
Areas of Interest
Social and Political Philosophy |
General Philosophy of Science |