-
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
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
10AFTERWORDS Criticism and CounterthesesJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 40 (3): 327-328. 1981.
-
12Rational 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
-
31Rational 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
-
112Mild 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.
-
12Review of Jordan Howard Sobel: Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice (review)Ethics 106 (1): 191-192. 1995.
-
22Coordination 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
-
22Change 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
-
39Risk 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
-
1Probability and Utility for Decision TheoryDissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. 1977.
-
8PreferenceIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.Decision theory relies on an account of preference. Some accounts are behaviorist and others are mentalistic. The account used affects the explanatory power of decision theory.
-
70A computer simulation runs a model generating a phenomenon under investigation. For the simulation to be explanatory, the model has to be explanatory. The model must be isomorphic to the natural system that realizes the phenomenon. This paper elaborates the method of assessing a simulation's explanatory power. Then it illustrates the method by applying it to two simulations in game theory. The first is Brian Skyrms's (1990) simulation of interactive deliberations. It is intended to explain the e…Read more
-
Joseph Y. Halpern, Reasoning about Uncertainty (review)Philosophy in Review 24 333-336. 2004.Reviews Joseph Halpern's book with special attention to his points about conditionals.
-
78Utility and framingSynthese 176 (1). 2010.Standard principles of rational decision assume that an option's utility is both comprehensive and accessible. These features constrain interpretations of an option's utility. This essay presents a way of understanding utility and laws of utility. It explains the relation between an option's utility and its outcome's utility and argues that an option's utility is relative to a specification of the option. Utility's relativity explains how a decision problem's framing affects an option's utility …Read more
-
14The General Welfare As A Constitutional GoalSocial Philosophy Today 5 411-432. 1991.This essay examines how attention to the general welfare should influence the formulation of a constitution.
-
72Collective actsSynthese 187 (1): 223-241. 2012.Groups of people perform acts. For example, a committee passes a resolution, a team wins a game, and an orchestra performs a symphony. These collective acts may be evaluated for rationality. Take a committee’s passing a resolution. This act may be evaluated not only for fairness but also for rationality. Did it take account of all available information? Is the resolution consistent with the committee’s past resolutions? Standards of collective rationality apply to collective acts, that is, acts …Read more
-
28IntroductionSynthese 176 (1): 1-3. 2010.This introduction is to a special journal issue on realistic standards for decisions. A realistic standard takes account of human cognitive limits, the circumstances for making a decision, and the features of a decision problem.
-
69Risk's Place in Decision RulesSynthese 126 (3): 427-441. 2001.To handle epistemic and pragmatic risks, Gärdenfors and Sahlin (1982, 1988) design a decision procedure for cases in which probabilities are indeterminate. Their procedure steps outside the traditional expected utility framework. Must it do this? Can the traditional framework handle risk? This paper argues that it can. The key is a comprehensive interpretation of an option's possible outcomes. Taking possible outcomes more broadly than Gärdenfors and Sahlin do, expected utility can give risk its…Read more
-
27Adam Morton on DilemmasDialogue 33 (1): 95. 1994.Adam Morton offers a novel approach to making decisions. This review describes and evaluates his innovations
-
Ellery Eells and Tomasz Maruszewski, eds., Probability and Rationality: Studies on L. Jonathan Cohen's Philosophy of Science Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 12 (3): 189-191. 1992.This book review describes and evaluates the essays collected by the editors.
-
87Decision theory aims at a general account of rationality covering humans but to begin makes idealizations about decision problems and agents' resources and circumstances. It treats inerrant agents with unlimited cognitive power facing tractable decision problems. This book systematically rolls back idealizations and without loss of precision treats errant agents with limited cognitive abilities facing decision problems without a stable top option. It recommends choices that maximize utility usin…Read more
-
20Thinking about Acting: Logical Foundations for Rational Decision Making - by John L. PollockPhilosophical Books 48 (3): 283-285. 2007.This book review describes and evaluates John Pollock's view about rational decision-making.
-
22Decisions in Dynamic SettingsPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986. 1986.In a decision problem with a dynamic setting there is at least one option whose realization would change the expected utilities of options by changing the probability or utility function with respect to which the expected utilities of options are computed. A familiar example is Newcomb's problem. William Harper proposes a generalization of causal decision theory intended to cover all decision problems with dynamic settings, not just Newcomb's problem. His generalization uses Richard Jeffrey's id…Read more
-
2Mark Kaplan, Decision Theory as Philosophy (review)Philosophy in Review 16 (3): 179-180. 1996.Mark Kaplan proposes amending decision theory to accommodate better cases in which an agent's probability assignment is imprecise. The review describes and evaluates his proposals.
Areas of Specialization
Logic and Philosophy of Logic |
Philosophy of Probability |
Areas of Interest
Social and Political Philosophy |
General Philosophy of Science |