Interpolating Decisions

Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (2):327-339 (2023)
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Abstract

Decision theory requires agents to assign probabilities to states of the world and utilities to the possible outcomes of different actions. When agents commit to having the probabilities and/or utilities in a decision problem defined by objective features of the world, they may find themselves unable to decide which actions maximize expected utility. Decision theory has long recognized that work-around strategies are available in special cases; this is where dominance reasoning, minimax, and maximin play a role. Here we describe a different work around, wherein a rational decision about one decision problem can be reached by ‘interpolating’ information from another problem that the agent believes has already been rationally solved.

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Author Profiles

Elliott Sober
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Jonathan Cohen
University of California, San Diego

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References found in this work

The philosophical significance of Stein’s paradox.Olav Vassend, Elliott Sober & Branden Fitelson - 2017 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 7 (3):411-433.
Theories.Ramsey Frank Plumpton - 1931 - In Braithwaite R. B. (ed.), The Foundations of Mathematics and Other Logical Essays. Routledge Kegan & Paul.

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