Indeterminate Preferences

Philosophical Studies 130 (2):297-320 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

It is commonly assumed that preferences are determinate; that is, that an agent who has a preference knows that she has the preference in question and is disposed to act upon it. This paper argues the dubiousness of that assumption. An account of indeterminate preferences in terms of self-predicting subjective probabilities is given, and a decision rule for choices involving indeterminate preferences is proposed. Wolfgang Spohn’s and Isaac Levi ’s arguments against self-predicting probabilities are also considered, in light of Wlodek Rabinowicz’s recent criticism

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 91,386

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Money Pumps, Incompleteness, and Indeterminacy.Johan E. Gustafsson - 2016 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 92 (1):60-72.
Preferences and Well-Being.Serena Olsaretti (ed.) - 2006 - Cambridge University Press.
Indeterminate Comprehension.Jonathan A. Simon - 2014 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 3 (1):39-48.
Collective preferences, obligations, and rational choice.Margaret Gilbert - 2001 - Economics and Philosophy 17 (1):109-119.
In defense of adaptive preferences.Donald W. Bruckner - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 142 (3):307 - 324.
A defense of indeterminate distinctness.Ken Akiba - 2014 - Synthese 191 (15):3557-3573.
Preferences, welfare, and the status-quo bias.Dale Dorsey - 2010 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (3):535-554.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
46 (#337,879)

6 months
3 (#992,474)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Martin Peterson
Texas A&M University

Citations of this work

On Evaluative Imprecision.Teruji Thomas - 2022 - In Jeff McMahan, Timothy Campbell, Ketan Ramakrishnan & Jimmy Goodrich (eds.), Ethics and Existence: The Legacy of Derek Parfit. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 478-497.
Uncertain preferences in rational decision.Moritz Schulz - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (6):605-627.
The Argument from Small Improvement is a Red Herring.Thomas Raleigh - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1954 - Wiley Publications in Statistics.
Truth and probability.Frank Ramsey - 2010 - In Antony Eagle (ed.), Philosophy of Probability: Contemporary Readings. New York: Routledge. pp. 52-94.
The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1954 - Synthese 11 (1):86-89.
How Is Weakness of the Will Possible?Donald Davidson - 1969 - In Joel Feinberg (ed.), Moral concepts. London,: Oxford University Press.

View all 15 references / Add more references