Results for 'Decision Theory'

951 found
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  1. Decision Theory and Rationality.José Luis Bermúdez - 2009 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
    Decision Theory and Rationality offers a challenging new interpretation of a key theoretical tool in the human and social sciences. This accessible book argues, contrary to orthodoxy in politics, economics, and management science, that decision theory cannot provide a theory of rationality.
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    Qualitative Decision Theory Via Channel Theory.Gerard Allwein, Yingrui Yang & William L. Harrison - 2011 - Logic and Logical Philosophy 20 (1-2):81-110.
    We recast parts of decision theory in terms of channel theory concentrating on qualitative issues. Channel theory allows one to move between model theoretic and language theoretic notions as is necessary for an adequate covering. Doing so clarifies decision theory and presents the opportunity to investigate alternative formulations. As an example, we take some of Savage’s notions of decision theory and recast them within channel theory. In place of probabilities, we use (...)
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  3. Interventionist decision theory.Reuben Stern - 2017 - Synthese 194 (10):4133-4153.
    Jim Joyce has argued that David Lewis’s formulation of causal decision theory is inadequate because it fails to apply to the “small world” decisions that people face in real life. Meanwhile, several authors have argued that causal decision theory should be developed such that it integrates the interventionist approach to causal modeling because of the expressive power afforded by the language of causal models, but, as of now, there has been little work towards this end. In (...)
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  4. Evidential Decision Theory.Arif Ahmed - 2021 - Cambridge University Press.
    Evidential Decision Theory is a radical theory of rational decision-making. It recommends that instead of thinking about what your decisions *cause*, you should think about what they *reveal*. This Element explains in simple terms why thinking in this way makes a big difference, and argues that doing so makes for *better* decisions. An appendix gives an intuitive explanation of the measure-theoretic foundations of Evidential Decision Theory.
     
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  5. (1 other version)Decision Theory as Philosophy.Mark Kaplan - 1983 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Is Bayesian decision theory a panacea for many of the problems in epistemology and the philosophy of science, or is it philosophical snake-oil? For years a debate had been waged amongst specialists regarding the import and legitimacy of this body of theory. Mark Kaplan had written the first accessible and non-technical book to address this controversy. Introducing a new variant on Bayesian decision theory the author offers a compelling case that, while no panacea, decision (...)
     
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  6. Tournament decision theory.Abelard Podgorski - 2020 - Noûs 56 (1):176-203.
    The dispute in philosophical decision theory between causalists and evidentialists remains unsettled. Many are attracted to the causal view’s endorsement of a species of dominance reasoning, and to the intuitive verdicts it gets on a range of cases with the structure of the infamous Newcomb’s Problem. But it also faces a rising wave of purported counterexamples and theoretical challenges. In this paper I will describe a novel decision theory which saves what is appealing about the causal (...)
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  7. Counterfactual Decision Theory.Brian Hedden - 2023 - Mind 132 (527):730-761.
    I defend counterfactual decision theory, which says that you should evaluate an action in terms of which outcomes would likely obtain were you to perform it. Counterfactual decision theory has traditionally been subsumed under causal decision theory as a particular formulation of the latter. This is a mistake. Counterfactual decision theory is importantly different from, and superior to, causal decision theory, properly so called. Causation and counterfactuals come apart in three (...)
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  8. Decision theory and de minimis risk.Martin Smith - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89 (6):2169-2192.
    A de minimis risk is defined as a risk that is so small that it may be legitimately ignored when making a decision. While ignoring small risks is common in our day-to-day decision making, attempts to introduce the notion of a de minimis risk into the framework of decision theory have run up against a series of well-known difficulties. In this paper, I will develop an enriched decision theoretic framework that is capable of overcoming two (...)
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  9. Counterfactual Decision Theory Is Causal Decision Theory.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2024 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 105 (1):115-156.
    The role of causation and counterfactuals in causal decision theory is vexed and disputed. Recently, Brian Hedden (2023) argues that we should abandon causal decision theory in favour of an alternative: counterfactual decision theory. I argue that, pace Hedden, counterfactual decision theory is not a competitor to, but rather a version of, causal decision theory – the most popular version by far. I provide textual evidence that the founding fathers of (...)
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  10. Causal Decision Theory and Decision Instability.Brad Armendt - 2019 - Journal of Philosophy 116 (5):263-277.
    The problem of the man who met death in Damascus appeared in the infancy of the theory of rational choice known as causal decision theory. A straightforward, unadorned version of causal decision theory is presented here and applied, along with Brian Skyrms’ deliberation dynamics, to Death in Damascus and similar problems. Decision instability is a fascinating topic, but not a source of difficulty for causal decision theory. Andy Egan’s purported counterexample to causal (...)
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  11. Causal decision theory, context, and determinism.Calum McNamara - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (1):226-260.
    The classic formulation of causal decision theory (CDT) appeals to counterfactuals. It says that you should aim to choose an option that would have a good outcome, were you to choose it. However, this version of CDT faces trouble if the laws of nature are deterministic. After all, the standard theory of counterfactuals says that, if the laws are deterministic, then if anything—including the choice you make—were different in the present, either the laws would be violated or (...)
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  12. Decision theory for agents with incomplete preferences.Adam Bales, Daniel Cohen & Toby Handfield - 2014 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (3):453-70.
    Orthodox decision theory gives no advice to agents who hold two goods to be incommensurate in value because such agents will have incomplete preferences. According to standard treatments, rationality requires complete preferences, so such agents are irrational. Experience shows, however, that incomplete preferences are ubiquitous in ordinary life. In this paper, we aim to do two things: (1) show that there is a good case for revising decision theory so as to allow it to apply non-vacuously (...)
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  13. Decision Theory.Lara Buchak - 2016 - In Alan Hájek & Christopher Hitchcock, The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Decision theory has at its core a set of mathematical theorems that connect rational preferences to functions with certain structural properties. The components of these theorems, as well as their bearing on questions surrounding rationality, can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Philosophy’s current interest in decision theory represents a convergence of two very different lines of thought, one concerned with the question of how one ought to act, and the other concerned with the question (...)
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  14. Causal decision theory.David Lewis - 1981 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 59 (1):5 – 30.
    Newcomb's problem and similar cases show the need to incorporate causal distinctions into the theory of rational decision; the usual noncausal decision theory, though simpler, does not always give the right answers. I give my own version of causal decision theory, compare it with versions offered by several other authors, and suggest that the versions have more in common than meets the eye.
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  15. Decision theory and health resource allocations.Ruth B. Hoppe - 1983 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 4 (2):193-205.
    If it can be agreed that health care resources are finite, it follows that choices between competing needs must be made. Cost utility analysis is an application of decision theory which has been proposed as a strategy for making difficult social decisions about health resource allocations. This method is heavily dependent upon the measurement of social utilities for various health outcomes. Recent work in cognitive psychology suggests that there are important sources of distortion in such measurement. Ethical implications (...)
     
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  16. Causal Decision Theory is Safe from Psychopaths.Timothy Luke Williamson - 2019 - Erkenntnis 86 (3):665-685.
    Until recently, many philosophers took Causal Decision Theory to be more successful than its rival, Evidential Decision Theory. Things have changed, however, with a renewed concern that cases involving an extreme form of decision instability are counterexamples to CDT :392–403, 1984; Egan in Philos Rev 116:93–114, 2007). Most prominent among those cases of extreme decision instability is the Psychopath Button, due to Andy Egan; in that case, CDT recommends a seemingly absurd act that almost (...)
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  17. Evidential Decision Theory and the Ostrich.Yoaav Isaacs & Ben Levinstein - 2024 - Philosophers' Imprint 24 (1).
    Evidential Decision Theory is flawed, but its flaws are not fully understood. David Lewis (1981) famously charged that EDT recommends an irrational policy of managing the news and “commends the ostrich as rational”. Lewis was right, but the case he appealed to—Newcomb’s Problem—does not demonstrate his conclusion. Indeed, decision theories other than EDT, such as Committal Decision Theory and Functional Decision Theory, agree with EDT's verdicts in Newcomb’s Problem, but their flaws, whatever they (...)
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  18. Realistic Decision Theory: Rules for Nonideal Agents in Nonideal Circumstances.Paul Weirich - 2004 - New York, US: OUP Usa.
    Decision 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 using quantizations of beliefs and desires in cases (...)
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  19.  18
    Decision Theory and Epistemology.Mark Kaplan - 2002 - In Paul K. Moser, The Oxford Handbook of Epistemology. New York: Oup Usa.
    In ”Decision Theory and Epistemology,” Mark Kaplan finds it characteristic of orthodox Bayesians to hold that for each person and each hypothesis she comprehends, there is a precise degree of confidence that person has in the truth of that proposition, and no person can be counted as rational unless the degree of confidence assignment she thus harbors satisfies the axioms of the probability calculus. Kaplan's purpose is twofold. First, he aims to show that, as powerful as many criticisms (...)
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  20. (2 other versions)Decision theory as philosophy.Mark Kaplan - 1983 - Philosophy of Science 50 (4):549-577.
    Is Bayesian decision theory a panacea for many of the problems in epistemology and the philosophy of science, or is it philosophical snake-oil? For years a debate had been waged amongst specialists regarding the import and legitimacy of this body of theory. Mark Kaplan had written the first accessible and non-technical book to address this controversy. Introducing a new variant on Bayesian decision theory the author offers a compelling case that, while no panacea, decision (...)
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  21.  42
    (1 other version)Philosophy of Language for Decision Theory Part 2: Indexicals and Vagueness.Anna Mahtani - 2017 - Lse Philosophy Blog.
    In her second post in this series, Anna Mahtani explores the parallels between philosophy of language and decision theory’s treatment of indexicals and vagueness.
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  22. The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory.James M. Joyce - 1999 - Cambridge University Press.
    This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a 'representation theorem' that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general (...)
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  23. Normative Decision Theory.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Analysis 79 (4):755-772.
    A review of some major topics of debate in normative decision theory from circa 2007 to 2019. Topics discussed include the ongoing debate between causal and evidential decision theory, decision instability, risk-weighted expected utility theory, decision-making with incomplete preferences, and decision-making with imprecise credences.
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  24. Decision theory without finite standard expected value.Luc Lauwers & Peter Vallentyne - 2016 - Economics and Philosophy 32 (3):383-407.
    :We address the question, in decision theory, of how the value of risky options should be assessed when they have no finite standard expected value, that is, where the sum of the probability-weighted payoffs is infinite or not well defined. We endorse, combine and extend the proposal of Easwaran to evaluate options on the basis of their weak expected value, and the proposal of Colyvan to rank options on the basis of their relative expected value.
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  25.  75
    Decision Theory with a Human Face.Richard Bradley - 2017 - Cambridge University Press.
    When making decisions, people naturally face uncertainty about the potential consequences of their actions due in part to limits in their capacity to represent, evaluate or deliberate. Nonetheless, they aim to make the best decisions possible. In Decision Theory with a Human Face, Richard Bradley develops new theories of agency and rational decision-making, offering guidance on how 'real' agents who are aware of their bounds should represent the uncertainty they face, how they should revise their opinions as (...)
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  26. On the Interpretation of Decision Theory.Samir Okasha - 2016 - Economics and Philosophy 32 (3):409-433.
    Abstract:This paper explores the contrast between mentalistic and behaviouristic interpretations of decision theory. The former regards credences and utilities as psychologically real, while the latter regards them as mere representations of an agent's preferences. Philosophers typically adopt the former interpretation, economists the latter. It is argued that the mentalistic interpretation is preferable if our aim is to use decision theory for descriptive purposes, but if our aim is normative then the behaviouristic interpretation cannot be dispensed with.
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  27.  72
    Why Decision Theory Remains Constructively Incomplete.Luc Lauwers - 2016 - Mind 125 (500):1033-1043.
    The existence of a transitive, complete, and weakly independent relation on the full set of gambles implies the existence of a non-Ramsey set. Therefore, each transitive and weakly independent relation on the set of gambles either is incomplete or does not have an explicit description. Whatever tools decision theory makes available, there will always be decision problems where these tools fail us. In this sense, decision theory remains incomplete.
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  28.  46
    Normative folk psychology and decision theory.Joe Dewhurst & Christopher Burr - 2022 - Mind and Language 37 (4):525-542.
    Our aim in this paper is to explore two possible directions of interaction between normative folk psychology and decision theory. In one direction, folk psychology plays a regulative role that constrains practical decision‐making. In the other direction, decision theory provides novel tools and norms that shape folk psychology. We argue that these interactions could lead to the emergence of an iterative “decision theoretic spiral," where folk psychology influences decision‐making, decision‐making is studied by (...)
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  29.  59
    Decision Theory, Propositional Measurement, and Unified Interpretation.Eli Dresner - 2014 - Mind 123 (491):707-732.
    The content of our propositional attitudes is often characterized by assigning them abstract entities, namely propositions. In decision theory the attitudes are also assigned numerical measures. It may thus be asked how assignments of these two types are related to each other — both metaphysically and structurally. In the first section of this paper I argue for the importance of this question and I review Davidson’s unified account of decision theory and radical interpretation as a failed (...)
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  30. What does decision theory have to do with wanting?Milo Phillips-Brown - 2021 - Mind 130 (518):413-437.
    Decision theory and folk psychology both purport to represent the same phenomena: our belief-like and desire- and preference-like states. They also purport to do the same work with these representations: explain and predict our actions. But they do so with different sets of concepts. There's much at stake in whether one of these two sets of concepts can be accounted for with the other. Without such an account, we'd have two competing representations and systems of prediction and explanation, (...)
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  31. Choices: An Introduction to Decision Theory.Michael D. Resnik - 1987 - Univ of Minnesota Press.
  32. Causal Decision Theory: A Counterexample.Arif Ahmed - 2013 - Philosophical Review 122 (2):289-306.
    The essay presents a novel counterexample to Causal Decision Theory (CDT). Its interest is that it generates a case in which CDT violates the very principles that motivated it in the first place. The essay argues that the objection applies to all extant formulations of CDT and that the only way out for that theory is a modification of it that entails incompatibilism. The essay invites the reader to find this consequence of CDT a reason to reject (...)
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    (1 other version)Deontological decision theory and lesser-evil options.Peter A. Graham & Seth Lazar - 2019 - Synthese 198 (7):6889-6916.
    Normative ethical theories owe us an account of how to evaluate decisions under risk and uncertainty. Deontologists seem at a disadvantage here: our best decision theories seem tailor-made for consequentialism. For example, decision theory enjoins us to always perform our best option; deontology is more permissive. In this paper, we discuss and defend the idea that, when some pro-tanto wrongful act is all-things considered permissible, because it is a ‘lesser evil’, it is often merely permissible, by the (...)
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  34.  43
    Decision theory as a branch of evolutionary theory: A biological derivation of the savage axioms.William S. Cooper - 1987 - Psychological Review 94 (4):395-411.
  35.  49
    Decision Theory and Artificial Intelligence II: The Hungry Monkey.Jerome A. Feldman & Robert F. Sproull - 1977 - Cognitive Science 1 (2):158-192.
    First paper introducing probabilisitic decision theory methods to AI problem solving.
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  36.  11
    Behavioral Decision Theory: Psychological and Mathematical Descriptions of Human Choice Behavior.Kazuhisa Takemura - 2014 - Tokyo: Springer.
    This book provides an overview of behavioral decision theory and related research findings. In brief, behavioral decision theory is a general term for descriptive theories to explain the psychological knowledge related to decision-making behavior. It is called a theory, but actually it is a combination of various psychological theories, for which no axiomatic systems, such as the utility theory widely used in economics, have been established; it is often limited to qualitative knowledge. However, (...)
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  37. What decision theory provides the best procedure for identifying the best action available to a given artificially intelligent system?Samuel A. Barnett - 2018 - Dissertation, University of Oxford
    Decision theory has had a long-standing history in the behavioural and social sciences as a tool for constructing good approximations of human behaviour. Yet as artificially intelligent systems (AIs) grow in intellectual capacity and eventually outpace humans, decision theory becomes evermore important as a model of AI behaviour. What sort of decision procedure might an AI employ? In this work, I propose that policy-based causal decision theory (PCDT), which places a primacy on the (...)
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  38. Pitfalls for realistic decision theory: an illustration from sequential choice.José Luis Bermúdez - 2010 - Synthese 176 (1):23-40.
    Decision theory is a theory of rationality, but the concept of rationality has several different dimensions. Making decision theory more realistic with respect to one dimension may well have the result of making it less realistic in another dimension. This paper illustrates this tension in the context of sequential choice. Trying to make decision theory more realistic by accommodating resoluteness and commitment brings the normative assessment dimension of rationality into conflict with the action-guiding (...)
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  39.  76
    Descriptive Decision Theory.Jake Chandler - 2017 - The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.
  40. Causal decision theory’s predetermination problem.Toby Charles Penhallurick Solomon - 2021 - Synthese 198 (6):5623-5654.
    It has often been noted that there is some tension between engaging in decision-making and believing that one’s choices might be predetermined. The possibility that our choices are predetermined forces us to consider, in our decisions, act-state pairs which are inconsistent, and hence to which we cannot assign sensible utilities. But the reasoning which justifies two-boxing in Newcomb’s problem also justifies associating a non-zero causal probability with these inconsistent act-state pairs. Put together these undefined utilities and non-zero probabilities entail (...)
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  41. Decision Theory Unbound.Zachary Goodsell - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):669-695.
    Countenancing unbounded utility in ethics gives rise to deep puzzles in formal decision theory. Here, these puzzles are taken as an invitation to assess the most fundamental principles relating probability and value, with the aim of demonstrating that unbounded utility in ethics is compatible with a desirable decision theory. The resulting theory frames further discussion of Expected Utility Theory and of principles concerning symmetries of utility.
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  42.  64
    (1 other version)Impartiality and Causal Decision Theory.Brad Armendt - 1988 - PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:326 - 336.
    Defenders of sophisticated evidential decision theory (EDT) have argued (1) that its failure to provide correct recommendations in problems where the agent believes himself asymmetrically fallible in executing his choices is no flaw of the theory, and (2) that causal decision theory gives incorrect recommendations in certain examples unless it is supplemented with an additional metatickle or ratifiability deliberation mechanism. In the first part of this paper, I argue that both positions are incorrect. In the (...)
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  43. Wishing, Decision Theory, and Two-Dimensional Content.Kyle Blumberg - 2023 - Journal of Philosophy 120 (2):61-93.
    This paper is about two requirements on wish reports whose interaction motivates a novel semantics for these ascriptions. The first requirement concerns the ambiguities that arise when determiner phrases, such as definite descriptions, interact with ‘wish’. More specifically, several theorists have recently argued that attitude ascriptions featuring counterfactual attitude verbs license interpretations on which the determiner phrase is interpreted relative to the subject’s beliefs. The second requirement involves the fact that desire reports in general require decision-theoretic notions for their (...)
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  44. A Decision Theory for Imprecise Probabilities.Susanna Rinard - 2015 - Philosophers' Imprint 15.
    Those who model doxastic states with a set of probability functions, rather than a single function, face a pressing challenge: can they provide a plausible decision theory compatible with their view? Adam Elga and others claim that they cannot, and that the set of functions model should be rejected for this reason. This paper aims to answer this challenge. The key insight is that the set of functions model can be seen as an instance of the supervaluationist approach (...)
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  45. Law-Abiding Causal Decision Theory.Timothy Luke Williamson & Alexander Sandgren - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (4):899-920.
    In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises because of the standard (...)
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  46.  41
    A Decision Theory Perspective on Wicked Problems, SDGs and Stakeholders: The Case of Deforestation.Anthony Alexander, Helen Walker & Izabela Delabre - 2022 - Journal of Business Ethics 180 (4):975-995.
    The Sustainable Development Goals are an opportunity to address major social and environmental challenges. As a widely agreed framework they offer a potential way to mobilise stakeholders on a global scale. The manner in which the goals, with time-based targets and specific metrics, are set out within a voluntary reporting process adopted by both governments and business, provides a fascinating and important case for organisational studies. It is both about advancing performance measurement and evidence-based policy-making for sustainable development, and also (...)
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  47. Epistemic Decision Theory's Reckoning.Conor Mayo-Wilson & Gregory Wheeler - manuscript
    Epistemic decision theory (EDT) employs the mathematical tools of rational choice theory to justify epistemic norms, including probabilism, conditionalization, and the Principal Principle, among others. Practitioners of EDT endorse two theses: (1) epistemic value is distinct from subjective preference, and (2) belief and epistemic value can be numerically quantified. We argue the first thesis, which we call epistemic puritanism, undermines the second.
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  48. An argument against causal decision theory.Jack Spencer - 2021 - Analysis 81 (1):52-61.
    This paper develops an argument against causal decision theory. I formulate a principle of preference, which I call the Guaranteed Principle. I argue that the preferences of rational agents satisfy the Guaranteed Principle, that the preferences of agents who embody causal decision theory do not, and hence that causal decision theory is false.
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  49. Deontological Decision Theory and Agent-Centered Options.Seth Lazar - 2017 - Ethics 127 (3):579-609.
    Deontologists have long been upbraided for lacking an account of justified decision- making under risk and uncertainty. One response is to develop a deontological decision theory—a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for an act’s being permissible given an agent’s imperfect information. In this article, I show that deontologists can make more use of regular decision theory than some might have thought, but that we must adapt decision theory to accommodate agent- centered options—permissions (...)
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  50. Decision Theory in Light of Newcomb’s Problem.Paul Horwich - 1985 - Philosophy of Science 52 (3):431-450.
    Should we act only for the sake of what we might bring about (causal decision theory); or is it enough for a decent motive that our action is highly correlated with something desirable (evidential decision theory)? The conflict between these points of view is embodied in Newcomb's problem. It is argued here that intuitive evidence from familiar decision contexts does not enable us to settle the issue, since the two theories dictate the same results in (...)
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