An Interventionist’s Guide to Exotic Choice

Decision and foreknowledge

“…This equivalence is what allowed me, in the main text, to represent the theories of Hitchcock (2016) and Stern (2021) with an 'imaging' function would A . With the causal Bayes net formalism, I could more faithfully present those theories by saying that, in the relevant decisions, Hitchcock and Stern advise you to maximise the quantities H and S , respectively, as defined below.…”

“…In this decision, either you will survive, S, or you will die, D. And either you will buy the 19. This decision (or a close variant of it) is discussed in Lewis (1986), Rabinowicz (2009), Price (2012), andStern (2021). Bales (2016) argues that the case does not pose a problem for CDT by showing that different specifications of the imaging functions can secure whatever verdict you like.…”

“…However, in other decisions, we must exercise more caution. For illustration, consider the following decision, introduced in an unrelated context by Stern (2021): future medical test Smoking causes lung cancer by causing your lungs to blacken. The effects of smoking on lung cancer are entirely mediated by its effects on whether your lungs blacken.…”

“…In §A.2, I'll say how I think we should define the imaging function in terms of a causal Bayes net. And in §A.3 I'll discuss the relationship between evidentialism, causalism, and the form of 'interventionism' advocated by Meek & Glymour (1994), Hitchcock (2016), and Stern (2021).…”

“…Price (2012) thinks that these decisions should push causalists towards a subjectivist theory of causation. Hitchcock (2016) and Stern (2021) have proposed decision theories which disagree with orthodox causal decision theory only when you have foreknowledge. And Spencer (2020) denies the possibility of certain kinds of foreknowledge specifically in order to rescue causal decision theory from cases he views as counterexamples.…”