Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility

Gibbard, Allan; Harper, William

doi:10.1007/978-94-009-9789-9_5

Cited by 89 publications

(153 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Because the choice of boxes does not affect the contents of the opaque box, there is no difference between the efficacy of one-boxing and the efficacy of two-boxing with respect to whether there is $1 million in that box: but the twoboxer will win out, because he gets the $1,000 in the transparent box (cf. Gibbard andHarper, 1978/1981, p. 181). So EV(T) and EV($T) evaluated on the basis of Pr(C) ought to come out the same or very close.…”

Section: So Evð$ Tþ > Evðtþmentioning

confidence: 85%

“…Lewis, 1981Lewis, /1986. By using conditional probabilities in such a circumstance, Bayesian decision theory gets it wrong by measuring the value of the act as news rather than what Gibbard andHarper (1978/1981, pp. 156-157) call the ''genuine'' expected utility.…”

Section: Looking More Closelymentioning

confidence: 97%

“…We find that First Way gets it right just as Analysis 2 did. For example, for Gibbard and Harper, First Way corresponds to measuring the ''expected genuine efficacy'' of the act in maximizing the money got (Gibbard andHarper, 1978/1981, p. 168). …”

Section: So Evð$ Tþ > Evðtþmentioning

confidence: 98%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Dr. Psycho Paradox and Newcomb’s Problem

Clark

Shackel

2006

Erkenntnis

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Nicholas Rescher claims that rational decision theory ''may leave us in the lurch'', because there are two apparently acceptable ways of applying ''the standard machinery of expected-value analysis'' to his Dr. Psycho paradox which recommend contradictory actions. He detects a similar contradiction in Newcomb's problem. We consider his claims from the point of view of both Bayesian decision theory and causal decision theory. In Dr. Psycho and in Newcomb's Problem, Rescher has used premisses about probabilities which he assumes to be independent. From the former point of view, we show that the probability premisses are not independent but inconsistent, and their inconsistency is provable within probability theory alone. From the latter point of view, we show that their consistency can be saved, but then the contradictory recommendations evaporate. Consequently, whether one subscribes to evidential or causal decision theory, rational decision theory is not in any way vitiated by Rescher's arguments.

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Section: So Evð$ Tþ > Evðtþmentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Looking More Closelymentioning

confidence: 97%

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The Dr. Psycho Paradox and Newcomb’s Problem

Clark

Shackel

2006

Erkenntnis

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“…e.g. Luce and Krantz 1971;Gibbard and Harper 1978;Lewis 1981;Eells 1982;Jeffrey 1983;Joyce 1999). Another problem is how desirabilities of worlds can be computed from intrinsic desirabilities of events, in particular how value independence, absence of intersection and completeness of the events whose desirabilities are to be added can be guaranteed (cf.…”

Section: In Search For the Fundamental Desirability Criterion -The Admentioning

confidence: 97%

Intentions are Optimality Beliefs – But Optimizing What?

Lumer

2005

Erkenntnis

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“…Two of these deserve to be mentioned here. The first concerns the problem of spurious correlation-a well-known problem in causal decision theory (Lewis 1981; Gibbard and Harper 1981). In Jeffrey's model, the conditional probabilities weighting the utilities of each act's outcomes merely represent the agent's degree of belief.…”

Section: Jeffrey Expected Utility ðDefect) ¼ Pðc=dþ ðX þ B=2þ þ Pðd=dmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social evolution and strategic thinking

Martens

2011

Biol Philos

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Thinking about organisms as if they were rational agents which could choose their own phenotypic traits according to their fitness values is a common heuristic in the field of evolutionary theory. In a 1998 paper, however, Elliott Sober has emphasized several alleged shortcomings of this kind of analogical reasoning when applied to the analysis of social behaviors. According to him, the main flaw of this heuristic is that it proves to be a misleading tool when it is used for predicting the evolution of cooperation. Here, I show that these charges raised against the heuristic use of this analogy are misguided. I argue, contra Sober, that such a heuristic turns out to be a perfect predictive tool in all relevant contexts where cooperation can at least evolve. Moreover, I argue that it constitutes a powerful and sufficient methodological framework for the analysis of social evolution.

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Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility

Cited by 89 publications

References 8 publications

The Dr. Psycho Paradox and Newcomb’s Problem

The Dr. Psycho Paradox and Newcomb’s Problem

Intentions are Optimality Beliefs – But Optimizing What?

Social evolution and strategic thinking

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