Decision, causality, and predetermination

Kment, Boris

doi:10.1111/phpr.12935

Cited by 1 publication

(6 citation statements)

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“…169-70). 13 See, e.g., Williamson and Sandgren (forthcoming), Gallow (2022), Hedden (2023), and Kment (2023) for discussion of deterministic counterexamples that affect a version of CDT which makes use of Dorr's account of similarity.…”

Section: Millionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This, I think, is an important thing to point out, because some authors object to Stalnaker-Gibbard-Harper CDT on the grounds that it requires you to think about epistemically impossible worlds in certain deterministic cases. Kment (2023), for instance, criticizes CDT in this way, saying that epistemically impossible worlds are "irrelevant to a rational assessment of your options. .…”

Section: Accommodating Indeterminacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But this seems absurd. As Kment (2023, p. 7) remarks, for example, choosing

B_4

seems hopelessly self‐undermining: it's a bit like taking a bet on the claim that you don't accept that very bet. The upshot is that this case, too, is a counterexample to CDT, as it's currently been spelled out.…”

Section: Deterministic Casesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Others say that we should adopt a new semantics for counterfactuals (Gallow, 2022). And others still say that we should abandon CDT, and embrace a new decision theory in its place (Hedden, 2023; Kment, 2023). For my part, I don't think any of these responses are right— but I don't have space to discuss them here.…”

Section: Counterfactuals Context and Causationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This, I think, is an important thing to point out, because some authors object to Stalnaker‐Gibbard‐Harper CDT on the grounds that it requires you to think about epistemically impossible worlds in certain deterministic cases. Kment (2023), for instance, criticizes CDT in this way, saying that epistemically impossible worlds are “irrelevant to a rational assessment of your options… Reflection on such worlds is a form of wishful thinking that has no place in rational choice” (p. 10). I'm not sure I agree with Kment about this for every decision problem (which worlds are relevant, after all, is a matter of context, in my view).…”

Section: Accommodating Indeterminacymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Causal decision theory, context, and determinism

McNamara

2023

Philos Phenomenol Research

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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 the distant past would be changed. And as several authors have shown, it's easy to transform this upshot of the standard theory of counterfactuals into full‐blown counterexamples to CDT. In response to these counterexamples, I argue here that the problem lies, not so much with CDT's guiding idea—that it's the expected causal consequences of your actions that matter for rational decision‐making—but with the fact that the classic formulation of CDT doesn't pay sufficient attention to the context‐sensitivity of counterfactuals. I develop a contextualist version of CDT which better accounts for this context‐sensitivity. And I show that my theory avoids the problems faced by the classic formulation of CDT in determinstic worlds.

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Section: Millionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Accommodating Indeterminacymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But this seems absurd. As Kment (2023, p. 7) remarks, for example, choosing