Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice (Cambridge Studies in Probability, Induction and Decision Theory)
Cambridge University Press, 4/29/1994
EAN 9780521416351, ISBN10: 0521416353
Hardcover, 390 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
J. Howard Sobel has long been recognized as an important figure in philosophical discussions of rational decision. He has done much to help formulate the concept of causal decision theory. In this volume of essays Sobel explores the Bayesian idea that rational actions maximize expected values, where an action's expected value is a weighted average of its agent's values for its possible total outcomes. Newcomb's Problem and The Prisoner's Dilemma are discussed, and Allais-type puzzles are viewed from the perspective of causal world Bayesianism. The author establishes principles for distinguishing options in decision problems, and studies ways in which perfectly rational causal maximizers can be capable of resolute choices. Sobel also views critically Gauthier's revisionist ideas about maximizing rationality. This collection will be a desideratum for anyone working in the field of rational choice theory, whether in philosophy, economics, political science, psychology or statistics. Howard Sobel's work in decision theory is certainly among the most important, interesting and challenging that is being done by philosophers.
Preface
Part I. World Bayesianism
1. Utility and the Bayesian paradigm
Part II. Problems for Evidential Decision Theory
2. Newcomblike problems
3. Not every prisoners' dilemma is a Newcomb problem
4. Some versions of Newcomb's problem are prisoners' dilemmas
5. Infallible predictors
6. Kent Bach on good arguments
7. Maximising and prospering
Part III. Causal Decision Theory
8. Notes on decision theory
old wine in new bottles
9. Partition theorems for causal decision theories
10. Expected utilities and rational actions and choices
11. Maximisation, stability of decision and actions in accordance with reason
12. Useful intentions
Part IV. Interacting Causal Maximisers
13. The need for coercion
14. Hyperrational games
15. Utility maximizers in iterated prisoners' dilemmas
16. Backward induction arguments
a paradox regained
References
Index of names.