The Foundations of Causal Decision TheoryCambridge University Press, 13.04.1999 - 268 Seiten 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 utitlity 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 conditional decision theory. In providing the most complete and robust defense of causal decision theory the book will be of interest to a broad range of readers in philosophy, economics, psychology, mathematics, and artificial intelligence. |
Inhalt
| 7 | |
| 78 | |
Causal Decision Theory | 146 |
39 | 171 |
48 | 177 |
A General Theory of Conditional Beliefs | 181 |
52 | 217 |
A Representation Theorem for Causal | 224 |
Where Things Stand | 252 |
References | 258 |
57 | 265 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
actions agent's preferences Allan Gibbard Armendt assign auspiciousness axioms belief revision beliefs and desires causal decision theory chance chapter choice Coherence Conditional Excluded Middle conditional probability constant acts constraint decision maker decision problem defined difference efficacy value entails epistemic epistemic perspective evaluate evidence evidential decision theory evidential relevance evidentialist expected utility hypothesis expected utility theory fact fair price G₁ G₂ Gibbard given grand-world holds indicative conditionals Jeffrey Jeffrey's Equation learning Lemma Lewis likelihood ranking logically matter-of-fact supposition Newcomb's Paradox nonnull obeys outcomes partition Pascal's payoffs preference ranking probabilistic probability function proof propositions Q₂ Ramsey Test rational agent real numbers reason relative representation theorem requirement Réyni-Popper measures Richard Jeffrey satisfy Savage Savage's theory sense similarity gauge Skyrms small-world Stalnaker's subjective probability subjunctive conditionals subjunctive supposition suppose take the money theorists things tion true unconditional unique utility function wager X₁ X₂ Y₂
Beliebte Passagen
Seite 85 - A businessman contemplates buying a certain piece of property. He considers the outcome of the next presidential election relevant to the attractiveness of the purchase. So, to clarify the matter for himself, he asks whether he would buy if he knew that the Republican candidate were going to win, and decides that he would do so. Similarly, he considers whether he would buy if he knew that the Democratic candidate were going to win, and again finds that he would do so. Seeing that he would buy in...
Seite 169 - But the persuasion does not last. We very easily slip back into our usual sort of counterfactual reasoning, and implicitly assume . . that facts about earlier times are counterfactually independent of facts about later times What is going on, I suggest, can best be explained as follows. (1) Counterfactuals are infected with vagueness, as everyone agrees. Different ways of (partly) resolving the vagueness are appropriate in different contexts ... (2) We ordinarily resolve the vagueness of counterfactuals...
Seite 169 - We know that present conditions have their past causes. We can persuade ourselves, and sometimes do, that if the present were different then these past causes would have to be different, else they would have caused the present to be as it actually is. Given such an argument— let us call it a back-tracking argument— we willingly grant that if the present were different, the past would be different too But the persuasion does not last.
Seite 170 - But when the need for a special resolution of vagueness comes to an end, the standard resolution returns. (4) A counterfactual saying that the past would be different if the present were somehow different may come out true under the special resolution of its vagueness, but false under the standard resolution. If so, call it a back-tracking counterfactual. Taken out of context, it will not be clearly true or clearly false.
Seite 59 - As has just been suggested, what in the ordinary way of thinking might be regarded as a chain of decisions, one leading to the other in time, is in the formal description proposed here regarded as a single decision. To put it a little differently, it is proposed that the choice of a policy or plan be regarded as a single decision. This point of view, though not always in so explicit a form, has played a prominent role in the statistical advances of the present century.