Choice Group

Abstract:I defend a decision theory for action under indeterminacy: we ought to maximise an analogue of expected value. I argue that this decision theory renders the right result in the standard puzzling cases of action under indeterminacy, and allows indeterminism about vagueness to capture the decision-theoretic advantages of epistemicism. A surprising upshot of the view is that it is sometimes…

Abstract: Suzy will throw a stone at a particular bottle if and only if Billy does not throw a stone at the bottle. Suzy is a better shot than Billy. In fact, Billy throws his stone at the bottle and, as luck would have it, he hits and breaks the bottle. Here Suzy’s intention to throw iff Billy doesn’t raises…

Abstract: We seek not only to be justified in our beliefs, but also to justify our beliefs to one another. While traditional epistemology has focused on the former kind of justification (viz. personal justification), it is through the latter kind (viz. interpersonal justification) that our most successful forms of enquiry make progress. Contrary to the received view, I argue that…

Abstract: The “fair division” approach to problems of distribution is increasingly prominent in welfare economics. Complex variations of hypothetical problems like dividing a cake have been analysed in detail, and the solutions have been applied to real world problems such as dividing an inheritance and allocating land rights. Although the problems of heterogeneity and indivisibility that are considered in these…

Abstract: This paper focuses on the problem of option individuation as it arises in the context of separability, choice consistency and transitivity.

Abstract: Orthodox choice-theoretic approaches (decision theory, social choice theory and so on) take the primary axiological notion to be an overall ordering of possible worlds. This is appropriate, since it is only via such an overall ordering that axiology plausibly connects to normativity. In possible contrast, many moral philosophers are more directly concerned with the goodness or badness of certain…

Abstract: The aim of this presentation is to provide psychological insights into the relationship between rewards and effort. The association between the two may seem trivially simple, that is, we put more in to get more back. In addition to this, other simple assumptions that are held in psychological and behavioural economic literature (i.e. effort is aversive, effort aversion is…

Abstract: A notorious problem with Savage's decision theory and much of the literature on decisions under uncertainty is the reliance on ready-made and fixed concepts of outcomes and states. Real decision makers first of all need to form such concepts before even beginning to engage into expected-utility reasoning. Worse, a real agent’s concepts of outcomes and states – that is,…

Abstract: Proponents of an accuracy-centered epistemology have argued that proper scoring rules can be used to assess the accuracy of degrees of belief (or “credences”), and have suggested that certain core epistemic norms for credecnces can be understood and justified with the help of such rules. Many who go this route are attracted to the idea that revising credences in light…

Abstract: Egalitarians usually task themselves with answering the "equality of what?" question, having assumed that we already enjoy a status as "abstract" equals. But what is it about us which is such that we are owed an equal amount of something-or-other? This is what Jeremy Waldron calls "basic equality". Human beings come in all shapes and sizes, and exhibit striking…

Abstract: A war of national defense (WND) is a war waged by a victim state (V) to defend itself against an attack whose aim is not to kill any of the members of V, but rather to acquire control over certain “political goods.” These political goods include: i) the control of V’s political institutions; ii) the imposition of certain political and…

Abstract: TBA   #LSEChoiceGroup

Abstract: Background for this study on how to share a burden is the most recent economic situation in several countries in Southern Europe and in Ireland. These countries were forced to introduce severe budget cuts after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 which had unleashed a financial crisis in many industrialised countries of the Western world. We do not ask…

#LSEChoiceGroup

Goreti Faria: "A Preference for Late Resolution of Uncertainty" Kreps and Porteus (1978) (KP) offer an axiomatic approach to dynamic decision problems that allows us to explicitly model preferences regarding how a decision is made. In particular, their model makes it possible to explicitly model preferences for the timing of the resolution of uncertainty. In the orthodox framework (vNM) uncertainties resolving…

Juries, committees and expert panels appraise all manner of things. Often they do so by awarding grades: ordered evaluative predicates such as Excellent, Average and Poor, or the qualitative probability expressions Likely, Tossup and Unlikely … #LSEChoiceGroup

A webmaster’s decision to link to a webpage can be interpreted as a “vote” for that webpage. But how far does the parallel between linking and voting extend? … #LSEChoiceGroup