Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T21:45:03.706Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Risk, rationality and expected utility theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Richard Pettigrew
Richard Pettigrew*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

There are decision problems where the preferences that seem rational to many people cannot be accommodated within orthodox decision theory in the natural way. In response, a number of alternatives to the orthodoxy have been proposed. In this paper, I offer an argument against those alternatives and in favour of the orthodoxy. I focus on preferences that seem to encode sensitivity to risk. And I focus on the alternative to the orthodoxy proposed by Lara Buchak’s risk-weighted expected utility theory. I will show that the orthodoxy can be made to accommodate all of the preferences that Buchak’s theory can accommodate.

Keywords

Riskdecision theoryexpected utility theoryrational choice theoryaccuracyscoring rules
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 45 , Issue 5-6: Special Issue: Belief, Action, and Rationality over Time , December 2015 , pp. 798 - 826
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allais, M. 1953. “Le comportement de l’homme rationnel devant le risque: critique des postulats et axiomes de l’école Américaine.”; Econometrica 21 (4): 503–546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchak, L. 2013.Risk and Rationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Agostino, M., and Dardanoni, V.. 2009. “What’s so Special about Euclidean Distance? A Characterization with Applications to Mobility and Spatial Voting.”; Social Choice and Welfare 33 (2): 211–233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Agostino, M., and Sinigaglia, C.. 2010. “Epistemic Accuracy and Subjective Probability.” In EPSA Epistemology and Methodology of Science: Launch of the European Philosophy of Science Association, edited by Suárez, M., Dorato, M., and Rédei, M., 95–105. Dordrecht: Springer.Google Scholar
Eriksson, L., and Hájek, A.. 2007. “What are Degrees of Belief?”; Studia Logica 86 (2): 183–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Finetti, B. 1974. Theory of Probability. vol. I. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Jeffrey, R. 1986. “Probabilism and Induction.”; Topoi 5: 51–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, J. M. 1998. “A Nonpragmatic Vindication of Probabilism.”; Philosophy of Science 65 (4): 575–603.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leitgeb, H., and Pettigrew, R.. 2010. “An Objective Justification of Bayesianism I: Measuring Inaccuracy.”; Philosophy of Science 77: 201–235.10.1086/651317CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meacham, C. J. G., and Weisberg, J.. 2011. “Representation Theorems and the Foundations of Decision Theory.”; Australasian Journal of Philosophy 89 (4): 641–63.10.1080/00048402.2010.510529CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pettigrew, R. (ta). 2016. Accuracy and the Laws of Credence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quiggin, J. 1982. “A Theory of Anticipated Utility.”; Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 3: 323–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quiggin, J. 1993. Generalized Expected Utility Theory: The Rank-Dependent Model. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.10.1007/978-94-011-2182-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmeidler, D. 1989. “Subjective Probability and Expected Utility without Additivity.”; Econometrica 57 (3): 571–587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wakker, P. P. 2010. Prospect Theory: For Risk and Ambiguity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, B., and Smart, J. J. C.. 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zynda, L. 2000. “Representation Theorems and Realism about Degrees of Belief.”; Philosophy of Science 67 (1): 45–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar