Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T03:29:21.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Predictive incapacity and rational decision

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2009

Abstract

Even agents possessed of free will must—if rational—be substantially predictable. However, there will be some situations where the act-choices of rational agents will not be predictable—for example, in circumstances of underdetermination due to insufficient information. And moreover, unpredictability can also result in situations of analysis overdetermination that arise when equally cogent analyses yield disparate results, as in the example of Dr. Psychic Psycho. The Prisoner's Dilemma affords yet another instance of this. Clearly, when determination fails even after rationality has had its say, then rationality's predictive power is exhausted! Fortunately, however, that does not mean that our human resources of issue-resolution are at the end of their tether.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academia Europaea 1995

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

REFERENCES

1.Scriven, M. (1965) An essential unpredictability in human behaviour. In Wolman, B. B. (Ed.) Scientific Psychology. Basic Books, New York, pp. 411425.Google Scholar
2.Nozick, R. (1969) Newcomb's problem and two principles of choice. In Rescher, N. (Ed.) Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel. D. Reidel, Dordrecht.Google Scholar
3.Campbell, R. and Sowden, L. (Eds) (1985) Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver.Google Scholar
4.Delabaye, J. P. (1993) Machines, prédictions et fin du monde. Pour la Science, 191 (09) 96103.Google Scholar
5.Poundstone, W. (1990) Labyrinths of Reason. Andiron-Doubleday, New York, pp. 248253.Google Scholar
6.Rescher, N. (1969) Choice without preference. In Essays in Philosophical Analyses. University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar