Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-5wvtr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T09:26:38.094Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cyclical Preferences and World Bayesianism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Jordan Howard Sobel
Jordan Howard Sobel*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto
*
†Send reprint requests to the author, Scarborough College, University of Toronto, 1265 Military Trail, Scarborough, ONT, MIC IA4, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An example shows that ‘pairwise preferences’ (certain hypothetical choices) can cycle even when rational. General considerations entail that preferences tout court (certain relations of actual valuations) cannot cycle. A world-bayesian theory is explained that accommodates these two kinds of preference, and a theory for rational actions that would have them maximize and be objects of ratifiable choices. It is observed that choices can be unratifiable either because of troublesome credences or because of troublesome preferences. An appendix comments on a third way in which efforts to maximize can be frustrated.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue 1 , March 1997 , pp. 42 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © 1997 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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.)

Footnotes

‡

Thanks to Gustaf Arrhenius, Lars Bergström, Krister Bykvist, Bruce Chapman, Bill Harper, Sten Lindström, Christian Munthe, John Nicholas, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Willa Freeman-Sobel, Bertil Strömberg, and anonymous readers for helpful criticisms and suggestions.

References

Allais, Maurice (1979), “The Foundations of a Positive Theory of Choice Involving Risk and a Criticism of the Postulates and Axioms of the American School”, in Allais, M. and Hagen, O. (ed.), Expected Utility Hypothesis and the Allais Paradox. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 27–145. (First published in French in 1952.)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bergström, Lars (1966), The Alternatives and Consequences of Actions. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Bouyssou, Denis and Vansnick, Jean-Claude (1988), “A Note on the Relationship between Utility and Value Functions”, in Munier, B. (ed.), Risk, Decision, and Rationality. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
John, Broome (1991), Weighing Goods: Equality, Uncertainty and Time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
John, Broome (1993), “Can a Humean Be Moderate?”, R. G. Frey and C. Morris (ed.), Value, Welfare and Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 279–286.Google Scholar
John, Broome (1994), “The Mutual Determination of Wants and Benefits”, Theory and Decision 37: 333–338.Google Scholar
Gibbard, Allan and Harper, William L. (1988), “Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility”, Chapter 17 of P. Gärdenfors and N.-E. Sahlin (ed.), Decision, Probability, and Utility: Selected Readings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 341–376.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hampton, Jean (1994), “The Failure of Expected-Utility Theory as a Theory of Reason”, Economics and Philosophy 10: 195–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansson, Sven Ove (1993), “Money-Pumps, Self-Torturers and the Demons of Real Life”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71: 476–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzberger, Hans (1973), “Ordinal Preference and Rational Choice”, Econometrica 41, 187–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jeffrey, Richard C. (1990), The Logic of Decision. (Second Edition, paperback). Chicago: University of Chicago Press,. (First edition New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965.)Google Scholar
Jeffrey, Richard C. (1993), “Causality in the Logic of Decision”, Philosophical Topics 21, Spring: 139–151 (“Decision Theory”; issue editor, James Joyce).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kusser, Anna and Spohn, Wolfgang (1992), “The Utility of Pleasure Is a Pain for Decision Theory”, The Journal of Philosophy 89: 10–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krantz, David, Luce, R. Duncan, Suppes, Patrick, and Tversky, Amos (1971) Foundations of Measurement. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Luce, R. Duncan and Raiffa, Howard (1957), Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical Survey. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
MacKay, A. F. (1980), Arrow's Theorem: The Paradox of Social Choice. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Macintosh, Duncan (1991), “Preference's Progress: Rational Self-Alteration and the Rationality of Morality”, Dialogue 30: 3–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClennen, Edward F. (1985), “Prisoner's Dilemma and Resolute Choice”, in Campbell, R. and Sowden, L. (ed.), Paradoxes of Rationality and Cooperation: Prisoner's Dilemma and Newcomb'sl Problem. Vancouver: The University of British Columbia Press, pp. 94–104.Google Scholar
McClennen, Edward F. (1990), Rationality and Dynamic Choice: Foundational Explorations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Warren S. (1990), “The Puzzle of the Self-torturer”, Philosophical Studies 59: 79–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raiffa, Howard (1968), Decision Analysis: Introductory Lectures on Choice under Uncertainty. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Ramsey, Frank P. (1988), “Truth and Probability”, in Gärdenfors and Sahlin 1988, pp. 19–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Savage, Leonard J. (1972), The Foundations of Statistics (Second Revised Edition). New York: Dover Publications. (First edition, 1954).Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (1970), Collective Choice and Social Welfare. London: Holden-Day.Google Scholar
Schumm, George (1987), “Transitivity, Preference, and Indifference”, Philosophical Studies 52: 435–437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skyrms, Brian (1994), Sex and Justice: evolution of the social contract. August 1994, unpublished manuscript.Google Scholar
Sobel, Jordan Howard (1988), “World Bayesianism: Comments on the Hammond/McClennen Debate”, in Munier, B. R. (ed.), Risk, Decision and Rationality. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 537–542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, Jordan Howard (1993), “Straight versus Constrained Maximization”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23: 25–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobel, Jordan Howard (1994), “Utility Theory and the Bayesian Paradigm”, “Partition Theorems for Causal Decision Theory”, “Expected Utilities and Rational Actions and Choices”, “Maximization, Stability of Decision, and Actions in Accordance with Reason”, and “Useful Intentions”, Chapters 1, 9, 10, 11, and 12 in Taking Chances: Essays on Rational Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sobel, Jordan Howard (1996), “Wakker's Critique of Allais-Preferences Stood on Its Head”. Ms.Google Scholar
Sobel, Jordan Howard (1997), “On the Significance of Conditional Probabilities”, Synthese 109: 311–344.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, Robert (1991), “Rational Choice: A Survey of Contributions from Economics and Philosophy”, Economic Journal 101: 751–785.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ullmann-Margalit, Edna and Morgenbesser, Sidney (1977), “Picking and Choosing”, Social Research: 757–785.Google Scholar
Vickers, John, “Value and Probability in Theories of Preference”, forthcoming in Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, and “Prudence and Extensionality in Theories of Preference and Value”, forthcoming in Theory and Decision.Google Scholar
von Neumann, John and Morgenstern, Oskar (1967), Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Third Edition). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar