Attitudes

Abstract

Probabilities and utilities of possible outcomes yield the expected utilities of the acts an agent considers in a decision problem. This chapter introduces probability and utility as the book’s decision principles understand these functions. It has them attach to propositions that declarative sentences express, and it takes their values to represent the strengths of attitudes—strengths of doxastic attitudes in the case of probabilities and strengths of conative attitudes in the case of utilities. Desires and aversions, typical conative attitudes, may have narrow or wide evaluative scope. Intrinsic desires have narrow scope, and extrinsic desires have wide scope. Utility assignments may, correspondingly, have narrow or wide scope. The intrinsic utility of a risk evaluates the risk taken by itself, whereas the extrinsic or comprehensive utility of the risk evaluates all that accompanies the risk. Methods of measurement apply to these types of probability and utility, as the appendix demonstrates.