Pub Date : 2020-08-20DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0012
P. Weirich
Recognizing that an act’s risk is a consequence of the act yields a version of expected-utility maximization that does not need adjustments for risk in addition to the probabilities and utilities of possible outcomes. This treatment of an act’s risk justifies the expected-utility principle, and the mean-risk principle, for evaluation of an act. Rational attitudes to risks explain the rationality of acting in accord with the principles. They ground the separability relations that support the principles. The expected-utility principle justifies a substantive, and not just a representational, version of the decision principle of expected-utility maximization. Consequently, the principle governs a single choice and not just sets of choices. It demands more than consistency of the choices in a set. It demands that each choice follow the agent’s preferences, and these preferences explain the rationality of a choice that complies with the principle.
{"title":"Conclusion","authors":"P. Weirich","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"Recognizing that an act’s risk is a consequence of the act yields a version of expected-utility maximization that does not need adjustments for risk in addition to the probabilities and utilities of possible outcomes. This treatment of an act’s risk justifies the expected-utility principle, and the mean-risk principle, for evaluation of an act. Rational attitudes to risks explain the rationality of acting in accord with the principles. They ground the separability relations that support the principles. The expected-utility principle justifies a substantive, and not just a representational, version of the decision principle of expected-utility maximization. Consequently, the principle governs a single choice and not just sets of choices. It demands more than consistency of the choices in a set. It demands that each choice follow the agent’s preferences, and these preferences explain the rationality of a choice that complies with the principle.","PeriodicalId":166435,"journal":{"name":"Rational Responses to Risks","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127026489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-20DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0003
P. Weirich
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.
{"title":"Attitudes","authors":"P. Weirich","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0003","url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":166435,"journal":{"name":"Rational Responses to Risks","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131206581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-08-20DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0002
P. Weirich
A chance of a bad event is one type of risk. The volatility of an act’s possible outcomes is another type of risk. Distinguishing these two types of risk is normatively significant because different general principles of rationality govern attitudes to them. A measure of the risk of a bad event may use the probability-utility product for the event. A measure of the volatility of an act’s possible outcomes may, in some cases, use the variance of the probability distribution of the utilities of the act’s possible outcomes. Given that an act’s risk belongs to every possible outcome, it arises from an equilibrium between the risk’s effect on an outcome’s utility and the utilities of outcomes’ effect on the risk.
{"title":"Types of Risk","authors":"P. Weirich","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190089412.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"A chance of a bad event is one type of risk. The volatility of an act’s possible outcomes is another type of risk. Distinguishing these two types of risk is normatively significant because different general principles of rationality govern attitudes to them. A measure of the risk of a bad event may use the probability-utility product for the event. A measure of the volatility of an act’s possible outcomes may, in some cases, use the variance of the probability distribution of the utilities of the act’s possible outcomes. Given that an act’s risk belongs to every possible outcome, it arises from an equilibrium between the risk’s effect on an outcome’s utility and the utilities of outcomes’ effect on the risk.","PeriodicalId":166435,"journal":{"name":"Rational Responses to Risks","volume":"23 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122238560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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