The Sure Thing Principle Leads to Instability

Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming)
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Abstract

Orthodox causal decision theory is unstable. Its advice changes as you make up your mind about what you will do. Several have objected to this kind of instability and explored stable alternatives. Here, I'll show that explorers in search of stability must part with a vestige of their homeland. There is no plausible stable decision theory which satisfies Savage's Sure Thing Principle. So those in search of stability must learn to live without it.

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J. Dmitri Gallow
University of Southern California

Citations of this work

Causal decision theory.Paul Weirich - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

The Logic of Decision.Richard C. Jeffrey - 1965 - New York, NY, USA: University of Chicago Press.
Risk and Rationality.Lara Buchak - 2013 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1954 - Synthese 11 (1):86-89.
The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1956 - Philosophy of Science 23 (2):166-166.

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