This paper examines the relationship between Savage's sure thing principle and the value of information. We present two classes of results. First, we show that, under a consequentialist axiom, the sure-thing principle is neither sufficient nor necessary for perfect information to be always desirable: specifically, under consequentialism, the sure thing principle is not implied by the condition that perfect information is always valuable; moreover, the joint imposition of the sure (...) class='Hi'>thing principle, consequentialism and either one of two state independence axioms does not imply that perfect information is always desirable. Second, we demonstrate that, under consequentialism, the sure thing principle is necessary for a nonnegative value of possibly imperfect information (though of course the principle is still not sufficient). One implication of these results is that the sure thing principle, under consequentialism, plays a somewhat different role in ensuring dynamic consistency in decision making under uncertainty than does the independence axiom in decision making under risk. (shrink)

The Sure-Thing Principle famously appears in Savage’s axiomatization of Subjective Expected Utility. Yet Savage introduces it only as an informal, overarching dominance condition motivating his separability postulate P2 and his state-independence postulate P3. Once these axioms are introduced, by and large, he does not discuss the principle any more. In this note, we pick up the analysis of the Sure-Thing Principle where Savage left it. In particular, we show that each of P2 and (...) P3 is equivalent to a dominance condition; that they strengthen in different directions a common, basic dominance axiom; and that they can be explicitly combined in a unified dominance condition that is a candidate formal statement for the Sure-Thing Principle. Based on elementary proofs, our results shed light on some of the most fundamental properties of rational choice under uncertainty. In particular they imply, as corollaries, potential simplifications for Savage’s and the Anscombe- Aumann axiomatizations of Subjective Expected Utility. Most surprisingly perhaps, they reveal that in Savage’s axiomatization, P3 can be weakened to a natural strengthening of so-called Obvious Dominance. (shrink)

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.

Risk-weighted expected utility theory permits preferences which violate the Sure-Thing Principle. But preferences that violate the STP can lead to bad decisions in sequential choice problems. In particular, they can lead decision-makers to adopt a strategy that is dominated – i.e. a strategy such that some available alternative leads to a better outcome in every possible state of the world.

This paper offers a fine analysis of different versions of the well known sure-thing principle. We show that Savage's formal formulation of the principle, i.e., his second postulate (P2), is strictly stronger than what is intended originally.

The Sure Thing Principle (1), Dominance Principle (2), and Strong Independence Axiom (3) have been attacked and defended in various ways over the past 30 years. In the course of a survey of some of that literature, it is argued that these principles are acceptable iff suitably qualified.

In evolutionary biology changes in population structure are explained by citing trait fitness distribution. I distinguish three interpretations of fitness explanations—the Two‐Factor Model, the Single‐Factor Model, and the Statistical Interpretation—and argue for the last of these. These interpretations differ in their degrees of causal commitment. The first two hold that trait fitness distribution causes population change. Trait fitness explanations, according to these interpretations, are causal explanations. The last maintains that trait fitness distribution correlates with population change but does not cause (...) it. My defense of the Statistical Interpretation relies on a distinctive feature of causation. Causes conform to the Sure Thing Principle. Trait fitness distributions, I argue, do not. *Received July 2009; revised October 2009. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy/Institute for the History, Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, Victoria College, 91 Charles Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1K7, Canada; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

The main result of this paper is a formal argument for the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the law of large numbers. Unlike the well-known arguments by Savage and von Neumann & Morgenstern, this argument does not presuppose the sure-thing principle or the independence axiom. The principal idea is to use the concept of transformative decision rules for decomposing the principle of maximizing expected utility into a sequence of normatively reasonable (...) subrules. It is shown that this procedure provides a resolution of Allais's paradox that cannot be obtained by Savage-style or von Neumann & Morgenstern-style arguments. (shrink)

We offer two arguments against the halving repose to Sleeping Beauty. First, we show that halving violates the Epistemological Sure-Thing Principle, which we argue is a necessary constraint on any reasonable probability assignment. The constraint is that if hypothetically on C you assign to A the same probability you assign to A hypothetical on not-C, you must assign that probability to A simpliciter. Epistemically, it's a sure thing for you that A has this probability. Second, (...) we show that halving violates solid statistical reasoning (or draws absurdly irrelevant distinctions). (shrink)

This paper presents an axiomatization of the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the independence axiom or sure-thing principle. Perhaps more importantly the new axiomatization is based on an ex ante approach, instead of the standard ex post approach. An ex post approach utilizes the decision maker's preferences among risky acts for generating a utility and a probability function, whereas in the ex ante approach a set of preferences among potential outcomes are (...) on the input side of the theory and the decision maker's preferences among risky acts on the output side. (shrink)

We postulate the Testing Principle : that individuals ''act like statisticians'' when they face uncertainty in a decision problem, ranking alternatives to the extent that available evidence allows. The Testing Principle implies that completeness of preferences, rather than the sure-thing principle , is violated in the Ellsberg Paradox. In the experiment, subjects chose between risky and uncertain acts in modified Ellsberg-type urn problems, with sample information about the uncertain urn. Our results show, consistent with the (...) Testing Principle, that the uncertain urn is chosen more often when the sample size is larger, holding constant a measure of ambiguity (proportion of balls of unknown colour in the urn). The Testing Principle rationalises the Ellsberg Paradox. Behaviour consistent with the principle leads to a reduction in Ellsberg-type violations as the statistical quality of sample information is improved, holding ambiguity constant. The Testing Principle also provides a normative rationale for the Ellsberg paradox that is consistent with procedural rationality. (shrink)

This chapter concerns with rational preferences in the face of uncertainty. The goodness of uncertain prospects is best understood in terms of rational preferences. The chapter discusses some necessary spadework. Its particular purpose is to defend some parts of expected utility theory as an account of rational preferences. It explains the general idea of expected utility theory, and particularly how it is founded on axioms. The principal axiom is also explained. It is often called the 'sure‐thing principle', (...) and it amounts to an assumption of strong separability. The chapter further aims to develop an argument about individuation in the context of a simpler axiom, namely transitivity. It extends the argument to the sure‐thing principle and then discusses a threat to another of the axioms of expected utility theory, which is raised by author's defence of the sure‐thing principle. (shrink)

Simpson's Paradox is introduced and analysed via the mishaps of a researcher who at first falls afoul of the traps Simpson-reversals can set, and then he learns to exploit those traps to advantage. (Note: An error in the treatment of the Sure Thing Principle is corrected in "Simpson's Paradox: A Logically Benign, Empirically Treacherous Hydra").

Simon Blackburn has claimed that on a theory of revealed preference it is tautological that any eligible player - one whose preferences are consistent - plays hawk, chooses a strategy of non-cooperation with the other prisoner. This claim is examined and rejected. A prisoner in the appropriate sense is defined not by preferences over actions (playing hawk or playing dove) but by preferences over the four possible outcomes which result from the players' actions jointly (both playing hawk, both playing dove, (...) the first playing hawk and the second dove, and vice versa). It is not inconsistent to suppose that a prisoner has the appropriate preferences over outcomes but nevertheless chooses to play dove. This can happen either if the prisoner believes for some reason that the full range of outcomes is not available, or if the prisoner is simply a bad strategic thinker. It is perhaps tautological that a player with the appropriate preferences over outcome and with suitable beliefs will if rational choose to play hawk. However, rationality would then involve an appeal to a further principle, the sure-thing principle: if a prisoner would choose hawk knowing that the other will choose hawk, and would also choose hawk knowing that the other will choose dove, then hawk should be chosen when it is uncertain what the other will choose. (shrink)

We critically examine Denis Walsh’s latest attack on the causalist view of fitness. Relying on Judea Pearl’s Sure-Thing Principle and geneticist John Gillespie’s model for fitness, Walsh has argued that the causal interpretation of fitness results in a reductio. We show that his conclusion only follows from misuse of the models, that is, (1) the disregard of the real biological bearing of the population-size parameter in Gillespie’s model and (2) the confusion of the distinction between ordinary probability (...) and Pearl’s causal probability. Properly understood, the models used by Walsh do not threaten the causalist view of fitness. (shrink)

I re-examine Coherence Arguments (Dutch Book Arguments, No Arbitrage Arguments) for diachronic constraints on Bayesian reasoning. I suggest to replace the usual game–theoretic coherence condition with a new decision–theoretic condition ('Diachronic Sure Thing Principle'). The new condition meets a large part of the standard objections against the Coherence Argument and frees it, in particular, from a commitment to additive utilities. It also facilitates the proof of the Converse Dutch Book Theorem. I first apply the improved Coherence Argument (...) to van Fraassen's (1984) Reflection principle. I then point out the failure of a Coherence Argument that is intended to support Conditionalization as a naive, universal, update rule. I also point out that Reflection is incompatible with the universal use of Conditionalization thus interpreted. The Coherence Argument therefore defeats the naive view on Bayesian learning that it was originally designed to justify. (shrink)

This article examines Simpson's paradox as applied to the theory of probabilites and percentages. The author discusses possible flaws in the paradox and compares it to the Sure Thing Principle, statistical inference, causal inference and probabilistic analyses of causation.

In this article I argue that we should be prudentially and morally biased toward earlier events: other things equal, we should prefer for good events to occur earlier and disprefer for bad events to occur earlier. The argument contends that we should accord at least some credence—if only a small one—to a theoretical package featuring the growing block theory of time and that this package generates a presumptive bias toward earlier events. Rival theoretical packages are considered. Under reasonable allocations of (...) credence to them, the presumptive bias escapes defeat. The argument has several corollaries: other things equal, we should be biased toward the past over the future, the further past over the nearer past, and the nearer future over the further future. (shrink)

The disjunction effect (Tversky and Shafir in Psychol Sci 3:305–309, 1992) occurs when decision makers prefer option x (versus y) when knowing that event A occurs and also when knowing that event A does not occur, but they refuse x (or prefer y) when not knowing whether or not A occurs. This form of incoherence violates Savage’s (Cognition 57:31–95, 1954) sure-thing principle, one of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision-making. The phenomenon was attributed to (...) a lack of clear reasons for accepting an option (x) when the subjects are under uncertainty. Through a pragmatic analysis of the task and a consequent reformulation of it, we show that the effect does not depend on the presence of uncertainty, but on the introduction into the text-problem of a non-relevant goal. (shrink)

Experimental results on the Ellsberg paradox typically reveal behavior that is commonly interpreted as ambiguity aversion. The experiments reported in the current paper find the objective probabilities for drawing a red ball that make subjects indifferent between various risky and uncertain Ellsberg bets. They allow us to examine the predictive power of alternative principles of choice under uncertainty, including the objective maximin and Hurwicz criteria, the sure-thing principle, and the principle of insufficient reason. Contrary to our (...) expectations, the principle of insufficient reason performed substantially better than rival theories in our experiment, with ambiguity aversion appearing only as a secondary phenomenon. (shrink)

Sometimes a proposition is ‘opaque’ to an agent: he doesn't know it, but he does know something about how coming to know it should affect his or her credence function. It is tempting to assume that a rational agent's credence function coheres in a certain way with his or her knowledge of these opaque propositions, and I call this the ‘Opaque Proposition Principle’. The principle is compelling but demonstrably false. I explain this incongruity by showing that the (...) class='Hi'>principle is ambiguous: the term ‘know’ as it appears in the principle can be interpreted in two different ways, as either basic-know or super-know. I use this distinction to construct a plausible version of the principle, and then to similarly construct plausible versions of the Reflection Principle and the Sure-Thing Principle. (shrink)

The paradigm for modelling decision-making under uncertainty has undoubtedly been the theory of Expected Utility, which was first developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944) and later extended by Savage (1954) to the case of subjective uncertainty. The inadequacy of the theory of Subjective Expected Utility (SEU) as a descriptive theory was soon pointed out in experiments, most famously by Allais (1953) and Ellsberg (1961). The observed departures from SEU noticed by Allais and Ellsberg became known as “paradoxes”. The Ellsberg (...) paradox gave rise, several years later, to a new literature on decision-making under ambiguity. The theoretical side of this literature was pioneered by Schmeidler (1989). This literature views the departures from SEU in situations similar to those discussed by Ellsberg as rational responses to ambiguity. The rationality is “recovered” by relaxing Savage's Sure-Thing principle and adding an ambiguity-aversion postulate. Thus the ambiguity-aversion literature takes a normative point of view and does consider Ellsberg-type choices as behavioural “anomalies”. (shrink)

We report the results of an experimental test of whether preaching the normative appeal of the sure-thing principle leads decision-makers to make choices that satisfy it. We use Allais-type decision problems to observe the incentive-compatible choices of 147 subjects, which either violate the sure-thing principle or adhere to it. Subjects are presented with normative arguments that support the counterfactual behaviour and then repeat their decisions. We observe violations of the sure-thing principle (...) are robust to its normative justification. This result replicates a famous small-sample observation using hypothetical tasks that was published by Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky almost half a century ago. We argue that this finding is as relevant now as it was then and that their design can be usefully applied to address contemporary issues in behavioural economics. (shrink)

In a recent article, Machina (Am Econ Rev forthcoming, 2008) suggested choice problems in the spirit of Ellsberg (Q J Econ 75:643–669, 1961), which challenge tail-separability, an implication of Choquet expected utility (CEU), to a similar extent as the Ellsberg paradox challenged the sure-thing principle implied by subjective expected utility (SEU). We have tested choice behavior for bets on one of Machina’s choice problems, the reflection example. Our results indicate that tail-separability is violated by a large majority (...) of subjects (over 70% of the sample). These empirical findings complement the theoretical analysis of Machina (Am Econ Rev forthcoming, 2008) and, together, they confirm the need for new approaches in the analysis of ambiguity for decision making. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900), English philosopher and educator is today most famous for his Methods of Ethics first published in 1874 and considered by C. D. Broad among others to be the greatest single work on ethics in English. Besides philosophy, Sidgwick wrote on education, literature, political theory, the history of political institutions, and psychical research. He was also active in University politics, economics and administration, playing a large part in the founding of the first College for women - Newnham College, (...) Cambridge. Although Methods of Ethics is considered the most valuable of his writings - reprinted here in its first and last editions - his intellect is displayed in the full extent of his writings. Professor Marshall said in reference to his discussions of the proper functions of government in Principles of Political Economy that it was 'by far the best thing of the kind in any language'. In all his writings, Sidgwick is rigorous and cautious, reluctant to advance ideas without making sure of his ground. In common with Mill he was opposed to mystical and transcendental methods. This comprehensive collection brings together the most definitive editions of all his books and includes the standard biography written by his wife, as well as two volumes of previously uncollected essays and reviews. (shrink)

The disjunction effect (Tversky & Shafir, 1992) occurs when decision makers prefer option x (versus y) when knowing that event A occurs and also when knowing that event A does not occur, but they refuse x (or prefer y) when not knowing whether or not A occurs. This form of incoherence violates Savage's (1954) sure-thing principle, one of the basic axioms of the rational theory of decision making. The phenomenon was attributed to a lack of clear reasons (...) for accepting an option (x) when subjects are under uncertainty. Through a pragmatic analysis of the task and a consequent reformulation of it, we show that the effect does not depend on the presence of uncertainty, but on the introduction of non-relevant goals into the text problem, in both the well-known Gamble problem and the Hawaii problem. (shrink)

Behaviour norms are considered for decision trees which allow both objective probabilities and uncertain states of the world with unknown probabilities. Terminal nodes have consequences in a given domain. Behaviour is required to be consistent in subtrees. Consequentialist behaviour, by definition, reveals a consequence choice function independent of the structure of the decision tree. It implies that behaviour reveals a revealed preference ordering satisfying both the independence axiom and a novel form of sure-thing principle. Continuous consequentialist behaviour (...) must be expected utility maximizing. Other plausible assumptions then imply additive utilities, subjective probabilities, and Bayes' rule. (shrink)

People with the kind of preferences that give rise to the St. Petersburg paradox are problematic---but not because there is anything wrong with infinite utilities. Rather, such people cannot assign the St. Petersburg gamble any value that any kind of outcome could possibly have. Their preferences also violate an infinitary generalization of Savage's Sure Thing Principle, which we call the *Countable Sure Thing Principle*, as well as an infinitary generalization of von Neumann and Morgenstern's (...) Independence axiom, which we call *Countable Independence*. In violating these principles, they display foibles like those of people who deviate from standard expected utility theory in more mundane cases: they choose dominated strategies, pay to avoid information, and reject expert advice. We precisely characterize the preference relations that satisfy Countable Independence in several equivalent ways: a structural constraint on preferences, a representation theorem, and the principle we began with, that every prospect has a value that some outcome could have. (shrink)

We present a novel variant of decision making based on the mathematical theory of separable Hilbert spaces. This mathematical structure captures the effect of superposition of composite prospects, including many incorporated intentions, which allows us to describe a variety of interesting fallacies and anomalies that have been reported to particularize the decision making of real human beings. The theory characterizes entangled decision making, non-commutativity of subsequent decisions, and intention interference. We demonstrate how the violation of the Savage’s sure-thing (...) principle, known as the disjunction effect, can be explained quantitatively as a result of the interference of intentions, when making decisions under uncertainty. The disjunction effects, observed in experiments, are accurately predicted using a theorem on interference alternation that we derive, which connects aversion-to-uncertainty to the appearance of negative interference terms suppressing the probability of actions. The conjunction fallacy is also explained by the presence of the interference terms. A series of experiments are analyzed and shown to be in excellent agreement with a priori evaluation of interference effects. The conjunction fallacy is also shown to be a sufficient condition for the disjunction effect, and novel experiments testing the combined interplay between the two effects are suggested. (shrink)

“[T]he Precautionary Principle still has neither a commonly accepted definition nor a set of criteria to guide its implementation. “There is”, Freestone … cogently observes, “a certain paradox in the widespread and rapid adoption of the Precautionary Principle”: While it is applauded as a “good thing”, no one is quite sure about what it really means or how it might be..

This paper uses a two-dimensional version of a standard common consequence experiment to test the intransitivity explanation of Allais-paradox-type violations of expected utility theory. We compare the common consequence effect of two choice problems differing only with respect to whether alternatives are statistically correlated or independent. We framed the experiment so that intransitive preferences could explain violating behavior when alternatives are independent, but not when they are correlated. We found the same pattern of violation in the two cases. This is (...) evidence against intransitivity as an explanation of the Allais Paradox. The question whether violations of expected utility are mainly due to intransitivity or to violation of independence is important since it is exactly on this issue the main new decision theories differ. (shrink)

I have been supposing that for the theory of reasoning, explicit belief is an all-or-nothing matter, I have assumed that, as far as principles of reasoning are concerned, one either believes something explicitly or one does not; in other words an appropriate "representation" is either in one's "memory" or not. The principles of reasoning are principles for modifying such all-or-nothing representations. This is not to deny that in some ways belief is a matter of degree. For one thing implicit (...) belief is certainly a matter of degree, since it is a matter of how easily and automatically one can infer something from what one believes explicitly. Furthermore, explicit belief is a matter of degree in the sense that one believes some things more strongly than others. Sometimes one is only somewhat inclined to believe something, sometimes one is not sure what to believe, sometimes one is inclined to disbelieve something, sometimes one is quite confident something is not so, and so forth. (shrink)

Metaphysically speaking, just what is trying? There appear to be two options: to place it on the side of the mind or on the side of the world. Volitionists, who think that to try is to engage in a mental act, perhaps identical to willing and perhaps not, take the mind-side option. The second, or world-side option identifies trying to do something with one of the more basic actions by which one tries to do that thing. The trying is (...) then said to be identical with the physical action. -/- After carefully stating the second, world-side view, I produce two arguments against it. The first relies on the fact that if a=b and b=c, then a=c, sometimes put colloquially as: if something is identical to two things, then the two things must be identical to one another. In the case of trying, one might try to do something by performing a plurality of simultaneous actions, a sure sign that the relation between the trying and the plurality of actions by which one tries must be some relation other than identity. -/- The second argument discusses two cases, recorded in William James’ The Principles of Psychology, of a patient who tries but who performs no action whatever. This is sometimes called ‘naked trying’. A recent attempt at denying that there can be such cases of naked trying is examined and dismissed. (shrink)

This paper studies decisions under ambiguity when attention is paid to extreme outcomes. In a purely subjective framework, we propose an axiomatic characterization of affine capacities, which are Choquet capacities consisting in an affine transformation of a subjective probability. Our main axiom restricts the well-known Savage’s Sure-Thing Principle to a change in a common intermediate outcome. The representation result is then an affine combination of the expected utility of the valued act and its maximal and minimal utilities.

Revisionary ontologists are making a comeback. Quasi-nihilists, like Peter van Inwagen and Trenton Merricks, insist that the only composite objects that exist are living things. Unrestriced universalists, like W.V.O. Quine, David Lewis, Mark Heller, and Hud Hudson, insist that any collection of objects composes something, no matter how scattered over time and space they may be. And there are more besides. The result, says Eli Hirsch, is that many commonsense judgments about the existence or identity of highly visible physical objects (...) are a priori necessarily false. In a “last ditch effort” to bring revisionary ontologists back to their senses, Hirsch marshalls what he calls the Argument from Charity. We can be sure that there are tables and chairs and that there are no fusions of Plato’s nose and the Eiffel Tower, says Hirsch, because these commonsense platitudes are a logical consequence of the well-known principle of interpretive charity applied to natural languages, like English. In what follows, I assess the Argument from Charity. My conclusion is that if this is the best we can do to save revisionary ontologists, they are surely lost forever. (shrink)

I can be wrong about things I seem to perceive; the conditions might lead me to be mistaken about them. Since I can't rule out the possibility that the conditions are misleading, I can't be sure that I am perceiving this thing in my hand correctly. But suppose that I am able to examine it actively—handling it, looking closer, shining a light on it, and so on. Then, my level of uncertainty goes down; in the limit it is (...) eliminated entirely. Of course, I might be mistaken because I am a brain in a vat, or because some other sceptical scenario obtains. But sceptical scenarios apply not just to this thing in my hand, but to everything all at once. Define "empirical certainty" as the absence of the kind of doubt that spreads to all empirical states of affairs. Sensory exploration, or active examination, can in principle lead to empirical certainty. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Oxymorons of AnxietyOr the Influence of Baba Ram Dass on Harold BloomRichard Klein (bio)A REVIEW OF Harold Bloom. The Anxiety of Influence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973).In 1974, when I initially submitted this article to diacritics, it was rejected, despite my being a member of the editorial board. I had previously agreed that the piece should first be sent to Harold Bloom for his reaction; he was not (...) pleased. The editor (and founder of diacritics) judged, I think correctly, that it was better to have Bloom well disposed toward the young journal than not. He had been very generous, since its inception, giving us articles and interviews, and lending his weight to this early attempt to translate French theory into America. I was naturally deflated by the rejection, but since I believe in institutions more than individuals, I acquiesced, gracefully I think. Perhaps I shouldn't have. It has been forty years and in that time Bloom has grown even more dismissive of major theoretical developments and contemptuous of efforts to expand the canon. In his latest work, his "virtual swan song," The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life (2011), he evokes the critical developments long championed by this journal, which have evolved over forty years, and lumps them together as: "what I shall call the New Cynicism (a cluster of critical tendencies which are rooted in French theories of culture and encompass the New Historicism and its ilk)."1 Note the ilk: making alike, in a single cluster of cynicism, what he will not differentiate. Currently, he is motivated to return to his earlier work on influence, "galvanized in part by the New Cynicism's reductio of all literary relationships to base self-interest."2 In The Anatomy of Influence, Bloom returns to the Bloom of The Anxiety of Influence to find and redefine a canonical interpretation of literary relationships that depends from his immense erudition. Against the cynics, he is excited by a nobler, disinterested perspective—a view more universally shared than what might be found, for example, in the pages of diacritics.In any case, I always hoped this article, excerpted from a much longer chapter, would one day be published. I didn't think the moment would wait forty years and for my retirement. For allowing this to see the light and for their kind indulgence of my valedictory vanity, I especially want to thank my colleagues deeply, as well as the editors of the new diacritics.Harold Bloom brings bad news. Geoffrey Hartman calls him a kakangelist; he calls himself a necromancer.3 The news is the death of poetry—an event, as Bloom at moments seems to believe, that began with Milton. Since then, things have only gotten worse and are no way bound to improve. What Bloom is saying may well be no news at all, if poetry in fact and in principle has always been dying, if its death were simultaneous with its birth—its possibility permanently implicated in its impossibility. But, if not what the man is saying, surely the way he kakangelizes, raises the most surprising questions about the possibility of something he continues to want to call "literary criticism." Hartman's carefully poised review neglects to insist on the question of Bloom's style. His opening sentence, however, does proceed straight to enumerate—with no further comment—the unwonted diversity of elements that compose Bloom's short theory of poetry: "Six essays emerge from this dense, eloquent and experiential brooding, flanked by two prose poems, and accompanied by a synoptic introduction and an interchapter on 'Antithetical Criticism.'"4 Hartman pretends to take all this perfectly for granted, as if we were quite prepared to understand, with no explanation, the nature and necessity of something called a synoptic introduction, or the status of an interchapter, or the force of a notion like [End Page 7] antithetical criticism, and, as if we should hardly be surprised to discover, the whole thing quite naturally flanked by two prose poems! Hartman picks up the new style, but for reasons not clearly readable in his text, chooses not to dwell on this most surprising news of... (shrink)

This paper contributes to a theory of rational choice for decision-makers with incomplete preferences due to partial ignorance, whose beliefs are representable as sets of acceptable priors. We focus on the limiting case of `Complete Ignorance' which can be viewed as reduced form of the general case of partial ignorance. Rationality is conceptualized in terms of a `Principle of Preference-Basedness', according to which rational choice should be isomorphic to asserted preference. The main result characterizes axiomatically a new choice-rule called (...) `Simultaneous Expected Utility Maximization'. It can be interpreted as agreement in a bargaining game (Kalai-Smorodinsky solution) whose players correspond to the (extremal) `acceptable priors' among which the decision maker has suspended judgment. An essential but non-standard feature of Simultaneous Expected Utility choices is their dependence on the entire choice set. This is justified by the conception of optimality as compromise rather than as superiority in pairwise comparisons. (shrink)

The optimistic perspective opened up by the preceding possibilities and promises does not grant that everything in this research project is rosy. Phenomenology may be a philosophy of infinite tasks, but it cannot pass for a philosophy of infinite means. By its very methodological principle, this philosophy is restricted to the elucidation of the phenomena in their horizontal and vertical (as it were) structure or, otherwise put, in their synchronic/diachronic or static/genetic structuring. To this extent, the specifically phenomenologically justified (...) significance of Phenomenology’s discoveries and teachings is restricted to the phenomena themselves, to what is phenomeno-logizable. To be sure, this restriction does not necessarily signal a diminishing of Phenomenology’s dignity as a kind of philosophizing. As we will see, what it signals is a more deeply entrenched self-awareness. Both Husserl and Heidegger nonetheless flirted with (and were sometimes fully enchanted by) the charm of the non-phenomenologizable. It is in the nature of our truth-seeking process in philosophy to frequently find ourselves moving along the boundary that separates the soundly intuitional from the merely speculative. According to Phenomenology’s strict rule, the possible drift into the merely speculative is the philosophical original sin against truth and knowledge, yet Phenomenology does not appear fully innocent of this drift. In this final chapter, we will have the opportunity to see what I believe to be the most crucial trespasses of these self-posed phenomenological limits. Generally speaking, this might be an expected result, given philosophy’s own high expectations in the field of truth and knowledge. The fact remains, however, that without any specific notice both Husserl and Heidegger do on occasion pass from the domain of phenomenological description of the things themselves into a speculative conjecturing of the phenomenologically unchartable. In their efforts to further extend the elucidatory capability of Phenomenology, fully absorbed in following the traces of the phenomena under investigation, they allow themselves to fall down the rabbit hole. (shrink)

Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900), English philosopher and educator is today most famous for his Methods of Ethics first published in 1874 and considered by C. D. Broad among others to be the greatest single work on ethics in English. Besides philosophy, Sidgwick wrote on education, literature, political theory, the history of political institutions, and psychical research. He was also active in University politics, economics and administration, playing a large part in the founding of the first College for women - Newnham College, (...) Cambridge. Although Methods of Ethics is considered the most valuable of his writings - reprinted here in its first and last editions - his intellect is displayed in the full extent of his writings. Professor Marshall said in reference to his discussions of the proper functions of government in Principles of Political Economy that it was 'by far the best thing of the kind in any language'. In all his writings, Sidgwick is rigorous and cautious, reluctant to advance ideas without making sure of his ground. In common with Mill he was opposed to mystical and transcendental methods. This comprehensive collection brings together the most definitive editions of all his books and includes the standard biography written by his wife, as well as two volumes of previously uncollected essays and reviews. (shrink)

According to the class of de minimis decision principles, risks can be ignored (or at least treated very differently from other risks) if the risk is sufficiently small. In this article, we argue that a de minimis threshold has no place in a normative theory of decision making, because the application of the principle will either recommend ignoring risks that should not be ignored (e.g., the sure death of a person) or it cannot be used by ordinary bounded (...) and information-constrained agents. (shrink)

Some people have supposed that utility is good in itself, non-in-strumentally good, as distinct from good because conducive to other good things. And in modern versions of this view, utility often means want-satisfaction, as distinct from pleasure or happiness. For your want that p to be satisfied, is it necessary that you know or believe that p, or sufficient merely that p is true? However that question is answered, there are problems with the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good. (...) What if you want something only because you have a false belief? What if the time at which you want that p is fifty or five hundred years before the time to which p itself refers? To meet these difficulties, qualifications have to be introduced, and much has been written about how exactly these qualifications are to be framed.1 There is however what may be a rather more serious objection to the view that want-satisfaction is a non-instrumental good, or rather to the combination of that view with the principle that it is sufficient for your want that p to be satisfied simply that p is true. The objection is that this combination forces you to give undue weight to the mere acquisition of desires when you come to make judgements about changes in the value of things. It forces you to say that for any true proposition p, which initially you do not want to be true, your mere acquisition of a desire that p will, other things being equal, make the world better. Non-instrumental value can be increased merely by multiplying desires, even though everything else remains the same. Surely, however, improving the world is not as easy as that. (shrink)

When we start with the wrong question, no matter how good an answer we get, it won’t give us the results we want. Rather than joining the throngs who are asking, When will this economic crisis be over? Jim Wallis says the right question to ask is How will this crisis change us? The worst thing we can do now, Wallis tells us, is to go back to normal. Normal is what got us into this situation. We need a (...) new normal, and this economic crisis is an invitation to discover what that means. Some of the principles Wallis unpacks for our new normal are . . . • Spending money we don’t have for things we don’t need is a bad foundation for an economy or a family. • It’s time to stop keeping up with the Joneses and start making sure the Joneses are okay. • The values of commercials and billboards are not the things we want to teach our children. • Care for the poor is not just a moral duty but is critical for the common good. • A healthy society is a balanced society in which markets, the government, and our communities all play a role. • The operating principle of God’s economy says that there is enough if we share it. • And much, much more . . . In the pages of this book, Wallis provides us with a moral compass for this new economy—one that will guide us on Wall Street, Main Street, and Your Street. Embracing a New Economy Getting back to "the way things were" is not an option. It is time we take our economic uncertainty and use it to find some moral clarity. Too often we have been ruled by the maxims that greed is good, it’s all about me, and I want it now. Those can be challenged only with some of our oldest and best values—enough is enough, we are in it together, and thinking not just for tomorrow but for future generations. Jim Wallis shows that the solution to our problems will be found only as individuals, families, friends, churches, mosques, synagogues, and entire communities wrestle with the question of values together. (shrink)

According to Plato’s Timaeus, time is ‘an arithmetically progressing, eternal image of eternity which stays still in unity’, a likeness made by the corporeal living world’s manufacturer to furnish the cosmic animal. Plotinus keeps this Platonic conception of time. His own concept, however, is aimed to put in terms the temporal dimension or substratum rather than the orderly running time: Time is ‘the soul’s life in a movement shifting from one state of life to another’. The soul sets up the (...) temporal dimension and fulfills it. Time thus conceived is a life which resembles not only another, complete life above time but also the principle of that perfect life. Within time, the soul unfolds itself and her original mindlike nature with its tendency towards the One Principle. One part of the soul keeps company with the perfect mind while another part bends down to the realm where one comes after another. She experiences happiness instantaneously, above time – an experience which she can not, and is not obliged to, bring about, keep hold of or repeat within temporal limits. Therefore, the individual living thing, with its tendency towards happiness, may keep calm and sure. Men can share time in such calmness. The cosmos as conceived by Plotinus and Plato – shared by the living things, moved and besouled – can be read as an image of the practical knowledge that we have time for each other. Keywords: Plotinus; Plato; Timaeus; mysticism; time; the One; eternity; soul; life; mind; happiness; cosmos. (shrink)