Too much of a good thing: decision-making in cases with infinitely many utility contributions.

Theories that use expected utility maximization to evaluate acts have difficulty handling cases with infinitely many utility contributions. In this paper I present and motivate a way of modifying such theories to deal with these cases, employing what I call "Direct Difference Taking". This proposal...

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Publicado en:Synthese Vol. 198; no. 8; pp. 7309 - 7350
Autor principal: Meacham, Christopher J. G.
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Aug2021
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Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        au: Meacham, Christopher J. G.
        affil: E305 South College, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 01003-9274, Amherst, MA, USA
      su:
        Decision making
        Intuition
        Motivation (Psychology)
        Social dominance
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          Decision making
          Intuition
          Motivation (Psychology)
          Social dominance
      ab: Theories that use expected utility maximization to evaluate acts have difficulty handling cases with infinitely many utility contributions. In this paper I present and motivate a way of modifying such theories to deal with these cases, employing what I call "Direct Difference Taking". This proposal has a number of desirable features: it's natural and well-motivated, it satisfies natural dominance intuitions, and it yields plausible prescriptions in a wide range of cases. I then compare my account to the most plausible alternative, a proposal offered by Arntzenius (Philos Perspect 28(1):31–58, 2014). I argue that while Arntzenius's proposal has many attractive features, it runs into a number of problems which Direct Difference Taking avoids.
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    language: English
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