Expected value, to a point: Moral decision‐making under background uncertainty.
Expected value maximization gives plausible guidance for moral decision‐making under uncertainty in many situations. But it has unappetizing implications in 'Pascalian' situations involving tiny probabilities of extreme outcomes. This paper shows, first, that under realistic levels of 'background un...
| Publicado en: | Nous (0029-4624) Vol. 59; no. 4; pp. 1093 - 1126 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Dec2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=189393080&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 189393080 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00294624 D97 jtl: Nous (0029-4624) issn: 00294624 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Dec2025 vid: 59 iid: 4 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 189393080 10.1111/nous.12544 ppf: 1093 ppct: 33 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: C – @attributes: type: P size: 544KB tig: atl: Expected value, to a point: Moral decision‐making under background uncertainty. aug: au: Tarsney, Christian affil: University of Texas at Austin su: Stochastic dominance Expected utility Decision theory Risk aversion Utility functions Ethical decision making sug: subj: Stochastic dominance Expected utility Decision theory Risk aversion Utility functions Ethical decision making ab: Expected value maximization gives plausible guidance for moral decision‐making under uncertainty in many situations. But it has unappetizing implications in 'Pascalian' situations involving tiny probabilities of extreme outcomes. This paper shows, first, that under realistic levels of 'background uncertainty' about sources of value independent of one's present choice, a widely accepted and apparently innocuous principle—stochastic dominance—requires that prospects be ranked by the expected value of their consequences in most ordinary choice situations. But second, this implication does not hold when differences in expected value are driven by tiny probabilities of extreme outcomes. Stochastic dominance therefore lets us draw a surprisingly principled line between 'ordinary' and 'Pascalian' situations, providing a powerful justification for de facto expected value maximization in the former context while permitting deviations in the latter. Drawing this distinction is incompatible with an in‐principle commitment to maximizing expected value, but does not require too much departure from decision‐theoretic orthodoxy: it is compatible, for instance, with the view that moral agents must maximize the expectation of a utility function that is an increasing function of moral value. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Nous (0029-4624) is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Nous (0029-4624) holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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