Description
Book SynopsisIn this volume of essays Sobel explores the Bayesian idea that rational actions maximize expected values, where an action's expected value is a weighted average of its agent's values for its possible total outcomes.
Trade Review"...there is a profound unity throughout the volume and the analysis is always first-rate....I sincerely hope that this book will be widely read..." Maurice Salles, Mathematical Reviews
"Spotting a rational choice is sometimes mercifully easy. Read this book. I guarantee a hefty payoff. Taking a chance on Taking Chances is taking no chance at all." Mark Vorobej, Canadian Philosophical Review
"Sobel is one of philosophy's leading experts on decision theory. How nice to have a collection of his contributions! These essays, mostly written during the last ten years, provide an excellent survey of current research in the field....Sobel's book is a cornucopia of insights about rational choice." Ethics
Table of ContentsPreface; Part I. World Bayesianism: 1. Utility and the Bayesian paradigm; Part II. Problems for Evidential Decision Theory: 2. Newcomblike problems; 3. Not every prisoners' dilemma is a Newcomb problem; 4. Some versions of Newcomb's problem are prisoners' dilemmas; 5. Infallible predictors; 6. Kent Bach on good arguments; 7. Maximising and prospering; Part III. Causal Decision Theory: 8. Notes on decision theory: old wine in new bottles; 9. Partition theorems for causal decision theories; 10. Expected utilities and rational actions and choices; 11. Maximisation, stability of decision and actions in accordance with reason; 12. Useful intentions; Part IV. Interacting Causal Maximisers: 13. The need for coercion; 14. Hyperrational games; 15. Utility maximizers in iterated prisoners' dilemmas; 16. Backward induction arguments: a paradox regained; References; Index of names.
