Research Seminar in Decision and Action Theory: Marina Moreno (MCMP) &Toby Solomon (MCMP)

Title:

Humeanism and the Money-Pump-Argument, by Marina Moreno

Risk-averse Causalists aren’t so easily frustrated, by Toby Solomon

Abstract:

Humeanism and the Money-Pump-Argument, by Marina Moreno

Humeanism is the view that rationality is exclusively concerned with instrumental rationality, i.e. issues about how we can promote our desires. As such, it is in principle open to Humeans to hold that choice-behaviour is not required to follow transitive patterns: I may be rationally permitted to choose x over y, y over z and z over x if that is what I desire. The classic money-pump argument aims to show that this is not so by demonstrating that intransitive choice-behaviour leads to exploitation. I provide a novel argument against the claim that Humeanism is compatible with a requirement of transitive choice-behaviour. To that end, I develop a formal framework of desire-based choice, whereby sets of desires are mapped onto choice functions. I formulate three constraints on such a mapping. The first two correspond to the core commitments of Humeanism. The third formalises a minimal condition that is necessary for money-pump arguments to successfully ground a requirement of transitive choice-behaviour. I show that, given certain minimal basic assumptions about the motivational make-up of Humean agents, no mapping can jointly satisfy all three conditions. This, I argue, poses a significant challenge to the idea that Humeanism is compatible with a general requirement of transitive choice-behaviour.

Risk-averse Causalists aren’t so easily frustrated, by Toby Solomon

Jack Spencer and Ian Wells have recently argued that Causal Decision Theory faces special difficulty in cases of decision-instability where a play-it-safe option is present. They argue that CDT recommends taking a risky option, while the rational thing to do is to play it safe. In this paper I will show that CDT only recommends the risky option if we assume risk neutrality—a risk-averse CDT can play it safe. This opens two lines of response to Causalists: They can embrace a risk-averse CDT. Or they can reject the intuition to play it safe on the general grounds that risk-aversion is irrational. I will also generalise this argument to several other examples involve decision-instability. Of course, risk-aversion cannot explain all CDT's problems and I will bolster the case for risk-aversion playing a special role in these cases by showing it cannot help in all such cases.

 

 

The seminar will be held in person, but here is a Zoom link for remote participation:
https://lmu-munich.zoom.us/j/93279453658?pwd=MGRkZ1lOYTVtK2tleWVHbFZ4UFNzZz09