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Counterfactual Desirability
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy.
2017 (English)In: British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, ISSN 0007-0882, E-ISSN 1464-3537, Vol. 68, no 2, p. 485-533Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The desirability of what actually occurs is often influenced by what could have been. Preferences based on such value dependencies between actual and counterfactual outcomes generate a class of problems for orthodox decision theory, the best-known perhaps being the so-called Allais paradox. In this article we solve these problems by extending Richard Jeffrey’s decision theory to counterfactual prospects, using a multidimensional possible-world semantics for conditionals, and showing that preferences that are sensitive to counterfactual considerations can still be desirability-maximizing. We end the article by investigating the conditions necessary and sufficient for a desirability function to be a standard expected-utility function. It turns out that the additional conditions imply highly implausible epistemic principles.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2017. Vol. 68, no 2, p. 485-533
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Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-155539DOI: 10.1093/bjps/axv023OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-155539DiVA, id: diva2:1200545
Available from: 2018-04-24 Created: 2018-04-24 Last updated: 2022-03-23Bibliographically approved

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Stefánsson, H. Orri

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