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Philosophy of Science 79 (3):386-395 (2012)
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Abstract

Opponents of Causal Decision Theory (CDT) sometimes claim (i) that it gives the wrong advice in Egan-style cases, where the CDT-endorsed act brings news that it causes a bad outcome; (ii) that CDT gives the right advice in Newcomb cases, where it is known in advance that the CDT-act causes you to be richer than the alternative. This paper argues that (i) and (ii) cannot both be true if rational preference over acts is transitive.

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10.1086/666065

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Arif Ahmed
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Rational monism and rational pluralism.Jack Spencer - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (6):1769-1800.
Causal decision theory.Paul Weirich - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Decision and Intervention.Reuben Stern - 2019 - Erkenntnis 84 (4):783-804.
Normative Decision Theory.Edward Elliott - 2019 - Analysis 79 (4):755-772.

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals and Two Kinds of Expected Utility.Allan Gibbard & William L. Harper - 1978 - In A. Hooker, J. J. Leach & E. F. McClennen (eds.), Foundations and Applications of Decision Theory. D. Reidel. pp. 125-162.
Some counterexamples to causal decision theory.Andy Egan - 2007 - Philosophical Review 116 (1):93-114.
Gandalf’s solution to the Newcomb problem.Ralph Wedgwood - 2013 - Synthese 190 (14):2643–2675.

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