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Summary Causal decision theory (CDT) is one of the most prominent decision-theoretic accounts of rational choice. Developed in response to the well known Newcomb's problem (as outlined in Nozick 1970), the core idea of CDT is that causal (or perhaps certain sorts of counterfactual) notions should play a key role in determining what decision is rational in a given case. This could be contrasted with the view defended by proponents of evidential decision theory, a rival decision theory, according to which evidential, rather than causal, notions should be at the core of our decision-theoretic accounts of choice.
Key works The first paper to discuss causal decision theory in detail was Gibbard & Harper 1978 but a good entry point to the literature on the topic is Lewis 1981, which presents the various versions of CDT that were being discussed at the time and explores the links between them. For a more in depth look at the theory, Joyce 1999 is a good choice. This book starts from the very basics and goes on to provide a detailed discussion of causal decision theory.
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  1. Sequential Choice and the Agent's Perspective.Arif Ahmed - manuscript
    Causal Decision Theory reckons the choice-worthiness of an option to be completely independent of its evidential bearing on its non-effects. But after one has made a choice this bearing is relevant to future decisions. Therefore it is possible to construct problems of sequential choice in which Causal Decision Theory makes a guaranteed loss. So Causal Decision Theory is wrong. The source of the problem is the idea that agents have a special perspective on their own contemplated actions, from which evidential (...)
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  2. Frustration and Delay.Arif Ahmed - manuscript
    A decision problem where Causal Decision Theory (CDT) declines a free $1,000, with the foreseeable effect that the agent is $1,000 poorer, and in no other way better off, than if she had taken the offer.
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  3. On the ambiguity of will-conditionals.Ivano Ciardelli & Adrian Ommundsen - manuscript
    We bring together two widely accepted ideas: (i) conditionals with modal consequents are systematically ambiguous between a reading on which the if-clause restricts the modal, and a reading on which the if-clause introduces an epistemic supposition and the modal is unrestricted; (ii) ‘will’ is a modal. Together, (i) and (ii) imply that will-conditionals are systematically ambiguous between a reading as restricted historical claims, and one as unrestricted historical claims made under a supposition. We argue that this prediction is borne out (...)
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  4. On the plurality of counterfactuals.Ben Holguín & Trevor Teitel - manuscript
    Counterfactuals are context-sensitive. However, we argue that various debates and doctrines in metaphysics and the philosophy of science are premised on ignoring the full extent of counterfactual context-sensitivity. Our focus is on the prominent "miracle" versus "no-miracle" debate about counterfactuals under the assumption that our laws of nature are deterministic. But we also discuss doctrines that employ counterfactuals in theories of rational decision, as well as doctrines that explain what it is to be a law of nature in terms of (...)
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  5. Unboxing the Concepts in Newcomb’s Paradox: Causation, Prediction, Decision in Causal Knowledge Patterns.Roland Poellinger - manuscript
    In Nozick’s rendition of the decision situation given in Newcomb’s Paradox dominance and the principle of maximum expected utility recommend different strategies. While evidential decision theory seems to be split over which principle to apply and how to interpret the principles in the first place, causal decision theory seems to go for the solution recommended by dominance. As a reply to the CDT proposal by Wolfgang Spohn, who opts for “one-boxing” by employing reflexive decision graphs, I will draw on the (...)
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  6. Hidden Value Decision Theory.Morteza Shahram - manuscript
    Highlighting the preferential/comparative aspect of rationalization. Reasons that explain actions are putatively internal. But if one is compelled to decide between A and B and prefers to be exempt, that one pursues A is partially explained by the external factor causing the compulsory decision situation. The more pronounced the external factor, the less causal agency, and hence the less scrutiny and the more leniency in the process of charitable interpretation, the less hermeneutical sacrificial and the higher hidden utility. This paper (...)
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  7. The End of Decision Theory.Brian Weatherson - manuscript
    What question are decision theorists trying to answer, and why is it worth trying to answer it? A lot of philosophers talk as if the aim of decision theory is to describe how we should make decisions, and the reason to do this is to help us make better decisions. I disagree on both fronts. The aim of the decision theory is to describe how a certain kind of idealised decider does in fact decide. And the reason to do this (...)
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  8. Counterfactual desire as belief.J. Robert G. Williams - manuscript
    Bryne & Hajek (1997) argue that Lewis’s (1988; 1996) objections to identifying desire with belief do not go through if our notion of desire is ‘causalized’ (characterized by causal, rather than evidential, decision theory). I argue that versions of the argument go through on certain assumptions about the formulation of decision theory. There is one version of causal decision theory where the original arguments cannot be formulated—the ‘imaging’ formulation that Joyce (1999) advocates. But I argue this formulation is independently objectionable. (...)
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  9. Smokers and psychos: Egan cases don't work.Arif Ahmed - 2010
    Andy Egan's Smoking Lesion and Psycho Button cases are supposed to be counterexamples to Causal Decision Theory. This paper argues that they are not: more precisely, it argues that if CDT makes the right call in Newcomb's problem then it makes the right call in Egan cases too.
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  10. It Can Be Irrational to Knowingly Choose the Best.J. Dmitri Gallow - forthcoming - Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
    Jack Spencer argues we should reject a decision rule called MaxRat because it's incompatible with this principle: If you know that you will choose an option, x, and you know that x is better than every other option available to you, then it is permissible for you to choose x. I agree with Spencer that defenders of MaxRat should reject this principle. However, I disagree insofar as he suggests that he and orthodox causalists are in a position to accept it. (...)
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  11. The Sure Thing Principle Leads to Instability.J. Dmitri Gallow - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
    Orthodox causal decision theory is unstable. Its advice changes as you make up your mind about what you will do. Several have objected to this kind of instability and explored stable alternatives. Here, I'll show that explorers in search of stability must part with a vestige of their homeland. There is no plausible stable decision theory which satisfies Savage's Sure Thing Principle. So those in search of stability must learn to live without it.
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  12. Deference and Decision.Daniel Herrmann & Gerard Rothfus - forthcoming - Theory and Decision:1-27.
    Consider two principles of rational decision making. One says that you should never use the value of events that are inconsistent with your evidence to assess what to do. The other says that, if you know what a more informed version of yourself would do, then you should already do likewise with your current information. We show that no decision theory which agrees with evidential decision theory (EDT) and causal decision theory (CDT) whenever they agree can satisfy both principles. In (...)
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  13. Evidence, Causality, and Sequential Choice.Gerard Rothfus - forthcoming - Theory and Decision.
    Philosophers’ two favorite accounts of rational choice, Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) and Causal Decision Theory (CDT), each face a number of serious objections. Especially troubling are the recent charges that these theories are dynamically inconsistent. I note here that, under the epistemic assumptions that validate these charges, every decision theory that satisfies a pair of attractive postulates is doomed to a similar fate and then survey various lessons rational choice theorists might opt to draw from this.
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  14. The Chances of Choices.Reuben Stern - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    It is sometimes thought that if we treat decision-theoretic options as interventions, then we can use evidential decision theory to vindicate causal dominance reasoning. This is supposed to be guaranteed by a causal modeling axiom that implies that interventions are probabilistically independent of their non-effects—namely, the Causal Markov Condition. But there are two concerns for this line of reasoning. First, the Causal Markov Condition doesn’t imply that an agent should regard their intervention as probabilistically independent from its non-effects when the (...)
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  15. Unspecific Evidence and Normative Theories of Decision.Rhys Borchert - 2024 - Episteme 21 (4):1324-1346.
    The nature of evidence is a problem for epistemology, but I argue that this problem intersects with normative decision theory in a way that I think is underappreciated. Among some decision theorists, there is a presumption that one can always ignore the nature of evidence while theorizing about principles of rational choice. In slogan form: decision theory only cares about the credences agents actually have, not the credences they should have. I argue against this presumption. In particular, I argue that (...)
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  16. Newcomb, frustrated.Rhys Borchert & Jack Spencer - 2024 - Analysis 84 (3):449-456.
    This paper develops a hybridization of Newcomb’s Problem and the Frustrater (Spencer and Wells’s 2019 paper ‘Why take both boxes?’), underscoring how difficult it is to reconcile the rationality of taking both boxes in Newcomb’s Problem and the rationality of taking the envelope in the Frustrater.
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  17. Ancestor Simulations and the Dangers of Simulation Probes.David Braddon-Mitchell & Andrew J. Latham - 2024 - Erkenntnis 89:1257-1267.
    Preston Greene (2020) argues that we should not conduct simulation investigations because of the risk that we might be terminated if our world is a simulation designed to research various counterfactuals about the world of the simulators. In response, we propose a sequence of arguments, most of which have the form of an "even if” response to anyone unmoved by our previous arguments. It runs thus: (i) if simulation is possible, then simulators are as likely to care about simulating simulations (...)
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  18. Causal Fictionalism.Antony Eagle - 2024 - In Yafeng Shan, Alternative Philosophical Approaches to Causation: Beyond Difference-making and Mechanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    Causation appears to present us with an interpretative difficulty. While arguably a redundant relation given fundamental physics, it is nevertheless apparently pragmatically indispensable. This chapter revisits certain arguments made previously by the author for these claims with the benefit of hindsight, starting with the role of causal models in the human sciences, and attempting to explain why it is not possible to straightforwardly ground such models in fundamental physics. This suggests that further constraints, going beyond physics, are needed to legitimate (...)
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  19. Absolution of a Causal Decision Theorist.Melissa Fusco - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):616-643.
    I respond to a dilemma for Causal Decision Theory (CDT) under determinism, posed in Adam Elga's paper “Confessions of a Causal Decision Theorist”. The treatment I present highlights (i) the status of laws as predictors, and (ii) the consequences of decision dependence, which arises natively out of Jeffrey Conditioning and CDT's characteristic equation. My argument leverages decision dependence to work around a key assumption of Elga's proof: to wit, that in the two problems he presents, the CDTer must employ subjunctive‐suppositional (...)
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  20. Counterfactual Decision Theory Is Causal Decision Theory.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2024 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 105 (1):115-156.
    The role of causation and counterfactuals in causal decision theory is vexed and disputed. Recently, Brian Hedden (2023) argues that we should abandon causal decision theory in favour of an alternative: counterfactual decision theory. I argue that, pace Hedden, counterfactual decision theory is not a competitor to, but rather a version of, causal decision theory – the most popular version by far. I provide textual evidence that the founding fathers of causal decision theory (Stalnaker, Gibbard, Harper, Lewis, Skyrms, Sobel, and (...)
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  21. Decision and foreknowledge.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2024 - Noûs 58 (1):77-105.
    My topic is how to make decisions when you possess foreknowledge of the consequences of your choice. Many have thought that these kinds of decisions pose a distinctive and novel problem for causal decision theory (CDT). My thesis is that foreknowledge poses no new problems for CDT. Some of the purported problems are not problems. Others are problems, but they are not problems for CDT. Rather, they are problems for our theories of subjunctive supposition. Others are problems, but they are (...)
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  22. Counterpossibles, Functional Decision Theory, and Artificial Agents.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2024 - In Fausto Carcassi, Tamar Johnson, Søren Brinck Knudstorp, Sabina Domínguez Parrado, Pablo Rivas Robledo & Giorgio Sbardolini, Proceedings of the 24th Amsterdam Colloquium. pp. 218-225.
    Recently, Yudkowsky and Soares (2018) and Levinstein and Soares (2020) have developed a novel decision theory, Functional Decision Theory (FDT). They claim FDT outperforms both Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) and Causal Decision Theory (CDT). Yet FDT faces several challenges. First, it yields some very counterintuitive results (Schwarz 2018; MacAskill 2019). Second, it requires a theory of counterpossibles, for which even Yudkowsky and Soares (2018) and Levinstein and Soares (2020) admit we lack a “full” or “satisfactory” account. Here, I focus on (...)
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  23. Causal decision theory, context, and determinism.Calum McNamara - 2024 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (1):226-260.
    The classic formulation of causal decision theory (CDT) appeals to counterfactuals. It says that you should aim to choose an option that would have a good outcome, were you to choose it. However, this version of CDT faces trouble if the laws of nature are deterministic. After all, the standard theory of counterfactuals says that, if the laws are deterministic, then if anything—including the choice you make—were different in the present, either the laws would be violated or the distant past (...)
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  24. Why ain’t evidentialists rich?Brian Weatherson - 2024 - Analysis 84 (4):813-821.
    A common argument for favouring Evidential Decision Theory (EDT) over Causal Decision Theory (CDT) is that EDT has predictably higher expected returns in Newcomb Problems. But this does not show much. For almost any pair of theories, you can come up with cases where one does, on average, better than the other. Here I describe a case involving dynamic choice where EDT predictably does worse than CDT.
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  25. Cogito and Moore.David James Barnett - 2023 - Synthese 202 (1):1-27.
    Self-verifying judgments like _I exist_ seem rational, and self-defeating ones like _It will rain, but I don’t believe it will rain_ seem irrational_._ But one’s evidence might support a self-defeating judgment, and fail to support a self-verifying one. This paper explains how it can be rational to defy one’s evidence if judgment is construed as a mental performance or act, akin to inner assertion. The explanation comes at significant cost, however. Instead of causing or constituting beliefs, judgments turn out to (...)
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  26. Reconciling Evidential and Causal Decision Theory.Simon Huttegger & Simon M. Huttegger - 2023 - Philosophers' Imprint 23.
    In this paper I study dynamical models of rational deliberation within the context of Newcomb's problem. Such models have been used to argue against the soundness of the "tickle'" defense of evidential decision theory, which is based on the idea that sophisticated decision makers can break correlations between states and acts by introspecting their own beliefs and desires. If correct, this would show that evidential decision theory agrees with the recommendations of causal decision theory. I argue that an adequate understanding (...)
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  27. Can It Be Irrational to Knowingly Choose the Best?Jack Spencer - 2023 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (1):128-139.
    Seeking a decision theory that can handle both the Newcomb problems that challenge evidential decision theory and the unstable problems that challenge causal decision theory, some philosophers recently have turned to ‘graded ratifiability’. However, the graded ratifiability approach to decision theory is, despite its virtues, unsatisfactory; for it conflicts with the platitude that it is always rationally permissible for an agent to knowingly choose their best option.
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  28. Correction to: Aptness and means-end coherence: a dominance argument for causal decision theory.J. Robert G. Williams - 2023 - Synthese 201 (5):1-1.
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  29. Aptness and means-end coherence: a dominance argument for causal decision theory.J. Robert G. Williams - 2023 - Synthese 201 (2):1-19.
    Why should we be means-end rational? Why care whether someone’s mental states exhibit certain formal patterns, like the ones formalized in causal decision theory? This paper establishes a dominance argument for these constraints in a finite setting. If you violate the norms of causal decision theory, then your desires will be aptness dominated. That is, there will be some alternative set of desires that you could have had, which would be more apt (closer to the actual values fixed by your (...)
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  30. Law-Abiding Causal Decision Theory.Timothy Luke Williamson & Alexander Sandgren - 2023 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 74 (4):899-920.
    In this paper we discuss how Causal Decision Theory should be modified to handle a class of problematic cases involving deterministic laws. Causal Decision Theory, as it stands, is problematically biased against your endorsing deterministic propositions (for example it tells you to deny Newtonian physics, regardless of how confident you are of its truth). Our response is that this is not a problem for Causal Decision Theory per se, but arises because of the standard method for assessing the truth of (...)
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  31. Bad Apples and Broken Ladders: A Pragmatic Defence of Causal Decision Theory.Adam Bales - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (1):117-130.
    ABSTRACT While pragmatic arguments are traditionally seen as supporting decision theory, recent discussions suggest the possibility of pragmatic arguments against this theory. I respond to two such arguments, and clarify what it would take for arguments of this sort to succeed.
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  32. Graded Ratifiability.David James Barnett - 2022 - Journal of Philosophy 119 (2):57-88.
    An action is unratifiable when, on the assumption that one performs it, another option has higher expected utility. Unratifiable actions are often claimed to be somehow rationally defective. But in some cases where multiple options are unratifiable, one unratifiable option can still seem preferable to another. We should respond, I argue, by invoking a graded notion of ratifiability.
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  33. Confession of a causal decision theorist.Adam Elga - 2022 - Analysis 82 (2):203-213.
    (1) Suppose that you care only about speaking the truth, and are confident that some particular deterministic theory is true. If someone asks you whether that theory is true, are you rationally required to answer "yes"? -/- (2) Suppose that you face a problem in which (as in Newcomb's problem) one of your options---call it "taking two boxes"---causally dominates your only other option. Are you rationally required to take two boxes? -/- Those of us attracted to causal decision theory are (...)
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  34. Four Approaches to Supposition.Benjamin Eva, Ted Shear & Branden Fitelson - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8 (26):58-98.
    Suppositions can be introduced in either the indicative or subjunctive mood. The introduction of either type of supposition initiates judgments that may be either qualitative, binary judgments about whether a given proposition is acceptable or quantitative, numerical ones about how acceptable it is. As such, accounts of qualitative/quantitative judgment under indicative/subjunctive supposition have been developed in the literature. We explore these four different types of theories by systematically explicating the relationships canonical representatives of each. Our representative qualitative accounts of indicative (...)
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  35. Escaping the Cycle.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2022 - Mind 131 (521):99-127.
    I present a decision problem in which causal decision theory appears to violate the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and normal-form extensive-form equivalence (NEE). I show that these violations lead to exploitable behavior and long-run poverty. These consequences appear damning, but I urge caution. This decision should lead causalists to a better understanding of what it takes for a decision between some collection of options to count as a subdecision of a decision between a larger collection of options. And with (...)
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  36. Causal counterfactuals without miracles or backtracking.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2022 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 107 (2):439-469.
    If the laws are deterministic, then standard theories of counterfactuals are forced to reject at least one of the following conditionals: 1) had you chosen differently, there would not have been a violation of the laws of nature; and 2) had you chosen differently, the initial conditions of the universe would not have been different. On the relevant readings—where we hold fixed factors causally independent of your choice—both of these conditionals appear true. And rejecting either one leads to trouble for (...)
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  37. A plan-based causal decision theory.Gerard J. Rothfus - 2022 - Analysis 82 (2):264-272.
    In ‘An argument against causal decision theory’, Jack Spencer shows that standard formulations of causal decision theory run afoul of his Guaranteed Principle. In the sequential choice problem he employs to make this case, the transgression stems from an awkward discrepancy between how causalists typically value present vs future acts. This note suggests a version of causal decision theory that avoids this incongruity and so respects the Guaranteed Principle in Spencer’s problem. However, this formulation, and hence symmetric appraisal of present (...)
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  38. Causal Decision Theory, Two-Boxing, and Deliberation-Compatibilism: A Reply to Sandgren and Williamson.Toby Charles Penhallurick Solomon - 2022 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 100 (3):620-627.
    The possibility of predetermined choices raises a challenge for Causal Decision Theory [Ahmed 2014b]. Sandgren and Williamson [2021] have recently proposed a response—Selective Causal Decision Theory—that they hope will avoid Ahmed’s counterexamples, maintain (a particular kind of) compatibilism, and endorse universal Two-boxing in Newcomb’s Problem—CDT’s raison d’être. Their proposal does an admirable job of satisfying the first two desiderata. However, in this reply I raise several worries about whether it can satisfy the third.
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  39. (1 other version)Sometimes It Is Better to Do Nothing: A New Argument for Causal Decision Theory.Olav Benjamin Vassend - 2022 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9.
    It is often thought that the main significant difference between evidential decision theory and causal decision theory is that they recommend different acts in Newcomb-style examples (broadly construed) where acts and states are correlated in peculiar ways. However, this paper presents a class of non-Newcombian examples that evidential decision theory cannot adequately model whereas causal decision theory can. Briefly, the examples involve situations where it is clearly best to perform an act that will not influence the desired outcome. On evidential (...)
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  40. Self-Knowledge Requirements and Moore's Paradox.David James Barnett - 2021 - Philosophical Review 130 (2):227-262.
    Is self-knowledge a requirement of rationality, like consistency, or means-ends coherence? Many claim so, citing the evident impropriety of asserting, and the alleged irrationality of believing, Moore-paradoxical propositions of the form < p, but I don't believe that p>. If there were nothing irrational about failing to know one's own beliefs, they claim, then there would be nothing irrational about Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs. This article considers a few ways the data surrounding Moore's paradox might be marshaled to support rational (...)
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  41. Riches and Rationality.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (1):114-129.
    A one-boxer, Erica, and a two-boxer, Chloe, engage in a familiar debate. The debate begins with Erica asking Chloe: ‘If you’re so smart, then why ain’cha rich?’. As the debate progresses, Chloe is led to endorse a novel causalist theory of rational choice. This new theory allows Chloe to forge a connection between rational choice and long-run riches. In brief: Chloe concludes that it is not long-run wealth but rather long-run wealth creation which is symptomatic of rationality.
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  42. The Evidentialist's Wager.William MacAskill, Aron Vallinder, Caspar Oesterheld, Carl Shulman & Johannes Treutlein - 2021 - Journal of Philosophy 118 (6):320-342.
    Suppose that an altruistic agent who is uncertain between evidential and causal decision theory finds herself in a situation where these theories give conflicting verdicts. We argue that even if she has significantly higher credence in CDT, she should nevertheless act in accordance with EDT. First, we claim that the appropriate response to normative uncertainty is to hedge one's bets. That is, if the stakes are much higher on one theory than another, and the credences you assign to each of (...)
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  43. Determinism, Counterfactuals, and Decision.Alexander Sandgren & Timothy Luke Williamson - 2021 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (2):286-302.
    Rational agents face choices, even when taking seriously the possibility of determinism. Rational agents also follow the advice of Causal Decision Theory (CDT). Although many take these claims to be well-motivated, there is growing pressure to reject one of them, as CDT seems to go badly wrong in some deterministic cases. We argue that deterministic cases do not undermine a counterfactual model of rational deliberation, which is characteristic of CDT. Rather, they force us to distinguish between counterfactuals that are relevant (...)
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  44. Causal decision theory’s predetermination problem.Toby Charles Penhallurick Solomon - 2021 - Synthese 198 (6):5623-5654.
    It has often been noted that there is some tension between engaging in decision-making and believing that one’s choices might be predetermined. The possibility that our choices are predetermined forces us to consider, in our decisions, act-state pairs which are inconsistent, and hence to which we cannot assign sensible utilities. But the reasoning which justifies two-boxing in Newcomb’s problem also justifies associating a non-zero causal probability with these inconsistent act-state pairs. Put together these undefined utilities and non-zero probabilities entail that (...)
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  45. An argument against causal decision theory.Jack Spencer - 2021 - Analysis 81 (1):52-61.
    This paper develops an argument against causal decision theory. I formulate a principle of preference, which I call the Guaranteed Principle. I argue that the preferences of rational agents satisfy the Guaranteed Principle, that the preferences of agents who embody causal decision theory do not, and hence that causal decision theory is false.
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  46. (1 other version)An Interventionist’s Guide to Exotic Choice.Reuben Stern - 2021 - Mind 130 (518):537-566.
    In this paper, I use interventionist causal models to identify some novel Newcomb problems, and subsequently use these problems to refine existing interventionist treatments of causal decision theory. The new Newcomb problems that make trouble for existing interventionist treatments involve so-called ‘exotic choice’—that is, decision-making contexts where the agent has evidence about the outcome of her choice. I argue that when choice is exotic, the interventionist can adequately capture causal decision-theoretic reasoning by introducing a new interventionist approach to updating on (...)
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  47. Structural Decision Theory.Tung-Ying Wu - 2021 - Philosophy of Science 88 (5):951-960.
    Judging an act’s causal efficacy plays a crucial role in causal decision theory. A recent development appeals to the causal modeling framework with an emphasis on the analysis of intervention based on the causal Bayes net for clarifying what causally depends on our acts. However, few writers have focused on exploring the usefulness of extending structural causal models to decision problems that are not ideal for intervention analysis. The thesis concludes that structural models provide a more general framework for rational (...)
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  48. Equal Opportunities in Newcomb’s Problem and Elsewhere.Arif Ahmed - 2020 - Mind 129 (515):867-886.
    The paper discusses Ian Wells’s recent argument that there is a decision problem in which followers of Evidential Decision Theory end up poorer than followers of Causal Decision Theory despite having the same opportunities for money. It defends Evidential Decision Theory against Wells’s argument, on the following grounds. Wells's has not presented a decision problem in which his main claim is true. Four possible decision problems can be generated from his central example, in each of which followers of Evidential Decision (...)
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  49. Frankfurt cases and the Newcomb Problem.Arif Ahmed - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (11):3391-3408.
    A standard argument for one-boxing in Newcomb’s Problem is ‘Why Ain’cha Rich?’, which emphasizes that one-boxers typically make a million dollars compared to the thousand dollars that two-boxers can expect. A standard reply is the ‘opportunity defence’: the two-boxers who made a thousand never had an opportunity to make more. The paper argues that the opportunity defence is unavailable to anyone who grants that in another case—a Frankfurt case—the agent is deprived of opportunities in the way that advocates of Frankfurt (...)
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  50. Intentions and instability: a defence of causal decision theory.Adam Bales - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (3):793-804.
    Andy Egan has recently presented a prominent objection to causal decision theory. However, in this paper, I argue that this objection fails if CDT’s proponent accepts the plausible view that decision-theoretic options are intentions. This result both provides a defence of CDT against a prominent objection and highlights the importance of resolving the nature of decision-theoretic options.
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