Equal Opportunities in Newcomb’s Problem and Elsewhere

Mind 129 (515):867-886 (2020)
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Abstract

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 Theory do at least as well as followers of Causal Decision Theory. There is another case in which followers of Causal Decision Theory have the same opportunities for making money but end up worse than followers of Evidential Decision Theory.

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Arif Ahmed
Cambridge University

Citations of this work

Escaping the Cycle.J. Dmitri Gallow - 2022 - Mind 131 (521):99-127.

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Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1984 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
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Internalism defended.Earl Conee & Richard Feldman - 2001 - In Hilary Kornblith (ed.), Epistemology: Internalism and Externalism. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 1 - 18.

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