Over time, research programs focusing on the processes that underlie dissonance and regret diverged to the point that the present literature only occasionally draws explicit connections between regret and consistency seeking processes. One of our aims in this chapter is to reestablish the connection between regret and consistency within the context of a theory that examines two independent factors that critically interact to enhance or diminish regret. The first of these is opportunity, which includes both perceptions of past (...) opportunities to make alternative choices and future opportunities to take corrective actions, and the second is mitigation, which is the ability to justify one's actions or otherwise engage regulatory processes that allow for the diminishment of regret. We examine both opportunity and mitigation separately before describing how the two may interact to elicit differential experiences of regret. (shrink)

This paper reports the results of an experiment designed to uncover the stochastic structure of individual preferences over lotteries. Unlike previous experiments, which have presented subjects with pair-wise choices between lotteries, our design allowed subjects to choose between two lotteries or (virtually) any convex combination of the two lotteries. We interpret the mixtures of lotteries chosen by subjects as a measure of the stochastic structure of choice. We test between two alternative interpretations of stochastic choice: the random utility (...) interpretation and the deterministic preferences interpretation. The main findings of the experiment are that the typical subject prefers mixtures of lotteries rather than the extremes of a linear lottery choice set. The distribution of choices does not change between a first and second asking of the same question. We argue that this provides support for the deterministic preferences interpretation over the random utility interpretation of stochastic choice. As a subsidiary result, we find a small proportion of subjects make choices that violate transitivity, but the level of intransitive choice falls significantly over time. (shrink)

Kurt Gödel, mathematician and logician, was one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. Gödel fled Nazi Germany, fearing for his Jewish wife and fed up with Nazi interference in the affairs of the mathematics institute at the University of Göttingen. In 1933 he settled at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he joined the group of world-famous mathematicians who made up its original faculty. His 1940 book, better known by its short title, The Consistency (...) of the Continuum Hypothesis, is a classic of modern mathematics. The continuum hypothesis, introduced by mathematician George Cantor in 1877, states that there is no set of numbers between the integers and real numbers. It was later included as the first of mathematician David Hilbert's twenty-three unsolved math problems, famously delivered as a manifesto to the field of mathematics at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900. In The Consistency of the Continuum Hypothesis Gödel set forth his proof for this problem. In 1999, Time magazine ranked him higher than fellow scientists Edwin Hubble, Enrico Fermi, John Maynard Keynes, James Watson, Francis Crick, and Jonas Salk. He is most renowned for his proof in 1931 of the 'incompleteness theorem,' in which he demonstrated that there are problems that cannot be solved by any set of rules or procedures. His proof wrought fruitful havoc in mathematics, logic, and beyond. (shrink)

Tragic choices arise during the COVID-19 pandemic when the limited resources made available in acute medical settings cannot be accessed by all patients who need them. In these circumstances, healthcare rationing is unavoidable. It is important in any healthcare rationing process that the interests of the community are recognised, and that decision-making upholds these interests through a fair and consistent process of decision-making. Responding to recent calls to safeguard individuals’ legal rights in decision-making in intensive care, and for new authoritative (...) national guidance for decision-making, this paper seeks to clarify what consistency and fairness demand in healthcare rationing during the COVID-19 pandemic, from both a legal and ethical standpoint. The paper begins with a brief review of UK law concerning healthcare resource allocation, considering how community interests and individual rights have been marshalled in judicial deliberation about the use of limited health resources within the National Health Service. It is then argued that an important distinction needs to be drawn between procedural and outcome consistency, and that a procedurally consistent decision-making process ought to be favoured. Congruent with the position that UK courts have adopted for resource allocation decision-making in the NHS more generally, specific requirements for a procedural framework and substantive triage criteria to be applied within that framework during the COVID-19 pandemic are considered in detail. (shrink)

The classical theory of rational choice is built on several important internal consistency conditions. In recent years, the reasonableness of those internal consistency conditions has been questioned and criticized, and several responses to accommodate such criticisms have been proposed in the literature. This paper develops a general framework to accommodate the issues raised by the criticisms of classical rational choice theory, and examines the broad impact of these criticisms from both normative and positive points of view.

Consistency with the formal Church’s thesis, for short CT, and the axiom of choice, for short AC, was one of the requirements asked to be satisfied by the intensional level of a two-level foundation for constructive mathematics as proposed by Maietti and Sambin From sets and types to topology and analysis: practicable foundations for constructive mathematics, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005). Here we show that this is the case for the intensional level of the two-level Minimalist Foundation, for (...) short MF, completed in 2009 by the second author. The intensional level of MF consists of an intensional type theory à la Martin-Löf, called mTT. The consistency of mTT with CT and AC is obtained by showing the consistency with the formal Church’s thesis of a fragment of intensional Martin-Löf’s type theory, called \, where mTT can be easily interpreted. Then to show the consistency of \ with CT we interpret it within Feferman’s predicative theory of non-iterative fixpoints \ by extending the well known Kleene’s realizability semantics of intuitionistic arithmetics so that CT is trivially validated. More in detail the fragment \ we interpret consists of first order intensional Martin-Löf’s type theory with one universe and with explicit substitution rules in place of usual equality rules preserving type constructors -rule which is not valid in our realizability semantics). A key difficulty encountered in our interpretation was to use the right interpretation of lambda abstraction in the applicative structure of natural numbers in order to model all the equality rules of \ correctly. In particular the universe of \ is modelled by means of \-fixpoints following a technique due first to Aczel and used by Feferman and Beeson. (shrink)

We show that for all natural numbers n, the theory “ZF + DC $_{\aleph_n}$ + $\aleph_{\omega}$ is a Rowbottom cardinal carrying a Rowbottom filter” has the same consistency strength as the theory “ZFC + There exists a measurable cardinal”. In addition, we show that the theory “ZF + $\aleph_{\omega_1}$ is an ω 2-Rowbottom cardinal carrying an ω 2-Rowbottom filter and ω 1 is regular” has the same consistency strength as the theory “ZFC + There exist ω 1 measurable (...) cardinals”. We also discuss some generalizations of these results. (shrink)

Suzumura consistency is a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a weak-order extension. This paper provides some remarks on collective choice rules that generate Suzumura consistent social preferences. We examine the properties of such collective choice rules by introducing a procedural condition on collective choice rules. As applications of the procedural condition, we first investigate the decisive structure of a Paretian collective choice rule, and then consider the assignment of individual rights. In our (...) analysis, the concept of semi-decisiveness works effectively. (shrink)

Consistency of choice is a fundamental and recurring theme in decision theory, social choice theory, behavioral economics, and psychological sciences. The purpose of this paper is to study the consistency of choice independent of the particular decision model at hand. Consistency is viewed as an inherently logical concept that is fundamentally void of connotation and is thus disentangled from traditional rationality or consistency conditions imposed on decision models. The proposed formalization of consistency (...) takes two forms: internal consistency, which refers to the property that a choice model does not generate contradictory statements; and semantic consistency, which refers to the idea that a theory’s predictions are valid with respect to some observed data. In addressing semantic consistency, the relationship between theory and data is analyzed in terms of so-called duality mappings, which allow a passage between the two universes in a way that consistency is preserved. The formalization of consistency concepts relies on adapting the revealed preference theory to the context-dependent setting. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of the proposed framework and how it relates to classical revealed preference theory and other formalizations of the relationship between the theory and reality of choice. (shrink)

Foundation models such as GPT-4 are fine-tuned to avoid unsafe or otherwise problematic behavior, so that, for example, they refuse to comply with requests for help with committing crimes or with producing racist text. One approach to fine-tuning, called reinforcement learning from human feedback, learns from humans' expressed preferences over multiple outputs. Another approach is constitutional AI, in which the input from humans is a list of high-level principles. But how do we deal with potentially diverging input from humans? How (...) can we aggregate the input into consistent data about "collective" preferences or otherwise use it to make collective choices about model behavior? In this paper, we argue that the field of social choice is well positioned to address these questions, and we discuss ways forward for this agenda, drawing on discussions in a recent workshop on Social Choice for AI Ethics and Safety held in Berkeley, CA, USA in December 2023. (shrink)

We examine if and to what extent choice dispositions can allow dependence on contexts and maintain consistency over time, in a dynamic environment under uncertainty. We focus on one of the context dependence properties, opportunity dependence because of being affected by anticipated regret, where the consequentialist choice framework is maintained. There are two sources of potential inconsistency: one is arrival of information, and the other is changing opportunities. First, we go over the general method of resolution of (...) potential inconsistency, by taking any kinds of inconsistency as given constraints. Second, we characterize a class of choice dispositions that are consistent to information arrival, but may be inconsistent to changing opportunities. Finally, we consider the overall requirement of dynamic consistency and show that it necessarily implies each of consistency to information arrival and independence of choice opportunities. The last result states that the two kinds of potential inconsistency cannot “compensate” each other to recover dynamic consistency overall. (shrink)

This volume provides an overview of recent research on the nature, causes, and consequences of cognitive consistency. In 21 chapters, leading scholars address the pivotal role of consistency principles at various levels of social information processing, ranging from micro-level to macro-level processes. The book's scope encompasses mental representation, processing fluency and motivational fit, implicit social cognition, thinking and reasoning, decision making and choice, and interpersonal processes. Key findings, emerging themes, and current directions in the field are explored, (...) and important questions for future research identified. (shrink)

This paper considers lexical combinations of choice functions where at least one is interpreted as arising from a norm. It is shown that in for all possibilities in which a norm is present, in general final choice may be consistent with preference optimization, but that it need not be so. It is concluded therefore that a fruitful approach to understanding the effect of norms on choice is to consider particular classes of norms rather than norms in general (...) as in the work by Wulf Gaertner among others. (shrink)

We examine the impact of Suzumura’s (Economica 43:381–390, 1976) consistency property when applied in the context of collective choice rules that are independent of irrelevant alternatives, neutral, and monotonic. An earlier contribution by Blau and Deb (Econometrica 45:871–879, 1977) establishes the existence of a vetoer if the collective relation is required to be complete and acyclical. The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibilities that result if completeness and acyclicity are dropped and Suzumura consistency is (...) imposed instead. A conceptually similar but logically independent version of the combined axiom that requires the collective decision mechanism to be independent, neutral, and monotonic is employed. In the case of a finite population, we obtain an alternative impossibility theorem if a collective choice rule is assumed to be non-degenerate and a modified no veto requirement is imposed instead of Blau and Deb’s (1977) condition. If the population is countably infinite, the impossibility can be avoided but it resurfaces if our new no veto property is extended to a coalitional variant. (shrink)

Free Choice is the principle that possibly p or q implies and is implied by possibly p and possibly q. A variety of recent attempts to validate Free Choice rely on a nonclassical semantics for disjunction, where the meaning of p or q is not a set of possible worlds. This paper begins with a battery of impossibility results, showing that some kind of nonclassical semantics for disjunction is required in order to validate Free Choice. The paper (...) then provides a positive account of Free Choice, by identifying a family of dynamic semantics for disjunction that can validate the inference. On all such theories, the meaning of p or q has two parts. First, p or q requires that our information is consistent with each of p and q. Second, p or q narrows down our information by eliminating some worlds. It turns out that this second component of or is well behaved: there is a strongest such meaning that p or q can express, consistent with validating Free Choice. The strongest such meaning is the classical one, on which p or q eliminates any world where both p and q are false. In this way, the classical meaning of disjunction turns out to be intimately related to the validity of Free Choice. (shrink)

Most research on mate choice in modern societies is based on data that may or may not reflect actual mating behavior (e.g., stated preferences, personal advertisements). In the present study, real-life matings were reported by a large representative sample of men and women (N = 1,133). These data were used to test an evolutionary model in which mate choice is hypothesized to depend on resources potentially contributed to reproduction by each sex. Consistent with the model, it was found (...) that (a) men (but not women) of higher social status acquire more mating partners, suggesting that male status is an important criterion in female choice; (b) women’s (but not men’s) number of partners decreases linearly with age, suggesting that female reproductive potential is an important criterion in male choice; and (c) women (but not men) display a significant relationship between marital dissolution and promiscuity, suggesting that female sexual exclusivity is an important criterion in male choice. These results are discussed in relation to understanding mate choice mechanisms from behavioral data. (shrink)

The discussion of whether people understand themselves and others by using theories of behaviour (theory theory) or by simulating mental states (simulation theory) lacks conclusive empirical evidence. Nichols et al. (1996) have proposed the Langer effect (Langer, 1975) as a critical test. From people's inability accurately to predict the difference in the subjective value of lottery tickets in choice and no‐choice conditions, they argued that people do not simulate behaviour in such situations. In a series of four experiments, (...) we consistently failed to replicate the original difference between choice and no‐choice under the conditions used by Nichols et al. We conclude that the replicability of the effect depends on an unknown combination of factors. As long as the target effect is not better understood and under better experimental control, it is difficult to use it as a yardstick against which the accuracy of simulation can be assessed. (shrink)

A fundamental question asked in modal logic is whether a given theory is consistent. But consistent with what? A typical way to address this question identifies a choice of background knowledge axioms (say, S4, D, etc.) and then shows the assumptions codified by the theory in question to be consistent with those background axioms. But determining the specific choice and division of background axioms is, at least sometimes, little more than tradition. This paper introduces generic theories for propositional (...) modal logic to address consistency results in a more robust way. As building blocks for background knowledge, generic theories provide a standard for categorical determinations of consistency. We argue that the results and methods of this paper help to elucidate problems in epistemology and enjoy sufficient scope and power to have purchase on problems bearing on modalities in judgement, inference, and decision making. (shrink)

Economists are used to associate the rationality of individual choice behaviour with simple and unchanging individual preference patterns, typically predicting unique behavioural outcomes in a choice situation − leaving little room for probing apparent inconsistencies (except in situations of game-theoretic stratagems used by the choosers), and no provision for analysing genuine dilemmas. The paper comments on the (in this respect) richer contents of two recent extensions of the concept of rational choice: the first involved in Sen’s theory (...) of meta-ranking, and the second implied in Scitovsky’s distinction between “pleasure” and “comfort” as the two constituents of the state of individual welfare. The paper then proceeds to suggest a somewhat similar extension of rationality implied, it is argued, in the idea of “development” or “becoming” as part of a chosen, distinct, and articulated process involved, specifically, in education, or more vaguely, in “modernisation”. The emerging concept of rationality which permits of changes in individual preference patterns consistently, in steps, and in a direction initiated and chosen by the individual himself, is claimed in the paper to be more appropriate for the analysis of choice situations likely to be encountered by rational individuals in a complex developing society. The consistency conditions for individual behaviour permitted by such rich, “directional”, rationality have, however, yet to be specified. (shrink)

We establish a correspondence between the rationalizability of choice studied in the revealed preference literature and the notion of minimal belief revision captured by the AGM postulates. A choice frame consists of a set of alternatives , a collection E of subsets of (representing possible choice sets) and a function f : E ! 2 (representing choices made). A choice frame is rationalizable if there exists a total pre-order R on..

This textbook provides a survey of the literature of social choice. It integrates the ethical aspects of the subject, with positive aspects of decision mechanisms that centre on the revelation of true preferences. The literature on the subject presently consists of a great many papers. This book draws them together in common notation and points out interpretations which are often missing in specialist papers. Applications in economics, electoral politics, and ethics are discussed. The book will be used by senior (...) undergraduate and graduate students of economics, political science and philosophy as a text book in the subject. (shrink)

This paper investigates inquisitive extensions of normal modal logic with an existential modal operator taken as primitive. The semantics of the existential modality is generalized to apply to questions, as well as statements. When the generalized existential modality is applied to a question, the result is a statement that roughly expresses that each way of resolving the question is consistent with the available information. I study the resulting logic both from a semantic and from a proof-theoretic point of view. I (...) argue that it can be used for reasoning about a general notion of ignorance, and for reasoning about choice-offering permissions and obligations. The main technical results are sound and complete axiomatizations, both for the class of all Kripke frames, and for any class of frames corresponding to a canonical normal modal logic. (shrink)

: Our paper discusses the epistemic attitudes of particle physicists on the discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider. It is based on questionnaires and interviews made shortly before and shortly after the discovery in 2012. We show, to begin with, that the discovery of a Standard Model Higgs boson was less expected than is sometimes assumed. Once the new particle was shown to have properties consistent with SM expectations – albeit with significant experimental uncertainties –, there (...) was a broad agreement that ‘a’ Higgs boson had been found. Physicists adopted a two-pronged strategy. On the one hand, they treated the particle as a SM Higgs boson and tried to establish its properties with higher precision; on the other hand, they searched for any hints of physics beyond the SM. This motivates our first philosophical thesis: the Higgs discovery, being of fundamental importance and establishing a new kind of particle, represented a crucial experiment if one interprets this notion in an appropriate sense. By embedding the LHC into the tradition of previous precision experiments and the experimental strategies thus established, underdetermination and confirmational holism are kept at bay. Second, our case study suggests that criteria of theory preference should be understood as epistemic and pragmatic values that have to be weighed in factual research practice. The Higgs discovery led to a shift from pragmatic to epistemic values as regards the mechanisms of electroweak symmetry breaking. Complex criteria, such as naturalness, combine epistemic and pragmatic different values, but are coherently applied by the community. (shrink)

It is well known that the validity of Choice Principles is problematic in non-standard Set Theories which do not abide by the Limitation of Size Principle. In this paper we discuss the consistency of various Choice Principles with respect to the Generalized Positive Comprehension Principle . The Principle GPC allows to take as sets those classes which can be specified by Generalized Positive Formulae, e.g. the universe. In particular we give a complete characterization of which choice (...) principles hold in Hyperuniverses. Hyperuniverses are structures which arose independently in Non-well-founded Set Theory and in Mathematical Semantics of Concurrent Programming Languages and are hitherto the only existing models of GPC. Hyperuniverses are naturally endowed with a κ-compact uniform κ-topology and are uniformly isomorphic to their exponential space, i.e. the space of their closed subsets endowed with the Exponential Uniformity. (shrink)

While Rational Choice Theory (RC) may be understood as a theory of choice, which does not necessarily reflect actual deliberative processes, rule-following behavior is definitely based on a certain form of delibera- tion. This article aims at clarifying the relationship between the two. Being guided by instrumental rules, i.e., rules reducible to the maximiza- tion principle, is perfectly consistent with the fundamental behavioral assumptions of RC. But human individuals use other forms of rules in decision making, especially tie-breaking (...) rules and coordination rules. It is argued that within RC no satisfying account of such rule-following behav- ior can be given. In particular it is impossible to determine suitable pref- erence orderings such that coordinating may be understood as maximizing relative to these orderings. Still, once there is coordination, following a coordination rule may be perfectly consistent with the basic assumptions of RC. So there might be a more complex theory of action that incorpo- rates RC as well as a satisfying theory of rule-guided behavior. (shrink)

School choice has lately risen to the top of the list of potential solutions to America's educational problems, particularly for the poor and the most disadvantaged members of society. Indeed, in the last few years several states have held referendums on the use of vouchers in private and parochial schools, and more recently, the Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of a scholarship program that uses vouchers issued to parents. While there has been much debate over the empirical and methodological (...) aspects of school choice policies, discussions related to the effects such policies may have on the nation's moral economy and civil society have been few and far between. School Choice, a collection of essays by leading philosophers, historians, legal scholars, and theologians, redresses this situation by addressing the moral and normative side of school choice.The twelve essays, commissioned for a conference on school choice that took place at Boston College in 2001, are organized into four sections that consider the relationship of school choice to equality, moral pluralism, institutional ecology, and constitutionality. Each section consists of three essays followed by a critical response. The contributors are Patrick McKinley Brennan, Charles L. Glenn, Amy Gutmann, David Hollenbach, S. J., Meira Levinson, Sanford Levinson, Stephen Macedo, John T. McGreevy, Martha Minow, Richard J. Mouw, Joseph O'Keefe, S. J., Michael J. Perry, Nancy L. Rosenblum, Rosemary C. Salomone, Joseph P. Viteritti, Paul J. Weithman, and Alan Wolfe. (shrink)

From the best-selling author of Traffic, a brilliant and entertaining exploration of our personal tastes--why we like the things we like, and what it says about us. Everyone knows his or her favorite color, the foods we most enjoy, and which season of House of Cards deserves the most stars on Netflix. But what does it really mean when we like something? How do we decide what's good? Is it something biological? What is the role of our personal experiences in (...) shaping our tastes? And how do businesses make use of this information? Comprehensively researched and singularly insightful, You May Also Like delves deep into psychology, marketing, and neuroscience to answer these complex and fascinating questions. From the tangled underpinnings of our food choices, to the dynamics of the pop charts and our playlists, to our nonstop procession of "thumbs" and "likes" and "stars," to our insecurity before unfamiliar works of art, the book explores how we form our preferences--and how they shape us. It explains how difficult it is, even for experts, to pinpoint exactly what makes something good or enjoyable, and how the success of companies such as Netflix, Spotify, and Yelp depends on the complicated task of predicting what we will enjoy. Like Traffic, this book takes us on a fascinating and consistently surprising intellectual journey that helps us better understand how we perceive and appreciate the world around us. (shrink)

Models of choice over menus aim at capturing the effect of some behavioral or non-standard element of decision-making on the behavior of a single decision-maker. These models are usually compared with the standard model of choice over menus, in which the decision-maker chooses a menu whose best item is better than that of all other available ones. However, in many empirical settings such as experimental studies, choice data come from a population of decision-makers with possibly heterogeneous attitudes (...) and tastes. This heterogeneity can make the observed choices over menus stochastic. This fact calls for a stochastic characterization of models of choice over menus to be able to better compare and contrast different models empirically. In this paper, I do this task for the standard model, which would be an extension of the random utility model to the realm of choice over menus. In particular, I provide the necessary and sufficient conditions, i.e., axioms on choice data over menus for it to be consistent with a population of decision-makers each of whom behaves according to the standard model. The axioms that characterize the model are the axiom of revealed stochastic preferences over singletons and three rationality axioms. (shrink)

This paper contributes to a theory of rational choice for decision-makers with incomplete preferences due to partial ignorance, whose beliefs are representable as sets of acceptable priors. We focus on the limiting case of `Complete Ignorance' which can be viewed as reduced form of the general case of partial ignorance. Rationality is conceptualized in terms of a `Principle of Preference-Basedness', according to which rational choice should be isomorphic to asserted preference. The main result characterizes axiomatically a new (...) class='Hi'>choice-rule called `Simultaneous Expected Utility Maximization'. It can be interpreted as agreement in a bargaining game (Kalai-Smorodinsky solution) whose players correspond to the (extremal) `acceptable priors' among which the decision maker has suspended judgment. An essential but non-standard feature of Simultaneous Expected Utility choices is their dependence on the entire choice set. This is justified by the conception of optimality as compromise rather than as superiority in pairwise comparisons. (shrink)

This paper focuses on tacit versus explicit uses of plural performance metrics as a primary methodological characteristic. This characteristic usefully distinguishes two schools of normative analysis and their approaches to normative interpretations of bounded rationality. Both schools of thought make normative claims about bounded rationality by comparing the performance of decision procedures using more than one performance metric. The consistency school makes tacit reference to performance metrics outside its primary axiomatic framework, but lexicographically promotes internal axiomatic consistency as (...) the primary, and in most cases sufficient, normative outcome with which to undertake welfare comparisons. The consistency school's axiomatization program, in both neoclassical and behavioral forms, pre-commits to welfare interpretations that follow a hierarchy of rationalities based on the stringency of restrictions that different axiomatizations impose on choice data. In contrast, the ecological rational.. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between collective rationality and permissible collective choice rules using a unified approach inspired by Bossert and Suzumura (J Econ Theory 138:311–320, 2008). We consider collective choice rules satisfying four axioms: unrestricted domain, strong Pareto, anonymity, and neutrality. A number of new classes of collective choice rules as well as the Pareto and Pareto extension rules are characterized under various concepts of collective rationality: acyclicity, transitivity, quasi-transitivity, semi-transitivity, and (...) the interval order property. Further, new concepts of collective rationality, K-term acyclicity and K-term consistency, are proposed and the corresponding characterizations are provided. (shrink)

Habermas has argued that many of the endemic socio- economic problems of Western society are either symptoms or prod ucts of a 'lopsided' process of cultural rationalization, one that has emphasized instrumental forms of rationality over communicative. But other than presenting a rather general typology of lifeworld pathologies, Habermas has not done much to specify what these problems might be, nor has he provided any 'middle-range' analysis of the mechanisms through which they might be generated. This paper discusses some of (...) the ways in which, consistent with Haber mas's general framework, rational choice theory can be used for pre cisely this task. In this analysis, rational choice theory is not presented as a comprehensive theory of action, but is employed as a critical- diagnostic tool that allows the theorist to identify undesirable social interaction patterns that arise from a broader instrumentalization of the lifeworld. Key Words: critical theory • Habermas • instrumental rationality • market failure • rational choice theory. (shrink)

Arif Ahmed has recently argued that causal decision theory is dynamically inconsistent and that we should therefore prefer evidential decision theory. However, the principal formulation of the evidential theory, Richard Jeffrey’s Logic of Decision, has a mixed record of its own when it comes to evaluating plans consistently across time. This note probes that neglected record, establishing the dynamic consistency of evidential decision theory within a restricted class of problems but then illustrating how evidentialists can fall into sequential incoherence (...) outside of this class. Uncovering the evidentialist’s own dynamic inconsistencies reveals, contra Ahmed, that sequential choice considerations do not significantly favor the evidentialist’s theory over the causalist’s. (shrink)

Prenatal screening, consisting of maternal serum screening and nuchal translucency screening, is on the verge of expansion, both by being offered to more pregnant women and by screening for more conditions. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have each recently recommended that screening be extended to all pregnant women regardless of age, disease history, or risk status. This screening is commonly justified by appeal to the value of autonomy, or women's (...) choice. In this paper, I critically examine the value of autonomy in the context of prenatal screening to determine whether it justifies the routine offer of screening and the expansion of screening services. I argue that in the vast majority of cases the option of prenatal screening does not promote or protect women's autonomy. Both a narrow conception of choice as informed consent and a broad conception of choice as relational reveal difficulties in achieving adequate standards of free informed choice. While there are reasons to worry that women's autonomy is not being protected or promoted within the limited scope of current practice, we should hesitate before normalizing it as part of standard prenatal care for all. (shrink)

This article provides a systematic analysis of social choice theory without the Pareto principle, by revisiting the method of Murakami Yasusuke. This article consists of two parts. The first part investigates the relationship between rationality of social preference and the axioms that make a collective choice rule either Paretian or anti-Paretian. In the second part, the results in the first part are applied to obtain impossibility results under various rationality requirements of social preference, such as S-consistency, quasi-transitivity, (...) semi-transitivity, the interval-order property, and acyclicity. (shrink)

This volume contains six new and fifteen previously published essays -- plus a new introduction -- by Storrs McCall. Some of the essays were written in collaboration with E. J. Lowe of Durham University. The essays discuss controversial topics in logic, action theory, determinism and indeterminism, and the nature of human choice and decision. Some construct a modern up-to-date version of Aristotle's bouleusis, practical deliberation. This process of practical deliberation is shown to be indeterministic but highly controlled and the (...) antithesis of chance. Others deal with the concept of branching four-dimensional space-time, explain non-local influences in quantum mechanics, or reconcile God's omniscience with human free will. The eponymous first essay contains the proof of a fact that in 1931 Kurt Gödel had claimed to be unprovable, namely that the set of arithmetic truths forms a consistent system. (shrink)

This paper considers lexical combinations of choice functions where at least one is interpreted as arising from a norm. It is shown that in for all possibilities in which a norm is present, in general final choice may be consistent with preference optimization, but that it need not be so. It is concluded therefore that a fruitful approach to understanding the effect of norms on choice is to consider particular classes of norms rather than norms in general (...) as in the work by Wulf Gaertner among others. (shrink)

This thesis is an empirical and theoretical exploration of the surprising finding that people often may fail to notice dramatic mismatches between what they want and what they get, a phenomenon my collaborators and I have named choice blindness. The thesis consists of four co-authored papers, dealing with different aspects of the phenomenon. Paper one presents an initial set of studies using a computerised choice procedure, and discusses the relation of choice blindness to the parent phenomenon of (...) change blindness. Paper two is the most central paper of the thesis. In this study, participants were shown pairs of pictures of female faces, and were instructed to choose which face in each pair they found most attractive. In addition, on some trials, immediately after their choice, they were asked to verbally describe the reasons for choosing the way they did. Unknown to the participants, on certain trials, a double-card ploy was used to covertly exchange one face for the other. On these trials, the outcome of the choice became the opposite of what they intended. Counting across all conditions of the experiment no more than a fourth of all such manipulated trials were detected. But not only were the participants in the experiment blind to the manipulation of their choices, they also offered introspectively derived reasons for preferring the alternative they were given instead. A second major conclusion of this paper is that normal participants may produce confabulatory reports when asked to describe the reasons behind their choices. Paper three applies this form of analysis of introspection and confabulation to a second corpus of reports collected within the choice blindness paradigm. In this paper we use word-frequency and latent semantic analysis to contrast the introspective reasons given in non-manipulated and manipulated trials, but very few differences between these two groups of reports were found. In paper four, passer-by shoppers in a local supermarket were invited to sample two different varieties of jam and tea, and to decide which alternative in each pair they preferred the most. After their choice, the participants were asked to again sample to chosen alternative and describe why that one was preferred. At this point, the content of the sample containers were secretly switched, so that the outcome of the choice became the opposite of what the participants intended. No more than a third of the manipulated trials were detected, thus demonstrating considerable levels of choice blindness for the taste and smell of two different consumer goods. (shrink)

This article attempts to assess Jon Elster's contribution to rational choice in Ulysses and the Sirens and Sour Grapes. After reviewing Elster's analysis of functional versus intentional explanations, the essay moves on to the crucial distinction between the thin and broad theories of rationality. The former elabo rates on the traditional economist's preference / feasible set apparatus; the latter is the more demanding theory which inquires into the rationality of beliefs and preferences. Elster's approach to the broad theory normally (...) consists in using the thin theory as a reference point and in making purposefully limited departures from it. The essay illustrates the method while commenting on Elster's discus sion of autonomous preferences in Sour Grapes. It goes on to stress some impor tant analogies between Elster's use of the thin and broad theories, on one hand, and Weber's ideal-typical method, on the other. The final assessment is phrased in terms of these analogies; it is suggested that Elster is at his best when the ideal-typical method and his own separate from each other, that is, when he comes to grips with the broad theory in its own terms. (shrink)

The Nash axiom is a basic property of consistency in choice. This paper proposes weaker versions of the axiom and examines their logical implications. In particular, we demonstrate that weak Nash axioms are useful to understand the relationship between the Nash axiom and the path independence axiom. We provide an application of weak Nash axioms to the no-envy approach. We present a possibility result and an impossibility result.