David Bourget (Western Ontario)
David Chalmers (ANU, NYU)
Rafael De Clercq
Jack Alan Reynolds
Learn more about PhilPapers
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1988:504 - 517 (1988)
The "prevailing opinion" among decision theorists, according to John Harsanyi, is to use the Bayesian rule, even in situations of uncertainty. I want to argue that the prevailing opinion is wrong, at least in the case of societal risks under uncertainty. Admittedly Bayesian rules are better in many cases of individual risk or certainty. (Both Bayesian and maximin strategies are sometimes needed.) Although I shall not take the time to defend all these points in detail, I shall argue (1) that there are compelling reasons for rejecting Harsanyi's defense of the Bayesian strategy under uncertainty; (2) that it is more rational, in specific types of situations, to prefer the maximin strategy; and (3) that calibrating expert opinions is superior to using the equiprobability assumption or subjective probabilities.
|Keywords||No keywords specified (fix it)|
|Categories||categorize this paper)|
Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server
Configure custom proxy (use this if your affiliation does not provide a proxy)
|Through your library|
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
No citations found.
Similar books and articles
Sven Ove Hansson (2006). Economic (Ir)Rationality in Risk Analysis. Economics and Philosophy 22 (2):231-241.
Roger M. Cooke (1991). Experts in Uncertainty: Opinion and Subjective Probability in Science. Oxford University Press.
John Kadvany (1997). Varieties of Risk Representations. Journal of Social Philosophy 28 (3):123-143.
Barbara Osimani (2010). Pharmaceutical Risk Communication: Sources of Uncertainty and Legal Tools of Uncertainty Management. Health Risk and Society 12 (5):453-69.
Lisa Warenski (2012). Relative Uncertainty in Term Loan Projection Models: What Lenders Could Tell Risk Managers. Journal of Experimental and Artificial Intelligence 24 (4):501-511.
Dale Hattis & John A. Smith (1986). What's Wrong with Quantitative Risk Assessment? PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1986:375 -.
Matthew C. Wilson (2009). Creativity, Probability and Uncertainty. Journal of Economic Methodology 16 (1):45-56.
Robert Danisch & Jessica Mudry (2008). Is It Safe to Eat That? Raw Oysters, Risk Assessment and the Rhetoric of Science. Social Epistemology 22 (2):129 – 143.
Harrell W. Chesson & W. Kip Viscusi (2003). Commonalities in Time and Ambiguity Aversion for Long-Term Risks. Theory and Decision 54 (1):57-71.
Barbara Osimani (2012). Risk Information Processing and Rational Ignoring in the Health Context. Journal of Socio-Economics 41:169-179.
Karsten Klint Jensen (2004). BSE in the UK: Why the Risk Communication Strategy Failed. [REVIEW] Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 17 (4-5):405-423.
Douglas MacLean (1982). Quantification, Regulation, and Risk Assessment. PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1982:243 - 260.
Sven Ove Hansson (1996). Decision Making Under Great Uncertainty. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 26 (3):369-386.
Added to index2011-05-29
Total downloads13 ( #133,752 of 1,410,206 )
Recent downloads (6 months)2 ( #95,293 of 1,410,206 )
How can I increase my downloads?