Decision Theory and Social Choice

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    Joe Roussos & Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm): “A Sceptical Puzzle for Bayesians”

Joe Roussos & Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm): “A Sceptical Puzzle for Bayesians”

23 March 2022|

 
Joe Roussos & Anandi Hattiangadi (Stockholm): “A Sceptical Puzzle for Bayesians”

Belief polarisation occurs when two agents’ posterior beliefs move farther away from one another with respect to the same proposition or set of propositions. Polarisation has traditionally been regarded as a failure of rationality, e.g., the result of cognitive biases influencing the belief states of at least […]

Chloé de Canson (Groningen): “Why Subjectivism?”

16 March 2022|

Chloé de Canson (Groningen): “Why Subjectivism?”

Few philosophical positions are as unpopular as radical subjective Bayesianism. In this paper, I seek, if not to rehabilitate subjectivism, at least to show its critic what is attractive about the position. I argue that what is at stake in the subjectivism/anti- subjectivism debate is not, as is commonly thought, which norms […]

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    Patricia Rich (Bayreuth): “Knowledge in Real-World Contexts: Not Glamorous, but Indispensable”

Patricia Rich (Bayreuth): “Knowledge in Real-World Contexts: Not Glamorous, but Indispensable”

15 March 2022|

 

 
Patricia Rich (Bayreuth): “Knowledge in Real-World Contexts: Not Glamorous, but Indispensable”

During the past few decades, many epistemologists have argued for and contributed to a paradigm shift which repositions knowledge as the central concept in epistemology and the fundamental explanatory and normative force. For example, knowledge has been argued to provide the normative standard for assertion and action, […]

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    Jessica Keiser (Leeds): “Linguistic Conventions and Language Change”

Jessica Keiser (Leeds): “Linguistic Conventions and Language Change”

8 February 2022|

 

 
Jessica Keiser (Leeds): “Linguistic Conventions and Language Change”

I argue that data about language change casts doubt on the following two theses of the Lewisian metasemantic picture: that the essential function of language is communication, and that people share a language in virtue of a common interest (namely, to achieve that particular function). I propose a novel metasemantic […]

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    Lisa Hecht (Stockholm): “Permissible Risk-Inclination in Other-regarding Choices”

Lisa Hecht (Stockholm): “Permissible Risk-Inclination in Other-regarding Choices”

24 November 2021|

 
Lisa Hecht (Stockholm): “Permissible Risk-Inclination in Other-regarding Choices”

Faced with two or more options, a decision-maker may choose a riskier option for herself even if this option does not maximize her expected utility. When it comes to other-regarding choices, it is less clear whether a decision-maker may permissibly choose a riskier option that does not maximize the expected […]

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    Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh): “Believing Against the Evidence”

Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh): “Believing Against the Evidence”

10 November 2021|

 
Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh): “Believing Against the Evidence”

I will look at cases in which a proposition is supported by an agent’s evidence at an earlier time but not by their evidence at a later time, even though the agent does not receive any new information that is relevant to the proposition. In such a case, I argue, the […]

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    Franz Dietrich (CNRS): “Dynamically Rational Judgment Aggregation”

Franz Dietrich (CNRS): “Dynamically Rational Judgment Aggregation”

25 June 2021|

 

 

Franz Dietrich (CNRS): “Dynamically Rational Judgment Aggregation”

A key goal in judgment aggregation theory has always been to make collective judgments rational. So far, rationality has been understood in purely static terms: as coherence of judgments at a given time, where ‘coherence’ could for instance mean consistency, or completeness, or deductive closure, or combinations thereof. By contrast, this […]

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    Franz Dietrich (PSE & CNRS) & Kai Spiekermann (LSE): “Does Deliberation Improve Voting Outcomes”

Franz Dietrich (PSE & CNRS) & Kai Spiekermann (LSE): “Does Deliberation Improve Voting Outcomes”

25 June 2021|

 

 

Franz Dietrich (PSE & CNRS) & Kai Spiekermann (LSE): “Does Deliberation Improve Voting Outcomes”

Does prior deliberation increase the epistemic quality of majority voting? This depends on whether the deliberators have private information to share (they are, in a certain sense, “diverse”) and on how the information is aggregated. Without prior deliberation, voting can display three epistemic failures: […]

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    Kate Vredenburgh (LSE): “Causal explanation and revealed preferences”

Kate Vredenburgh (LSE): “Causal explanation and revealed preferences”

16 March 2021|

 

Kate Vredenburgh (LSE): “Causal explanation and revealed preferences”

Revealed preference approaches to modeling choice in the social sciences face seemingly devastating predictive, explanatory, and normative objections. In this talk, I will focus on predictive and explanatory objections, and offer two defenses. First, I argue that when revealed preferences are multiple realizable, revealed preferences can causally explain behavior well. […]

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    Jessie Munton (Cambridge): “Base rate neglect in the service of modal knowledge”

Jessie Munton (Cambridge): “Base rate neglect in the service of modal knowledge”

10 February 2021|

 

Jessie Munton (Cambridge): “Base rate neglect in the service of modal knowledge”

Are there ever good epistemic reasons to misrepresent base rates? I investigate this question in the context of recent legislation restricting the presentation of gender stereotypes, and the representation of minority groups in children’s books. I argue that our hesitancy around certain base rates makes sense […]