Choice Group

Abstract: One of the fundamental tradeoffs underlying society is that between equality and efficiency. The challenge for institutional design is to strike the right balance. Game-theoretic models of public goods provision under assortativity succinctly capture this tradeoff: under complete non-assortativity (society is randomly formed), theory predicts maximal inefficiency but perfect equality; higher levels of assortativity (society matches contributors with contributors)…

Abstract: Often a profile of actions rather than a single action determines payoffs. The former case is more complex, as the correlations among outcomes across actions are payoff-relevant. Existing choice-theoretic models do not allow this complexity to affect behavior. To construct such a model, we introduce a framework that explicitly models choice of an action profile. We show that the…

Abstract: This paper examines the robustness of individual pro-sociality and individual discriminatory behaviour, as measured by the in-group bias in pro-sociality. Discriminatory behaviour is not robust in two respects. First, there is discrimination in aggregate in the Trust and Public goods game but it disappears in the market framed decision over whether to compete. Second, individual discrimination in one decision…

Intertemporal conflicts occur when a group of agents with heterogeneous time preferences must make a collective decision. How should this be done? We examine two methods: an ‘Economics’ approach that emphasizes efficiency, and a ‘Politics’ approach in which agents vote over plans. If the group can commit to intertemporal plans Economics Pareto dominates Politics, regardless of whether agents’ preferences are…

Charles Stein discovered a paradox in 1955 that many statisticians think is of fundamental importance.  Here we explore its philosophical implications.  We outline the nature of Stein’s result and of subsequent work on shrinkage estimators; then we describe how these results are related to Bayesianism and to model selection criteria like AIC.  We also discuss their bearing on scientific realism…

Abstract: Veritism is the claim that the fundamental source of epistemic value of doxastic states is accuracy. I present some puzzles that show that in order for epistemic utility theory to vindicate veritism, its decision rules must be revised. But the revisionary form of epistemic utility conflicts with evidentialism. So epistemic utility theorists face a dilemma: they must give up…

Abstract: Suppose that we can spare someone a great harm, but only at the cost of allowing a lesser harm to befall a larger group of people. Does what we should do in this situation depend on the number of people in this group? According to the Close Enough View, the numbers matter only if the harm to the group…

Abstract: How should you update your credences upon learning the credences of others? Because of the complexity of Bayesian conditionalization in this context, there has been considerable interest in developing simple heuristics, the most popular being linear averaging. However, linear averaging has a number of drawbacks: it does not commute with itself, nor with conditionalization; it does not preserve independence;…

Abstract: TBA

Abstract: In this talk, I present an account of interpersonal comparisons – the so-called "extended preferences" account – for the case where individuals have heterogeneous preferences. The term "extended preferences" was introduced by John Harsanyi. My account builds from Harsanyi's pioneering work concerning interpersonal comparisons, and in recognition of his contribution I use that term. The key insights are, first,…

Abstract:I defend a decision theory for action under indeterminacy: we ought to maximise an analogue of expected value. I argue that this decision theory renders the right result in the standard puzzling cases of action under indeterminacy, and allows indeterminism about vagueness to capture the decision-theoretic advantages of epistemicism. A surprising upshot of the view is that it is sometimes…

Abstract: Suzy will throw a stone at a particular bottle if and only if Billy does not throw a stone at the bottle. Suzy is a better shot than Billy. In fact, Billy throws his stone at the bottle and, as luck would have it, he hits and breaks the bottle. Here Suzy’s intention to throw iff Billy doesn’t raises…

Abstract: We seek not only to be justified in our beliefs, but also to justify our beliefs to one another. While traditional epistemology has focused on the former kind of justification (viz. personal justification), it is through the latter kind (viz. interpersonal justification) that our most successful forms of enquiry make progress. Contrary to the received view, I argue that…

Abstract: The “fair division” approach to problems of distribution is increasingly prominent in welfare economics. Complex variations of hypothetical problems like dividing a cake have been analysed in detail, and the solutions have been applied to real world problems such as dividing an inheritance and allocating land rights. Although the problems of heterogeneity and indivisibility that are considered in these…