Abstract
Social decisions are often made under great uncertainty - in situations where political principles, and even standard subjective expected utility, do not apply smoothly. In the first section, we argue that the core of this problem lies in decision theory itself - it is about how to act when we do not have an adequate representation of the context of the action and of its possible consequences. Thus, we distinguish two criteria to complement decision theory under ignorance - Laplace’s principle of insufficient reason and Wald’s maximin criterion. After that, we apply this analysis to political philosophy, by contrasting Harsanyi’s and Rawls’s theories of justice, respectively based on Laplace’s principle of insufficient reason and Wald’s maximin rule - and we end up highlighting the virtues of Rawls’s principle on practical grounds (it is intuitively attractive because of its computational simplicity, so providing a salient point for convergence) - and connect this argument to our moral intuitions and social norms requiring prudence in the case of decisions made for the sake of others.
Highlights
Social decisions are often made under great uncertainty – in situations where political principles, and even standard subjective expected utility, do not apply smoothly
How should we act in social contexts of great uncertainty – when we find it hard to apply our standard political principles and face some sort of decision paralysis? Since an action aims to an end, the decision to act is irrational if we cannot justifiably believe that we can achieve the end – or it is self-defeating, if acting in accordance with the decision prevents us from reaching that end
The subfield of decision theory that deals with scenarios where there is no probability distribution over possible outcomes is called decision under ignorance; there are four different criteria to complement decision theory under ignorance: Laplace’s principle of insufficient reason (a.k.a. “principle of indifference”), Wald’s maximin criterion, Savage’s minimax regret and the Hurwicz’s criterion
Summary
Uncertainty is a vague and ambiguous term; we can see it as opposed to the concept of information itself. Experiments philosophers use to expose their theories – but that is not quite accurate, because, after Rawls (1971), moral and political philosophers have developed a taste for complexity and economic concepts Another possibility is that, though these criteria are adequate for decisions under ignorance, they would not extrapolate well for decisions under deep uncertainty, where the parties cannot agree upon “(1) the appropriate models to describe the interactions among a system’s variables, (2) the probability distributions to represent uncertainty about key variables and parameters in the models, and/or (3) how to value the desirability of alternative outcomes” Unlike Laplace’s and Wald’s criteria, they are not intuitive; in the last sections, by comparing Harsanyi’s and Rawls’s theories of justice, we hope to throw some light on why some principles might be considered intuitive – they have salient properties that allow for bounded rational agents, in situations of scarce information, to converge
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
