Rational Requirements Research Articles

Universal social welfare orderings and risk

How to evaluate and compare social prospects when there may be a risk on i) the actual allocation people will receive; ii) the existence of these future people; and iii) their preferences? This paper investigate this question that may arise when considering policies that endogenously affect future people, for instance climate policy. We show that there is no social ordering that meets minimal requirements of fairness, social rationality, and respect for people's ex ante preferences. We explore three ways to avoid this impossibility. First, if we drop the ex ante Pareto requirement, we can obtain fair ex post criteria that take an (arbitrary) expected utility of an equally-distributed equivalent level of well-being. Second, if the social ordering is not an expected utility, we can obtain fair ex ante criteria that assess uncertain individual prospects with a certainty-equivalent measure of well-being. Third, if we accept that interpersonal comparisons rely on VNM utility functions even in absence of risk, we can construct expected utility social orderings that satisfy of some version of Pareto ex ante.

Making Regulators Reasonable: Do Procedural Rationality Requirements Fix Cognitive Biases?

Making Regulators Reasonable: Do Procedural Rationality Requirements Fix Cognitive Biases?

Особливості дослідження ефективності транспортних систем на етапах життєвого циклу

The analysis of features of research of efficiency of transport systems at stages of their life cycle is resulted. It is found that the life cycle of the system is reflected in the gradual development of the generalized operation as a process of gradual accumulation of information about the properties of the created transport system, environmental conditions and ways to use it as an active tool in the operation. A formalized scientific approach to assessing the current and future efficiency of transport systems, based on aggregation indicators to assess the effectiveness of facilities in subsystems at different stages of the life cycle, allowing decision-making to see trends in internal development of a complex system as a whole, and integrate knowledge groups of experts in the formation of artificial reference limits of efficiency. It is revealed that in process of accumulation of the information on transport system the estimation of efficiency of operation is specified that leads to fuller substantiation of the accepted decisions, at each stage of a life cycle of system. It is noted that at the stage of external design the choice of rational requirements for the system is based on fairly general efficiency criteria that do not lead to too strong a narrowing of the set of acceptable strategies. Thus, the use of a "strong" principle of optimization and a small number of optimal strategies that lead to the choice is not always justified because in the early stages of the life cycle it is impossible to trace the progress of the operation in all its details. It is suggested that at the stages of external and internal design of the transport system it is advisable to organize a consistent exchange of information between the representatives of these stages of design, which can occur according to a certain scheme. It was found that objects that are on the verge of efficiency are most effective only in a specific group of objects. As it is not possible to set theoretical reference limits of efficiency without the involvement of experts, therefore efforts should be directed to increase the degree of validity and reliability of expert assessments, as a result of which artificial reference limits of efficiency are formed.

Hopeless Fools and Impossible Ideals

In this article, I vindicate the longstanding intuition that the Stoics are transitional figures in the history of ethics. I argue that the Stoics are committed to thinking that the ideal of human happiness as a life of virtue is impossible for some people, whom I dub ‘hopeless fools.’ In conjunction with the Stoic view that everyone is subject to the same rational requirements to perform ‘appropriate actions’ or ‘duties’ (kath¯ekonta/officia), and the plausible eudaimonist assumption that happiness is a source of normative reasons only if it is in principle attainable, the existence of hopeless fools demonstrates that the Stoics were pluralists about the ultimate justificatory basis of rational action. Hopeless fools are required to behave just like their non-hopeless counterparts, not because doing so is conducive to their happiness, but because doing so conforms with the dictates of Right Reason.

Savage’s response to Allais as Broomean reasoning

ABSTRACT Savage famously contravened his own theory when first confronting the Allais Paradox, but then convinced himself that he had made an error. We examine the formal structure of Savage’s ‘error-correcting’ reasoning in the light of (i) behavioural economists’ claims to identify the latent preferences of individuals who violate conventional rationality requirements and (ii) Broome’s critique of arguments which presuppose that rationality requirements can be achieved through reasoning. We argue that Savage’s reasoning is not vulnerable to Broome’s critique, but does not provide support for the view that behavioural scientists can identify and counteract errors in people’s choices or preferences.

Unfit for purpose: reassessing the development and deployment of French nuclear weapons (1956–1974)

ABSTRACT This article presents the first reassessment of the strategic rationality and credibility of French nuclear weapons policy before 1974. Building on untapped primary material from across the world as well as technical analysis, it shows that early Cold War French nuclear weapon procurement and deployment are incompatible with a precise grand design and the requirements of strategic rationality. The first generation of French nuclear forces also lacked technical credibility, despite reliance on outside help. Several French officials knew about it, as did their allies and adversaries. These findings de-exceptionalise French nuclear history and challenge conventional wisdom about Cold War nuclear history.

ISSUES THAT MATTER WHEN BEHAVIORAL FINANCE FACTORS DRIVE THE LARGEST INITIAL PUBLIC OFFERING IN THE SAUDI FINANCIAL MARKET

Behavioral financing is an emerging science and a relatively new area for academic research, leveraging investors’ irrational behavior. To a certain degree, most investment decisions are affected by investors’ biases and expectations, which do not follow rationality requirements. This study rigorously investigated a group of behavioral financial factors—optimism, pessimism, overconfidence, herd behavior, and loyalty—and firm characteristics, and then it examined whether and to what extent behavioral financial factors drive investors’ behaviors about the largest initial public offerings (IPOs). This study employed structural equation modelling and used a representative survey of 353 investors during the IPO of Saudi Aramco. The study found that the factors that stimulated investors in the Saudi market, especially during the Aramco IPO behavior decision, included behavioral finance factors, such as optimism, overconfidence, loyalty, and herd behavior, while firm characteristics failed to shape investors’ decisions during Aramco’s IPO.

Anti-Exceptionalism About Requirements of Epistemic Rationality

I argue for the unexceptionality of evidence about what rationality requires. Specifically, I argue that, as for other topics, one’s total evidence can sometimes support false beliefs about this. Despite being prima facie innocuous, a number of philosophers have recently denied this. Some have argued that the facts about what rationality requires are highly dependent on the agent’s situation and change depending on what that situation is like (Bradley, Philosophers’ Imprint, 19(3). 2019). Others have argued that a particular subset of normative truths, those concerning what epistemic rationality requires, have the special property of being ‘fixed points’—it is impossible to have total evidence that supports false belief about them (Smithies, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 85(2). 2012; Titelbaum 2015). Each of these kinds of exceptionality permits a solution to downstream theoretical problems that arise from the possibility of evidence supporting false belief about requirements of rationality. However, as I argue here, they incur heavy explanatory burdens that we should avoid.

Veritism and the normativity of logic

AbstractThe idea that logic is in some sense normative for thought and reasoning is a familiar one. Some of the most prominent figures in the history of philosophy including Kant and Frege have been among its defenders. The most natural way of spelling out this idea is to formulate wide‐scope deductive requirements on belief which rule out certain states as irrational. But what can account for the truth of such deductive requirements of rationality? By far, the most prominent responses draw in one way or another on the idea that belief aims at the truth. In this paper, I consider two ways of making this line of thought more precise and I argue that they both fail. In particular, I examine a recent attempt by Epistemic Utility Theory to give a veritist account of deductive coherence requirements. I argue that despite its proponents’ best efforts, Epistemic Utility Theory cannot vindicate such requirements.

Two roles for reasons: Cause for divorce?

An increasingly popular view in the literature on rationality attempts to vindicate the strong normativity of rationality by giving a unifying account of rational requirements and what one ought to do in terms of reasons that fall within one’s perspective. In this paper, I pose a dilemma for such a view: one’s rationality is determined by a narrower set of reasons, such as the set of reasons that one is attending to, whereas what one ought to do is determined by a broader set of reasons that comprises reasons one is not attending to. Thus, no single set of reasons can play the dual role of determining what one is rationally required to do and determining what one ought to do: either it is too broad to determine what one is rationally required to do or it is too narrow to determine what one ought to do.

Enkratic Rationality Is Instrumental Rationality*

AbstractIt is widely agreed that there is a rational requirement, “Enkrasia”, which requires that you intend what you believe you ought to do. This paper argues that Enkrasia is not an independent requirement of practical rationality: it is a special case of the requirement to be instrumentally rational. I argue for this view of Enkrasia through an analysis of an all‐things‐considered belief about what you ought to do. Believing, all‐thing‐considered, that you ought to φ implies being settled on a set of options from which to take an option. I argue that this state of being settled on a set of options cannot be a matter of believing. Rather, it should be understood as intending that you do what you ought to do out of that set. If an all‐things‐considered belief implies such an intention, however, satisfying Enkrasia is a matter of satisfying the requirement to intend a necessary means to an end that you intend.

MỘT SỐ VẤN ĐỀ ĐẶT RA ĐỐI VỚI PHÁT TRIỂN ĐỘI NGŨ GIẢNG VIÊN Ở CÁC TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC HIỆN NAY

As a knowledge maker, developing capacity and quality for students, the teaching staff has made a great contribution to train human resources that are specialized for society. Accordingly, developing the teaching staff is a key task in improving the quality of training of universities. The content of development of teaching staff includes, developing in quantity, quality and structure, which ensures sufficient quantity, meeting quality and rational requirements as an important requirement for each school. In the current context, the development of teaching staff is facing advantages but also many difficulties and challenges require management subjects at all levels to pay attention, seek reasonable solutions to improve quality amount of this important human resource.

In defense of a strong persistence requirement on intention

An important recent debate in the philosophy of action has focused on whether there is a persistence requirement on intention and, if there is, what its proper formulation should be. At one extreme, Bratman has defended what I call Strong Persistence, according to which it’s irrational to abandon an intention except for an alternative that is better supported by one’s reasons. At the other extreme, Tenenbaum has argued that there isn’t a persistence requirement on intention at all. In the middle, philosophers like Broome, Ferrero, and Paul have defended persistence requirements with varying degrees of stringency while agreeing that Bratman’s proposed requirement is too strong. In this paper I side with Bratman in defending Strong Persistence. I argue, however, that Bratman’s own argument in favor of it is defective and an easy prey to the multiple objections that have been leveled against it. I thus offer in its place a “first-personally addressed constitutivist argument” whose aim is to show to the minimally reflective agent the kind of commitment involved in deciding and forming an intention in situations of incomparability—which are taken to be the litmus test for persistence requirements—and the persistence rational requirement governing it. Along the way I respond to the objections against Strong Persistence and explain why my argument represents an improvement over Bratman’s.

Expected utility theory, Jeffrey’s decision theory, and the paradoxes

In Richard Bradley’s book, Decision Theory with a Human Face (2017), we have selected two themes for discussion. The first is the Bolker-Jeffrey (BJ) theory of decision, which the book uses throughout as a tool to reorganize the whole field of decision theory, and in particular to evaluate the extent to which expected utility (EU) theories may be normatively too demanding. The second theme is the redefinition strategy that can be used to defend EU theories against the Allais and Ellsberg paradoxes, a strategy that the book by and large endorses, and even develops in an original way concerning the Ellsberg paradox. We argue that the BJ theory is too specific to fulfil Bradley’s foundational project and that the redefinition strategy fails in both the Allais and Ellsberg cases. Although we share Bradley’s conclusion that EU theories do not state universal rationality requirements, we reach it not by a comparison with BJ theory, but by a comparison with the non-EU theories that the paradoxes have heuristically suggested.

Reason to be Cheerful

This paper identifies a tension between the commitment to forming rationally justified emotions and the happy life. To illustrate this tension I begin with a critical evaluation of the positive psychology technique known as ‘gratitude training’. I argue that gratitude training is at odds with the kind of critical monitoring that several philosophers have claimed is regulative of emotional rationality. More generally, critical monitoring undermines exuberance, an attitude that plays a central role in contemporary models of the happy life. Thus, prominent notions of what it takes to maintain emotion rationality and what it takes to maintain happiness are in tension. To resolve this tension, I argue that some people have good reason to depreciate critical monitoring—even while maintaining the requirement of emotion rationality that we be sensitive to facts about how our concerns are faring.

Is Remembering to do a Special Kind of Memory?

When a person decides to do something in the future, she forms an intention and her intention persists. Philosophers have thought about the rational requirement that an agent’s intention persists until its execution. But philosophers have neglected to think about the causal memory mechanisms that could enable this kind of persistence and its role in rational long-term agency. Our aim of this paper is to fill this gap by arguing that memory for intention is a specific kind of memory. We do this by evaluating and rejecting standard declarative accounts of memory for intention and arguing for the plausibility of an alternative model of memory for intention. We argue for the alternative by spelling out a number of computational principles that could enable retaining and retrieving intentions from long-term memory. These principles could explain a number of core features of intentions.

The Sequential Dominance Argument for the Independence Axiom of Expected Utility Theory

AbstractIndependence is the condition that, if X is preferred to Y, then a lottery between X and Z is preferred to a lottery between Y and Z given the same probability of Z. Is it rationally required that one’s preferences conform to Independence? The main objection to this requirement is that it would rule out the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences. In this paper, I put forward a sequential dominance argument with fairly weak assumptions for a variant of Independence (called Independence for Constant Prospects), which shows that Allais and Ellsberg Preferences are irrational. Hence this influential objection (that is, the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences) can be rebutted. I also put forward a number of sequential dominance arguments that various versions of Independence are requirements of rationality. One of these arguments is based on very minimal assumptions, but the arguments for the versions of Independence which are strong enough to serve in the standard axiomatization of Expected Utility Theory need notably stronger assumptions.

Entanglement contour and modular flow from subset entanglement entropies

The Entanglement contour function quantifies the contribution from each degree of freedom in a region mathcal{A} to the entanglement entropy {S}_{mathcal{A}} . Recently in [1] the author gave two proposals for the entanglement contour in two-dimensional theories. The first proposal is a fine structure analysis of the entanglement wedge, which applies to holographic theories. The second proposal is a claim that for general two-dimensional theories the partial entanglement entropy is given by a linear combination of entanglement entropies of relevant subsets inside mathcal{A} . In this paper, we further study the partial entanglement entropy proposal by showing that it satisfies all the rational requirements proposed previously. We also extend the fine structure analysis from vacuum AdS space to BTZ black holes. Furthermore, we give a simple prescription to generate the local modular flows for two-dimensional theories from only the entanglement entropies without refer to the explicit Rindler transformations.

A Study on the Rational Requirement Area Estimation of Municipal Sewage Treatment Facilities Using Statistical Techniques

Objectives:In this study, a adjusted sewage & wastewater treatment capacity-required area estimation methodology was proposed through various data analysis for the required area of domestic sewage & wastewater treatment, the occupancy ratio of each sub-facility, and the treatment processing method. In addition, the reduction rate of the required area according to the application of the adjustment methodology presented in this study was evaluated quantitatively by comparing the actual area with the expected area.Methods:Statistical analysis was performed by collecting 654 data of more than 500 m<sup>3</sup>/day of treatment capacity in domestic sewage & wastewater treatment facilities. The 33 sewage & wastewater treatment facilities constructed by the LH sample groups were divided into functional areas and analyzed for occupancy rates by each facility.Results and Discussion:A capacity-required area regression model was developed for the collected each samples. As a result, the distributions of the regression model were divided into two clusters according to the analysis sample differences. It was analyzed that the estimated required area using the local government sample group was estimated to be relatively higher than the LH sample group. In this study, a adjusted capacity-required area model based on regression model derived from LH sample was proposed by considering green site ratio and treatment processing methods in sewage & wastewater treatment plant. The results are as follows: A = 15.638×Q<sup>0.7414</sup>×<i>α</i>×<i>β</i> (<i>α</i>: conversion factor for green site ratio, <i>β</i>: conversion factor for treatment processing method). Conclusions:Recently, the wastewater treatment facilities have been in decentralization and small scale, and the introduction of the advanced treatment method that requires a relatively small area such as MBR or SBR has been accelerating. Consequently, it could be expected that the methodology proposed in this study will save about 50~60% of the required area for wastewater treatment facilities.

Research on the motivation of pharmaceutical workers in pharmacies

The purpose of work was to study the motivating and demotivating factors of the activity of pharmaceutical staff and the conditions of increasing their work activity.Materials and methods. The material for our research was statistically processed information that was obtained during the survey of pharmaceutical specialists of pharmacies that differ in the degree of market coverage (national-pharmaceutical organization 1 (PhO # 1), local-pharmaceutical organization 2, 3 (PhO # 2, # 3)) and types (ready pharmacy drugs - PhO №1, pharmacy with manufacturing of drugs – PhO # 2, # 3). In the course of the study, methods of analysis, synthesis, grouping, questioning and the method of F. Herzberg were used. Results. The factors of motivation, of activity, of pharmaceutical personnel were investigated as material stimulation, moral stimulation, measures of administrative influence, labor mood of the collective, desire to achieve respect in the collective, fear of losing work. As a result of comparing the estimates of motivation factors in pharmacies of both types, it was found that PhO # 1 the leading factor of motivation was the working mood of the team (Wij = 1), and in PhO # 2, # 3 were the material stimulation (Wij = 1). It was studied the factors of employee demotivation using the F. Herzberg method as direct management and control, working conditions, interpersonal relationships, wages and stability of work, internal organization policy towards the staff. The results' calculations were showed that the most significant demotivating factors for the employees of the PhO # 1 were the system of interpersonal relationships (Wij = 1) and direct control (Wij = 0.97). It has been studied the opinions of pharmaceutical workers on the creation of certain conditions in order to enhance their work. It was determined that the most significant conditions for increasing motivation in the PhO # 1, in terms of its employees, was to get high wages (Wij = 0.98), stability (Wij = 0.95), rational management requirements (Wij = 0.94), harmonious relationships in the team (Wij = 0.93), bonuses for quality of work (Wij = 0.93), career growth (Wij = 0.92) and comfortable working conditions (Wij = 0.92).Conclusion. Comparative analysis of motivation factors in pharmacies showed that in pharmacies of the first type the leading factor of motivation was the working mood of the team, and of the second type pharmacies – material stimulation. Also important for employees of pharmacies of general type. The study of demotivating factors showed that in pharmacies of both types, unstable interpersonal relationships had a negative effect on motivation. The analysis of conditions of increase of motivation showed that in PhO # 1 it was important to receive high wages and its stability, and for PhO # 2, # 3 – harmonious relationships in the team, bonus system.