Realistic Decision Theory: Foundations of the Behavioral and Social Sciences

University Of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia MO

Investigators

Abstract

The project is a workshop on realistic decision theory, a branch of philosophical decision theory. The principal investigator and five other speakers will present original papers formulating normative decision principles for agents with limited cognitive abilities. The workshop will run for two days at the University of Missouri-Columbia during spring 2008. Holding the workshop meets a growing need for a forum at which philosophers working in decision theory may exchange ideas and thereby further develop and improve their respective research projects; thus, the primary goal of the workshop is research oriented. A philosophical study of decision theory is crucial for organizing this interdisciplinary subject and strengthening its foundations. For example, philosophers have been instrumental in steering decision theory away from narrow behaviorism and in drawing attention to the role that counterfactual conditionals play in strategic reasoning in games. Philosophers are now using the results of empirical studies of decision-making to remove idealizations behind familiar principles of rationality such as the principle to maximize utility. The new principles they formulate can handle cases in which a decision itself furnishes evidence about its consequences. Their new principles also extend to groups that make decisions. The workshop will stimulate research in philosophical decision theory. The papers presented will be published in a special issue of the journal Synthese. The workshop will stimulate other participants to publish their work in academic journals. In addition, all participants will gather material to enrich philosophy courses that they teach. Besides fitting into courses on logic and reasoning, ideas from decision theory add substance to theories of confirmation in philosophy of science and epistemology. They flesh out contractarian theories of justice and morality. The workshop treats an intellectually significant field and will have very positive consequences for the research and teaching activities of participants. Research on bounded rationality is expanding rapidly, and philosophers are contributing innovative normative principles of decision-making. The workshop will bring together leading contributors to this field so that together they achieve the next generation of break-through discoveries.