Hard Choices: Decision Making under Unresolved Conflict - Hardcover

Levi, Isaac

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521325277 ISBN 13: 9780521325271

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1986

Synopsis

It is a commonplace that in making decisions agents often have to juggle competing values, and that no choice will maximize satisfaction of them all. However, the prevailing account of these cases assumes that there is always a single ranking of the agent's values, and therefore no unresolvable conflict among them. Isaac Levi denies this assumption, arguing that agents often must choose without having balanced their different values and that to be rational, an act does not have to be optimal, only what Levi terms "admissible." This book explores the consequences of denying the assumption and develops a general approach to decision-making under unresolved conflict. Professor Levi argues not only against the "strict Bayesian" position, but also against all the recent attempts to develop alternative models to Bayesianism. The book, which continues from his earlier The Enterprise of Knowledge, is certain to make an original and controversial contribution to the debates over choice theory.

About this title

Book Description

Denying the value of prevailing accounts of rational decision making, this study considers the application of a more general approach to moral dilemmas, scientific inference and decision making.

From the Back Cover

This book explores the consequences of denying the assumption and develops a general approach to decision making under unresolved conflict. Professor Levi discusses conflicts of value in several domains--those arising in moral dilemmas, the drawing of scientific inferences, decisions taken under uncertainty, and social choice.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0521325277
• ISBN 13: 9780521325271
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 264