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    Evaluating decisions by expected utility collapses the di... — Carmelics
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    Challenges→It is better to evaluate a decision by comparing its expected utility to the expected utilities of rival decisions.

    Evaluating decisions by expected utility collapses the distinction between a decision procedure and a criterion of rightness, a conflation Parfit and Railton both identify as a serious error.

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    Reasons For

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    Reason for
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    • 1.A criterion of rightness specifies what makes an act objectively right; a decision procedure is what agents can actually use. These serve fundamentally different purposes.
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    • 2.Expected utility is cognitively accessible to decision-makers but may not track moral reality. Using it as both procedure and criterion smuggles in false epistemological assumptions.
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    • 3.A decision procedure must be implementable with limited information; a criterion of rightness can reference facts unavailable at decision-time. Conflating them obscures this asymmetry.
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    Reasons Against

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    Reason against
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    • 1.Expected utility can be formulated at multiple levels of abstraction (act-level, rule-level, character-level), so the procedure/criterion distinction may be illusory rather than fundamental.
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    • 2.If expected utility is the correct criterion of rightness, then agents following it as a procedure are doing what's actually right. The distinction collapses only if it's genuinely misguided.
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    • 3.Parfit and Railton dispute whether the distinction matters normatively, not whether it exists. The error claim requires independent argument about why conflation is wrong.
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    Key Terms

    Conflation(as the logical error the Tiantai argument makes)
    Mistakenly treating two different things as if they were the same thing.
    Derek Parfit(as a philosopher being cited for his theory on personal identity)
    A highly influential philosopher who argued that personal identity (what makes you 'you' over time) is less important than we think, and that we're not the unified, continuous selves we assume we are.
    Peter Railton(one of two philosophers cited as having systematic naturalist frameworks)
    A contemporary American philosopher known for developing sophisticated versions of naturalism that try to explain concepts like morality and meaning without leaving the natural world.
    criterion of rightness(Consequentialist theory — distinguished from a decision procedure)
    A standard used to evaluate whether an action or decision procedure is right, which can operate at a higher level than direct moment-to-moment decision-making
    decision procedure(Contrasted with a criterion of rightness in consequentialist theory)
    The method or heuristic an agent directly employs when making real decisions
    expected utility(Cited as a domain where aggregated probabilities play a key role)
    A calculation that aggregates probability-weighted outcomes to determine the overall value of a decision

    Connections

    1 topic

    Consequentialism1 linked

    Related

    A criterion of rightness specifies what makes an act objectively right; a decisi...A decision procedure must be implementable with limited information; a criterion...Expected utility can be formulated at multiple levels of abstraction (act-level,...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    2 (1 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    Expected utility is cognitively accessible to decision-makers but may not track ...
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    If expected utility is the correct criterion of rightness, then agents following...It is better to evaluate a decision by comparing its expected utility to the exp...Parfit and Railton dispute whether the distinction matters normatively, not whet...