IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/ecnphi/v32y2016i03p409-433_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On The Interpretation Of Decision Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Okasha, Samir

Abstract

This paper explores the contrast between mentalistic and behaviouristic interpretations of decision theory. The former regards credences and utilities as psychologically real, while the latter regards them as mere representations of an agent's preferences. Philosophers typically adopt the former interpretation, economists the latter. It is argued that the mentalistic interpretation is preferable if our aim is to use decision theory for descriptive purposes, but if our aim is normative then the behaviouristic interpretation cannot be dispensed with.

Suggested Citation

  • Okasha, Samir, 2016. "On The Interpretation Of Decision Theory," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 32(3), pages 409-433, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:32:y:2016:i:03:p:409-433_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0266267115000346/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moscati, Ivan, 2021. "On the recent philosophy of decision theory," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 115039, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Francesco GUALA, 2017. "Preferences: Neither Behavioural nor Mental," Departmental Working Papers 2017-05, Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano.
    3. Gawlik, Remigiusz, 2018. "Decision-making under environmental uncertainty," MPRA Paper 93361, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ivan Moscati, 2022. "Behavioral and heuristic models are as-if models too — and that’s ok," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22177, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    5. Vaios Koliofotis, 2021. "Applying evolutionary methods in economics: progress or pitfall?," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 23(2), pages 203-223, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:ecnphi:v:32:y:2016:i:03:p:409-433_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/eap .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.