Thanks for taking the time to try to debunk some of the sillier aspects of classic utilitarianism.
:)
‘Actual value’ exists only theoretically, even after the fact.
You’ve come close to an important point here, though I believe its expression needs to be refined. My conclusion is that value has real existence. This conclusion is primarily based on the personal experience of possessing real preferences, and my inference (to a high level of confidence) that other humans routinely do the same. We might reasonably doubt the a priori correspondence between actual preference, and the perception of preference, but even so, the assumption that I make decisions entails that I’m motivated by the pursuit of value.
Perhaps, then, you would agree that it is more correct to say that the relative value of an action can be judged only theoretically.
Thus, we account for the fact that if the action had not been performed, the outcome would be something different, the value of which we can at best only make an educated guess about, making a non-theory-laden assessment of relative value impossible. The further substitution of my ‘can be judged’ in place of your ‘exists’ seems to me necessary, to avoid committing the mind projection fallacy.
The main question in this essay, the harder question, is if we can judge previous decisions based on their respective expected values, …
If it is the decision that is being judged (as the question specifies), rather than its outcome, then clearly the answer is “yes.” There can not be anything better than expected value to base a decision on. In a determined bid to be voted captain obvious, I examined this in some detail, in a blog post, Is rationality desirable?
… and how to possibly come up with the relevant expected values to do so.
This is called science! You are right, though, to be cautious. It strikes me that many assume they can draw conclusions about the relative rationality of two agents, when really, they ought to do more work for their conclusions to be sound. I once listened to a talk in which it was concluded that the test subjects in some psychological study were not ‘Bayesian optimal.’ I asked the speaker how he knew this. How had he measured their prior distributions? their probability models? their utility functions? These things are all part of the process of determining a course of action.
Thanks for taking the time to try to debunk some of the sillier aspects of classic utilitarianism. :)
You’ve come close to an important point here, though I believe its expression needs to be refined. My conclusion is that value has real existence. This conclusion is primarily based on the personal experience of possessing real preferences, and my inference (to a high level of confidence) that other humans routinely do the same. We might reasonably doubt the a priori correspondence between actual preference, and the perception of preference, but even so, the assumption that I make decisions entails that I’m motivated by the pursuit of value.
Perhaps, then, you would agree that it is more correct to say that the relative value of an action can be judged only theoretically.
Thus, we account for the fact that if the action had not been performed, the outcome would be something different, the value of which we can at best only make an educated guess about, making a non-theory-laden assessment of relative value impossible. The further substitution of my ‘can be judged’ in place of your ‘exists’ seems to me necessary, to avoid committing the mind projection fallacy.
If it is the decision that is being judged (as the question specifies), rather than its outcome, then clearly the answer is “yes.” There can not be anything better than expected value to base a decision on. In a determined bid to be voted captain obvious, I examined this in some detail, in a blog post, Is rationality desirable?
This is called science! You are right, though, to be cautious. It strikes me that many assume they can draw conclusions about the relative rationality of two agents, when really, they ought to do more work for their conclusions to be sound. I once listened to a talk in which it was concluded that the test subjects in some psychological study were not ‘Bayesian optimal.’ I asked the speaker how he knew this. How had he measured their prior distributions? their probability models? their utility functions? These things are all part of the process of determining a course of action.