A rational agent maximizes expected utility by definition.
but the agent’s behavior still places constraints on the two things.
Ok. So if you observe the behavior of an agent, and assume it performs expected utility maximization, you can determine some constraints on its utility function and subjective probability distribution. Fair enough.
Still, this doesn’t allow us to tell that the revealed subjective probability distribution that is intrinsically accurate in any reasonable sense: A person who prefers life over death and nevertheless starves himself to death due to the belief that people are tying to poison him may be perfectly rational for some choice of subjective probability distribution. We tend to call these types of probability distributions “psychotic disorders”, but there is nothing in the theory of subjective probability that allows us to rule them out as wrong.
A rational agent maximizes expected utility by definition.
Ok. So if you observe the behavior of an agent, and assume it performs expected utility maximization, you can determine some constraints on its utility function and subjective probability distribution. Fair enough.
Still, this doesn’t allow us to tell that the revealed subjective probability distribution that is intrinsically accurate in any reasonable sense:
A person who prefers life over death and nevertheless starves himself to death due to the belief that people are tying to poison him may be perfectly rational for some choice of subjective probability distribution. We tend to call these types of probability distributions “psychotic disorders”, but there is nothing in the theory of subjective probability that allows us to rule them out as wrong.