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1.
This paper investigates the role of conditionals in hypothetical reasoning and rational decision making. Its main result is
a proof of a representation theorem for preferences defined on sets of sentences (and, in particular, conditional sentences),
where an agent’s preference for one sentence over another is understood to be a preference for receiving the news conveyed
by the former. The theorem shows that a rational preference ordering of conditional sentences determines probability and desirability
representations of the agent’s degrees of belief and desire that satisfy, in the case of non-conditional sentences, the axioms
of Jeffrey’s decision theory and, in the case of conditional sentences, Adams’ expression for the probabilities of conditionals.
Furthermore, the probability representation is shown to be unique and the desirability representation unique up to positive
linear transformation.
This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
2.
政府制度行为的根本目的就在于认同、尊重和保护市场经济运行中各个主体的合法利益,维护市场经济运行的正常秩序。但是市场经济条件下政府制度行为主体不是“经济阉人”,他们有着自己的效用函数,有着自己的价值追求,必定会影响到政府制度的制定和执行的道德合理性,这是关系到经济运行秩序是否道德公正的首要因素。政府制度的制定和执行是在一定的伦理原则支配下进行的,正确的制度伦理对经济运行秩序的健康发展有着重要的促进作用。 相似文献
3.
It is sometimes argued that the fact that possession of perfect knowledge about the future is impossible, means that it is
impossible for decisions to be rational. This reasoning is fallacious. If rationality is given a new interpretation, then
decisions can be considered rational. A theory of decision that has as its basis Peirce’s theory of abduction can provide
a new way of understanding decisions as rational processes. The Peircean theory of decision (i) considers decisions as part
of a complete strategy, and (ii) shows that decision making is governed by the same rules as scientific abduction. These rules
are neither permissive rules like rules of deductive inference nor predictive like laws of nature, but rather genuine laws
of conduct that determine what step should be made, if a given end is to be reached.
This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date. 相似文献
4.
Utilitarians are attracted to the idea that an act is morally right iff it leads to the best outcome. But critics have pointed
out that in many cases we cannot determine which of our alternatives in fact would lead to the best outcome. So we can’t use
the classic principle to determine what we should do. It’s not “practical”; it’s not “action-guiding”. Some take this to be
a serious objection to utilitarianism, since they think a moral theory ought to be practical and action-guiding. In response,
some utilitarians propose to modify utilitarianism by replacing talk of actual utility with talk of expected utility. Others
propose to leave the original utilitarian principle in place, but to combine it with a decision procedure involving expected
utility. What all these philosophers have in common is this: they move toward expected utility in order to defend utilitarianism
against the impracticality objection. My aim in this paper is to cast doubt on this way of replying to the objection. My central
claim is that if utilitarians are worried about the impracticality objection, they should not turn to expected utility utilitarianism.
That theory does not provide the basis for a cogent reply to the objection.
Originally presented at the 2004 Bellingham Summer Philosophy Conference,
Bellingham Washington, August 2, 2004, with comments by Gustaf Arrhenius and Elizabeth Harman. I am grateful to Arrhenius
and Harman for their challenging criticism, as well as to Chris Heathwood, Michael Zimmerman, Owen McLeod, Elinor Mason, Eric
Moore and other participants at the Bellingham Conference for comments and suggestions. In October, 2004 I discovered Mark
Strasser’s ‘Actual Versus Probable Utilitarianism’. I see that in that paper Strasser anticipates a number of the points I
make here. 相似文献
5.
Kant’s duty of self-knowledge demands that one know one’s heart—the quality of one’s will in relation to duty. Self-knowledge
requires that an agent subvert feelings which fuel self-aggrandizing narratives and increase self-conceit; she must adopt
the standpoint of the rational agent constrained by the requirements of reason in order to gain information about her moral
constitution. This is not I argue, contra Nancy Sherman, in order to assess the moral goodness of her conduct. Insofar as
sound moral practice requires moral self-knowledge and moral self-knowledge requires a theoretical commitment to a conception
of the moral self, sound moral agency is for Kant crucially tied to theory. Kant plausibly holds that self-knowledge is a
protection against moral confusion and self-deception. I conclude that although his account relies too heavily on the awareness
of moral law to explain its connection to moral development, it is insightful and important in Kantian ethics. 相似文献
6.
Bayesian decision theory is here construed as explicating a particular concept of rational choice and Bayesian probability
is taken to be the concept of probability used in that theory. Bayesian probability is usually identified with the agent’s
degrees of belief but that interpretation makes Bayesian decision theory a poor explication of the relevant concept of rational
choice. A satisfactory conception of Bayesian decision theory is obtained by taking Bayesian probability to be an explicatum
for inductive probability given the agent’s evidence. 相似文献
7.
Ryle’s distinction between knowing that and knowing how has recently been challenged. The paper first briefly defends the
distinction and then proceeds to address the question of classifying moral knowledge. Moral knowledge is special in that it
is practical, that is, it is essentially a motive. Hence the way we understand moral knowledge crucially depends on the way
we understand motivation. The Humean theory of motivation is wrong in saying that reason cannot be a motive, but right in
saying that desire is essential for motivating us. The right response to the Humean theory of motivation is to see that moral
knowledge is desire-related rationality or thought-related desire. Moral knowledge is neither knowing that nor knowing how
but rather a third species of knowledge which we may call “knowing to do.” Knowing to do is to be rationally disposed to do
the right thing. This understanding of moral knowledge is exactly what we can learn from Aristotle’s ethics. 相似文献
8.
Among recent objections to Pascal’s Wager, two are especially compelling. The first is that decision theory, and specifically
the requirement of maximizing expected utility, is incompatible with infinite utility values. The second is that even if infinite
utility values are admitted, the argument of the Wager is invalid provided that we allow mixed strategies. Furthermore, Hájek
(Philosophical Review 112, 2003) has shown that reformulations of Pascal’s Wager that address these criticisms inevitably
lead to arguments that are philosophically unsatisfying and historically unfaithful. Both the objections and Hájek’s philosophical
worries disappear, however, if we represent our preferences using relative utilities (generalized utility ratios) rather than
a one-place utility function. Relative utilities provide a conservative way to make sense of infinite value that preserves
the familiar equation of rationality with the maximization of expected utility. They also provide a means of investigating
a broader class of problems related to the Wager. 相似文献
9.
In Mencius’ theory of the original goodness in human nature, fate is the original source of xing (nature). Heart is the appearance of nature. There are two aspects to nature and heart: ti (form) and yong (function). From the perspective of form, nature is liangzhi (the goodness in conscience) and liangneng (the inborn ability to be good) in human beings and heart is human’s conscience and original heart. From the perspective
of function, nature is the four things of benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom, and heart consists in compassion,
shame, respect, right and wrong. As the foundation for the theory of the original goodness in human nature, conscience and
heart are a combination of human moral instinct, moral rationality and moral volition, whereas moral instinct gradually rises
to moral volition and passes through moral rationality. Mencius’ theory of the original goodness in human nature is not a
theory of future goodness, but a theory of original goodness.
Translated by Wang Bei from Qilu Xuekan 齐鲁学刊(Journal of Qilu), 2006, (4): 16–20 相似文献
10.
Standard principles of rational decision assume that an option’s utility is both comprehensive and accessible. These features
constrain interpretations of an option’s utility. This essay presents a way of understanding utility and laws of utility.
It explains the relation between an option’s utility and its outcome’s utility and argues that an option’s utility is relative
to a specification of the option. Utility’s relativity explains how a decision problem’s framing affects an option’s utility
and its rationality even for an agent who is cognitively perfect and lacks only empirical information. The essay rewrites
standard laws of utility to accommodate relativization to propositions’ specifications. The new laws are generalizations of
the standard laws and yield them as special cases. 相似文献
11.
In the last half century, decision theory has had a deep influence on moral theory. Its impact has largely been beneficial.
However, it has also given rise to some problems, two of which are discussed here. First, issues such as risk-taking and risk
imposition have been left out of ethics since they are believed to belong to decision theory, and consequently the ethical
aspects of these issues have not been treated in either discipline. Secondly, ethics has adopted the decision-theoretical
idea that action-guidance has to be based on cause–effect or means–ends relationships between an individual action and its
possible outcomes. This is problematic since the morally relevant connections between an action and future events are not
fully covered by such relationships. In response to the first problem it is proposed that moral theory should deal directly
and extensively with issues such as risk-taking and risk imposition, thereby intruding unabashedly into the traditional territory
of decision theory. As a partial response to the second problem it is proposed that moral theorizing should release itself
from the decision-theoretical requirement that the moral status of an action has to be derivable from the consequences (or
other properties) that are assignable to that action alone. In particular, the effects that an action can have in combination
with other actions by the same or other agents are valid arguments in an action-guiding moral discourse, even if its contribution
to these combined consequences cannot be isolated and evaluated separately. 相似文献
12.
Mainstream environmental ethics grew out of an approach to value that was rooted in a particular conception of rationality
and rational choice. As weaknesses in this approach have become more evident, environmental philosophers have experimented
with both virtue ethics and with pragmatism as alternative starting points for developing a more truly ecological orientation
to environmental philosophy. However, it is possible to see both virtue ethics and pragmatism as emerging from older philosophical
traditions that are here characterized as “agrarian.” Agrarian philosophy stresses the role of nature, soil and climate in
the formation of moral character as well as social and political institutions. As such, reaching back to the agrarian tradition
may provide a way to move forward with both virtue oriented themes as well as pragmatist themes in developing ecological ethics. 相似文献
13.
In a recent paper, Peter Singer suggests that some interesting new findings in experimental moral psychology support what
he has contended all along—namely that intuitions should play little or no role in adequate justifications of normative ethical
positions. Not only this but, according to Singer, these findings point to a central flaw in the method (or epistemological
theory) of reflective equilibrium used by many contemporary moral philosophers. In this paper, we try to defend reflective equilibrium from Singer’s attack
and, in part, we do this by discussing Singer’s own favoured moral methodology as outlined in his Practical Ethics. Although basing ethics solely on (certain kinds of) intuitions certainly is problematic, we argue, basing it solely on ‘reason’
gives rise to similar problems. The best solution would arguably be one which could strike a balance between the two—but,
we suggest, this is precisely what reflective equilibrium is all about. 相似文献
14.
This study examined whether having attended a public, private or religious affiliated grade and/or high school influenced
a college student’s ethical decision making process. We also examined whether having taken an ethics course in college influences
a student’s ethical decision making process. Our sample included 508 accounting students (237 men and 271 women) from Albania,
Ecuador, Ireland and the United States. Our analyses indicated no differences in ethical decision making that associated with
either grade-or-high-school education. While our data showed no difference in the reported attitudes between students from
Ecuador and the United States after controlling for social desirability response bias, we found significant differences between
the attitudes students from the United States and students from both Albania and Ireland. While gender was also significant
for six of our seven scenarios, social desirability response bias was significant in all of our scenarios. 相似文献
15.
Recent work has formally linked the traditional axiomatisation of incomplete preferences à la Anscombe-Aumann with the theory of desirability developed in the context of imprecise probability, by showing in particular that they are the very same theory. The equivalence has been established under the constraint that the set of possible prizes is finite. In this paper, we relax such a constraint, thus de facto creating one of the most general theories of rationality and decision making available today. We provide the theory with a sound interpretation and with basic notions, and results, for the separation of beliefs and values, and for the case of complete preferences. Moreover, we discuss the role of conglomerability for the presented theory, arguing that it should be a rationality requirement under very broad conditions. 相似文献
16.
This paper engages Freud’s relation to Kant, with specific reference to each theorist’s articulation of the interconnections
between ethics and religion. I argue that there is in fact a constructive approach to ethics and religion in Freud’s thought,
and that this approach can be better understood by examining it in relation to Kant’s formulations on these topics. Freud’s
thinking about religion and ethics participates in the Enlightenment heritage, with its emphasis on autonomy and rationality,
of which Kant’s model of practical reason is in many ways exemplary. At the same time, Freud advances Kantian thinking in
certain important respects; his work offers a more somatically, socially, and historically grounded approach to the formation
of rational and ethical capacities, and hence makes it more compatible with contemporary concerns and orientations that eschew
the pitfalls of ahistorical idealist orientations. 相似文献
17.
Morality for the purposes of this paper consists of sets of rules or principles intended for the general regulation of conduct
for all. Intuitionist accounts of morality are rejected as making reasoned analysis of morals impossible. In many interactions,
there is partial conflict and partial cooperation. From the general social point of view, the rational thing to propose is
that we steer clear of conflict and promote cooperation. This is what it is rational to propose to reinforce, and to assist
in reinforcing in society; it is not necessarily what it is individually rational to do. Even so, given the general situation,
the rationality of its reinforcement will typically support the rationality of individual action as well. Game theory makes
it possible to clarify these interactions, and these proposals for social solutions. 相似文献
18.
In this paper I outline an “agent-centered” approach to learning ethics. The approach is “agent-centered” in that its central
aim is to prepare students to act wisely and responsibly when faced with moral problems. The methods characteristic of this approach are suitable for integrating
material on professional and research ethics into technical courses, as well as for free-standing ethics courses.
The analogy I draw between ethical problems and design problems clarifies the character of ethical problems as they are experienced
by those who must respond to them. It exposes the mistake, common in ethics teaching, of misrepresenting moral problems as
multiple-choice problems, especially in the form of ‘dilemmas’, that is, a forced choice between two unacceptable alternatives.
Furthermore, I clarify the importance for responsible practice of recognizing any ambiguity in the problem situation.
To foster in students the skills they need, teaching examples should preserve the open-ended, multiply-constrained, and ambiguous
character of problem situations as experienced by the agent. I give guidelines for constructing open-ended scenarios that
present moral problems much as an agent would experience them — guidelines which strongly influenced the construction of ‘cases’
in the latest edition of “On Being a Scientist” — and I discuss how to present historical cases and cases from the instructor’s
own experience to best foster agent-centered learning.
This paper is a modification of material originally included in the handbook which accompanied the AAAS Seminar “Teaching
Ethics in Science and Engineering”, 10–11 February 1993. 相似文献
19.
In the face of the business community’s widening concern about corporate ethical behavior, business schools are reexamining
how they ensure that students appreciate the ethical implications of managerial decision making and have the analytical tools
necessary to confront ethical dilemmas. The current approaches adopted by colleges vary from mere ‘lip service’ to embedding
ethics at the core of the curriculum. This paper examines the experience of several US universities that have incorporated
business ethics into their curricula. In particular, the paper describes the issues facing Central Washington University as
it seeks to integrate ethical decision making into its core undergraduate business curriculum. Issues addressed include the
technical challenges of establishing a common element of curriculum across the various business disciplines, determining the
major conceptual foundations of ‘ethical thinking’ while recognizing students’ existing value systems, and how to obtain ‘buy
in’ by faculty to the initiative. 相似文献
20.
I develop an anti‐theory view of ethics. Moral theory (Kantian, utilitarian, virtue ethical, etc.) is the dominant approach to ethics among academic philosophers. But moral theory's hunt for a single Master Factor (utility, universalisability, virtue . . .) is implausibly systematising and reductionist. Perhaps scientism drives the approach? But good science always insists on respect for the data, even messy data: I criticise Singer's remarks on infanticide as a clear instance of moral theory failing to respect the data of moral perceptions and moral intuitions. Moral theory also fails to provide a coherent basis for real‐world motivation, justification, explanation, and prediction of good and bad, right and wrong. Consider for instance the marginal place of love in moral theory, compared with its central place in people's actual ethical outlooks and decision making. Hence, moral theory typically fails to ground any adequate ethical outlook. I propose that it is the notion of an ethical outlook that philosophical ethicists should pursue, not the unfruitful and distorting notion of a moral theory. 相似文献
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