Explaining Sympathetic Actions of Rational Agents

This chapter discusses the domain of pure instrumental morality that represents the second level of the two-level contractarian theory. To this end, the chapter clarifies the features of the homo prudens model that underlies the derivation of the weak principle of universalization. Further, the chapter develops, in the form of the empathetic contractor theory, the hypothetical decision situation in which rational agents are placed to derive the weak principle of universalization. Finally, the chapter clarifies the features of the weak principle of universalization that, although its derivation does not rely on substantial moral premises as traditionally conceived, weakly expresses the moral ideals of autonomy, equality, impartiality, and reciprocity.

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THE NONRANDOM WALK OF KNOWLEDGE

Social Philosophy and Policy ◽

10.1017/s0265052521000145 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 37 (2) ◽

pp. 249-264

Author(s):

Jane R. Bambauer ◽

Saura Masconale ◽

Simone M. Sepe

Keyword(s):

Expert Testimony ◽

Selection Effect ◽

The Internet ◽

Rational Agents ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Wide Scale ◽

Evidence Gathering ◽

Epistemic Goals ◽

Epistemic Process

AbstractA person’s epistemic goals sometimes clash with pragmatic ones. At times, rational agents will degrade the quality of their epistemic process in order to satisfy a goal that is knowledge-independent (for example, to gain status or at least keep the peace with friends.) This is particularly so when the epistemic quest concerns an abstract political or economic theory, where evidence is likely to be softer and open to interpretation. Before wide-scale adoption of the Internet, people sought out or stumbled upon evidence related to a proposition in a more random way. And it was difficult to aggregate the evidence of friends and other similar people to the exclusion of others, even if one had wanted to. Today, by contrast, the searchable Internet allows people to simultaneously pursue social and epistemic goals.This essay shows that the selection effect caused by a merging of social and epistemic activities will cause both polarization in beliefs and devaluation of expert testimony. This will occur even if agents are rational Bayesians and have moderate credences before talking to their peers. What appears to be rampant dogmatism could be just as well explained by the nonrandom walk in evidence-gathering. This explanation better matches the empirical evidence on how people behave on social media platforms. It also helps clarify why media outlets (not just the Internet platforms) might have their own pragmatic reasons to compromise their epistemic goals in today’s competitive and polarized information market. Yet, it also makes policy intervention much more difficult, since we are unlikely to neatly separate individuals’ epistemic goals from their social ones.

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Fair Leader Election for Rational Agents in Asynchronous Rings and Networks

Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing - PODC '18 ◽

10.1145/3212734.3212767 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Assaf Yifrach ◽

Yishay Mansour

Keyword(s):

Leader Election ◽

Rational Agents

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Reasoning Without the Conjunction Closure

Episteme ◽

10.1017/epi.2020.53 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-14

Author(s):

Alicja Kowalewska

Keyword(s):

Computational Complexity ◽

Error Rate ◽

Cognitive Abilities ◽

Rational Belief ◽

Rational Agents ◽

Confidence Levels

Abstract Some theories of rational belief assume that beliefs should be closed under conjunction. I motivate the rejection of the conjunction closure, and point out that the consequences of this rejection are not as severe as it is usually thought. An often raised objection is that without the conjunction closure people are unable to reason. I outline an approach in which we can – in usual cases – reason using conjunctions without accepting the closure in its whole generality. This solution is based on the notion of confidence levels, which can be defined using probabilities. Moreover, on this approach, reasoning has a scalable computational complexity adaptable to cognitive abilities of both rationally bounded and perfectly rational agents. I perform a simulation to assess its error rate, and compare it to reasoning with conjunction closure.

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B is for Bias

International Journal of Applied Behavioral Economics ◽

10.4018/ijabe.2014040103 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 35-47

Author(s):

Calin Valsan

Keyword(s):

Economic Theory ◽

Rational Expectations ◽

Economic Environment ◽

Rational Agents ◽

Economic Agents ◽

Behavioral Biases ◽

The Social ◽

Modern Economic

Standard economic theory assumes rational agents. Individuals are expected to have rational expectations and constantly optimize their choices. Modern economic and financial theory is build under the assumption of rationality. There is plenty of evidence from psychology, however, that individuals are biased and rely heavily on heuristics in order to make decisions. Yet, this is not a mere fluke, a behavioral oddity. Because the social and economic environment in which individuals evolve is complex, behavioral biases represent evolutionary adaptations allowing economic agents to deal with undecidability and computational irreducibility.

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