What Counts as the Same?

2018 ◽  
pp. 5-32
Author(s):  
Adam B. Seligman ◽  
Robert P. Weller
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
The Individual

This chapter begins by exploring the multiple forms and analytic purchases carried by memory, mimesis, and metaphor. It asks what we mean when we say that people share a culture. Rather than beginning with the assumption of the unity of culture or the priority of the individual decision maker, we focus on how people come to perceive things as shared. This is just one facet of our basic underlying question: What counts as the same? What lets two people, or two million people, feel that they have the same culture, or for that matter the same class, gender, race, religion, or any other category? This is not actually a question of how much we actually share but how and when we come to perceive that we share; not what is the same, but what counts as the same.

Torture and the Problem of Dirty Hands

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamar Meisels
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Moral Justification ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Dirty Hands ◽  
Liberal Democracies ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Consequentialist Theory ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
The Individual

This paper looks at the contemporary debate over investigative torture in liberal democracies besieged by terrorism, from the viewpoint of the state leader, politician, judge or individual interrogator, called upon to make life-and-death decisions. It steers away from the classic debate between utilitarians and Kantians regarding moral justification, and, following Michael Walzer presents the issue as a specific case of "the problem of dirty hands in politics". Contra Walzer, the paper suggests, among other things, that the notion of dirty hands functions not only within moral theories that include absolute prohibitions but also within consequentialist theory, and that it is therefore far wider, practically illuminating and more applicable than Walzer originally assumed. Later it addresses Alan Dershowitz’s controversial suggestion requiring judicial "torture warrants", and argues that this too should be viewed in light of the notion of dirty hands rather than within the conventional debate over justifications. Finally, it suggests that, while torture may be morally unjustifiable on anything but purely consequentialist grounds, circumstances may offer the individual decision maker an excuse, rather than a justification, for resorting to torture under very restricted conditions.

Recognizing knowledge and learning in equilibrium models

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence A. Boland
Keyword(s):  
Decision Maker ◽  
Free Choice ◽  
Main Property ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Equilibrium Models ◽  
The Individual

This chapter introduces Part II, discussing the limits of equilibrium models. This chapter discusses how the recognition of time and information within models results in the need to deal with expectations explicitly. This leads to the problem of explaining nature of a decision maker’s knowledge – is it quantity-based or quality based. That is, is knowledge like wealth or like health. The chapter also provides a discussion of the main property that every neoclassical equilibrium must provide. Specifically, an equilibrium model’s explanation of economic events must not violate methodological individualism. The chapter criticizes the presumption that methodological individualism must be compatibility with a psychology-based model of the individual decision maker. Using a psychology-based model of the individual can undermine the idea of completely free choice, which was the original appeal of the equilibrium models.

Utility Estimation of a Set of States of Health

1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 168-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. I. Card ◽  
M. Rusinkiewicz ◽  
C. I. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Middle State ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Utility Estimation

A decision maker was presented with three states of health, such that an imaginary patient was in the middle state while the two other states could be described as more preferred and less preferred. The decision maker was then asked to choose the minimal odds at which he would advise an operation which would result in success, the patient moving into the more preferred state, or failure, the patient moving into the less preferred state. Eight decision makers were tested in this way and each made 24 such wagers on a set of three states chosen from a total set of eight; each of these states differed unidimen sionally only in the visual acuity of the remaining eye in the imaginary patient. If the utility of I is arbitrarily assigned to the state of perfect vision, and the utility of 0 to the state of non-perception of light, estimates of the utilities of the intervening states can then be made. The utility function for each decision maker was constructed and was found to be linear against the logarithm of the visual acuity. From this it follows that if all decision makers, e.g. ophthalmic surgeons, show such linearity, they will all choose the same odds before deciding whether to operate and these odds are independent of the utilities which the individual decision maker attaches to the different states of health.

Utility Estimation of a Set of States of Health

1977 ◽  
Vol 16 (03) ◽  
pp. 168-175
Author(s):  
W. I. Card ◽  
M. Rusinkiewicz ◽  
C. I. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Visual Acuity ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
The State ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Middle State ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Utility Estimation

A decision maker was presented with three states of health, such that an imaginary patient was in the middle state «‘hile the two other states could be described as more preferred and less preferred. The decision maker was then asked to choose the minimal odds at which he would advise an operation which would result in success, the patient moving into the more preferred state, or failure, the patient moving into the less preferred state. Eight decision makers were tested in this way and each made 24 such wagers on a set of three states chosen from a total set of eight; each of these states differed unidimen-sionally only in the visual acuity of the remaining eye in the imaginary patient. If the utility of 1 is arbitrarily assigned to the state of perfect vision, and the utility of 0 to the state of non-perception of light, estimates of the utilities of the intervening states can then be made. The utility function for each decision maker was constructed and was found to be linear against the logarithm of the visual acuity. From this it follows that if all decision makers, e.g. ophthalmic surgeons, show such linearity, they will all choose the same odds before deciding whether to operate and these odds are independent of the utilities which the individual decision maker attaches to the different states of health.

scholarly journals Introduction. Neuroeconomics: the promise and the profit

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1511) ◽  
pp. 3767-3769 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wolfram Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Maker ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gains And Losses ◽  
The Brain

Neuroeconomics investigates the neural mechanisms underlying decisions about rewarding or punishing outcomes (‘economic’ decisions). It combines the knowledge about the behavioural phenomena of economic decisions with the mechanistic explanatory power of neuroscience. Thus, it is about the neurobiological foundations of economic decision making. It is hoped that by ‘opening the box’ we can understand how decisions about gains and losses are directed by the brain of the individual decision maker. Perhaps we can even learn why some decisions are apparently paradoxical or pathological. The knowledge could be used to create situations that avoid suboptimal decisions and harm.

Are the saving decision patterns of bank customers also clouded by psychological biases? Evidence from Ghana

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Emmanuel Tetteh ◽  
Christopher Boachie
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Weighted Least Squares ◽  
Least Squares Regression ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Saving Decisions ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Practical Implications

PurposeThis paper attempts to investigate the influence of psychological biases on saving decision-making of bank customers in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachIt employs weighted least squares regression to test the effect of psychological biases on savings decisions of bank customers.FindingsThe findings show that all the nine psychological biases, namely mental accounting, availability, loss aversion, representativeness, anchoring, overconfidence, status quo, framing effect and disposition effect employed for the study have a significant influence on saving decision of bank customers. The results depict that psychological biases are entrenched in the saving pattern of bank customers in Ghana.Practical implicationsFor policy purposes, the study recommends that bank customers need to enhance their knowledge of psychological biases in order to improve their gains from savings, and not to fall prey to these prejudices. The satisfied customer is a dependable source of bank viability and survival.Originality/valueTo the best of the knowledge of the author, this study provides the first empirical evidence of the influence of psychological biases on saving decisions of bank customers in Ghana. The findings of this study will enhance knowledge on the influence of psychological biases on individual decision-making and will accentuate the fact that the individual is not an entirely rational being.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document