Even Worse Than It Seems

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 113-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Capps ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Transformative Experiences ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decisions

Laurie Paul has recently proposed that transformative experiences are a distinct challenge to our ability to make rational decisions about our futures. In response, many have claimed that the situation is not as bad as it seems and that it is possible to rationally choose to undergo a transformative experience. Here I argue that the situation is actually worse because the current debate has so far only been framed in terms of comparing a transformative experience to the familiar status quo. If we instead consider choices among transformative experiences—what I call a transformative selection—then transformative experiences continue to pose a significant challenge to our rational decision-making.

scholarly journals A rational route to transformative decisions

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Villiger
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
General Shape ◽  
Gender Transition ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Transformative Experiences ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Oxford University Press

AbstractAccording to Paul (Transformative experience, 1st edn, Oxford University Press, 2014), transformative experiences pose a challenge to decision theory since their value cannot be anticipated. Building on Pettigrew’s (in: Lambert, Schwenkler (eds) Becoming someone new: essays on transformative experience, choice, and change, Oxford University Press, pp 100–121, 2020) redescription, this paper presents a new approach to how and when transformative decisions can nevertheless be made rationally. Thanks to fundamental higher-order facts that apply to any kind of experience, an agent always at least knows the general shape of the utility space. This in combination with the knowledge about the non-transformative alternative in the choice set can enable rational decision-making despite the presence of a transformative experience. For example, this paper’s approach provides novel arguments for why gender transition (cf. McKinnon in Res Philosophica 92(2):419–440, 2015) or staying childfree (cf. Barnes in Philos Phenomenol Res 91(3):775–786, 2015) can be rational.

scholarly journals Rational preference in transformative experiences

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saira Khan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Theory ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Transformative Experiences ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Life Decisions ◽  
Do So ◽  
Realist View

AbstractL. A. Paul’s Transformative Experience makes the claim that many important life decisions are epistemically and personally transformative in a way that does not allow us to assign subjective values to their outcomes. As a result, we cannot use normative decision theory to make such decisions rationally, or when we modify it to do so, decision theory leads us to choose in a way that is in tension with our authenticity. This paper examines Paul’s version of decision theory, and whether this version in fact admits of the challenge she wants to raise. I focus on her psychological realist view of utilities and beliefs and her notion of rational, authentic preferences as informed by imaginative acquaintance. I argue that Paul fails to engage critically with traditional accounts of decision theory and, on closer inspection, it is not clear that her version of decision theory entails a tension between rational and authentic choice. More importantly, I argue that if her contribution is instead to bring to light the importance of authenticity alongside rational decision-making, the definition she provides of authenticity in fact undermines her argument.

scholarly journals THE IMPACT OF ZIMBABWE'S PRICE HYPERINFLATION ON REPORTED LEVELS OF NATIONAL MANUFACTURING SECTOR ACTIVITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
PURUWETI SIYAKTYA
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Manufacturing Sector ◽  
International Economy ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Sector Performance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Rational Decisions

Zimbabwe experienced price hyperinflation as internationally defined in the period March 2007 to January 2009. This paper addresses the issue of how this hyperinflation interacted with manufactur- ing sector performance. Interviews with a small anonymous sample of ‘survivor’ manufacturers suggest that rational decisions as responses to the internal/external structural events from 2000 induced a number of actions that tended to economize on the use of Zimbabwean dollars as the highly monetized manufacturing sector was especially exposed to monetary risks, but was also well connected with the international economy and using other currencies. Though damage to the manufacturing sector continued during the hyperinflation period it did not accelerate as might have been expected. Therefore, analytically, rational decision-making by private sector manufacturers prior to the hyperinflation may have helped protect some of them from its effects but also played a role as acause of the hyperinflation.

Effective Altruism and Transformative Experience

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Jeff Sebo ◽  
Laurie Paul
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Ex Ante ◽  
Effective Altruism

In this chapter, Jeff Sebo and L.A. Paul investigate the phenomenon of experiences that transform the experiencer, either epistemically, personally, or both. The possibility of such experiences, Sebo and Paul argue, frequently complicates the practice of rational decision-making. First, in transformative cases in which your own experience is a relevant part of the outcome to be evaluated, one cannot make well-evidenced predictions of the value of the outcome at the time of decision. Second, in cases in which one foresees that one’s preferences would change following the decision, there are issues about whether rational decision-making should be based only on one’s ex ante preferences, or should also incorporate some element of deference to foreseen future preferences. While these issues arise quite generally, Paul and Sebo suggest that they are especially pressing in the context of effective altruism.

EPISTEMIC TRANSFORMATION AND RATIONAL CHOICE

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krister Bykvist ◽  
H. Orri Stefánsson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Transformative Experience ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Cultural Paradigm ◽  
Conscious Decision ◽  
Influential Book

Most people at some point in their lives face transformative decisions that could result in experiences that are radically different from any that they have had, and that could radically change their personalities and preferences. For instance, most people make the conscious decision to either become or not become parents. In a recent but already influential book, L. A. Paul (2014) argues that transformative choices cannot be rational – or, more precisely, that they cannot be rational if one assumes what Paul sees as a cultural paradigm for rational decision-making. Paul arrives at this surprising conclusion due to her understanding of transformative experience as being both epistemically and personally transformative. An experience is epistemically transformative if it ‘teaches [a person] something she could not have learned without having that kind of experience’ (11), but it is personally transformative if it changes the person's point of view and her fundamental preferences (16).

The debate over rational decision making in evidence-based medicine: Implications for evidence-informed policy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Sheldrick ◽  
Justeen Hyde ◽  
Laurel K. Leslie ◽  
Thomas Mackie
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Evidence Based Medicine ◽  
Research Evidence ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Decision Sciences ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Based Medicine ◽  
Rational Decisions

Many of the resources developed to promote the use of evidence in policy aspire to an ideal of rational decision making, yet their basis in the decision sciences is often unclear. Tracing the historical development of evidence-informed policy to its roots in evidence-based medicine (EBM), we distinguish between two understandings of how research evidence may be applied. Advocates for EBM all seek to use research evidence to optimise clinical care. However, some proponents argue that ‘uptake' of research evidence should be direct and universal, for example through wide-scale implementation of ‘evidence-based practices'. In contrast, other conceptualisations of EBM are rooted in expected utility theory, which defines rational decisions as choices that are expected to result in the greatest benefit. Applying this theory to medical care, clinical decision-making models clearly demonstrate that rational decisions require not only a range of relevant evidence, but also expertise to inform judgments regarding the credibility of estimates and to assess fit-to-context, and stakeholder preferences and values to weigh trade-offs among competing outcomes. Using these models as exemplars, we argue that attempts to apply research evidence directly to practice or policy without consideration of expert judgement or preferences and values reflect fundamental misconceptions about the theory of rational decision making that can impede implementation. In turn, the decision sciences highlight the need to consider the role of expertise and judgment when interpreting research evidence, the role of preferences and values when applying it to specific decisions, and the practical limits imposed by the uncertainty inherent in each.<br /><br />key messages<br /><ol><li>Uncertainty is inherent to research evidence and to decision making.</li><br /><li>Rational decisions require judgment to interpret evidence and stakeholder values to apply evidence.</li><br /><li>Decisions can be sensitive to evidence, expertise, and/or preferences and values to varying degrees.</li><br /></ol>

Resource-rational decision making

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Rahul Bhui ◽  
Lucy Lai ◽  
Samuel J Gershman
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Rational Decision Making

Author reply: Empathy Does Provide Rational Support for Decisions. But Is It the Right Decision?

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz Breithaupt
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Decision ◽  
Author Reply ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Rational Support ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

This article examines the relation of empathy and rational judgment. When people observe a conflict most are quick to side with one of the parties. Once a side has been taken, empathy with that party further solidifies this choice. Hence, it will be suggested that empathy is not neutral to judgment and rational decision-making. This does not mean, however, that the one who empathizes will necessarily have made the best choice.

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