The Foundations of Causal Decision Theory

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Apr 13, 1999 - Computers - 268 pages
This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utitlity theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a "representation theorem" that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. In providing the most complete and robust defense of causal decision theory the book will be of interest to a broad range of readers in philosophy, economics, psychology, mathematics, and artificial intelligence.

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Contents

Decision Problems
7
Savages Theory
78
Causal Decision Theory
146
39
171
48
177
A General Theory of Conditional Beliefs
181
52
217
A Representation Theorem for Causal
224
Where Things Stand
252
References
258
57
265
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