Theory of Value Structure: From Values to Decisions

Description

The theory of value structure concerns the meaning of “better than” and “good,” as well as the way in which values serve as a basis for rational decision making. Drawing methodologically from economics and theories of decision making, the aim of serious axiology in metaethics is to do justice to problems that have puzzled philosophers of value for centuries. Can value comparisons be cyclic? Are all values comparable with each other and can decision makers just add up different aspects of an evaluation to determine the best course of action? A Theory of Value Structure: From Values to Decisions starts with a thorough introduction to the modeling of “better than” comparisons from a normative perspective. In the philosophical part of the book, Erich H. Rast argues that aspects of “better than” comparisons can differ qualitatively so much that one aspect may outrank another. Consequently, the classical weighted sum aggregation model fails. Values cannot always be summed up and comparisons may be fundamentally noncompensatory, an indeterminacy that explains problems like the apparent nontransitivity of “better than” and hard cases in decision making. Using a lexicographic method of value comparisons, Rast develops a multidimensional theory of “better than” and shows how and to which extent it can be combined with standard methods of decision making under uncertainty by using rank-dependent utility theory. Theory of Value Structure Contents Preface I Preliminaries 1 Basic Monist Value Structure 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Comparative Forms 1.3 Representation by Preorders 1.4 Incommensurability and Partial Orderings 2 Relaxing Requirements 2.1 Nontransitive Value Equality and Equipreference 2.2 Partial Semiorders 2.3 Weak Eligibility 2.4 Strong Eligibility 2.5 What Consistency Requirements Are Needed? 3 Utility Functions 3.1 A Historical Remark 3.2 Representation of the Standard Model 3.3 Representations for All Models 3.4 Ordinal Versus Cardinal Utilities 4 The Complexity of Value 4.1 Positive, Comparative, Superlative 4.2 Good in Terms of Better Than 4.3 Satisficing 4.4 How Context-Sensitive Are Values? 5 Multidimensional Value 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Additive Value Aggregation 5.3 Other Forms of Utility Aggregation 5.4 Value Aggregation and Social Choice 5.5 The Most General Aggregation Method? II Philosophy of Value Structure 6 Problems of Value Analysis 6.1 The Good as a Primitive 6.2 The Paradox of Analysis 6.3 A Fregean Solution 6.4 The Connection to Meaning and Value Metaphysics 7 Parity 7.1 Motivation and Key Properties 7.2 Using Interval Orders 7.3 Modeling Parity by Sets of Relations 7.4 Trichotomic Parity 7.5 Comparison 8 Spectrum Cases 8.1 Typical Scenarios 8.2 Ways to Preserve Transitivity 8.3 Why a Lexicographic Approach? 9 A Theory of Betterness 9.1 Overview 9.2 Formalization for Ordinal Value 9.3 The Aggregation Problem 9.4 Explaining the Puzzles 9.5 Towards a General Axiology 10 Risk 10.1 Risk versus Uncertainty 10.2 Basic Notions 10.3 Expected Value 10.4 Choquet Expected Utility 10.5 On the Rationality of Risk Attitudes 10.6 Limitations Notes Index Bibliography About the Author