Causal Decision Theory

Abstract

Philosophers concerned with the nature of rational decision making have distinguished two paradigms for rational deliberation. According to evidential decision theory, one, should, when faced with alternative courses of action, perform an act whose performance would constitute the best possible evidence that one will, get the good outcomes and not get the bad outcomes. On this paradigm, therefore, deliberation consists in trying to figure out which of the available actions is such that performing it should cause one's beliefs to be altered in such a way that the good outcomes will be as subjectively probable as possible and the bad outcomes as subjectively improbable aspossible, given the constraints imposed by one's prior beliefs. According to causal decision theory, on the-other hand, one should be explicitly concerned with the causal relations between the available acts and the possible outcomes.