Stefan Riedener – författare

How ought you to evaluate your options if you're uncertain about what's fundamentally valuable? A prominent response is Expected Value Maximisation (EVM)—the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected value across axiologies. But the expected value of an option depends on quantitative probability and value facts, and in particular on value comparisons across axiologies. We need to explain what it is for such facts to hold. Also, EVM is by no means self-evident. We need an argument to defend that it’s true. This book introduces an axiomatic approach to answer these worries. It provides an explication of what EVM means by use of representation theorems: intertheoretic comparisons can be understood in terms of facts about which options are better than which, and mutatis mutandis for intratheoretic comparisons and axiological probabilities. And it provides a systematic argument to the effect that EVM is true: the theory can be vindicated through simple axioms. The result is a formally cogent and philosophically compelling extension of standard decision theory, and original take on the problem of axiological or normative uncertainty.

How ought you to evaluate your options if you're uncertain about what's fundamentally valuable? A prominent response is Expected Value Maximisation (EVM)—the view that under axiological uncertainty, an option is better than another if and only if it has the greater expected value across axiologies. But the expected value of an option depends on quantitative probability and value facts, and in particular on value comparisons across axiologies. We need to explain what it is for such facts to hold. Also, EVM is by no means self-evident. We need an argument to defend that it’s true. This book introduces an axiomatic approach to answer these worries. It provides an explication of what EVM means by use of representation theorems: intertheoretic comparisons can be understood in terms of facts about which options are better than which, and mutatis mutandis for intratheoretic comparisons and axiological probabilities. And it provides a systematic argument to the effect that EVM is true: the theory can be vindicated through simple axioms. The result is a formally cogent and philosophically compelling extension of standard decision theory, and original take on the problem of axiological or normative uncertainty.

Einer der ganz groen Essays der philosophischen Ethik in neuer Ubersetzung, mit Kommentar und einfuhrendem NachwortWilliams' Text diskutiert eines der faszinierendsten Probleme der Ethik: Wir bewerten uns als Handelnde oft danach, ob unser Handeln erfolgreich war auch wenn dieser Erfolg jenseits unserer Kontrolle lag. Es scheint also vom Zufall abzuhangen, ob wir mit uns in Bezug auf unser Handeln im Reinen sein konnen oder uns Vorwurfe machen mussen. Der klassische Text wird hier in Neuubersetzung mit hilfreichem Kommentar und Nachwort prasentiert. Die Reihe Great Papers Philosophie bietet:- bahnbrechende Aufsatze der Philosophie: Eine zeichengenaue, zitierfahige Wiedergabe des Textes (links das fremdsprachige Original, rechts eine neue Ubersetzung). - eine philosophiegeschichtliche Einordnung: Wie dachte man fruher uber das Problem? Welche Veranderung bewirkte der Aufsatz? Wie denkt man heute daruber?- eine Analyse des Textes bzw. eine Rekonstruktion seiner Argumentationsstruktur, gefolgt von einem Abschnitt uber den Autor sowie ein kommentiertes Literaturverzeichnis.