Abstract
It is plausible that Newcomb problems in which causal maximizers and evidential maximizers would do different things would not be possible for ideal maximizers who are attentive to metatickles. An objection to Eells's first argument for this makes welcome a second. Against it I argue that even ideal evidential and causal maximizers would do different things in some non-dominance Newcomb problems; and that they would hope for different things in some third-person and non-action problems, which is relevant if a good theory of rational choices of acts should fit smoothly into a good theory of rational desires for facts.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Campbell, R.: 1985, ‘Review Article: Rational Decision and Causality’, Dalhousie Review 608–16.
Eells, E.: 1981, ‘Causality, Utility, and Decision’, Synthese 48, 295–329.
Eells, E.: 1984, ‘Metatickles and the Dynamics of Deliberation’, Theory and Decision 17, 71–95.
Eells, E.: 1985, ‘Causal Decision Theory’, PSA 1984, 2, 177–200.
Eells, E.: 1985a, ‘Causality, Decision, and Newcomb's Paradox’, in R. Campbell and L. Sowden (eds.), Rationality, Cooperation, and Paradox: The Prisoner's Dilemma and Newcomb's Problem, University of British Columbia Press, pp. 183–213.
Eells, E.: 1985b, ‘Reply to Jackson and Pargetter’, in Campbell and Sowden, pp. 219–23.
Eells, E.: 1987, ‘Learning with Detachment: Reply to Maher’, Theory and Decision 22, 173–80.
Eells, E.: 1989, ‘The Popcorn Problem: Sobel on Evidential Decision Theory and Deliberation-Probability Dynamics’, Synthese 81, 9–20.
Eells, E.: 1989, ‘Comments on Jordan Howard Sobel's ‘Non-Dominance and Third-Person Newcomblike Problems’’, unpublished comments delivered April 28, 1989, at APA Meetings in Chicago.
Eells, E. and E. Sober: 1986, ‘Common Causes and Decision Theory’, Philosophy of Science 53, 223–45.
Gibbard, A. and W. L. Harper: 1978, ‘Two Kinds of Expected Utility’, in C. Hooker et al. (eds.), Foundations and Applications of Decision Theory, vol. 1, Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 125–62. (“Reprinted with abridgment” in Campbell and Sowden 1985. Reprinted with corrections in 1988: Decision, Probability, and Utility: Selected Readings, eds. Peter Gärdenfors and Nils-Eric Sahlin, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, “Czeslaw Porebski pointed out to us a number of errors in previously published versions’.)
Horwich, P.: 1985, ‘Decision Theory in Light of Newcomb's Problem’, Philosophy of Science 52, 431–50.
Jackson, F. and R. Pargetter: 1983, ‘Where the Tickle Defense Goes Wrong’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 61, 295–99. (Reprinted with a postscript on ‘meta-tickles’ in Campbell and Sowden 1985.)
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1965, ‘New Foundations for Bayesian Decision Theory’, in Y. Bar-Hillel (ed.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science: Proceedings of the 1964 International Congress, North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam, pp. 289–300.
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1965a, The Logic of Decision, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York.
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1981, ‘The Logic of Decision Defended’, Synthese 48, 473–92.
Jeffrey, R. C.: 1983, The Logic of Decision, second ed. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Lewis, D.: 1981, ‘Causal Decision Theory’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 59, 5–30 (reprinted in Gärdenfors and Sahlin, Cambridge, 1988).
Piller, C.: ‘The Role of Reasons for Action in Reasoning about Action: How Evidential Decision Theory Founders on Newcomb's Problem’, Proceedings of Foundations of Utility and Risk IV, forthcoming.
Price, H.: 1986, ‘Against Causal Decision Theory’, Synthese 67, 195–212.
Skyrms, B.: 1980, Causal Necessity: A Pragmatic Investigation of the Necessity of Laws, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Skyrms, B.: 1982, ‘Causal Decision Theory’, The Journal of Philosophy 79, 695–711.
Sobel, J. H.: 1985, ‘Circumstances and Dominance in a Causal Decision Theory’, Synthese 63, 167–202.
Sobel, J. H.: 1986, ‘Notes on Decision Theory: Old Wine in New Bottles’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 64, 407–37.
Sobel, J. H.: 1988, ‘Defenses and Conservative Revisions of Evidential Decision Theories: Metatickles and Ratificationism’, Synthese 75, 107–31.
Sobel, J. H.: 1989, ‘Partition-Theorems for Causal Decision Theories’, Philosophy of Science 56, 70–93.
Sobel, J. H.: forthcoming, ‘Newcomblike Problems’, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume 5: Philosophy of the Sciences, University of Notre Dame Press, Notre Dame, Indiana.
Talbott, W. J.: 1987, ‘Standard and Non-standard Newcomb Problems’, Synthese 70, 415–58.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
This paper elaborates on Section V of Sobel. forthcoming.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sobel, J.H. Non-dominance, third person and non-action Newcomb problems, and metatickles. Synthese 86, 143–172 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00485805
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00485805