The Logic Of Decision

"[This book] proposes new foundations for the Bayesian principle of rational action, and goes on to develop a new logic of desirability and probabtility."—Frederic Schick, Journal of Philosophy

The four main essays in this volume investigate new sectors of the theory of decision, preference, act-characteristics, and action analysis. Herbert A. Simon applies tools developed in the theory of decision-making to the logic of action, and thereby develops a novel concept of heuristic power. Adapting ideas from utility and decision theory, Nicholas Rescher proposes a logic of preference by which conflicting theories proposed by G. H. von Wright, R. M. Chisholm, and others can be systematized. Donald Davidson discusses difficulties in specifying the structure of action sentences to elucidate how their meaning depends on that structure. G. H. von Wright devises a method for describing each "state of the world" that results from an action, in a revision of his own earlier work. Additionally, a study of the logic of norms by Alan Ross Anderson is presented as an appendix, along with an appendix by Rescher outlining the aspects of action.

Originally published in 1968. This is a critical study of the concept of ‘rule’ featuring in law, ethics and much philosophical analysis which the author uses to investigate the concept of ‘rationality’. The author indicates in what manner the modes of reasoning involved in reliance upon rules are unique and in what fashion they provide an alternative both to the modes of logico-mathematical reasoning and to the modes of scientific reasoning. This prepares the groundwork for a methodology meeting the requirements of the fields using rules such as law and ethics which could be significant for communications theory and the use of computers in normative fields. Other substantive issues related to the mainstream of legal philosophy are discussed - theories of interpretation, the notion of purpose and the requirements of principled decision-making. The book utilizes examples drawn from English and American legal decisions to suggest how the positions of legal positivism and of natural law are equally artificial and misleading.

It is not unusual for a festschrift to include offerings from several areas of study, but it is highly unusual for those areas to cross disciplinary lines. This book, in doing just that, is a testimony to Bob Abelson's impact on the disciplines of social psychology, artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and the applied areas of political psychology and decision-making. The contributors demonstrate that their association with Abelson, whether as students or colleagues, has resulted in an impressive intellectual cross-fertilization.

Explores how decision-makers can manage uncertainty that varies in both kind and severity by extending and supplementing Bayesian decision theory.

What is ‘good care’ and does more choice lead to better care? This innovative and compelling work investigates good care and argues that the often touted ideal of ‘patient choice’ will not improve healthcare in the ways hoped for by its advocates.

This text, written by a philosopher and a social psychologist, emphasizes concrete applications of decision research to problems of everyday living, as well as to business, social, and political issues. The text contains scores of interesting examples and problems for analysis, ranging from personal decisions about medical treatment to Truman's decision to use the atomic bomb. There is no other text with such a wide-ranging coverage, with so practical an orientation, with such clear descriptions of the steps to effective decision making, and with so many end-of-chapter problems for analysis and practice.

We respect Herbert A. Simon as an established leader of empirical and logical analysis in the human sciences while we happily think of him as also the loner; of course he works with many colleagues but none can match him. He has been writing fruitfully and steadily for four decades in many fields, among them psychology, logic, decision theory, economics, computer science, management, production engineering, information and control theory, operations research, confirmation theory, and we must have omitted several. With all of them, he is at once the technical scientist and the philosophical critic and analyst. When writing of decisions and actions, he is at the interface of philosophy of science, decision theory, philosophy of the specific social sciences, and inventory theory (itself, for him, at the interface of economic theory, production engineering and information theory). When writing on causality, he is at the interface of methodology, metaphysics, logic and philosophy of physics, systems theory, and so on. Not that the interdisciplinary is his orthodoxy; we are delighted that he has chosen to include in this book both his early and little-appreciated treatment of straightforward philosophy of physics - the axioms of Newtonian mechanics, and also his fine papers on pure confirmation theory.

A standard of decision is the law's designation of how certain a decisionmaker must be to render a decision. Because all decisionmaking takes place in a world of uncertainty, the law requires every legal actor before making any sort of decision to measure his or her degree of certainty against the applicable standard. Because in every corner of law the lawmakers must set standards in accordance with policy objectives, the standards prove essential to understanding any branch of law. Because those standards have an intensely practical impact on legal outcome, they merit careful study by all lawyers. Despite the subject being thus both wide-ranging and critically important, this book is the first to treat it in depth. The book first catalogs the variety of standards that exist in law. A pattern emerges, which advances in cognitive psychology nicely explain. The book then zeros in on the most conspicuous yet peculiarly distinctive of the standards of decision, which is called the standard of proof and which specifies the sureness required of a factfinder to decide that a contested fact exists. After surveying relevant empirical research and past theoretical explanations, the book constructs a new understanding by drawing on recent breakthroughs in the field of logic. Historical and comparative perspectives on the standard of proof then provide angles from which to illuminate the new understanding. In sum, this book synthesizes decades of thinking and research on standards of decision and pushes forward to elaborate and explain the subject. It does so in a way that will be useful to a broad readership among all those who study the law. "Legal decisionmaking requires judicial actors to decide cases despite inherent uncertainty Although this practice is ubiquitous, the standards for how certain a decisionmaker must be to render a decision have gone underexplored. In Standards of Decision in Law, Professor Kevin M. Clermont presents a comprehensive examination of the topic, employing empirical research, cognitive psychology, and logic to explain why certain standards are suitable to certain contexts. ...Standards of Decision in Law offers much-needed insight into the rationale behind different standards of proof, concluding that, although 'room for reform exists,' our current probabilistic standards are most appropriate given the cognitive limitations of decisionmakers (p. 282)." -- Harvard Law Review