PHIL 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Fair Coin, Fallacy, Decision Matrix
Document Summary
Decisions under certainty are those we make when each action is associated with only 1 state of affairs. (insofar as we can predict the future at all. ) You choose between taking the bus or taking the skytrain. If you decide to take the bus, you will take get to sfu about. 5:15; if you decide to take the skytrain, you will get to sfu about 5:25. (even though unforeseen states of affairs breakdown, weather - may mean you might not be able to take one. ) The probability associated with the state of affairs relevant to an action is almost: hence we don"t need to calculate it. Rule: choose the action with the highest utility. Utilities can be ordered under rank highest through lowest. We don"t need to assign units of utility since no mathematical operations are required. However, assigning and comparing utilities may be difficult.
