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NON-REASONED DECISION-MAKING

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 June 2014

Peter Stone
Peter Stone*
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin, Irelandpstone@tcd.ie
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Abstract

Human behaviour, like everything else, has causes. Most of the time, those causes can be described as reasons. Human beings perform actions because they have reasons for performing them. They are capable of surveying the options available and then selecting one based upon those reasons. But invariably occasions arise in which the reasons known to the agent fail to single out a determinate option. When reasons cannot determine the option to select on their own, the agent must resort to some form of non-reasoned decision-making (NRDM). This paper distinguishes four different forms of NRDM – picking, randomizing, deferring and judging. Each form may be appropriate under different circumstances. The paper concludes by laying out the theoretical assumptions upon which this account of NRDM rests.

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Articles
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Economics & Philosophy , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , July 2014 , pp. 195 - 214
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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