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Why Rational Agents Should Not Be Liberal Maximizers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Isaac Levi
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Extract

Hans Herzberger's 1973 essay ‘Ordinal Preference and Rational Choice’ is a classic milestone in the erosion of the idea that rational agents are maximizers of utility. By the time Herzberger wrote, many authors had replaced this claim with the thesis that rational agents are maximizers of preference. That is to say, it was assumed that at the moment of choice a rational agent has a weak ordering representing his or her preferences among the options available to the agent for choice and that the rational agent restricts choice to one of the optimal options. Such an option is an available option judged at least as good as imy other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 34: Truth and Values - Essays for Hans Herzberger , 2008 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2008

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