Can an evidentialist be risk-averse?
Hayden Wilkonson (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
GPI Working Paper No. 21-2022
Two key questions of normative decision theory are: 1) whether the probabilities relevant to decision theory are evidential or causal; and 2) whether agents should be risk-neutral, and so maximise the expected value of the outcome, or instead risk-averse (or otherwise sensitive to risk). These questions are typically thought to be independent - that our answer to one bears little on our answer to the other. But there is a surprising argument that they are not. In this paper, I show that evidential decision theory implies risk neutrality, at least in moral decision-making and at least on plausible empirical assumptions. Take any risk-aversion-accommodating decision theory, apply it using the probabilities prescribed by evidential decision theory, and every verdict of moral betterness you reach will match those of expected value theory.
Other working papers
How effective is (more) money? Randomizing unconditional cash transfer amounts in the US – Ania Jaroszewicz (University of California San Diego), Oliver P. Hauser (University of Exeter), Jon M. Jachimowicz (Harvard Business School) and Julian Jamison (University of Oxford and University of Exeter)
We randomized 5,243 Americans in poverty to receive a one-time unconditional cash transfer (UCT) of $2,000 (two months’ worth of total household income for the median participant), $500 (half a month’s income), or nothing. We measured the effects of the UCTs on participants’ financial well-being, psychological well-being, cognitive capacity, and physical health through surveys administered one week, six weeks, and 15 weeks later. While bank data show that both UCTs increased expenditures, we find no evidence that…
Minimal and Expansive Longtermism – Hilary Greaves (University of Oxford) and Christian Tarsney (Population Wellbeing Initiative, University of Texas at Austin)
The standard case for longtermism focuses on a small set of risks to the far future, and argues that in a small set of choice situations, the present marginal value of mitigating those risks is very great. But many longtermists are attracted to, and many critics of longtermism worried by, a farther-reaching form of longtermism. According to this farther-reaching form, there are many ways of improving the far future, which determine the value of our options in all or nearly all choice situations…
High risk, low reward: A challenge to the astronomical value of existential risk mitigation – David Thorstad (Global Priorities Institute, University of Oxford)
Many philosophers defend two claims: the astronomical value thesis that it is astronomically important to mitigate existential risks to humanity, and existential risk pessimism, the claim that humanity faces high levels of existential risk. It is natural to think that existential risk pessimism supports the astronomical value thesis. In this paper, I argue that precisely the opposite is true. Across a range of assumptions, existential risk pessimism significantly reduces the value of existential risk mitigation…