We discuss several features of coherent choice functions-where the admissible options in a decision problem are exactly those that maximize expected utility for some probability/utility pair in fixed set S of probability/utility pairs. In this paper we consider, primarily, normal form decision problems under uncertaintywhere only the probability component of S is indeterminate and utility for two privileged outcomes is determinate. Coherent choice distinguishes between each pair of sets of probabilities regardless the "shape" or "connectedness" of the sets of probabilities. We axiomatize the theory of choice functions and show these axioms are necessary for coherence. The axioms are sufficient for coherence using a set of probability/almoststate-independent utility pairs. We give sufficient conditions when a choice function satisfying our axioms is represented by a set of probability/state-independent utility pairs with a common utility.
This essay considers decision-theoretic foundations for robust Bayesian statistics. We modify the approach of Ramsey, de Finetti, Savage and Anscombe and Aumann in giving axioms for a theory of robust preferences. We establish that preferences which satisfy axioms for robust preferences can be represented by a set of expected utilities. In the presence of two axioms relating to state-independent utility, robust preferences are represented by a set of probability/utility pairs, where the utilities are almost state-independent (in a sense which we make precise). Our goal is to focus on preference alone and to extract whatever probability and/or utility information is contained in the preference relation when that is merely a partial order. This is in contrast with the usual approach to Bayesian robustness that begins with a class of "priors" or "likelihoods," and a single loss function, in order to derive preferences from these probabilityfutility assumptions.
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It is a familiar argument that advocates accommodating the so-called paradoxes of decision theory by abandoning the “independence” postulate. After all, if we grant that choice reveals preference, the anomalous choice patterns of the Allais and Ellsberg problems (reviewed in Section 3) violate postulate P2 (“sure thing”) of Savage's (1954) system. The strategy of making room for new preference patterns by relaxing independence is adopted in each of the following works: Samuelson (1950), Kahneman and Tversky's “Prospect Theory” (1979), Allais and Hagen (1979), Fishburn (1981), Chew and MacCrimmon (1979), McClennen (1983), and in closely argued essays by Machina (1982, 1983 [see the latter for an extensive bibliography]).
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