THE HARSANYI-RAWLS DEBATE: POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AS DECISION THEORY UNDER UNCERTAINTY

Abstract Social decisions are often made under great uncertainty - in situations where political principles, and even standard subjective expected utility, do not apply smoothly. In the first section, we argue that the core of this problem lies in decision theory itself - it is about how to act when we do not have an adequate representation of the context of the action and of its possible consequences. Thus, we distinguish two criteria to complement decision theory under ignorance - Laplace’s principle of insufficient reason and Wald’s maximin criterion. After that, we apply this analysis ...