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Edmund H Durfeet - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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elements of a Utilitarian Theory of knowledge and action
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 1993Co-Authors: Piotr J Gmytrasiewicz, Edmund H DurfeetAbstract:According to the Utilitarian paradigm, an autonomous intelligent agent's interactions with the environment should be guided by the principle of expected utility maximization. We apply this paradigm to reasoning about an agent's physical actions and exploratory behavior in urgent, time-constrained situations. We model an agent's knowledge with a temporalized version of Kripke structures--as a set of branching time lines described by fluents, with accessibility relations holding among the states comprising the time lines. We describe how to compute utility based on this model which reflects the urgency that the environment imposes on time. Since the physical and exploratory actions that an agent could undertake transform the model of branching time lines in specific ways, the expected utilities of these actions can be computed, dictating rational tradeoffs among them depending on the agent's state of knowledge and the urgency of the situation.
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IJCAI - Elements of a Utilitarian Theory of knowledge and action
1993Co-Authors: Piotr J Gmytrasiewicz, Edmund H DurfeetAbstract:According to the Utilitarian paradigm, an autonomous intelligent agent's interactions with the environment should be guided by the principle of expected utility maximization. We apply this paradigm to reasoning about an agent's physical actions and exploratory behavior in urgent, time-constrained situations. We model an agent's knowledge with a temporalized version of Kripke structures--as a set of branching time lines described by fluents, with accessibility relations holding among the states comprising the time lines. We describe how to compute utility based on this model which reflects the urgency that the environment imposes on time. Since the physical and exploratory actions that an agent could undertake transform the model of branching time lines in specific ways, the expected utilities of these actions can be computed, dictating rational tradeoffs among them depending on the agent's state of knowledge and the urgency of the situation.
Ulrich Witt - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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The transformations of utility Theory: a behavioral perspective
Journal of Bioeconomics, 2016Co-Authors: Ulrich WittAbstract:The aim of this paper is threefold. First, it reappraises the major transformations which the Utilitarian approach to human behavior has undergone in economics in search for a representation by utility functions and later by preference orders. Second, in the light of today’s behavioral and human sciences, an attempt is made to restore some elements of early Utilitarianism that were abandoned in these transformations. Third, in line with the interest of the early Utilitarians in both explaining behavior and elaborating on its moral assessment, the present paper also discusses some normative implications of the suggested restoration of Utilitarian Theory.
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From Sensory to Positivist Utilitarianism and Back -- The Rehabilitation of Naturalistic Conjectures in the Theory of Demand
2005Co-Authors: Ulrich WittAbstract:Demand Theory grew out of the revision of Utilitarianism. The original, Benthamite program – based on a naturalistic, hedonic interpretation of behavior – was replaced by an abstract, subjectivist approach, a motivational mechanics. The implications – expressed exclusively in observable quantities, prices, and incomes – were developed in demand Theory. The paper discusses major steps and consequences of the revision together with more recent partial revocations and attempts at reintroducing a naturalistic interpretation. The latter can be enhanced, it is argued, by integrating the (non-Utilitarian) Theory of wants, a long-standing, but currently much neglected, source of empirical reflections on the motivations of economic behavior.
James E Crimmins - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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History of Utilitarian Social Thought
2020Co-Authors: James E CrimminsAbstract:The beginnings of Utilitarian social Theory can be traced to Greek philosophy. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it began to take on its classical form. Jeremy Bentham is usually identified as the fountainhead of the doctrine, but the contributions of Hutcheson, Hume, Beccaria, Helvetius, Godwin, and the ‘religious Utilitarians’ should also be noted. After Bentham, the Theory received its most celebrated treatment by John Stuart Mill. The article describes the essential elements of Utilitarian Theory, delineates the dissemination and development of Utilitarian ideas, explores problems of Theory and interpretation, and provides a survey of later developments. Standard Utilitarian Theory is underwritten by the following moral claims: the rightness/wrongness of an action is determined by the goodness/badness of its consequences; the only thing that is good in itself is pleasure and the only thing bad in itself is pain; and happiness/misery is constituted of the aggregation of pleasures and pains. Implicit in this ethical hedonism is the premise that the motives to action are rooted in self-interest. Based on these elements, the doctrine is then expressed in the form of the greatest happiness principle – that is, the rightness of an action is determined by its contribution to the happiness of everyone affected by it. In A Fragment on Government (1776) the legal philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) declared it “a fundamental axiom” that “it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong,” and that “the obligation to minister to general happiness, was an obligation paramount to and inclusive of every other” (Bentham, 1977: pp. 393, 440–441). In 1781, in recording a dream in which he imagined himself as the founder of a “sect”, Bentham coined the name “Utilitarian” for this Theory (Crimmins, 1990: p. 314).
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Utilitarian Social Thought, History of
2020Co-Authors: James E CrimminsAbstract:The beginnings of Utilitarian social Theory can be traced to Greek philosophy. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it began to take on its classical form. Jeremy Bentham is usually identified as the fountainhead of the doctrine, but the contributions of Hutcheson, Hume, Beccaria, Helvetius, Godwin, and the ‘religious Utilitarians’ should also be noted. After Bentham, the Theory received its most celebrated treatment by John Stuart Mill. The article describes the essential elements of Utilitarian Theory, delineates the dissemination and development of Utilitarian ideas, explores problems of Theory and interpretation, and provides a survey of later developments.
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Utilitarian Philosophy and Politics: Bentham's Later Years
2011Co-Authors: James E CrimminsAbstract:Preface \ Introduction \ 1. Philosophic Radicalism and the Westminster-Edinburgh Debate \ 2. History of the Utility Principle and 'the latest improvements' \ 3. Contra Hume \ 4. The Structure and Application of Utilitarian Theory \ 5. Republicanism \ 6. Monarchy and Representative Democracy \ 7. King of the Radicals \ Bibliography \ Index.
C. L. Sheng - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Decision-Making and Moral Actions
A New Approach to Utilitarianism, 1991Co-Authors: C. L. ShengAbstract:In this chapter I shall discuss decision-making in general and moral decision-making in particular. A study of decision-making is particularly important in the unified Utilitarian Theory, because the only difference between the decision-making for a moral action and that for a nonmoral action lies in the factor of feeling of moral satisfaction involved in the former case. This factor is one of the basic crucial points of emphasis that distinguish the unified Utilitarian Theory from other Utilitarian theories.
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The General Distribution Problem and Distributive Justice
A New Approach to Utilitarianism, 1991Co-Authors: C. L. ShengAbstract:From this chapter on I shall apply the unified Utilitarian Theory to the problem of general distribution of income and/or wealth, and shall present a Utilitarian Theory of distributive justice. By a Theory of distributive justice I mean a Theory which judges whether or not the distribution in a society is just (fair), presents a criterion (criteria) for the judgment, and gives a reason(s) why this criterion (criteria) is philosophically justified. It is essentially philosophy — a subarea of social philosophy, although it also touches on economic Theory, especially welfare economics.
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Comparisons with Other Theories
A New Approach to Utilitarianism, 1991Co-Authors: C. L. ShengAbstract:In this chapter I shall compare the unified Utilitarian Theory with other forms of Utilitarianism and, in a broader perspective, compare it with the other main-stream ethical Theory, namely deontologism, and also with the basis of libertarian social Theory, namely rights-Theory.
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Summary, Refutation of Objections, and a General View
A New Approach to Utilitarianism, 1991Co-Authors: C. L. ShengAbstract:In this chapter I shall present a summary of the unified Utilitarian Theory, refute the main objections to Utilitarianism, take a general look at the prospect of moral philosophy, and reemphasize my scientific approach to Utilitarianism, from the modern point of view of general systems Theory.
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A Particular Interpretation of Utilitarianism
A New Approach to Utilitarianism, 1991Co-Authors: C. L. ShengAbstract:In recent developments of Utilitarian Theory, emphasis has been placed on how to formulate a statement defining a right action such that a right action should always produce maximal utility. It was contended by nonUtilitarians that a prescription for a right action by act-Utilitarianism occasionally does not result in maximal utility. For instance, in some exceptional cases, such as the slave system and the punish-the-innocent problem, the prescription in accordance with the principle of utility is said, by nonUtilitarians, to be wrong because the prescription seems to them incompatible with the principle of justice. As a consequence, rule-Utilitarianism was developed as a substitute for act-Utilitarianism but, unfortunately, rule-Utilitarianism has not been satisfactory either. The assessment of rule-Utilitarianism is a very delicate and complicated problem, which I shall not discuss until Section 9.2, where a comparison will be made between the unified Utilitarian Theory and existing forms of Utilitarianism.
John C. Harsanyi - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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a preference based Theory of well being and a rule Utilitarian Theory of morality
1998Co-Authors: John C. HarsanyiAbstract:Ethics deals with two basic problems. One is what to do to have a good life from our own personal point of view, which I shall call the problem of personal wellbeing The other is what to do to have a good life from a moral point of view, which I shall call the problem of morality
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A Theory of prudential values and a rule Utilitarian Theory of morality
Social Choice and Welfare, 1995Co-Authors: John C. HarsanyiAbstract:Ethics can be divided into a Theory of prudential values and a Theory of morality in a narrower sense. My paper proposes a Utilitarian — a rule-Utilitarian — Theory of morality. But it deviates from most of the Utilitarian tradition by rejecting the hedonistic and subjectivistic accounts of prudential values favored by many Utilitarian writers. While economists tend to define people's utility levels in terms of their actual preferences, ethics must define them in terms of their informed preferences. To prefer A over B does not mean to have a stronger desire for A than for B. Rather, it means to regard one's access to A as being more important than one's access to B. Even though different people often have quite different preferences , their basic desires seem to be much the same. We must choose our moral rules, and our society's moral code as a whole, by their social utility. An important factor in determining their social utility are their expectation effects . Unlike the rule — Utilitarian more code, the act — Utilitarian moral code would be unable to give proper weight to these expectation effects. It would also unduly restrict our individual freedom . Finally, I shall argue against Kant that morality is primarily a servant of many other human values rather than itself the highest value of human life.
