P Square Temptation Instrumental Download

[Phebe Aherns]

While this argument has faced much criticism, there has been no agreement on what exactly is wrong with it. There are two common responses. On the one hand, there are those who think that, while agents with non-separable preferences will act in the allegedly instrumentally irrational ways, that choice behaviour is not actually irrational, because better courses of action are simply not available to those agents. This is the stance taken, for instance, by Seidenfeld (1988, 1994). On the other hand, there are those who agree that the alleged choice behaviour of agents with non-separable preferences is instrumentally irrational, but who think that those agents need not act in the alleged way, and could avoid instrumental irrationality without giving up their non-separable preferences. This is the argument made, for instance, by McClennen (1990). We are thus left with a kind of stalemate that implies that the jury is still out on the original argument: The success of the original argument depends on it both being the case that agents with non-separable preferences act in the alleged way, and that this is instrumentally irrational. There is in fact considerable support for each key ingredient of the argument, even amongst its critics.Footnote 1

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What turns out to be the crucial question for the success of the dynamic choice argument for separability is this: Are attitudes to uncertain prospects part of the standard of instrumental rationality, or do only attitudes to the possible outcomes of my actions count? In the first case, my attitudes to prospects assign non-instrumental value to prospects in their own right. That is, uncertain prospects are amongst the ends I want to achieve, and not mere means for achieving outcomes I like. In the second case, prospects are seen as having mere instrumental value, as being mere means for achieving desirable outcomes.

Is separability a requirement of instrumental rationality? The next section introduces a famous apparent counter-example to expected utility theory that puts separability into question. We then consider what I take to be the most powerful defence of separability as a requirement of instrumental rationality.

One way of reconciling these preferences with expected utility theory may be to argue that the outcomes are under-described by merely the money amounts that the agent will win following some draw of the lottery. Perhaps, for instance, the agent cares about avoiding regret or disappointment, and this should be reflected in the description of the outcomes.Footnote 5 However, re-describing the outcomes to take account of disappointment and regret arguably cannot do away with the violation of separability in the Allais Paradox. Weber (1998) provides an extensive argument to that effect. In any case, even if these attitudes could explain why most people have Allais preferences, we can still conceive of an agent who cares about nothing but money in her evaluation of outcomes, and who still has the Allais preferences. Expected utility theory would declare such an agent irrational. But it is at least not immediately obvious that such an agent would be instrumentally irrational.

What can we say in favour of separability to such an agent, then? It has been pointed out, most notably by Hammond (1988), that agents with Allais preferences, or indeed any agents who violate separability, are prone to making choices in dynamic settings that leave them somehow worse off by their own lights, or otherwise prone to behaving in a way that is instrumentally criticizable. This may happen in choice settings where choices are made consecutively as uncertainty is gradually resolved. In such settings, sub-prospects that the sure-thing principle would require to be separable can be de facto separated in the dynamic structure of the decision problems, as agents decide about different sub-prospects gradually over time. And, for agents who violate separability, this can lead to patterns of choice that the agent can allegedly be instrumentally criticized for.

The second account of what is instrumentally irrational about Frieda points out that, if we give Frieda the chance to make a costly pre-commitment to act in accordance with her Allais preferences, she will take it, and thereby run a sure loss.Footnote 6 I will argue that this is in fact the more promising strategy for establishing that Frieda is instrumentally irrational. However, the notion of the standard of instrumental rationality it commits us to also implies that Frieda could have rationally avoided running a sure loss while keeping her non-separable preferences.

As we have seen, for Frieda the dynamic structure of the decision problem clearly makes a difference to what she will choose. If Frieda were able to make a choice and stick to it before any of the uncertainty is resolved, she would choose in accordance with her Allais preferences. But in the second dynamic choice problem, the prospect she ends up with is not endorsed by her Allais preferences. For instrumentally rational agents, we might think, the dynamic structure of a decision problem should not make a difference in this way.

State-wise dominance seems like a fairly uncontroversial requirement of instrumental rationality. However, we cannot justify even this principle if we take attitudes to prospects to be part of the standard of instrumental rationality, as open prospects and initial prospects do. Suppose, for instance, that I have a strong desire for secure prospects. This desire is satisfied whenever I choose a prospect that leads to the same outcome in every state of the world. If I have such a desire, that desire is strong enough, and we take it to be part of the standard of instrumental rationality, instrumental rationality does not prohibit me from violating state-wise dominance. I may prefer a safe prospect that leads to a worse outcome no matter what happens, because at least I know in advance what to expect.

To start with an example of the first strategy, that it is part of a certain prospect also seems to be a feature of each of the outcomes of a certain prospect. My desire for certain prospects may then be fully accounted for by my preferences over outcomes thus described. And then we can justify state-wise dominance instrumentally after all, as well as perhaps other principles, such as separability. Similarly, that it was obtained by means of a lottery that gave my friends chances of unequal amounts of candy could be thought of as a feature of the outcome where my left-hand friend receives candy. And then perhaps my desire for equality could be accounted for by my preferences over outcomes.

We have found, thus, that if we want to justify even the most uncontroversial principle of choice under uncertainty instrumentally, we have to allow only for attitudes to outcomes to form part of the standard of instrumental rationality, rather than also for attitudes to prospects. But if that is so, neither of the two principles Hammond uses to derive a requirement to have separable preferences comes out as a straightforward principle of instrumental rationality. We are hence in need of a different defence of separability. In the following, I argue that a better version of the dynamic choice argument in favour of separability points out that agents with non-separable preferences may end up violating state-wise dominance over time.

I therefore think that, provided outcomes only is defensible, this is a convincing argument showing that something is wrong with Frieda: She chooses a course of action over time that is strictly worse with respect to her preferences over outcomes than another available course of action. And she could have avoided this without acting in a way that is itself instrumentally criticizable. Her course of action over time is thus clearly instrumentally deficient. Does this mean she is instrumentally required to adopt separable preferences instead, as the dynamic arguments intended to show? Unfortunately, this is not so, given outcomes only. As we have just seen, according to this standard, she is not required to be sophisticated, and can avoid instrumental irrationality by failing to be sophisticated instead.

Expected utility theory is often treated as the correct theory of instrumental rationality under uncertainty. When defending proposed principles of rationality as requirements of instrumental rationality, we usually try to show that agents will do badly by their own lights if they violate the principle. In the case of the core requirement of expected utility theory, separability, too, such instrumentalist arguments have been made. My discussion here showed that, to evaluate them, we have to be more explicit about the basis of our instrumentalist argument. When we note that an agent does badly by her own lights, which of her attitudes are we appealing to? That is, what are we treating to be the standard of instrumental rationality?

During the first years simply The SQUARE was printed on the frontsides of their albums. After the renaming of the band to T-Square the imprint changed to T-SQUARE (all in Capital letters) and their typical logo became a capital letter T printed over a red square. During the years with the changing names of the band the logo got modified several times, reflecting the changing band names such as T-Square alpha (where an α sign got added to the logo), T-Square plus (where the text "plus" was added centered next to the T in smaller letters).[3]

On February 1, 2021, Masahiro Andoh announced that he would leave T-Square after releasing upcoming album and completing their 2021 tour, wishing to continue activities as a solo guitarist.[35][36] Once again, without Masahiro Andoh on guitar, the other T-Square members announced they would form T-Square Alpha, and months later, it was announced that guitarist Yuma Hara would take Andoh's spot.[37] T-Square released the album FLY! FLY! FLY! in April 2021,[38] which was awarded the Golden Disc Award 2022 for the instrumental album of the year by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ).[39]

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