PhilGoetz comments on Morality is not about willpower - Less Wrong

9 Post author: PhilGoetz 08 October 2011 01:33AM

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Comment author: PhilGoetz 22 October 2011 03:00:14AM 0 points [-]

Also, prospect theory is a utility theory. You compute a utility for each possible outcome associated with each action, add them up to compute the utility for each action, then choose the action with the highest utility. This is using a utility function. It is a special kind of utility function, where the utility for each possible outcome is calculated relative to some reference level of utility. But it's still a utility function.

Every time someone thinks they have a knockdown argument against the use of utility functions, I find they have a knockdown argument against some special simple subclass of utility functions.