Stuart_Armstrong comments on Risk aversion does not explain people's betting behaviours - Less Wrong

8 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 20 August 2012 12:38PM

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Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 21 August 2012 09:43:13AM *  3 points [-]

You can also construct deontological models for any utility-based agent (the right action is always that which maximises utility). Virtue ethics is a bit hazier, but you can certainly have ethics where maximising utility is virtuous.

And when people purport to explain human behaviour on small bets through risk aversion on a utility function, they do not say "here is a two billion line utility function that encodes behaviour" but "people have utility functions concave in money".