Kaj_Sotala comments on Open Thread, June 16-30, 2013 - Less Wrong
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Since I'm used to hearing Dutch Book arguments as the primary way of defending expected utility maximization, I was intrigued to read this passage (from here):
The Wakker 2010 reference is to a book; searching it for "dutch book" gets me the footnote
And looking up assignment 3.3.6 gets
Since I don't really have the time or energy to work my way through a textbook, I thought that I'd ask people who understood decision theory better: exactly what is the issue, and how serious of a problem is this for somebody using the Dutch Book argument to argue for EU maximization?
The von Neumann-Morgenstern theorem isn't a Dutch book argument, and the primary purpose of Dutch book arguments is to defend classical probability, not expected utility maximization. von Neumann-Morgenstern also assumes classical probability. Jaynes uses Cox's theorem to defend classical probability rather than a Dutch book argument (he says something like using gambling to defend probability is uncouth).
I don't really understand what issue the first reference you cite claims exists. It doesn't seem to be what the second reference you cite is claiming.
I'm not really sure whether the parts of Wakker that I quoted are the parts that the first cite is referring, either - it could be that the first cite is talking about something completely different. That was the only part in Wakker that I could find that seemed possibly relevant, but then my search was extremely cursory, since I don't really have the time to read through a 500-page book with dense technical material.
Wouldn't this trivially go away by redenominating outcomes in utilons instead of dollars with diminishing marginal returns?
You can elicit probabilities from risk averse agents by taking the limit of arbitrarily small bets. There is an analogy with electro-magnetism, where people who want to give a positivist account of the electro-magnetic field say that it is defined by its effect on charged particles; but since the charges affect the field, one talks of an infinitesimal "test charge."