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What Makes a Good Decision? Robust Satisficing as a Normative Standard of Rational Decision Making
Author(s) -
SCHWARTZ BARRY,
BENHAIM YAKOV,
DACSO CLIFF
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal for the theory of social behaviour
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.615
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1468-5914
pISSN - 0021-8308
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-5914.2010.00450.x
Subject(s) - satisficing , normative , ambiguity , expected utility hypothesis , subjective expected utility , outcome (game theory) , probabilistic logic , rationality , robustness (evolution) , economics , decision theory , computer science , mathematical economics , microeconomics , artificial intelligence , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , epistemology , political science , law , gene , programming language
Most decisions in life involve ambiguity, where probabilities can not be meaningfully specified, as much as they involve probabilistic uncertainty. In such conditions, the aspiration to utility maximization may be self‐deceptive. We propose “robust satisficing” as an alternative to utility maximizing as the normative standard for rational decision making in such circumstances. Instead of seeking to maximize the expected value, or utility, of a decision outcome, robust satisficing aims to maximize the robustness to uncertainty of a satisfactory outcome. That is, robust satisficing asks, “what is a ‘good enough’ outcome,” and then seeks the option that will produce such an outcome under the widest set of circumstances. We explore the conditions under which robust satisficing is a more appropriate norm for decision making than utility maximizing.