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The U nbearable U ncertainty P aradox
Author(s) -
Roeser Sabine
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/meta.12110
Subject(s) - outcome (game theory) , economics , risk aversion (psychology) , microeconomics , advertising , mathematical economics , business , expected utility hypothesis
People can be risk seeking and risk averse, but people can also be uncertainty averse: in other words, if risk is at least the possibility of an unwanted affect, then it is not only the unwanted effect that they want to avoid, it can also be the uncertainty inherent in the possibility that they wish to avoid. This uncertainty aversion can even lead to a state where someone prefers a certain outcome at all costs, even when it is the worst case. This gives rise to the following paradox: the worst case seems to be more acceptable than the state where there is still a chance that it will not materialize. We can call this the U nbearable U ncertainty P aradox. This essay provides a first conceptual sketch of this phenomenon that seems to be widespread but nevertheless does not appear to have been identified before, either by philosophers or by psychologists.