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How Not to Characterise a Hard Choice
Author(s) -
Reuter Kevin,
Messerli Michael
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
ratio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 29
eISSN - 1467-9329
pISSN - 0034-0006
DOI - 10.1111/rati.12169
Subject(s) - transitive relation , representativeness heuristic , argumentative , epistemology , order (exchange) , computer science , psychology , economics , social psychology , philosophy , mathematics , finance , combinatorics
People are often faced with so called hard choices – also known as hard cases of comparison. In trying to characterize these hard choices, philosophers have made two central claims. First, failure of transitivity underlies hard cases of comparison. Second, using a random procedure is considered inappropriate in order to arrive at a decision in hard cases. While having some argumentative support, both claims primarily rely on expert intuitions. The results of the experiments we present in this paper challenge both claims, as well as the representativeness of expert intuitions that support these claims, by showing that most people (i) violate transitivity only if a hard choice is important, and (ii) find it appropriate to use a random procedure even in hard cases of comparison.[Note 1. This work is fully collaborative. We would like to ...]