Max Sawicky wrote, >Yeah but every theory abstracts from something. Whether >it's important or not is another way of saying whether you >dig the theory. (I've started rereading the Beats.) I can dig that. >A virtue of utilitarianism is that in its specificity it is more >compelling than utter fuzziness, the edge of which you >are skirting here. Maybe it's just my fetish for fuzzy-edged skirts showing. I agree that the specificity of utilitarianism may make it more "compelling" than utter fuzziness. What is at stake in Ellsberg's Paradox, however, is precisely what the rules are for specifying utility (under some, not all, conditions). If those rules are demonstrably wrong or incomplete then the admittedly compelling specificity of utilitarianism may be arbitrary. On the other hand, if we can specify the fuzziness (ambiguous information states), then the fuzziness may indeed turn out to be less "fuzzy" than the misplaced specificity of presumably unfuzzy utilitarianism. Or as Ellsberg put it: "(1) Certain information states can be meaningfully identified as highly ambiguous; (2) in these states, many reasonable people tend to violate the Savage axioms with respect to certain choices; (3) their behavior is deliberate and not readily reversed upon reflection; (4) certain patterns of 'violating' behavior can be distinguished and described in terms of a specified decision rule." Can you dig it? Regards, Tom Walker ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ knoW Ware Communications Vancouver, B.C., CANADA [EMAIL PROTECTED] (604) 688-8296 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The TimeWork Web: HTTP://WWW.VCN.BC.CA/TIMEWORK/
