Philosophy of Science of Decision Making

SEMINAR SCHEDULE

September 12, 2025 

DON ROSS

Title: “Integrating the economics of networks with quantitative sociology”

Keywords: Agency, network models, influence propagation, information flow, game theory, utility functions

Abstract: One way of framing the general problem of unifying economic and sociological models is that economists assume agency, often to strongly idealised and empirically unrealistic degrees, while sociologists often idealise agency away. This long-observed barrier to unification is arguably too abstract to matter much (except to philosophers). When we focus specifically on network models, we see this difference again, but along with it a complementary duality that gives rise to a truly urgent scientific problem. The latest wave of sociological modelling of complex contagions (e.g., Centola 2018) has discovered, on theoretical and empirical grounds, that non-epistemic influence propagates most efficiently via clustered strong ties in peripheral sub-networks, rather than via week ties from hubs. Meanwhile, in game-theoretic models of networks, the more traditionally understood efficiency properties – formerly agreed on between sociologists and economists – endure. We can understand this as indicating fundamentally different dynamics separating influence propagation from information flow. This gives rise to a classic form of scientific conundrum. Most social change phenomena involve propagation of both influence and information. Thus outputs of network activation are net products of forces pushing in opposite directions, with structures that promote influence impeding information flow and vice-versa. Empirical adequacy thus depend on factorising theory that we don’t yet have. Here the traditional barrier to integration of sociology and economics emerges as a real practical problem: the sociological network models involve no agency, while the economic models assume immovable agency based on fixed utility functions. In this talk, I describe a new technical methodology for (i) incorporating agency into models of influence propagation, and (ii) allowing utility functions to shift under influence, while (iii) preserving the power of established game-theoretic solution concepts.

September 26, 2025 

ARMIN SCHULZ

Title:  “Agency: The Case for an Eliminative Pluralism "

 Keywords: Agency, scientific pluralism, eliminativism, economics and biology, conceptual analysis

Abstract: Concepts of agency are invoked in explanations, models, theories, and predictions in many different sciences, from evolutionary biology to computer science and economics. In order to understand and assess the work in these sciences, therefore, it is crucial to understand these appeals to “agency.” To make progress in this, this paper makes the case for three interrelated conclusions. First, the best way to understand the question about the nature of agency is as an account that lays out defensible scientific uses of the concept of agency—not a purely metaphysical-philosophical account, or a purely interpretationist account. Second, the paper seeks to show that there is not one right answer about what an agent is—that is, we should be eliminativists about the general concept of agency. Third, though, it also shows that this should not be conflated with the view that anything goes as far as agency is concerned: in specific scientific contexts, such as economics and biology, there are more and less defensible views of agency in that context. That is, we should be scientific pluralists about agency.  

October 10,2025 

CAMILLA COLOMBO

Title: "Choice automation as choice deferral: rationality and autonomy"

Keywords: Choice automation, choice deferral, decisional enhancement, cognitive offloading, intrinsic value of choice, autonomy

Abstract: “Choice deferral” is a weird beast: this umbrella term has been used in the decision theory literature to cover a wide variety of choice behaviours, from procrastination to delegation and, more recently, choice automation. In this talk, I first discuss how choice deferral can prove difficult to conceptualize and to model in standard decision theory settings; I then argue that different cases and patterns of deferral can be addressed as specific instances of choice delegation. In the second part of this talk, we will survey which could be the grounds for reasonable choice delegation: that is, when it is normatively rational to delegate your choice to your future self, to another human, to “Nature”, or to a technology. This discussion highlights that the rational justifications for choice deferral, from cognitive offloading to consistency, are far from univocal, and are often motivated by opposite desiderata and goals in our decision-making practices. I conclude that an unitary justification for rational choice deferral cannot be provided, but that different purposes and instances of choice delegation, such as automation, would require a rich and nuanced understanding of its motivations, if we strive to model normatively sound criteria for choice deferral.  

October 24, 2025

MAGDA OSMAN

Title: “Judged unconscious manipulation and free choice are not neatly associated, at least not when we look at folk beliefs”

Keywords: Free choice, unconscious, causal attributions, agency, identity

Abstract: Threats to our free choice can come to us in profound but often mundane ways. As a result we carry around intuitions about philosophical concepts such as free will, manipulation, autonomy, and causality. We use these intuitions to make practical judgements about what is and isn’t acceptable when we experience manipulation. Take microtargeting as an example. Products, services, or political voting campaigns are shown to us in ways uniquely designed to our tastes based on data collected to profile who we are (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, political interests). It almost feels like our choices are being engineered unconsciously. Is this manipulative and how concerning is this to us "folk"? To answer this the appropriate way to examine people’s judgments of free choice when under threat from manipulative tactics has to start with relatable concepts and examples from people’s own point of view. When this is done we find that people make pragmatic judgments based on context and other factors which means manipulation is not by default an automatic threat to their to free choice. 

November 7, 2025 

ALIYA RUMANA

Title: "Norm arbitration as a problem for functional analysis"

Keywords: Judgment and Decision-Making, Evaluation, Objectivism, Explanation, Functional Analysis

Abstract: Most studies in the psychology of judgment and decision-making (JDM) administer tasks, which participants can perform correctly or incorrectly. Since the 1960s and '70s, there has been significant disagreement about how to evaluate participant responses to tasks as correct or incorrect. Prima facie, this is a surprising state-of-affairs: JDM psychology aims to explain human JDM, so how has it come to be entrenched in disagreements about how to evaluate human JDM? Many think explanation and evaluation are separable activities, and disagree about whether JDM psychology may do both (e.g., Stanovich, 2011) or ought to leave evaluation to philosophy (e.g., Elqayam & Evans, 2011). In this paper, I argue that objectivism about evaluation (the view that normative properties instantiate independently of our normative commitments) implies that evaluation is partly constitutive of explanation. In particular, it implies a more sophisticated conception of functional analysis, compared to the standard account by Cummins (1983). I won't defend objectivism about evaluation, of course, but I'll argue that it provides a way to explain why JDM psychologists try so vigorously to resolve evaluative disagreements: if they are objectivists about evaluation, then they need to resolve evaluative disagreements in order to resolve explanatory ones.  

November 21, 2025 

JOSÉ L. BERMÚDEZ

Title: “On the rationality of framing”

Keywords: Framing, rationality, frame-sensitive reasoning, ultraintensionality

Abstract: coming soon 

December 5, 2025

CONRAD HEILMANN

Title: “Intrapersonal conflict resolved”

Keywords: Intrapersonal choice, weakness of will, choice over time, temporal discounting

Abstract: coming soon 

December 19, 2025 

ANGELICA KAUFMANN

Title: “An empirical approach to studying joint commitment in animals”

Keywords: Commitment, choice, non-human animals, comparative ethology

Abstract: The ability to form joint commitments has been highlighted as a crucial factor stabilizing joint actions among humans, and thereby underpinning characteristically human forms of sociality. While similar abilities in animals may shed light on the evolution of joint commitment, they remain challenging to detect unambiguously. We revisit joint commitment in non-human animals, and suggest that progress in identifying homologous or analogous abilities has been hampered by the adoption of an approach approach which builds human-specific cognitive mechanisms into the definition of joint commitment. To move forward, we propose a framework which does not presuppose characteristically human forms of cognition, communication, or awareness. The framework specifies a series of criteria, each of which can be operationalised, investigated empirically, and must be met for joint commitment to be demonstrated. Our framework is sufficiently broad to include paradigmatic cases of joint action in humans as well as cases of joint commitment in non-human animals. This will enable us to identify mechanisms which humans share with other animals, as well as to home in on uniquely human mechanisms, as well as differences across species. 

January 9, 2026 

WIM DE NEYS

Title: "The smart System 1: Advances in dual process theorizing"

Keywords: Dual process theory, System 1, System 2, intuitive vs. deliberate thought, system interaction

Abstract: coming soon 

January 23, 2026

MALVINA ONGARO

Title: “Sustainable approaches for the effective management of natural risks”

Keywords: Risk management, uncertainty, natural hazards, cost-benefit analysis, multi-criteria analysis

Abstract: coming soon 

February 6, 2026

MAGDALENA MALECKA

Title: “Heterodox economics and decision theory”

 Keywords: (coming soon)

Abstract: coming soon 

February 20, 2026

LUKAS BECK

Title: "Dispositions, representations, and social norms"

Keywords: Preferences, social norms, representation, explanation

Abstract: coming soon 

March 6, 2026 

ENRICO PETRACCA

Title: “Four shades of embodied rationality”

Keywords: Embodied rationality, ecological rationality, embodied cognition, extended cognition

Abstract: coming soon 

March 20, 2026 

MATTEO COLOMBO

Title: "Inference and association in (neuro)cognitive systems"

Keywords: Inference, association, response hypothesis, basal cognition, ecological rationality, neurocognitive systems

Abstract: coming soon