Department Colloquium: Adam Elga (Princeton)

Our next virtual department colloquium, featuring Adam Elga (Princeton) will take place on Friday, October 1st, from 3-5 PM on Zoom. Please take note, in particular, of the Zoom link in the details below, which will be required to attend.

Our faculty events chair, Sarah Moss, will host and facilitate the event. Sarah will explain participation procedure and etiquette for the Q+A portion during the event. If you have any questions about how to participate in this event via Zoom, just let me know. We look forward to having you there!

Department Colloquium: Adam Elga (Princeton)
Friday, October 1st, 3-5 PM

Title: "Why I Ain't Rich"

Abstract: Is it a mark of irrationality to predictably end up with less money than you could have? Some say so. Spencer and Wells (2019) and Ahmed (2021) have constructed a single-choice case in which causal decision theorists end up poorer than evidential decision theorists, despite having the same amounts of money available to them. Echoing Lewis (1981), they pose to causal decision theorists the pointed question: "Why ain'cha rich?" In reply, I describe a single-choice case in which it is the causal decision theorists who end up richer. More generally, given any graspable decision theory I give a recipe for producing a situation in which that theory is
subject to a "why ain'cha rich" accusation. So "why ain'cha rich" accusations are equally damaging to all graspable decision theories, and hence do not favor any such theory over any other.

PLEASE NOTE ZOOM PASSCODE AND LINK TO JOIN:
Zoom Link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/91518203272
Passcode: 123456