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Popular Culture Review
which one may be typically faced with a set of alternative
actions and uncertainty as to the consequences of all or some
of these actions. The problem is in deciding which action to
undertake, that is, which action is most rational relative to the
information available.
One common approach is to assign probabilities to the occurrence of
the consequences of each action, estimate utilities (welfare, happiness, etc.)
associated with each consequence, and to select as most rational the action with
the maximum expected utility. However, in many situations inadequate
information may make it impossible to assign probabilities or estimate utilities
with certainty or near certainty. The approach also takes no account of risk
aversion.
In response, weaker principles have been adopted, such as the minimax
(maximin) principle which recommends choice of the action which has, as its
worst outcome, a consequence which is better than the worst consequence of
any alternative action. The principle is often criticized as being too conservative
except in a small class of situations (zero sum games in which one’s opponents
are rational).
One of the main problems facing decision theory is that there is no
adequately accepted notion of what is involved in rational decision. Attempts
have been made to develop axioms (assumptions) which any intuitive concept of
rationality must satisfy. It seems that suggested decision criteria do not satisfy
all such axioms.
The ‘rationality of randomness’: the notion that numerical chance and
probability has stru cture outside its mathematical bounds, often associated with
intuition, rhythm, and cycles also noticed in biological contexts including fractal
theory.
Risk as an Epicurean Pleasure
As deemed by the principles of Epicurus (‘philosopher of the garden’
341-270 BC) ataraxia is the experience of soul-satisfying emotional bliss, and
is the moral goal of his philosophy. According to Epicurus, no activity
experienced is indefinitely pleasurable, otherwise one might be inspired to
dedicate every waking hour to one single task17 (Anderson, 1991). Indeed, as
Epicurus states in his eighth principal doctrine:
Ifeveiy pleasure could be intensified so that
it lasted and influenced the whole organism or
the most essential parts o f our nature,
pleasures would never differ from one another.
Anderson posits six fundamental avenues of pleasure, which following
Epicurean principles, optimizes the viability of the human species through a
rotation or ‘full’ spectrum of experience. Ataraxia is thus accomplished through