Risky business: Evolutionary theory and human attitudes toward risk - A reply to Okasha

Journal of Philosophy

Volumn 105, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 156-165

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EID: 60949665333     PISSN: 0022362X     EISSN: 19398549     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/jphil200810533     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. Okasha, "Rational Choice, Risk Aversion, and Evolution, " this JOURNAL, CIV, 5 (May 2007): 217-35.
2. In what follows below, it is easiest to understand "payoff" asmoney. However, other interpretations are possible, as long as the payouts arenot directly in utility terms (the last would trivialize the issue). For similardefinitions of the attitudes toward risk, see Andreu Mas-Colell, Michael Whinston, and Jerry Green, Microeconomic Theory (New York: Oxford, 1995).
3. For an example of a social scientific explanation of risk-aversion, see Olivier Mahul, "The Output Decision of a Risk-Neutral Producer under Riskof Liquidation, " American Journal of Agricultural Economics, LXXXII, 1(2000): 49-58.
4. See, for example, Matthew Rabin, "Risk-Aversion and Expected Utility Theory, " Econometrica, LXVIII, 5 (2000): 1281-92;
5. Rabin and Richard H. Thaler, "Risk Aversion, " The Journalof Economic Perspectives, XV, 1 (2001): 219-32.
6. For further discussion, see also Martin M. Monti, Simon Grant, and Daniel N. Osherson, "A Note on Concave Utility Functions, " Mind and Society, IV (2005): 85-96.
7. For more on the concept of fitness in evolutionary biology, see Elliott Sober, "The Two Faces of Fitness, " in Rama Singh, Diane Paul, Costas Krimbas, and John Beatty, eds., Thinking about Evolution: Historical, Philosophical, and Political Perspectives (New York: Cambridge, 2001), pp.309-21.
8. See Gillespie, "Natural Selection for Variances in Offspring Number:A New Evolutionary Principle, " American Naturalist, CXI (1977): 1010-14, and Okasha, p. 228.
9. This nonmonotonicity has been subject of much speculation in the economicliterature ever since Milton Friedman and Leonard Savage's and Daniel Kahnemanand Amos Tversky's classic pieces-see Friedman and Savage, "The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk, " Journal of Political Economy, LVI, 4(1948): 279-304;
10. Kahneman and Tversky, "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decisionunder Risk, " Econometrica, XLVII, 2 (1979): 263-91.
11. More recent discussions of these issues are Roger Hartley and Lisa Farrell, "Can Expected Utility Theory Explain Gambling?, " The American Economic Review, XCII, 3 (2002): 613-24;
12. Joseph G. Eisenhauer, "How Prevalent Are Friedman-Savage Utility Functions?, " Briefing Notes in Economics, LXVI (2005): 1-9;
13. Robert M. Wiseman and Luis R. Gomez-Mejia, "A Behavioral Agency Model of Managerial Risk Taking, " The Academy of Management Review, XXIII, 1 (1998): 133-53.
14. The economics of the insurance-industry are complex-the above is just anillustration for expository purposes. For a good introduction to this issue, see Georges Dionne and Scott E. Harrington, eds., Foundations of Insurance Economics: Readings in Economics and Finance (New York: Kluwer, 1992).
15. For example, this is what drives the model in Eddie Dekel and Suzanne Scotchmer, "On the Evolution of Attitudes towards Risk in Winner-Take-All Games, " The Journal of Economic Theory, LXXXVII (1999): 125-43.