A Qualitative Linear Utility Theory for Spohn's Theory of Epistemic Beliefs

Abstract

In this paper, we formulate a qualitative "linear" utility theory for lotteries in which uncertainty is expressed qualitatively using a Spohnian disbelief function. We argue that a rational decision maker facing an uncertain decision problem in which the uncertainty is expressed qualitatively should behave so as to maximize "qualitative expected utility." Our axiomatization of the qualitative utility is similar to the axiomatization developed by von Neumann and Morgenstern for probabilistic lotteries. We compare our results with other recent results in qualitative decision making.

Appears in Proceedings of the Sixteenth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI2000)

References in corpus (2)

• Arguing for Decisions: A Qualitative Model of Decision Making
• An Order of Magnitude Calculus

Cited by in corpus (4)

• A Comparison of Axiomatic Approaches to Qualitative Decision Making Using Possibility Theory
• Qualitative MDPs and POMDPs: An Order-Of-Magnitude Approximation
• Statistical Decisions Using Likelihood Information Without Prior Probabilities
• Axiomatic Foundations for a Class of Generalized Expected Utility: Algebraic Expected Utility