Making Value-Laden Decisions Under Conflict
Optimal decision-making is, prima facie, the first preference of any agent tasked
with making choices. But if the demand for optimality requires the decision problem
to be modified in an arbitrary and possibly objectionable way, then the effort to
obtain an optimal solution may be misplaced. An alternative is to formulate
satisficing decisions based upon local, rather than global, performance criteria.
Epistemic utility theory provides a criteria-based satisficing decision-making procedure.
An essential component of this theory is the notion that agents often make value-laden
decisions, and that the informational value of decisions may be made, based not only
on their credibility, but also on the value ascribed to them.