Options and the subjective ought

Abstract

This paper argues that the problem of what options are available to an agent depends on their beliefs about the world, and therefore a theory of options should also take into account uncertainty. This leads to three criteria for a theory of options: first, if something is an available option, the agent must be able to do it; second, if something is an available option, the agent must believe that they are able to do it; and third, what options are available must depend solely on the agent’s beliefs and desires. The author proposes a theory of options called ‘Options-as-Decisions’, which states that an available option is any decision that an agent is able to make. This theory of options is able to account for cases where an agent is uncertain about their ability to perform an action, and it resolves Chisholm’s Paradox, a classic problem in decision theory. – AI-generated abstract.