A defense of extensionality in decision theory

This paper defends extensionality, a principle of normative rationality according to which the value of an option should not depend on the way it is represented or framed. It considers two accounts of decision-theoretic representation challenging the principle, Schick’s theory of understandings (The Journal of Philosophy, 1992) and Bermúdez’s theory of frames (Frame It Again: New Tools for Rational Decision-Making. Cambridge University Press 2020). Both contend that in certain situations of inner conflict, one may knowingly and rationally see or grasp the same option under several perspectives leading to different evaluations of the option. I argue that situations of conflicts do not constitute a convincing case against extensionality and offer an alternative model of conflict where decision-theoretic consequences are intensional properties of the option. This second model is more appealing as it treats inner conflict as an inability to weigh the consequences of the same action and is consistent with extensionality. I end the paper with a discussion of what Bermúdez calls factual propositions and defend the view that the specification of factual propositions is not evaluatively neutral for the decision-maker. This suggests that all specifications of decision problems and their consequences are value-driven.