Escaping the Cycle

Abstract

Abstract I present a decision in which causal decision theory appears to violate the independence of irrelevant alternatives (IIA) and normal-form extensive-form equivalence (NEE). I show that these violations lead to exploitable behaviour and long-run poverty. These consequences appear damning, but I urge caution. This decision should lead causalists to a better understanding of what it takes for a decision between some collection of options to count as a subdecision of a decision between a larger collection of options. And with this better understanding of subdecisions in hand, causalists will not violate IIA or NEE. This decision will also teach causalists that, in sequential decisions, a rational agent may be led to make a series of choices which are causally dominated by some other sequence of choices they could have made instead. I will encourage causalists to recognize this as an intrapersonal tragedy of the commons.