Machina and Raiffa on the independence axiom

✍ Scribed by Jordan Howard Sobel

• Book ID: 104736906
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 761 KB
• Volume: 56
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0031-8116
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00354368

✦ Synopsis

Mark Machina has opposed the independence axiom, and "the argument for the 'rationality' of this prescription," by what he feels is "the strongest c0unterargument." (Machina, pp. 166 and 172. References, unless otherwise indicated, are to this paper.) In what follows, Machina's statement of that axiom, and this argument, Howard Raiffa's argument, for it, are presented. Next comes Machina's counterargument. This counterargument is criticized and judged to be not very strong. 1 Finally, the argument for the axiom is examined and held to be, under cover of certain ambiguities, question-begging at best.