220 | Lara Buchak on Risk and Rationality

<p>Life is rich with moments of uncertainty, where we’re not exactly sure what’s going to happen next. We often find ourselves in situations where we have to choose between different kinds of uncertainty; maybe one option is very likely to have a “pretty good” outcome, while another has some probability for “great” and some for “truly awful.” In such circumstances, what’s the rational way to choose? Is it rational to go to great lengths to avoid choices where the worst outcome is very bad? Lara Buchak argues that it is, thereby expanding and generalizing the usual rules of rational choice in conditions of risk.</p><p><em>Support Mindscape on&nbsp;</em><a href="https://www.patreon.com/seanmcarroll" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Patreon</em></a><em>.</em></p><p>Lara Buchak received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University. She is currently a professor of philosophy at Princeton. Her research interests include decision theory, social choice theory, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of religion. She was the inaugural winner of the Alvin Plantinga Prize of the American Philosophical Association. Her book&nbsp;<a href="https://bookshop.org/p/books/risk-and-rationality-lara-buchak/9821589?ean=9780198801283" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Risk and Rationality</em></a>&nbsp;proposes a new way of dealing with risk in rational-choice theory.</p><ul><li><a href="http://www.larabuchak.net/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Web site</a></li><li><a href="https://philosophy.princeton.edu/people/lara-buchak" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Princeton web page</a></li><li><a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/lara-buchak" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">PhilPeople profile</a></li><li><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=zZcrJhoAAAAJ&amp;hl=en" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Google Scholar publications</a></li></ul><p><br></p><p>See Privacy Policy at <a href="https://art19.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_bla