Practical Irrationality and the Structure of Decision Theory

Abstract Any theory of practical irrationality necessarily imposes a division of labour between an account of the agent's intentional states and how these are formed, and an account of how these intentional states get applied in particular circumstances to choose a particular action. Nevertheless, questions that concern the content of the agent's beliefs and desires are still routinely lumped together with questions that deal with the way the agent chooses in the light of these beliefs and desires. This generates a number of pseudoproblems. Seeks to clarify some of them, by considering the internal structure of decision theory.