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Stefan Riedener, Uncertain Values: An Axiomatic Approach to Axiological Uncertainty, De Gruyter, 2021, 167pp., $16.99 (pbk), ISBN 9783110739572.
Reviewed by Johan E. Gustafsson, University of Texas at Austin, University of York
Stefan Riedener’s book is concerned with axiological uncertainty—that is, the problem of how to evaluate prospects given uncertainty about what the correct axiology is. For evaluations of this kind of meta value, Riedener uses the term ‘m-value’ (3). The main goal of the book is to provide an axiomatic argument for Expected Value Maximization, which is the view that an option x has an at least as great m-value as an option y if and only if x has a greater expected value than y, where the expected value of an option is a sum of the value of the option on each axiology weighted by one’s credence in the axiology (5).
Riedener’s argument (ch. 2–3) takes the form of a representation theorem, modelled after…
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