Nozick, Robert (1938–2002)

4. The Examined Life and The Nature of Rationality

The Examined Life, Nozick’s third book – a book about ‘living and what is important in life’ (1989: 11) – has not made much impact on the philosophical world. However, his fourth, The Nature of Rationality (1993), marks a return to issues of decision theory and rationality, and so contributes to ongoing debates within the analytic tradition.

Nozick was the first to present Newcomb’s problem to the philosophical world, and his discussion has remained a classic work in decision theory, emphasizing the distinction between evidential and causal decision theory. In The Nature of Rationality he introduces a new idea: symbolic utility. An action or decision may be symbolic – expressive of an emotion or attitude, for example – and so may have value not so much in its effects, but by its standing as a symbol. To illustrate, Nozick points out that for some people minimum wage legislation may have value as a way of symbolizing the idea of helping the poor, even if it turns out to be ineffective as a policy. Acting rationally, on Nozick’s view, is a matter of ‘maximizing decision-value’, which is a weighted sum of causal, evidential and symbolic utility (see Decision and game theory).