The paper provides an brief overview of the “state of the art” in the theory of rational decision making since the 1950’s, and focuses specially on the evolutionary justification of rationality. It is claimed that this justification, and more generally the economic methodology inherited...

This paper analyses the behavior of an individual who wants to maximize his utility function, but he is not able to evaluate it. There are many ways to choose a single alternative from a given set. We show that a unique utility maximizing procedure exists. Choices induced by this optimal...

Many decision models in marketing science and psychology assume that a consumer chooses by proceeding sequentially through a checklist of desirable properties. These models are contrasted to the utility maximization model of rationality in economics. We show on the contrary that the two...

If choices depend on the decision maker's mood, is the attempt to derive any consistency in choice doomed? In this paper we argue that, even with full unpredictability of mood, the way choices from a menu relate to choices from another menu exhibits some structure. We present two alternative...

Many decision models in marketing science and psychology assume that a consumer chooses by proceeding sequentially through a checklist of desirable properties. These models are contrasted to the utility maximization model of rationality in economics. We show on the contrary that the two...

A rigorous reconstruction of scenario-based real choice making reveals the incompleteness of decision-modeling and the practical prevalence of uncertainty. Theoretically complete models conceal it. As a remedy a scenario-based procedure of coping with uncertainty can prescribe how the boundedly...

This paper analyses the behavior of an individual who wants to maximize his utility function, but he is not able to evaluate it. There are many ways to choose a single alternative from a given set. We show that a unique utility maximizing procedure exists. Choices induced by this optimal...