Steve Ellis

My research has always examined both human action and social scientific accounts of human action from a philosophical perspective. I am concerned with both normative and descriptive accounts. I have focused, in particular, on philosophical issues in decision theory.  Most of my work has focused on a set of relatively neglected desire/preference/utility issues: people have a number of irreducible objectives; sometimes they act with only one of those objectives in mind; at other times they pursue a number of ends at the same time.  Standard decision-theoretic accounts assume that each person chooses in accordance with a single preference ranking/utility function that univocally orders possible outcomes.  The failure of standard accounts to address multiple objectives raises two issues that have been foci of my research: (1) How do we account for the fact that people act on different subsets of their objectives at different times? (2) Is it possible to form a univocal, all-of-those-things-considered preference ranking from the consideration of many different objectives?  If so, how? (1) is obviously a descriptive question; (2) is normative. My Ph.D. student, Dr. Ziming Song, wrote a dissertation arguing that⁠—where issue (2) has been handled⁠—decision theory is best understood as a logic of evaluation and action.

The problems posed by multiple objectives and some of their implications are laid out in some detail in my paper “Multiple Objectives: A Neglected Problem in the Theory of Human Action” (Synthese 153:2 [November 2006]: 313-338).  To explain the fact that people act on different objectives at different times, I propose that people selectively attend to different objectives (i.e., they understand their situations in different ways) in different situations (see my “Market Hegemony and Economic Theory,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28:4 [December 2008]: 513-532 and an article I co-authored with Grant Hayden, “Law and Economics After Behavioral Economics,” University of Kansas Law Review, 55:3 [April 2007]: 629-675).  I examine some of the normative implications of this proposal in my paper “The Varieties of Instrumental Rationality” (Southern Journal of Philosophy 46:2 [2008]: 199-220).  This view has important implications for normative economics.  Standard economic theory assigns a dual role to a person’s preferences: in positive economics they help determine behavior; in normative economics they are the criteria for welfare.  If situation-specific preferences (i.e., the ones that determine behavior) only reflect some of a person’s objectives, however, then it is highly unlikely that satisfying them will enhance her welfare.  I develop, along with Grant Hayden, this criticism in “The Cult of Efficiency in Corporate Law,” Virginia Law and Business Review 5:2 (Fall 2010): 239-265. I apply the criticism in “Reading Post on ‘Valuation in the Anthropocene: Exploring options for alternative operations of the Glen Canyon Dam’,” on the Inhabiting the Anthropocene blog (January 11, 2017).

The concern that it might be impossible to go from many irreducible objectives to a univocal, all-of-those-things-considered assessment of outcomes stems from worries about value-incommensurability.  I try to defang this concern in my article “The Main Argument for Value Incommensurability (and Why It Fails)” (Southern Journal of Philosophy 46:1 [2008]: 27-43).  My working paper “Prioritizing Multiple Objectives: Feeling Our Way” spells out my positive account of how people form many-things-considered evaluations.  Briefly, I think people can (and should) form many-things-considered assessments by weighting and combining the one-thing-considered assessments provided by their different objectives.  (Formally, this involves calibrating preference intervals across different one-thing-considered rankings.)  Priority weights are derived from experience and are constrained by how people feel when they act on different sets of priorities.  Essentially, priority schemes are ‘falsified’ when they lead to bad feelings.

While working on issues of decision theory, I became interested in the use of local Economic Development Incentives (EDI) as an example. The practice of offering EDI is a nice case of (apparent) instrumental rationality. This line of applied work has led to a number of co-authored papers:

• “Local Economic Development as a Game: The Role of Business Climate,” (with C. Rogers) Review of Regional Studies 30:3 (Winter 2000): 315-330;
• “Economic Development Incentives: Traps and Accountability,” (with C. Rogers and G. Hayden) in Regional Economic Development Compared: EU-Europe and the American South, ed. G. Bischof, Innsbruck UP: Innsbruck, Austria. 2014;
• “Accountability for Economic Development Incentives: The Case for a Procedural Duty of Care,” (with G. Hayden and C. Rogers) Arizona Law Review 56:4 (Winter 2014): 953-76;
• “Economic Development Incentives and Income Inequality” (with J. Wang and C. Rogers) Review of Regional Studies, 48:1 (Spring 2018): 93-117.

I am currently working on 4 projects:

1. a paper (w/ Dr. Cynthia Rogers) on Tax Increment Financing and School Finance in Oklahoma;
2. a critical reasoning textbook/trade book (w/ Dr. Guy Crain) that focuses on evidence from the behavioral sciences;
3. a manuscript analyzing various normative justifications for free market structures;
4. a monograph (w/ Dr. Ziming Song) on how Decision Theory serves as a Logic of Evaluation/Choice (basically, this is developing a thread from Dr. Song’s dissertation for my use).