Modeling Decisions: Are Integrated Assessment Models Models?
Mathias Frisch
13 November 2025
In this talk I will use a debate between advocates of an optimization approach and of a target-based approach to climate policy as a motivation to examine the status of expected utility theory both within the framework of social choice theory and of individual decision theory. Some economists argue that the social welfare function by definition offers an all-encompassing measure of all normative considerations relevant to social welfare. Similarly, some philosophers argue that an individual’s values simply are preferences over prospects in expected utility theory. I will argue against these views by appealing to lessons about the nature of models we learned from Nancy Cartwright and Wendy Parker, among others.
