Abstract

This paper uses the idea of a proxy, which figures in discussions of bounded rationality, to construct an argument for a revisionary conclusion about ideal instrumental rationality. I consider how subjective responses can figure as proxies in heuristics and develop the following argument: (1) Proxies, even if relatively easy to recognize, can sometimes be messy, prompting incomplete or cyclic preferences. (2) From the point of view of ideal instrumental rationality, it is permissible for an agent to be concerned with a proxy rather than with what it is a proxy for. And so, (3) although it is standardly assumed, as part of the prevailing conception of ideal instrumental rationality, that rational preferences are complete and acyclic, neither incomplete preferences nor cyclic preferences can be dismissed as invariably irrational from the point of view of ideal instrumental rationality.