John C. Harsanyi, System Builder and Conceptual Innovator

John C. Harsanyi is one of the few system builders of our time. The principles of Bayesian rationality are his point of departure. They are applied to practical, ethical, and epistemological decision making. This leads to three branches of Bayesian theory: 1) Decision and game theory, concerned with “practical” decision making 2) Ethical utilitarianism, the application of Bayesian principles to moral decision making 3) Epistemological Bayesianism, the extension of Bayesian rationality to the philosophy of science.