Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 25 minutes ago
Recorded as part of the CFvW Colloquium on July 9, 2025
Predictions and politics: communicative rationality in prediction-allocation problems - Sebastian Zezulka (University of Tübingen)
Abstract:
In prediction-allocation problems, predictions are used to allocate social goods. Standard methodology recommends factoring these problems into two stages: first, individual outcomes are predicted as accurately as possible; second, allocations are made based on these predictions. But when predictions inform allocation, they causally influence outcomes. The “performative” nature of these predictions entangles epistemic and pragmatic considerations, making notions of accuracy ambiguous. Two families of responses propose to correct the standard procedure. Emphasizing the epistemic, endogenization recommends making predictions that tend to make themselves true. Pragmatic encroachment recommends making the predictions with the best distributive consequences. We argue that both responses are misguided. The former undermines the normative goals of allocation. The latter, despite being instrumentally rational, has a distorting effect on communication. When predictions are expressions of substantive normative commitments, they cannot help resolving normative disputes among policymakers and street-level bureaucrats. That is, they are not communicatively rational. We argue that one does not have to trade off instrumental and communicative rationality and introduce two criteria of adequacy for predictions: they should be decision- and discourse-supportive. These criteria can be met by predicting counterfactual outcomes.
Joint work with Konstantin Genin (Uni Tübingen).
Recorded as part of the CFvW Colloquium on July 9, 2025
Predictions and politics: communicative rationality in prediction-allocation problems - Sebastian Zezulka (University of Tübingen)
Abstract:
In prediction-allocation problems, predictions are used to allocate social goods. Standard methodology recommends factoring these problems into two stages: first, individual outcomes are predicted as accurately as possible; second, allocations are made based on these predictions. But when predictions inform allocation, they causally influence outcomes. The “performative” nature of these predictions entangles epistemic and pragmatic considerations, making notions of accuracy ambiguous. Two families of responses propose to correct the standard procedure. Emphasizing the epistemic, endogenization recommends making predictions that tend to make themselves true. Pragmatic encroachment recommends making the predictions with the best distributive consequences. We argue that both responses are misguided. The former undermines the normative goals of allocation. The latter, despite being instrumentally rational, has a distorting effect on communication. When predictions are expressions of substantive normative commitments, they cannot help resolving normative disputes among policymakers and street-level bureaucrats. That is, they are not communicatively rational. We argue that one does not have to trade off instrumental and communicative rationality and introduce two criteria of adequacy for predictions: they should be decision- and discourse-supportive. These criteria can be met by predicting counterfactual outcomes.
Joint work with Konstantin Genin (Uni Tübingen).
