Characterizing cautious choice (Q2427206)

The maximin criterion involves associating with each alternative (action) in a decision problem the worst possible consequence and choosing the alternative for which this is best. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the solution that assigns to every decision problem the set of maximin actions. The analysis is carried out for a fairly general domain of decision problems, where the set of actions \(A\) and the set of states \(\Omega\) can be any nonempty set and the utility/payoff function \(u:A\times \Omega \to \mathbb{R}\) is assumed to be bounded. The authors prove that the maximin solution is the unique solution satisfying the nine properties of anonymity, independence of irrelevant alternatives, inheritance of nonemptiness, inclusion of weak dominators, duplication of states, continuity, restricted nonemptiness, convexity, and one state rationality.