# Contested concept: rational agent

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: criterion
- **Diagnosis**: This drives the conflict over whether 'logical consistency' should override 'common-sense' moral intuitions in resource allocation.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/rational agent` (data: `/concept/rational agent.json`)

## Senses in use
- **An actor that follows the formal axioms of expected utility maximization to achieve programmed or chosen goals.** — used in 3 claim(s)
- **An actor that incorporates common-sense constraints and epistemic modesty to avoid being 'mugged' by extreme, low-probability logical arguments.** — used in 3 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [A rejection of prioritizing Artificial Intelligence activism can be justified solely on the basis of Pascalian doubts regarding the manipul…](/claim/claim_47e563e352d5.md) _(sense: An actor that incorporates common-sense constraints and epistemic modesty to avoid being 'mugged' by extreme, low-probability logical arguments.)_
- [A rational agent whose goal is to minimize total global poverty would choose to allow a period of current poverty if it were the necessary …](/claim/claim_486064e07401.md) _(sense: An actor that follows the formal axioms of expected utility maximization to achieve programmed or chosen goals.)_
- [When a philosophical framework concludes that resources should be prioritized toward building superintelligent artificial intelligence ('ro…](/claim/claim_5c9a351cc07a.md) _(sense: An actor that incorporates common-sense constraints and epistemic modesty to avoid being 'mugged' by extreme, low-probability logical arguments.)_
- [The philosophical justification for prioritizing Artificial Intelligence research based on its potential for infinite future utility is vul…](/claim/claim_8ed3523ee813.md) _(sense: An actor that incorporates common-sense constraints and epistemic modesty to avoid being 'mugged' by extreme, low-probability logical arguments.)_
- [A rational economic agent selects courses of action based on the expected utility of each possible choice.](/claim/claim_9b96fcebdd2e.md) _(sense: An actor that follows the formal axioms of expected utility maximization to achieve programmed or chosen goals.)_
- [Individuals who operate solely under a framework of complete egoism [self-interest] still have strong rational reasons to work toward ensur…](/claim/claim_e63ef5b20256.md) _(sense: An actor that follows the formal axioms of expected utility maximization to achieve programmed or chosen goals.)_