This paper argues that evidential decision theory (EDT) is incompatible with options having objective values.

After some scene-setting (§§1-3), we consider three arguments for our thesis: the argument from Newcomb’s Problem (§§4-5), the argument from Expectationism (§§6-7), and the argument from Newcombizability (§8). The first two arguments fail for instructive reasons. But the third succeeds. EDT is incompatible with options having objective values because objective value is always Newcombizable.

What to make of this incompatibility is a matter on which the authors disagree. One is inclined to take it to be a reason for rejecting the claim that options have objective values; the other is inclined to take it to be a reason for rejecting EDT. The paper, itself, takes no stand on this downstream disagreement; it merely argues for the incompatibility.