Whereas many others have scrutinized the Allais paradox from a theoretical angle, we study the paradox from an historical perspective and link our findings to a suggestion as to how decision theory could make use of it today. We emphasize that Allais proposed the paradox as a normative argument, concerned with ‘the rational man’ and not the ‘real man’, to use his words. Moreover, and more subtly, we argue that Allais had an unusual sense of the normative, being concerned not so much with the rationality of choices as with the rationality of the agent as a person. These two claims are buttressed by a detailed investigation – the first of its kind – of the 1952 Paris conference on risk, which set the context for the invention of the paradox, and a detailed reconstruction – also the first of its kind – of Allais’s specific normative argument from his numerous but allusive writings. The paper contrasts these interpretations of what the paradox historically represented, with how it generally came to function within decision theory from the late 1970s onwards: that is, as an empirical refutation of the expected utility hypothesis, and more specifically of the condition of von Neumann–Morgenstern independence that underlies that hypothesis. While not denying that this use of the paradox was fruitful in many ways, we propose another use that turns out also to be compatible with an experimental perspective. Following Allais’s hints on ‘the experimental definition of rationality’, this new use consists in letting the experiment itself speak of the rationality or otherwise of the subjects. In the 1970s, a short sequence of papers inspired by Allais implemented original ways of eliciting the reasons guiding the subjects’ choices, and claimed to be able to draw relevant normative consequences from this information. We end by reviewing this forgotten experimental avenue not simply historically, but with a view to recommending it for possible use by decision theorists today.

中文翻译：

---

阿莱悖论：它变成了什么，它到底是什么，它现在向我们暗示了什么

虽然许多其他人已经从理论角度审视了阿莱悖论，但我们从历史的角度研究了这个悖论，并将我们的发现与关于决策理论如何在今天利用它的建议联系起来。我们强调 Allais 提出的悖论为规范性论证，用他的话来说，关注的是“理性的人”而不是“真正的人”。此外，更微妙的是，我们认为 Allais 对规范有一种不同寻常的感觉，不太关心选择的合理性与代理人作为人的理性. 这两个主张得到了 1952 年巴黎风险会议的详细调查（同类第一次）的支持，该会议为悖论的发明奠定了背景，并详细重建了阿莱的具体来自他众多但暗示性的著作的规范性论点。这篇论文对比了对悖论在历史上所代表的这些解释，以及它在 1970 年代后期如何在决策理论中普遍发挥作用：也就是说，作为对预期效用假设的实证驳斥，更具体地说，是对冯·诺依曼条件的实证驳斥。 ——摩根斯坦独立性是该假设的基础。虽然不否认这种悖论的使用在许多方面都是卓有成效的，但我们提出了另一种用途，结果证明也与实验观点兼容。让实验本身说出受试者的合理性或其他方面. 在 1970 年代，受 Allais 启发的一系列短论文实施了原始方法来引出指导受试者选择的原因，并声称能够从这些信息中得出相关的规范性结果。最后，我们回顾了这条被遗忘的实验途径，不仅是从历史上看，而且是为了向今天的决策理论家推荐它以供可能使用。