Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun economics, computer science, decision theory A strategy or algorithm that seeks to maximize the maximum possible result (that is, that prefers the alternative with the chance of the best possible outcome, even if its expected outcome and its worst possible outcome are worse than other alternatives); often used attributively, as "maximax strategy", "maximax approach", and so on.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From maxi(mum), maxi(mize) + max(imum).

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Examples

  • Hurka states this as a rule for conduct (“each agent's overriding goal should be not a sum or average of lifetime value, but the greatest lifetime value of the single most perfect individual, or, if perfections are not fully comparable, of the few most perfect individuals” [1993: 75]), but given the earlier caveats about reading Nietzsche as a conventional normative theorist, it is better to treat maximax as reflecting the implicit structure of Nietzsche's revaluation of values: he rejects MPS because it fails to maximize the perfection of the highest human beings, and he does so without, it appears, any regard for the costs to the herd of such a rejection (see Section 4).

    Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy Leiter, Brian 2007

  • By contrast another strategy leads us to focus on the most advantaged position and says we should “maximize the maximum” potential gain ” “maximax” ” and choose the alternative whose best outcome leaves us better off than all other alternatives.

    Original Position Freeman, Samuel 2008

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