A transformative decision rule transforms a given decision problem into another by altering the structure of the initial problem, either by changing the framing or by modifying the probability or value assignments. Examples of decision rules belonging this class are the principle of insufficient reason, Isaac Levi's condition of E-admissibility, the de minimis rule, and the precautionary principle. In the papers some foundational issues concerning transformative decision rules are investigated, and a couple of formal properties of this class of rules are proved.

The concept of transformative decision rules provides a useful tool for analyzing what is often referred to as the 'framing', or 'problem specification', or 'editing' phase of decision making. In the present study we analyze a fundamental aspect of transformative decision rules, viz. permutability. A set of transformative decision rules is, roughly put, permutable just in case it does not matter in which order the rules are applied. It is argued that in order to be normatively reasonable, sets of transformative decision rules have to satisfy a number of structural conditions that together imply permutability. This formal result gives support to a non-sequential theory of framing, i.e., a theory which prescribes no uniform order in which different steps in the framing process have to be performed.

The main result of this paper is a formal argument for the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the law of large numbers. Unlike the well-known arguments by Savage and von Neumann & Morgenstern, this argument does not presuppose the sure-thing principle or the independence axiom. The principal idea is to use the concept of transformative decision rules for decomposing the principle of maximizing expected utility into a sequence of normatively reasonable subrules. It is shown that this procedure provides a resolution of Allais's paradox that cannot be obtained by Savage-style or von Neumann & Morgenstern-style arguments.

This paper presents an axiomatization of the principle of maximizing expected utility that does not rely on the independence axiom or sure-thing principle. Perhaps more importantly the new axiomatization is based on an ex ante approach, instead of the standard ex post approach. An ex post approach utilizes the decision maker's preferences among risky acts for generating a utility and a probability function, whereas in the ex ante approach a set of preferences among potential outcomes are on the input side of the theory and the decision maker's preferences among risky acts on the output side.

We discuss the management of catastrophe-risks from a theoretical point of view. The concept of a catastrophe is informally and formally defined, and a number of desiderata for catastrophe-averse decision rules are introduced. However, the proposed desiderata turn out to be mutually inconsistent. As a consequence of this result, it is argued that the "rigid" form of catastrophe aversion articulated by, for example, the maximin rule, the maximum probable loss rule, (some versions of) the precautionary principle, and the rule proposed in Ekenberg et al. (1997, 2000) should be given up. An alternative form of "non-rigid" catastrophe aversion is considered.