Speaking of Decisions: Precise Decision Language

This paper presents the current state of evolution of a language for teaching and practicing decision analysis that may avoid confusion of students, clients, and ourselves. Many of the terms currently used are inaccurate, arcane, or unnecessary. Restricting decision language to terms that are accurate, familiar, and fundamental contributes to clarity of thought and understanding. To illustrate the type of changes advocated, I propose replacing dependence with relevance, expectation with e-value, utility with u-value, and eschewing subjective probability, confidence, uncertainty about probability, any distinction between risk and uncertainty, and states of nature. I show how to incorporate the new terminology in teaching and practice.