This paper will be concerned with hard choices—that is, choice situations where an agent cannot make a rationally justified choice. Specifically, this paper asks: if an agent cannot optimize in a given situation, are they facing a hard choice? A pair of claims are defended in light of this question. First, situations where an agent cannot optimize because of incompleteness of the binary preference or value relation constitute a hard choice. Second, situations where agents cannot optimize because the binary preference or value relation violates acyclicity do not constitute a hard choice.

中文翻译：

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优化及其他

本文将关注艰难选择，即代理人无法做出理性合理选择的选择情况。具体来说，本文提出的问题是：如果智能体无法在给定情况下进行优化，他们是否面临着艰难的选择？鉴于这个问题，有两个主张得到了辩护。首先，由于二元偏好或价值关系的不完整性，代理无法优化的情况构成了艰难选择。其次，由于二元偏好或价值关系违反非循环性而导致代理无法优化的情况并不构成艰难选择。