Rigorous Reasoning

Concept · Foundations

Sunk Cost

A cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered regardless of future action.

Why it matters

Rational decision making is forward-looking, which means sunk costs should never influence current choices; the sunk-cost fallacy is the tendency to let them do so anyway.

Where this shows up

Units and lessons using this concept

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Related

Other concepts in Foundations

A, E, I, O PropositionsAccessibility RelationArgumentAtomic StatementAuthorial IntentBase RateBayes FactorBurden of Proof in InterpretationCalibrationCardinalityCartesian ProductCategorical Proposition