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Kavka's toxin puzzle

Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about the possibility of forming an intention to perform an act which, following from reason, is an action one would not actually perform.

Version
v1 · 2026-09-28 · History
Domain-specific #
10230
Domain group
Humanities
Origin domain
Philosophy
Subdomains
Decision Theory, Philosophy of Action → Philosophy

Core Idea

Kavka's toxin puzzle is treated here as the recurring decision theory identity summarized by this source-grounded definition: Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about the possibility of forming an intention to perform an act which, following from reason, is an action one would not actually perform. Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about the possibility of forming an intention to perform an act which, following from reason, is an action one would not actually perform. It was presented by moral and political philosopher Gregory S.

Scope of Application

  • Paradox. Since the pain caused by the poison would be more than off-set by the money received, we can sketch the pay-off table as follows.

  • Puzzle. An eccentric billionaire places before you a vial of toxin that, if you drink it, will make you painfully ill for a day, but will not threaten your life or have.

  • Puzzle. The billionaire will pay you one million dollars tomorrow morning if, at midnight tonight, you intend to drink the toxin tomorrow afternoon.

  • Puzzle. He emphasizes that you need not drink the toxin to receive the money; in fact, the money will already be in your bank account hours before the time for drinking it.

  • Puzzle. All you have to do is ... intend at midnight tonight to drink the stuff tomorrow afternoon.

Clarity

A clear use of Kavka's toxin puzzle names the carrier, the operative relation, and the conditions under which the source treats the identity as present. The minimal definition is Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about the possibility of forming an intention to perform an act which, following from reason, is an action one would not actually perform.

Manages Complexity

Kavka's toxin puzzle compresses multiple decision theory details into a stable diagnostic relation. The source shows both the central mechanism—since the pain caused by the poison would be more than off-set by the money received, we can sketch the pay-off table as follows.—and the practical consequence—the billionaire will pay you one million dollars tomorrow morning if, at midnight tonight, you intend to drink the toxin tomorrow afternoon.

Abstract Reasoning

  1. Type the carrier. Identify the decision theory entities to which the claim applies.
  2. State the relation. Use the source-grounded identity: Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about the possibility of forming an intention to perform an act which, following from reason, is an action one would not actually perform.
  3. Check operation and conditions. Thus a reasonable person must intend to drink the toxin by the first argument, yet if that person intends to drink the toxin, he is being irrational by the second argument.

Knowledge Transfer

Within the home domain. Knowledge about Kavka's toxin puzzle transfers literally when a new case preserves the same carrier type, relation, and recognition test. Since the pain caused by the poison would be more than off-set by the money received, we can sketch the pay-off table as follows. An eccentric billionaire places before you a vial of toxin that, if you drink it, will make you painfully ill for a day, but will not threaten your life or have any lasting effects. Beyond the home domain. No canonical parent is asserted for Kavka's toxin puzzle.

Relationships to Other Abstractions

Local relationship map for Kavka's toxin puzzleParents appear above the current abstraction, mutual partners to the right, and children below. Node labels state whether each abstraction is prime or domain-specific; colors identify relation types.Kavka's toxin puzzleDOMAINPrime abstraction: Thought Experiment — is a kind ofThoughtExperimentPRIME

Current abstraction Kavka's toxin puzzle Domain-specific

Parents (1) — more general patterns this builds on

  • Kavka's toxin puzzle is a kind of Thought Experiment Prime

    Kavka's toxin puzzle is a thought experiment about intending an action one expects not to perform.

Hierarchy paths (2) — routes to 2 parentless roots

Neighborhood in Abstraction Space

Kavka's toxin puzzle sits in a sparse region of the domain-specific corpus (65th percentile for distinctiveness): few abstractions share its structure, so a faithful description tends to retrieve it precisely.

Family — Legal & Moral Philosophy Principles (16 abstractions)

Nearest neighbors

Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-08