How Valuable Are Chances?

Philosophy of Science 82 (4):602-625 (2015)
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Abstract

Chance Neutrality is the thesis that, conditional on some proposition being true, its chance of being true should be a matter of practical indifference. The aim of this article is to examine whether Chance Neutrality is a requirement of rationality. We prove that given Chance Neutrality, the Principal Principle entails a thesis called Linearity; the centerpiece of von Neumann and Morgenstern’s expected utility theory. With this in mind, we argue that the Principal Principle is a requirement of practical rationality but that Linearity is not and, hence, that Chance Neutrality is not rationally required.

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Author Profiles

Richard Bradley
London School of Economics
H. Orri Stefansson
Stockholm University

Citations of this work

Of marbles and matchsticks.Harvey Lederman - forthcoming - In Tamar Szabó Gendler, John Hawthorne, Julianne Chung & Alex Worsnip, Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 8. Oxford University Press.
What Is Risk Aversion?H. Orii Stefansson & Richard Bradley - 2019 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (1):77-102.
Welfare and Autonomy under Risk.Pietro Cibinel - forthcoming - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
Population Ethics under Risk.Gustaf Arrhenius & H. Orri Stefánsson - forthcoming - Social Choice and Welfare.

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References found in this work

The Logic of Decision.Richard C. Jeffrey - 1965 - New York, NY, USA: University of Chicago Press.
Risk and Rationality.Lara Buchak - 2013 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Humean Supervenience Debugged.David Lewis - 1994 - Mind 103 (412):473--490.
The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1954 - Synthese 11 (1):86-89.

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