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How Valuable Are Chances?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

H. Orri Stefánsson  and
Richard Bradley
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Abstract

Chance Neutrality is the thesis that, conditional on some proposition being true (or being false), 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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 82 , Issue 4 , October 2015 , pp. 602 - 625
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

†

We would like the thank the audience at Bristol University and Stockholm University where this article was presented, as well as three referees for Philosophy of Science, for very helpful comments and suggestions. Stefánsson’s work on this article was supported by an AXA research grant (14-AXA-PDOC-222). Bradley’s work on this article was supported by grants from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/J006033/1, AH/I003118/1).

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