Accuracy, Deference, and Chance

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Chance both guides our credences and is an objective feature of the world. How and why we should conform our credences to chance depends on the underlying metaphysical account of what chance is. I use considerations of accuracy (how close your credences come to truth-values) to propose a new way of deferring to chance. The principle I endorse, called the Trust Principle, requires chance to be a good guide to the world, permits modest chances, tells us how to listen to chance even when the chances are modest, and entails but is not entailed by the New Principle. As I show, a rational agent will obey this principle if and only if she expects chance to be at least as accurate as she is on every good way of measuring accuracy. Much of the discussion, and the technical results, extend beyond chance to deference to any kind of expert. Indeed, you will trust someone about a particular question just in case you expect that person to be more accurate than you are about that question.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)43-87
Number of pages45
JournalPhilosophical Review
Volume132
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2023

Keywords

  • Epistemic Utility Theory
  • Humeanism
  • New Principle
  • Principal Principle
  • accuracy
  • chance
  • deference

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Philosophy

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