Justifying conditionalization: Conditionalization maximizes expected epistemic utility
Mind 115 (459):607-632 (2006)
Abstract |
According to Bayesian epistemology, the epistemically rational agent updates her beliefs by conditionalization: that is, her posterior subjective probability after taking account of evidence X, pnew, is to be set equal to her prior conditional probability pold(·|X). Bayesians can be challenged to provide a justification for their claim that conditionalization is recommended by rationality—whence the normative force of the injunction to conditionalize? There are several existing justifications for conditionalization, but none directly addresses the idea that conditionalization will be epistemically rational if and only if it can reasonably be expected to lead to epistemically good outcomes. We apply the approach of cognitive decision theory to provide a justification for conditionalization using precisely that idea. We assign epistemic utility functions to epistemically rational agents; an agent’s epistemic utility is to depend both upon the actual state of the world and on the agent’s credence distribution over possible states. We prove that, under independently motivated conditions, conditionalization is the unique updating rule that maximizes expected epistemic utility.
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DOI | 10.1093/mind/fzl607 |
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When Propriety Is Improper.Kevin Blackwell & Daniel Drucker - forthcoming - Philosophical Studies:1-20.
View all 47 citations / Add more citations

Logic and Probability.Colin Howson - 1997 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (4):517-531.
Conditionalization and Expected Utility.Peter M. Brown - 1976 - Philosophy of Science 43 (3):415-419.
Generalized Conditionalization and the Sleeping Beauty Problem.Terry Horgan & Anna Mahtani - 2013 - Erkenntnis 78 (2):333-351.
An Improper Introduction to Epistemic Utility Theory.Richard Pettigrew - 2011 - In Henk de Regt, Samir Okasha & Stephan Hartmann (eds.), Proceedings of EPSA: Amsterdam '09. Springer. pp. 287--301.
Self-Location is No Problem for Conditionalization.Darren Bradley - 2011 - Synthese 182 (3):393-411.
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2009-01-28
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350 ( #9,629 of 2,223,814 )
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28 ( #14,236 of 2,223,814 )
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