Rationality as weighted averaging

Synthese 57 (3):283 - 295 (1983)
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Abstract

Weighted averaging is a method for aggregating the totality of information, both regimented and unregimented, possessed by an individual or group of individuals. The application of such a method may be warranted by a theorem of the calculus of probability, simple conditionalization, or Jeffrey's formula for probability kinematics, all of which average in terms of the prior probability of evidence statements. Weighted averaging may, however, be applied as a method of rational aggregation of the probabilities of diverse perspectives or persons in cases in which the weights cannot be articulated as the prior probabilities of statements of evidence. The method is justified by Wagner's Theorem exhibiting that any method satisfying the conditions of the Irrelevance of Alternatives and Zero Unanimity must, when applied to three or more alternatives, be weighted averaging.

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Keith Lehrer
University of Arizona

Citations of this work

Knowledge, criticism, and coherence.Thieu Kuys - 1989 - Philosophical Studies 57 (1):41 - 60.

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References found in this work

Logical foundations of probability.Rudolf Carnap - 1950 - Chicago]: Chicago University of Chicago Press.
The Logic of Decision.Richard C. Jeffrey - 1965 - New York, NY, USA: University of Chicago Press.
The Foundations of Statistics.Leonard J. Savage - 1954 - Synthese 11 (1):86-89.
The theory of probability.Hans Reichenbach - 1949 - Berkeley,: University of California Press.

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