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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science | Vol 75, No 2British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 1461-1491. 2018.
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157The implicit decision theory of non-philosophersSynthese 203 (2): 1-23. 2024.This paper empirically investigates whether people’s implicit decision theory is more like causal decision theory or more like a non-causal decision theory (such as evidential decision theory). We also aim to determine whether implicit causalists, without prompting and without prior education, make a distinction that is crucial to causal decision theorists: preferring something _as a news item_ and preferring it _as an object of choice_. Finally, we investigate whether differences in people’s im…Read more
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16Only CDT values knowledgeAnalysis 84 (1): 67-82. 2023.Causal decision theory is often motivated as a ‘revision of [decision theory] intended to solve Newcomb’s problem’ (Bacon 2022). In this paper, I give a direct argument for CDT by deriving it from a venerable decision-theoretic principle: the value of knowledge principle. The general framework that I use to deliver this result also supports a new argument for conditionalization.
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44Preference Change and Utility ConditionalizationThought: A Journal of Philosophy 11 (2): 101-105. 2022.Olav Vassend has recently (2021) presented a decision-theoretic argument for updating utility functions by what he calls “utility conditionalization.” Vassend’s argument is meant to mirror closely the well-known argument for Bayesian conditionalization due to Hilary Greaves and David Wallace (2006). I show that Vassend’s argument is inconsistent with ZF set theory and argue that it therefore does not provide support for utility conditionalization.
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16A harder dilemma for partial subjunctive suppositionAnalysis 82 (4): 585-592. 2022.This article strengthens a dilemma posed by Eva and Hartmann (2021). They show that accounts of partial subjunctive supposition based on imaging sometimes violate a natural monotonicity condition. The paper develops a more general framework for modelling partial supposition and shows that, in this framework, imaging-based accounts of partial subjunctive supposition always violate monotonicity. In fact, the only account of partial supposition that satisfies monotonicity is the one that Eva and Ha…Read more
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598Accuracy and Probabilism in Infinite DomainsMind 132 (526): 402-427. 2023.The best accuracy arguments for probabilism apply only to credence functions with finite domains, that is, credence functions that assign credence to at most finitely many propositions. This is a significant limitation. It reveals that the support for the accuracy-first program in epistemology is a lot weaker than it seems at first glance, and it means that accuracy arguments cannot yet accomplish everything that their competitors, the pragmatic (Dutch book) arguments, can. In this paper, I inve…Read more
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36Correction to: Conglomerability, disintegrability, and the comparative principleAnalysis 82 (3): 474-474. 2022.Analysis (2021), https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/anab012.
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622Counterexamples to Some Characterizations of DilationErkenntnis 86 (5): 1107-1118. 2021.We provide counterexamples to some purported characterizations of dilation due to Pedersen and Wheeler :1305–1342, 2014, ISIPTA ’15: Proceedings of the 9th international symposium on imprecise probability: theories and applications, 2015).
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23Correction to: Accuracy-dominance and conditionalizationPhilosophical Studies 178 (11): 3845-3845. 2021.
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446On the Best Accuracy Arguments for ProbabilismPhilosophy of Science 89 (3): 621-630. 2022.In a recent paper, Pettigrew reports a generalization of the celebrated accuracy-dominance theorem due to Predd et al., but Pettigrew’s proof is incorrect. I will explain the mistakes and provide a correct proof.
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37The strength of de Finetti’s coherence theoremSynthese 198 (12): 11713-11724. 2020.I show that de Finetti’s coherence theorem is equivalent to the Hahn-Banach theorem and discuss some consequences of this result. First, the result unites two aspects of de Finetti’s thought in a nice way: a corollary of the result is that the coherence theorem implies the existence of a fair countable lottery, which de Finetti appealed to in his arguments against countable additivity. Another corollary of the result is the existence of sets that are not Lebesgue measurable. I offer a subjectivi…Read more
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586Conglomerability, disintegrability and the comparative principleAnalysis 81 (3): 479-488. 2021.Our aim here is to present a result that connects some approaches to justifying countable additivity. This result allows us to better understand the force of a recent argument for countable additivity due to Easwaran. We have two main points. First, Easwaran’s argument in favour of countable additivity should have little persuasive force on those permissive probabilists who have already made their peace with violations of conglomerability. As our result shows, Easwaran’s main premiss – the compa…Read more
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564Accuracy-dominance and conditionalizationPhilosophical Studies 178 (10): 3217-3236. 2021.Epistemic decision theory produces arguments with both normative and mathematical premises. I begin by arguing that philosophers should care about whether the mathematical premises (1) are true, (2) are strong, and (3) admit simple proofs. I then discuss a theorem that Briggs and Pettigrew (2020) use as a premise in a novel accuracy-dominance argument for conditionalization. I argue that the theorem and its proof can be improved in a number of ways. First, I present a counterexample that shows t…Read more
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45Generalized Learning and Conditional ExpectationPhilosophy of Science 87 (5): 868-883. 2020.Reflection and martingale principles are central to models of rational learning. They can be justified in a variety of ways. In what follows we study martingale and reflection principles in the con...
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475Distention for Sets of ProbabilitiesPhilosophy of Science 89 (3): 604-620. 2022.Bayesians often appeal to “merging of opinions” to rebut charges of excessive subjectivity. But what happens in the short run is often of greater interest than what happens in the limit. Seidenfeld and coauthors use this observation as motivation for investigating the counterintuitive short run phenomenon of dilation, since, they allege, dilation is “the opposite” of asymptotic merging of opinions. The measure of uncertainty relevant for dilation, however, is not the one relevant for merging of …Read more
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57Convergence to the Truth Without Countable AdditivityJournal of Philosophical Logic 50 (2): 395-414. 2020.Must probabilities be countably additive? On the one hand, arguably, requiring countable additivity is too restrictive. As de Finetti pointed out, there are situations in which it is reasonable to use merely finitely additive probabilities. On the other hand, countable additivity is fruitful. It can be used to prove deep mathematical theorems that do not follow from finite additivity alone. One of the most philosophically important examples of such a result is the Bayesian convergence to the tru…Read more
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70A New Argument for Kolomogorov ConditionalizationReview of Symbolic Logic 14 (4): 1-16. 2021.This paper contributes to a recent research program that extends arguments supporting elementary conditionalization to arguments supporting conditionalization with general, measure-theoretic conditional probabilities. I begin by suggesting an amendment to the framework that Rescorla (2018) has used to characterize regular conditional probabilities in terms of avoiding Dutch book. If we wish to model learning scenarios in which an agent gains complete membership knowledge about some subcollection…Read more
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443On the Possibility of Testimonial JusticeAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (4): 732-746. 2020.Recent impossibility theorems for fair risk assessment extend to the domain of epistemic justice. We translate the relevant model, demonstrating that the problems of fair risk assessment and just credibility assessment are structurally the same. We motivate the fairness criteria involved in the theorems as also being appropriate in the setting of testimonial justice. Any account of testimonial justice that implies the fairness/justice criteria must be abandoned, on pain of triviality.
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539Speed-Optimal Induction and Dynamic CoherenceBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (2): 439-455. 2022.A standard way to challenge convergence-based accounts of inductive success is to claim that they are too weak to constrain inductive inferences in the short run. We respond to such a challenge by answering some questions raised by Juhl (1994). When it comes to predicting limiting relative frequencies in the framework of Reichenbach, we show that speed-optimal convergence—a long-run success condition—induces dynamic coherence in the short run.
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40On linear aggregation of infinitely many finitely additive probability measuresTheory and Decision 86 (3-4): 421-436. 2019.We discuss Herzberg’s :319–337, 2015) treatment of linear aggregation for profiles of infinitely many finitely additive probabilities and suggest a natural alternative to his definition of linear continuous aggregation functions. We then prove generalizations of well-known characterization results due to :410–414, 1981). We also characterize linear aggregation of probabilities in terms of a Pareto condition, de Finetti’s notion of coherence, and convexity.
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790Obligation, Permission, and Bayesian OrgulityErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6. 2019.This essay has two aims. The first is to correct an increasingly popular way of misunderstanding Belot's Orgulity Argument. The Orgulity Argument charges Bayesianism with defect as a normative epistemology. For concreteness, our argument focuses on Cisewski et al.'s recent rejoinder to Belot. The conditions that underwrite their version of the argument are too strong and Belot does not endorse them on our reading. A more compelling version of the Orgulity Argument than Cisewski et al. present is…Read more
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50Deterministic Convergence and Strong RegularityBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 71 (4): 1461-1491. 2018.Bayesians since Savage (1972) have appealed to asymptotic results to counter charges of excessive subjectivity. Their claim is that objectionable differences in prior probability judgments will vanish as agents learn from evidence, and individual agents will converge to the truth. Glymour (1980), Earman (1992) and others have voiced the complaint that the theorems used to support these claims tell us, not how probabilities updated on evidence will actually}behave in the limit, but merely how Bay…Read more
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1166Persistent Disagreement and Polarization in a Bayesian SettingBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 72 (1): 51-78. 2021.For two ideally rational agents, does learning a finite amount of shared evidence necessitate agreement? No. But does it at least guard against belief polarization, the case in which their opinions get further apart? No. OK, but are rational agents guaranteed to avoid polarization if they have access to an infinite, increasing stream of shared evidence? No.
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621Another Approach to Consensus and Maximally Informed Opinions with Increasing EvidencePhilosophy of Science (2): 236-254. 2018.Merging of opinions results underwrite Bayesian rejoinders to complaints about the subjective nature of personal probability. Such results establish that sufficiently similar priors achieve consensus in the long run when fed the same increasing stream of evidence. Initial subjectivity, the line goes, is of mere transient significance, giving way to intersubjective agreement eventually. Here, we establish a merging result for sets of probability measures that are updated by Jeffrey conditioning. …Read more
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126Voodoo dolls and angry lions: how emotions explain arational actionsPhilosophical Studies 172 (11): 2975-2998. 2015.Hursthouse :57–68, 1991) argues that arational actions—e.g. kicking a door out of anger—cannot be explained by belief–desire pairs. The Humean Response to Hursthouse :25–38, 2000b) defends the Humean model from Hursthouse’s challenge. We argue that the Humean Response fails because belief–desire pairs are neither necessary nor sufficient for causing emotional actions. The Emotionist Response is to embrace Hursthouse’s conclusion that emotions provide an independent source of explanation for inte…Read more
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University of SydneySenior Lecturer
Columbia University
PhD, 2019
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia