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The Sure Thing Principle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Richard Jeffrey
Richard Jeffrey*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
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Extract

Here is the example that L. J. Savage (1954, p. 21) uses to adumbrate the principle:

A businessman contemplates buying a certain piece of property. He considers the outcome of the next presidential election relevant to the attractiveness of the purchase. So, to clarify the matter for himself, he asks whether he would buy it if he knew that the, Republican candidate were going to win, and decides that he would do so. Similarly, he considers whether he would buy if he knew that the Democratic candidate were going to win, and again finds that he would do so. Seeing that t he would buy in either, event, he decides that he should buy, even though he does not know which event obtains, or will obtain, as we would ordinarily say.

Type
Part XVII. The Sure-Thing Principle
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1982 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1982 , 1982 , pp. 718 - 730
Copyright
Copyright © 1983 Philosophy of Science Association

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References

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