dutch-book arguments against using conditional probabilities for conditional bets荷兰赌论证对使用条件概率条件的押注.pdfVIP

Open Journal of Philosophy 2012. Vol.2, No.3, 195-201 Published Online August 2012 in SciRes (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/ojpp) /10.4236/ojpp.2012.23030 Dutch-Book Arguments against Using Conditional Probabilities for Conditional Bets Keith Hutchison School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia Email: keithrh@ Received April 22nd th th , 2012; revised May 24 , 2012; accepted June 10 , 2012 We consider here an important family of conditional bets, those that proceed to settlement if and only if some agreed evidence is received that a condition has been met. Despite an opinion widespread in the lit- erature, we observe that when the evidence is strong enough to generate certainty as to whether the condi- tion has been met or not, using traditional conditional probabilities for such bets will not preserve a gam- bler from having a synchronic Dutch Book imposed upon him. On the contrary (I show) the gambler can be Dutch-Booked if his betting ratios ever depart from a rather different probability, one that involves the probability of the agreed evidence being provided. We note furthermore that this same alternative prob- ability assessment is necessary if the evidence is weaker (i.e. if it fails to provide knowledge whether or not the condition has been met). By contra