Consistency in choice and credence

This thesis concerns epistemic and practical rationality. That is, it is about what to believe and what to do. In Chapter 1, 1 argue that theories of practical rationality should be understood as evaluating decisions as opposed to ordinary sorts of non-mental actions. In Chapter 2, I use the machinery developed in Chapter 1 to rebut 'Money Pump' or 'Diachronic Dutch Book' arguments, which draw conclusions about rational beliefs and preferences from premises about how rational agents will behave over time. In Chapter 3, I develop a new objection to the Synchronic Dutch Book Argument, which concludes that rational agents must have probabilistic degrees of belief in order to avoid predictable exploitation in betting scenarios.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Hedden, Brian (Brian Robert)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Caspar Hare.

• Linguistics and Philosophy.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/77798

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/77798