Bayesian probability

Patrick Maher

pp. 119-127

in: Horacio Arló-Costa, Jeffrey Helzner (eds), Foundations of the decision sciences, Synthese 172 (1), 2010.

Abstract

Bayesian decision theory is here construed as explicating a particular concept of rational choice and Bayesian probability is taken to be the concept of probability used in that theory. Bayesian probability is usually identified with the agent’s degrees of belief but that interpretation makes Bayesian decision theory a poor explication of the relevant concept of rational choice. A satisfactory conception of Bayesian decision theory is obtained by taking Bayesian probability to be an explicatum for inductive probability given the agent’s evidence.