In Defence of Objective Bayesianism

Abstract

Abstract Bayesian epistemology aims to answer the following question: How strongly should an agent believe the various propositions expressible in her language? Subjective Bayesians hold that.it is largely (though not entirely) up to the agent as to which degrees of belief to adopt. Objective Bayesians, on the other hand, maintain that appropriate degrees of belief are largely (though not entirely) determined by the agent's evidence. This book states and defends a version of objective Bayesian epistemology. According to this version, objective Bayesianism is characterized by three norms: (i) Probability: degrees of belief should be probabilities; (ii) Calibration: they should be calibrated with evidence; and (iii) Equivocation: they should otherwise equivocate between basic outcomes. Objective Bayesianism has been challenged on a number of different fronts: for example, it has been accused of being poorly motivated, of failing to handle qualitative evidence, of yielding counter‐intuitive degrees of belief after updating, of suffering from a failure to learn from experience, of being computationally intractable, of being susceptible to paradox, of being language dependent, and of not being objective enough. The book argues that these criticisms can be met and that objective Bayesianism is a promising theory with an exciting agenda for further research.

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