Self-Respect Regained


Συγγραφέας: Jake Chandler, Adam Rieger


Jake Chandler, Adam Rieger: Self-Respect Regained (pdf, 7 pages)
In his (2007), David Christensen seeks to cast doubt on the Synchronic Reflection principle, which states that one’s credence in A, conditional on one’s credence in A being r, should be r: Synchronic Reflection (SR): cr(A | cr(A) = r) = r. He suggests that one can conveniently think of SR as standing for ‘Self- Respect’ as well as ‘Synchronic Reflection’; for to violate it is to regard one’s own current credences in A as unreliable.1 Christensen’s strategy is to consider, but reject, two arguments for SR. He concludes ultimately that SR is not a norm of rationality, and indeed that on occasion rationality demands its violation. The only rationality norms in this area are those that already follow from probabilistic coherence, and there is nothing special about the first-person perspective codified in SR; one should have no more respect for oneself than for anyone else to whose credences one happens to have equally good access. In this note we question Christensen’s conclusions, and argue that SR (or something in its vicinity) is indeed a rationality norm.