Graded Incoherence for Accuracy-Firsters

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between two evaluative claims about agents’ degrees of belief: (i) that it is better to have more rather than less accurate degrees of belief and (ii) that it is better to have less rather than more probabilistically incoherent degrees of belief. We show that, for suitable combinations of inaccuracy measures and incoherence measures, both claims are compatible, although not equivalent; moreover, certain ways of becoming less incoherent always guarantee improvements in accuracy. Incompatibilities between particular incoherence and inaccuracy measures can be exploited to argue against particular ways of measuring either inaccuracy or incoherence.