26 - THE APPLICATION OF PROBABILITY TO CONDUCT

Summary

1. Given as our basis what knowledge we actually have, the probable, I have said, is that which it is rational for us to believe. This is not a definition. For it is not rational for us to believe that the probable is true; it is only rational to have a probable belief in it or to believe it in preference to alternative beliefs. To believe one thing in preference to another, as distinct from believing the first true or more probable and the second false or less probable, must have reference to action and must be a loose way of expressing the propriety of acting on one hypothesis rather than on another. We might put it, therefore, that the probable is the hypothesis on which it is rational for us to act. It is, however, not so simple as this, for the obvious reason that of two hypotheses it may be rational to act on the less probable if it leads to the greater good. We cannot say more at present than that the probability of a hypothesis is one of the things to be determined and taken account of before acting on it.

2. I do not know of passages in the ancient philosophers which explicitly point out the dependence of the duty of pursuing goods on the reasonable or probable expectation of attaining them relative to the agent's knowledge. This means only that analysis had not disentangled the various elements in rational action, not that common sense neglected them. Herodotus puts the point quite plainly.