The Quantification of Judgment: Some Methodological Suggestions

Abstract The personalistic theory of probability prescribes that a person should use personal probability assessments in decision-making and that these assessments should correspond with his judgments. Since the judgments exist solely in the assessor's mind, there is no way to prove whether or not this requirement is satisfied. De Finetti has proposed the development of methods which should oblige the assessor to make his assessments correspond with his judgments. An ideal Assessor is hypothesized and his behavior is investigated under a number of such methods (including those suggested by de Finetti and others). The implications of these methods for the theory of personal probability are discussed. Finally, although the present interest is primarily normative, the practicability of the methods is also discussed.