Acceptance Without Minimality

In the belief change literature, while the degree of belief (or disbelief) plays a crucial role, it is assumed that potential hypotheses that have neither been accepted nor rejected cannot be compared with each other in any meaningful manner. We start with the assumption that such hypotheses can be nontrivially compared with respect to their plausibility and argue that a comprehensive theory of acceptance should take into account the degree of beliefs (or disbeliefs) as well as the plausibility of such tenable hypotheses. After showing that such a comprehensive theory of acceptance based on the received principle of minimal change does not lend itself to iterated acceptance, we propose, examine and provide representation results for an alternative theory based on the principle of rejecting the worst that can handle repeated acceptance of evidence.