Two Accounts of the Normativity of Rationality
| Abstract | Recent views of reasons and rationality make it plausible that it can sometimes be rational to do what you have no reason to do. A number of writers have concluded that if this is so, rationality is not normative. But this is a mistake. Even if we assume a tight connection between reasons and normativity, the normativity of rationality does not require that there is always reason to be rational. The first half of this paper illustrates this point with reference to the subjective reasons account of rationality. The second half suggest that this point may have been missed because of certain similarities between the subjective reasons account and the importantly different transparency account. On the transparency account, rationality seems not to be normative. I think it is often assumed that what goes for the transparency account goes for the subjective reasons account as well. But I argue that this is a mistake. A corollary is that the subjective reasons account has an important advantage over the transparency account, given how plausible it is that rationality is normative. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesKen O'Day (1998). Normativity and Interpersonal Reasons. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1):61-87.
Matthew S. Bedke (2008). Practical Reasons, Practical Rationality, Practical Wisdom. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (1):85 - 111.
Eric Vogelstein (2012). Subjective Reasons. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2):239-257.
Christian Miller (2005). Review of Joshua Gert, Brute Rationality: Normativity and Human Action. [REVIEW] Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (3).
Christian Coons & David Faraci (2010). First-Personal Authority and the Normativity of Rationality. Philosophia 38 (4):733-740.
Jason Bridges (2009). Rationality, Normativity, and Transparency. Mind 118 (470):353 - 367.
Nicholas Southwood (2008). Vindicating the Normativity of Rationality. Ethics 119 (1):9-30.
Niko Kolodny (2005). Why Be Rational? Mind 114 (455):509-563.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-12-02Total downloads94 ( #7,054 of 549,196 )Recent downloads (6 months)10 ( #6,924 of 549,196 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
