Practical Reason, Misc

G. E. M. Anscombe’s Intention, meticulous in its detail and its structure, ends on a puzzling note. At its conclusion, Anscombe claims that when he denied Jesus, St. Peter intentionally did what he intended not to do. This essay will examine why Anscombe construes the case as she does and what it might teach us about the nature of practical rationality.

We suggest a new neo-Aristotelian account of right action: An action A is right for an agent S in a situation C just in case it is possible for A in C to result from a good practical inference. A practical inference is good if people must have a disposition to make such practical inferences where a society is to flourish. One advantage of this account is that it applies to non-ideal agents. It thus blocks the right-but-not-virtuous objection to virtue (...) ethics. Our account furthermore suggests a new way of thinking about the concept of a fully virtuous agent. Ideal agents, we argue, necessarily have certain unmanifested dispositions, and failure is a real possibility for them. (shrink)

Bernard Williams (1973) famously argued that if given the choice to relinquish our mortality we should refuse. We should not choose to always live. His piece provoked an entire literature on the desirability of immortality. Intending to contradict Williams, Thomas Nagel claimed that if given the choice between living for a week and dying in five minutes he would always choose to live. I argue that (1) Nagel’s iterating scenario is closer to the original Makropulos case (Čapek’s) that inspired Williams’s (...) piece; (2) iterating versions of the choice given in the Makropulos case might well be less desirable than a one-time choice; and (3) Nagel’s mathematical induction premise is implausible. I discuss some useful implications of (1)-(3) for the broader discussion of Williams’s arguments and, more generally, for our understanding of the value of mortality and the possibility of mutually consistent but necessarily incompatible wants in ordinary human psychology. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of akrasia, drawn from the work of William James, that sees akrasia as neither a rational failing (as with most philosophical accounts) nor a moral failing (as with early Christian accounts), but rather a necessary by-product of our status as biological beings. By examining James’s related accounts of motivation and action, I argue that akratic actions occur when an agent attempts to act against her settled habits, but fails to do so. This makes akrasia a (...) product of the agent’s practical failure to adequately structured her environment to bring about her desired action. Akratic action performs the vital function of revealing to the agent the exact point at which her cognitive effort was insufficient for bringing about her intended action. It also reveals that future improvement is within her control. As such, akratic action is the very foundation of James’s meliorism. (shrink)

I defend the relatively orthodox view that reasons for action are premises in good practical reasoning, against recent counterexamples that suggest that, like “government house” moral justifications, some reasons are to be ignored in deliberation. I also explain, positively, what is right about the orthodoxy. Unless reasons are premises in good practical reasoning, reasons cannot be normative in the way they are usually taken to be, and relatedly, are unfit to play certain familiar theoretical and related everyday roles that give (...) many appeals to reasons their distinctive point. (shrink)

Suppose some person 'A' sets out to accomplish a difficult, long-term goal such as writing a passable Ph.D. thesis. What should you believe about whether A will succeed? The default answer is that you should believe whatever the total accessible evidence concerning A's abilities, circumstances, capacity for self-discipline, and so forth supports. But could it be that what you should believe depends in part on the relationship you have with A? We argue that it does, in the case where A (...) is yourself. The capacity for "grit" involves a kind of epistemic resilience in the face of evidence suggesting that one might fail, and this makes it rational to respond to the relevant evidence differently when you are the agent in question. We then explore whether similar arguments extend to the case of "believing in" our significant others -- our friends, lovers, family members, colleagues, patients, and students. (shrink)

I propose to present a relation between knowledge (Wissen) and human action (Handlung) from the perspective of the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). For this, I will use mainly of the Phenomenology of Spirit (Phenomenologie des Geistes) - published in 1807. According the philosopher himself, this work is a science of the experience of consciousness – this was the first name chosen by Hegel for this work (Vaz, 2014, p. 11-12). Throughout the work, it we can see that (...) the philosopher does not make a separation between knowledge and action. That is, he does not regard them as two separate and distinct moments. Therefore, the comprehension of first we knowledge and that only after, we act, or that even the comprehension that we act for the, after that, we may know, are, according Hegel's philosophy, erroneous and insufficient as explanatory models of knowledge and of the human action. On the contrary, the philosopher seeks to unite the two aspects: knowledge and action. Conceiving them as distinct but inseparable. The subject who knowing is the same who is acting. Such a dichotomy between knowing and acting, as is commonly defined, maintains knowledge and characterize it with as passive, inert and static, in front of action, which is as defined as active, dynamic, and mobile. On the contrary, according to the Hegelian philosophy, knowledge itself is already an active, dynamic, and living process (Hegel, 2012, §378). The relation of knowledge between the subject and the object is not a ready, given and immediate relation. On the contrary, this relation presupposes a construction that the subject exercises when he is knowing. The same occur is when the subject is acting. Therefore, a human action is by no means something finished, readily established, and so it only as needs to be performed. On the contrary, an action same itself is a knowledge, that is happening and succeeding as the action unfolds. (shrink)

There is a puzzle about the very possibility of foreseen but unintended side effects, and solving this puzzle requires us to revise our basic picture of the structure of practical deliberation. The puzzle is that, while it seems that we can rationally foresee, but not intend, bringing about foreseen side effects, it also seems that we rationally must decide to bring about foreseen side effects and that we intend to do whatever we decide to do. I propose solving this puzzle (...) by rejecting the idea that we intend to do whatever we decide to do. My solution involves taking account of the underappreciated role that qualified intentions play in deliberation. I also argue that this solution fares better than those that instead reject the idea that we rationally must decide to bring about foreseen side effects, for these solutions are committed to rejecting the even more compelling idea that decisions rationally serve as the conclusions of practical deliberation. (shrink)

In this review of essays on the topic of practical reason, the neo-Humeanism of philosophers such as James Drier, according to whom reasons are instrumental, is shown to be susceptible to the objections of Kantian philosophers such as Christine Korsgaard: the fact that you desire to X can never entail that you ought to X. Kantianism, however, comes under attack from neo-Aristotelian philosophers such as Berys Gaut, who argues that it is a mistake to identify goodness with being the object (...) of free rational choice. (shrink)

Do responsibility voids exist? That is, are there situations in which the group is collectively morally responsible for some outcome although no member can be held individually morally responsible for it? To answer these questions, I draw a distinction between competitive and cooperative decision contexts based on the team-reasoning account of cooperation. Accordingly, I provide a reasoning-based analysis of cooperation, competition, moral responsibility, and, last, potential responsibility voids. I then argue that competitive decision contexts are free of responsibility voids. The (...) conditions for the existence of responsibility voids in cooperative decision contexts depend on the type of uncertainty the group faces, either external or coordination uncertainty. (shrink)

Philosophical issues such as free will and the role of consciousness in human action have become a topic of interest to neuroscience. While this contribution is of great value to extend our knowledge on these issues, the lack of clarity about the concepts being investigated may interfere with the interpretation of the relevant results. An interesting experiment (Bode et al., 2011) that investigates whether decisions are generated consciously or unconsciously suggests a conclusion about whether human beings decide freely. These issues (...) are considered relevant philosophical issues, but the experiment lacks conceptual precision, and this weighs on the interpretations of data and results. I argue that further conceptual analysis of decisions shows that the experiment investigates one kind of decision, while it unwarrantedly draws conclusions about human decisions in general. A better understanding of what is considered to be a decision helps clarify to which extent the results show that decisions are generated unconsciously. This shows that conceptual precision is crucial for research on the area as well as methodological rigor. (shrink)

In the dynamic choice literature, temptations are usually understood as temporary shifts in an agent’s preferences. What has been puzzling about these cases is that, on the one hand, an agent seems to do better by her own lights if she does not give into the temptation, and does so without engaging in costly commitment strategies. This seems to indicate that it is instrumentally irrational for her to give into temptation. On the other hand, resisting temptation also requires her to (...) act contrary to the preferences she has at the time of temptation. But that seems to be instrumentally irrational as well. I here consider the two most prominent types of argument why resisting temptation could nevertheless be instrumentally rational, namely two-tier and intra-personal cooperation arguments. I establish that the arguments either fail or are redundant. In particular, the arguments fail under the pervasive assumption in both decision theory and the wider literature on practical rationality that the agent’s preferences over the objects of choice are themselves the standard of instrumental rationality. And they either still fail or they become redundant when we give up that assumption. (shrink)

I defend normative subjectivism against the charge that believing in it undermines the functional role of normative judgment. In particular, I defend it against the claim that believing that our reasons change from context to context is problematic for our use of normative judgments. To do so, I distinguish two senses of normative universality and normative reasons---evaluative universality and reasons and ontic universality and reasons. The former captures how even subjectivists can evaluate the actions of those subscribing to other conventions; (...) the latter explicates how their reasons differ from ours. I then show that four aspects of the functional role of normativity---evaluation of our and others actions and reasons, normative communication, hypothetical planning, and evaluating counternromative conditionals---at most requires our normative systems being evaluatively universal. Yet reasonable subjectivist positions need not deny evaluative universality. (shrink)

In this paper I take up the question of whether and in what sense action might be the conclusion of practical reasoning and argue against the answer provided by Sebastian Rödl's account of practical reasoning. Rödl's account aspires to steer a middle ground between the attitudinal and the neo-Aristotelian accounts of practical reasoning, by proposing that its conclusion is at once a thought and a movement. This account is worth considering for it promises to explain both practical reasoning's practicality and (...) its rationality in one move. But, I argue in this paper, a Rödlian account—an account which grants Rödl's central theses—fails to deliver on its promise. The reason is that, like others, a Rödlian also assumes that the only sense in which practical reasoning is practical is the sense in which it has a conclusion. Challenging this assumption in the right way, I finally suggest, helps us reassess the task of explaining practical reasoning in a way that goes beyond Rödlian, attitudinal and neo-Aristotelian accounts alike. (shrink)

This paper argues that the principles of instrumental rationality apply primarily to extended action through time. Most philosophers assume that rational requirements and principles govern in the first instance momentary mental states, as opposed to governing extended intentional actions directly. In the case of instrumental rationality, the relevant mental states or attitudes would typically be preferences, decisions, or intentions. In fact, even those who recognize the extended nature of our agency still assume that rational requirements apply primarily to mental states (...) at a moment in time. Such views try to do justice to the extended nature of our agency by postulating rational requirements that apply in the first instance to plans, policies, and intentions more generally. The paper focuses on the central case of requirements and reasons governing the reconsideration of intentions and argues that these requirements or reasons are either superfluous or invalid. I argue that a proper conception of instrumental reasoning that applies directly to actions turn out to have surprising consequences. In fact, this conception allows us to see that policies, projects and the like are best understood as instances of extended actions, and that the instrumental requirements that apply to projects and policies are exactly the same as the instrumental requirements that apply to ordinary extended actions. Finally, I argue that the resulting theory of instrumental rationality is a significant improvement over theories that rely on principles governing intentions. (shrink)

In this paper we secure the explanatory value of affordances by treating them as relational properties and as inherently linked to unintentional movements and possible intentional actions. We distinguish between Basic affordances, which are related to unintentional movements, and Complex affordances, which are subjective and executively controlled by individuals. The linkage between affordances and motor intentions allows for accounting for the infinite number of affordances that any given object potentially has. Appealing to objective systematic contingencies that provide the actor with (...) information about the effects of her actions, allows for accounting for perception of affordances and for securing their explanatory value. (shrink)

This paper responds to Susan Hurley’s attempt to undermine the adequacy of the distinction at the heart of the internalism–externalism debate about reasons for action. The paper shows that Hurley’s argument fails and then, more positively, indicates a neat way to characterize the distinction.

Carnap wrote a continuation of his reply to Kaplan, which would, however, have made that reply, already by far the longest in the book, too long. So he set aside his projected notes for a continuation to serve as the basis for a separate paper, which he never got around to writing. It is transcribed here from his shorthand and translated into English, with some introductory notes to provide a little context.

In this chapter I discuss Taylor’s claim that strong evaluation is inevitable for human agency: without a framework of strong evaluations human agents would be in a crisis which Taylor calls, perhaps misleadingly, “an identity crisis”. With a broad brush I introduce some of the essential background in first three sections, and scrutinize the inevitability of strong evaluation more closely in the last three sections. I introduce first the distinction between the engaged perspective, which in Taylor’s view provides the correct (...) approach to humans and values, and two kinds of disengaged perspectives (objectivist and subjectivist ones) (2.1). Taylor’s ideal typical distinction (engaged and disengaged) resembles Sellars’s (1963) distinction between manifest and scientific image, but Taylor takes the scientific worldview to be only one objectivist variant of disengaged views: the Cartesian view of mind is detached from the lifeworldly reality, and is a variant of a subjectivist disengaged view. There are many aspects to Taylor’s philosophical anthropology, based on such an engaged perspective. He defends many “human constants” related to humans as social, self-interpreting, embodied language animals. Although here the focus is merely on one of the human constants, namely on the claim that humans are essentially strong evaluators, I give a sketchy account of the essentials of the broader picture in section 2.2. Taylor uses transcendental argumentation in trying to show the inescapability of strong evaluation in human life. I will, following Nicholas Smith’s reconstruction, discuss Taylor’s reasons for adopting such argumentative strategy in relation to this issue, as opposed to socalled ordinary language philosophy, phenomenological description, hermeneutical interpretation, or strict Hegelian dialectics (2.3). The central point is that although we may want to stress the hermeneutical or interpretive nature of being-in-the-world, and the constitutive nature of human self-interpretations, the few human constants are true whether explicitly taken to be true or not: humans are self-interpreting animals, or strong evaluators, even though they may hold opposing theories in their self-interpretations (cf. Abbey 2000, 4). In a sense, Taylor’s label for his claim, which he terms a “transcendental argument”, may seem to make heavy weather of a simple point: without strong evaluation those aspects of life and experience which presuppose strong evaluation would not be possible. These aspects of life include more or less everything that is peculiarly human. The arguments try to bring into focus these dependencies: strong evaluations are inescapable for our lives as humans or as persons, as opposed to “mere” animals. To be fully outside the scope of strong evaluation is to be in a pathological state. Various disengaged theories of humans neglect this. These are theories of human agency, subjectivity, personhood or identity which have ignored this dimension of human life, or have not taken it to be essential. Taylor’s arguments are directed against such views. In this chapter I will clarify the nature of Taylor’s argument by distinguishing different concepts (human agency, personhood, subjectivity, selfhood, and identity) and asking what it is exactly that strong evaluation is necessary for (2.4). The notions of personhood and identity will be discussed in more detail in the next two chapters. The crucial point in Taylor’s argumentation is made by the claim that for someone capable of strong evaluation, the lack of a framework of strong evaluations involves them in a terrible, frightening crisis, an identity-crisis. I will distinguish several meanings of this claim and discuss their validity in 2.5. I suggest that some “identity-crises” are not at all what Taylor has in mind. But the point itself is valid: without a framework of strong evaluations, human agents would be in a state of crisis. In the last section, I defend Taylor’s view against possible counterexamples, posed by Owen Flanagan and Paul Johnston. (shrink)

The paper provides a critical discussion of some key aspects of John Broome’s theories of rationality, reasoning and the relations between them.

John Broome’s Rationality Through Reasoning is a trail-blazing study of the nature of rationality, the nature of reasoning and the connection between the two. But it may be somewhat misleading in two respects. First, his theory of reasoning is consistent with the meta-propositional view that he rejects; it develops a broadly similar theory but in much greater detail. And while his discussion of rule-following helps to explain the role of rules in reasoning, it does not constitute a response to the (...) classic problem associated with Wittgenstein and Kripke. (shrink)

Wiggins’ (2012) argument against propositional accounts of knowing how is based on a development of some considerations taken from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle argued that the knowledge needed for participation in an ethos cannot be codified in propositional form so as to let it be imparted to someone who did not already have it. This is because any putative codification would be incomplete, and require that knowledge in order to extend it to novel cases. On a reasonable interpretation of his (...) argument, Wiggins claims that the same goes for practical knowledge in general, and that this shows that a propositional view of knowing how is incorrect. This paper shows that this argument is unsound. (shrink)

Chapters Ten and Eleven in Michael Thompson’s Life and Action discuss practices and dispositions as sources of individual actions, and as sources of the goodness of the individual actions. In the essay, I will first discuss the nature of actuality, then the distinction between acting on a first-order consideration and a second-order consideration, and the possibly related distinction between expressing a practice and merely simulating it, and then I turn to varieties of goodness.

In this collection, Kieran Setiya explores the place of agency in ethics, arguing for a causal theory of intentional action on which it is understood through the knowledge embodied in our intentions, and against the rationalist project of deriving norms of practical reason from the nature of the will.

We do things in time. Philosophy of action can capture this phenomenon in at least two ways. On one hand, it might focus on the way that temporal preferences and long-term temporal horizons affect the rationality of decisions in the present (see, e.g., Parfit 1984; Rawls 1971). Such work may focus on the way we discount the distant future, for example, or prioritize the future over the past. Approaches of this kind treat time as, in a sense, something external to (...) agency; it sets various constraints on what we may rationally intend, for example. But if temporal considerations can constrain agency, it follows that they can also structure it internally, and if they can do so, it seems likely that this is possible because agency is already temporally structured. This volume focuses on the way that agency is temporally structured from within, such that time is an ineliminable constituent of agency. (shrink)

Theories of practical reasoning and rationality have been expounded at least as far back as the Greeks. Beginning with several historical perspectives, I attempt to answer the descriptive and normative questions of practical reasoning and rationality. I then turn to a popular modern attempt, expected utility theory. I conclude that this approach cannot be sustained because of inherent inconsistencies and its inability to generate advice for a class of problems that other decision procedures can handle. I conclude by offering support (...) for a new model of practical reasoning, the practical argument model. I explain the three dimensions of normative assessment for this model: logical, inferential and epistemic. I then show how an expected utility decision-procedure is encompassed by the practical argument model and, therefore, subject to these three levels of assessment. I conclude by offering some directions for future research. (shrink)

Granting that various mental events might form the antecedents of an action, what is the mental event that is the proximate cause of action? The present article reconsiders the methodology for addressing this question: Intention and its varieties cannot be properly analyzed if one ignores the evolutionary constraints that have shaped action itself, such as the trade-off between efficient timing and resources available, for a given stake. On the present proposal, three types of action, impulsive, routine and strategic, are designed (...) to satisfy the trade-off above when achieving goals of each type. While actions of the first two types depend on non-conceptual appraisals of a given intensity and valence, strategic intentions have a propositional format and guide action within longer-term executive frameworks involving prospective memory. (shrink)

Moral requirements apply to rational agents as such. But it is a conceptual truth that if agents are morally required to act in a certain way then we expect them to act in that way. Being rational, as such, must therefore suffice to ground our expectation that rational agents will do what they are morally required to do. But how could this be so? It could only be so if we think of the moral requirements that apply to agents as (...) themselves categorical requirements of rationality or reason. For the only thing we can legitimately expect of rational agents as such is that they do what they are rationally required to do (Smith 1994: 85). (shrink)

The Humean internalist finds Humean motivational theses and reasons internalism to be independently attractive. She therefore combines them, in the hope of creating a theory of reasons that is attractive for all of the reasons that each thesis is attractive. On this score, she succeeds. However, there is a drawback. Those who build a theory of reasons by combining Humean motivational theses and reasons internalism face a dilemma. If you combine these views, either you are committed to a theory of (...) reasons that allows all of a person’s reasons to simultaneously change, erratically and randomly, or you are committed to a theory of reasons that fixes a person’s reasons at birth, in which case they remain stable and unchanging over a lifetime. Neither alternative is attractive. Humean internalism cannot navigate a path between these two extremes, and this should worry the Humean internalist. (shrink)

“What do you see when you look at your face in the mirror?” asks J. David Velleman in introducing his philosophical theory of action. He takes this simple act of self-scrutiny as a model for the reflective reasoning of rational agents: our efforts to understand our existence and conduct are aided by our efforts to make it intelligible. Reflective reasoning, Velleman argues, constitutes practical reasoning. By applying this conception, _Practical Reflection_ develops philosophical accounts of intention, free will, and the foundation (...) of morals. This new edition of _Practical Reflection_ contains the original 1989 text along with a new introduction and is the latest entry in The David Hume Series of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Reissues, which keeps in print previously published indispensable works in the area of cognitive science. _ _ _ _. (shrink)

Because much of the recent philosophical interest in functions has been motivated by their application in biology and other sciences, most of the ensuing discussions have focused on functional explanations to the neglect of the practical role of functional knowledge. This practical role is essential for understanding how users form plans involving artifacts. We introduce the concept of instrumental function which is intended to capture the features of functional claims that are relevant to practical—in particular, instrumental—reasoning. We discuss the four (...) primary features of an instrumental function ascription, the teleological component of such ascriptions and give a clear definition of malfunction in terms of incapability to perform as well as “normal” tokens of the same type. (shrink)

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates (...) about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "virtue theory" is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "under the guise of the good," or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The paper uses two historical examples, public health (1840-1880) and town planning (1945-1975) in Britain, to analyse the challenges faced by goal-driven research, an increasingly important trend in science policy, as exemplified by the prominence of calls for addressing Grand Challenges. Two key points are argued. (1) Given that the aim of research addressing social or global problems is to contribute to improving things, this research should include all the steps necessary to bring science and technology to fruition. This need (...) is captured by the idea of practical integration, which brings this type of research under the umbrella of collective practical reason rather than under the aegis of science. Achieving practical integration is difficult for many reasons: the complexity of social needs, the plurality of values at stake, the limitation of our knowledge, the elusive nature of the skills needed to deal with uncertainty, incomplete information and asymmetries of power. Nevertheless, drawing from the lessons of the case studies, it is argued that (2) practical integration needs a proper balance between values, institutions and knowledge: i.e. a combination of mutual support and mutual limitation. Pursuing such a balance provides a flexible strategy for approximating practical integration. (shrink)

This book treats practical and political reasoning as an active engagement with the world and other people; it cannot be understood as exclusively cognitive and this is seen as a virtue rather than a deficiency. Informal, emotional, characterological, aesthetic and interactional aspects of thought can be constituents of reasonable arguing. The work examines key capacities connected with argumentation, in a variety of fields from professional and medical ethics to work organization and the practice of art.

The history of human thought has been entwined with contentious definitions of rationality. Far from trying to resolve these complexities, this dissertation aims to relieve the isolation of paradigmatic and disciplinal conceptions of rationality by exploring four distinct but interrelated problem areas of rationality that reveal affinities and parallel developments in disciplines of Anthropology, Sociology, Economics and Psychology. The problem areas loosely locate the discussions of rationality within the realm of four basic needs and aspirations relevant to the human condition: (...) attainment of valid knowledge, conditions of efficiency, directions of historical change, and principles of morality. ;The complex interrelationships of these problem areas are most fruitfully illustrated in Weber's "sociology of rationalism" whose full ramifications, for reasons expounded in this dissertation, remain unexplored. Starting with a critique of the secondary literature that introduces a variety of interpretations of Weber's rationality, the dissertation proceeds to present a new model by analytically separating generic from specific usages in Weber's writings; also it is the aim of this dissertation to dispel the ambivalence and apparent inconsistencies of Max Weber's notion of rationality. The strategy of identifying six generic types of rationality, organized in three counterpoised dualities and subsuming specific usages under them substitute for the search for an inclusive definition. The generic types are: theoretical rationality vs. practical rationality, formal rationality vs. substantive rationality, and instrumental vs. value rationality. A fourfold categorization comprised of a cross-tabulation between first and second dichotomies suggests four possibilities, covering all usages of rationality in Weber's work. The four areas of rationality may be related by either affinity or conflict. Affinity means mutual enhancement of two areas of rationality. Two types of conflict are distinguished: exclusion and tension. Theoretical benefits and limits of the model, complications of a similar classification of types of irrationality and the connection of Weber's rationality to the general rationality debate are explored through a discussion of Weber's sociology, epistemology and philosophical anthropology of rationality. Also, the correspondence of the problem areas of rationality to the fourfold model of Weber's rationality is established. (shrink)

I demonstrate that the two major ethical traditions agree that there are given desires which provide extra-rational practical reasons. Empiricist theories ground ethics in such desires, but the extra-rationality of this foundation appears to lead to stultifying subjectivism. Rationalist theories justify the appeal to an independent Kantian Reason as necessary to gain control over such desires. But the status of these desires as providing motivating reasons guarantees that such independent Reason can never be more than one among competing sources of (...) practical rational motivation. ;I then argue that the generalization and extension of the epistemological argument against the given provides compelling evidence that there can be no such given desires. This argument demonstrates that episodes which can provide reasons cannot be extra-rational, indeed must be constituted through rational endorsement. This critical argument is applied to the work of Dennis Stampe and Thomas Hobbes , and extended from desires to preferences . ;In order to provide rational warrant, a desire must itself be rationally endorsed in a context of other endorsed episodes within which its own warrant is secured. There are no given desires, no extra-rational practical reasons in which the crude empiricist can ground practical reasoning. But there is also no need to postulate Reason independent of desire to gain rational control over such desires. I close by suggesting that this critical argument provides a framework for the construction of a middle ground between the two traditions which incorporates their central insights while avoiding their chronic failings. (shrink)

This thesis examines compatibilist theories in relation to developments in the philosophy of action, beginning with the Humean "desire model" which dominated early in this century. It is argued that these "dissolutionist" forms of compatibilism failed to capture the meaning of "responsibility" and "free will" as ordinarily understood, partly because they depended on an inadequate theory of action and practical reasoning. Chapter III explores the role and meaning of "can" in compatibilist theories, arguing that the dissolutionist hypothetical analysis of "can" (...) is also a failure. In chapter IV and V, I argue that the nature of practical reasoning presupposes distinctions between desiring and valuing as sources of motivation, and between the standpoint of the agent and the standpoint of the observer. The standpoint of the agent emerges as central to our notion of free action and to the fundamental meaning we attach to "can". While this does not mean that reasons cannot be causes, it shows that the language of action and the language of occurrences is incommensurable. The question becomes: whether what is affirmed within the agent standpoint can be logically reconciled with what is believed from the "observer" point of view without becoming "epiphenomenal". ;Chapters VI and VII argue that the "agent standpoint" is also central to our ordinary distinctions between actions and occurrences, and that Humean event causal theories of action fail to capture this distinction. Chapter VIII re-examines the question of compatibilism as an attempt to reconcile agent and spectator standpoints. Here I argue that because the languages of the two standpoints cannot be kept clearly apart, what looks like informal contradictions between the two levels do arise, and that while the incommensurability of the two languages does not permit a demonstration of formal contradictions between them, it also does not allow us to show how and why such informal contradictions can be resolved. Finally, I argue that unless we are prepared to distinguish ontological levels, we cannot explain how the two languages could be intelligibly "about" the same thing without exposing the agent standpoint to the threat of epiphenomenalism. (shrink)

My thesis argues that the debate about the nature of practical reasoning is hindered by an erroneous distinction between theoretical and practical reasoning which, when redrawn, allows for a better account of the normative force of practical reasons. ;Typically, reasoning about action is taken to bear explanatory burdens which reasoning about belief is not. Rational constraints are thought to be categorically binding in theoretical reasoning, but only hypothetically binding in practical reasoning. Instrumentalists, who hold that reason's role in action is (...) limited to the generation and evaluation of means to ends, ends set by something other than reason itself cannot appeal directly to reason's authority in the explanation of how reasons rationally compel action. Instead, they focus on the question of what motivates action. This focus obscures the more fundamental question, 'how are judgements, practical and theoretical, normatively binding?' It prejudices an analysis of practical reason by supposing it to involve normative commitments which theoretical reasoning doesn't. ;I outline Wilfrid Sellars's analysis of the normative commitments implicit in theoretical reasoning and apply its lessons to an analysis of practical reasoning. In Sellars's terminology, attempts to justify by appeals to non-normative facts employ "mongrel concepts," which illegitimately conflate the causal and normative orders of explanation. Using this concept as a gauge for evaluating accounts of theoretical and practical reasoning, I show how views that characterize reasons simultaneously as mental particulars, merely descriptively true of agents, and as general standards authorizing conduct, fail. I argue that both instrumentalist and Kantian accounts of practical reason invoke mongrel concepts. ;To focus on the deeper question of how reasons are binding, I redraw the distinction between practical and theoretical reason, showing that puzzles purportedly specific to moral reasoning are instead, puzzles for rationality itself. I argue that the normative authority of reasons is explained by their public character. The practice of giving and asking for reasons, and the inferences which reasons authorize within that practice, must be understood in intersubjective terms on pain of unintelligibility. According to intersubjectivism, what we have objective reason to do is a function of what good practical discourse would vindicate. (shrink)