Can I toss a small but important and oddly neglected point into the debate between Roger Trigg and the Social Anthropologists like Professor Beattie whom it may or may not be right to call Relativists?

We often come to value someone or something through experience of that person or thing. You may thereby come to embrace a value that you did not grasp prior to the experience in question. Moreover, it seems that in a large and important subset of cases you could not have fully appreciated that value merely by considering a report of the reasons or arguments that purport to establish that it is valuable. Despite its ubiquity, this phenomenon goes missing in a (...) great deal of contemporary work in ethics and political philosophy. In this paper I further specify the phenomenon of interest by developing a series of examples. Then I support the claim that philosophers routinely overlook it by surveying several significant philosophical positions that do so. (shrink)

This chapter argues that there is a particular kind of ‘internal’ commitment typically made in the context of romantic love relationships that has striking meta-normative implications for how we understand the role of the will in practical normativity. Internal commitments cannot plausibly explain the reasons we have in committed relationships on the usual model—as triggering reasons that are already there, in the way that making a promise triggers a reason via a pre-existing norm of the form ‘If you make (...) a promise to x, then you have a reason to x’. Instead, internal commitments are that in virtue of which one has the special reasons of committed relationships; they are the grounds of such reasons. In this way, the will is a source of practical normativity. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a particular kind of ‘internal’ commitment typically made in the context of romantic love relationships that has striking meta-normative implications for how we understand the role of the will in practical normativity. Internal commitments cannot plausibly explain the reasons we have in committed relationships on the usual model – as triggering reasons that are already there, in the way that making a promise triggers a reason via a pre-existing norm of the form ‘If (...) you make a promise to x, then you have a reason to x’. Instead, internal commitments are that in virtue of which one has the special reasons of committed relationships; they are the grounds of such reasons. In this way, the will is a source of practical normativity. (shrink)

Many religious people are alarmed about features of the current age - violence in the media, a pervasive hedonism, a marginalization of religion, and widespread abortion. These concerns influence politics, but just as there should be a separation between church and state, so should there be a balance between religious commitments and secular arguments calling for social reforms. Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom (...) except on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. The book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate co-operation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends. Audi offers a balanced and sophisticated treatment of the relations between religion and politics in a modern, secular society. (shrink)

Many religious people are alarmed about features of the current age - violence in the media, a pervasive hedonism, a marginalization of religion, and widespread abortion. These concerns influence politics, but just as there should be a separation between church and state, so should there be a balance between religious commitments and secular arguments calling for social reforms. Robert Audi offers a principle of secular rationale, which does not exclude religious grounds for action but which rules out restricting freedom (...) except on grounds that any rational citizen would accept. The book describes the essential commitments of free democracy, explains how religious and secular moral considerations can be integrated to facilitate co-operation in a world of religious pluralism, and proposes ideals of civic virtue that express the mutual respect on which democracy depends. Audi offers a balanced and sophisticated treatment of the relations between religion and politics in a modern, secular society. (shrink)

Develops a logical analysis of dialogue in which two or more parties attempt to advance their own interests. It includes a classification of the major types of dialogues and a discussion of several important informal fallacies.

This paper addresses some connections between conceptions of the will and the theory of practical reason. The first two sections argue against the idea that volitional commitments should be understood along the lines of endorsement of normative principles. A normative account of volition cannot make sense of akrasia, and it obscures an important difference between belief and intention. Sections three and four draw on the non-normative conception of the will in an account of instrumental rationality. The central problem is (...) to explain the grip of instrumental requirements even in cases in which agents do not fully endorse the ends they are pursuing. The solution I propose appeals to coherence constraints on the beliefs that condition the distinctive volitional stance of intention. (shrink)

Can we justify our most basic beliefs about morality, religion and the nature of the world? Can there be a rational and objective way of choosing between alternative societies, modes of life or world-views? Dr Trigg shows how philosophical analysis is relevant to these questions and criticizes the tendency to emphasize notions of commitment and convention at the expense of truth and reason. He draws parallels between issues that are often too isolated from each other and identifies a cluster of (...) related ideas, all of which stress the notion of self-contained conceptual systems that define their own standards of rationality. First published in 1973, this book will interest professional philosophers as a vigorous and distinctive exposition of several fundamental philosophical problems and more especially it can be used as an introduction for students to a wide range of philosophical problems. (shrink)

What would something unlike us--a chimpanzee, say, or a computer--have to be able to do to qualify as a possible knower, like us? To answer this question at the very heart of our sense of ourselves, philosophers have long focused on intentionality and have looked to language as a key to this condition. Making It Explicit is an investigation into the nature of language--the social practices that distinguish us as rational, logical creatures--that revises the very terms of this inquiry. Where (...) accounts of the relation between language and mind have traditionally rested on the concept of representation, this book sets out an alternate approach based on inference, and on a conception of certain kinds of implicit assessment that become explicit in language. Making It Explicit is the first attempt to work out in detail a theory that renders linguistic meaning in terms of use--in short, to explain how semantic content can be conferred on expressions and attitudes that are suitably caught up in social practices. -/- At the center of this enterprise is a notion of discursive commitment. Being able to talk--and so in the fullest sense being able to think--is a matter of mastering the practices that govern such commitments, being able to keep track of one’s own commitments and those of others. Assessing the pragmatic significance of speech acts is a matter of explaining the explicit in terms of the implicit. As he traces the inferential structure of the social practices within which things can be made conceptually explicit, the author defines the distinctively expressive role of logical vocabulary. This expressive account of language, mind, and logic is, finally, an account of who we are. (shrink)

This paper addresses some connections between conceptions of the will and the theory of practical reason. The first two sections argue against the idea that volitional commitments should be understood along the lines of endorsement of normative principles. A normative account of volition cannot make sense of akrasia, and it obscures an important difference between belief and intention. Sections three and four draw on the non-normative conception of the will in an account of instrumental rationality. The central problem is (...) to explain the grip of instrumental requirements even in cases in which agents do not fully endorse the ends they are pursuing. The solution I propose appeals to coherence constraints on the beliefs that condition the distinctive volitional stance of intention. (shrink)

In this paper, I raise two questions about epistemic commitments, and thus, indirectly, about our epistemic agency. Can we rationally defend such commitments when challenged to do so? And if so, how?

Ruth Chang has argued convincingly that we must recognize that some choices will not involve strict, univocal comparison of options. How, then, can such choices be made well? Chang suggests that commitment is a fundamental way of ‘putting one's very self’ behind a normative consideration, thereby ‘endow[ing] that consideration with the normativity of a reason’. This view challenges what Chang deems to be three dogmas of normativity, and the current comment critically assesses the relation of her view to the first (...) and third of these dogmas. I suggest some alternative ways of thinking about these dogmas, which enable us to see how her work might uncover a fourth dogma, and which can, I believe, lend strength to a position very close to Chang's. (shrink)

This paper examines the conceptual and terminological overlap between theories and models of practical deliberation developed within the fields of Practical Reasoning (PR) and Practical Argumentation (PA). It carefully delineates the volitional, epistemic, normative, and social commitments invoked and explicates various rationales for attributing the label ‘practical’ to instances of reasoning and argumentation. Based on these analyses, the paper develops a new approach to practical deliberation called the Stakeholder Commitment Approach (SCA). By distinguishing between ‘problem holder’ and (...) ‘problem solver’, and specifying the distributions of attributable commitments among the stakeholders, the SCA introduces an extension and refinement of the grounds for assigning the label ‘practical’ that brings PR and PA closer together. (shrink)

I argue for a commitment-discharging condition of reasoning, according to which to engage in reasoning is to discharge the theoretical and practical commitments one has undertaken. I highlight the ways in which this condition is distinct from other proposals, particularly the Taking Condition, and argue that it can explain certain intuitions about reasoning that otherwise remain elusive. In particular, I argue that the commitment-discharging condition can provide a unified account of attitude-formation and premise-discharging reasoning as (...) well as practical and theoretical reasoning. It also provides a novel way to evade the regress that bedevils many accounts of inference. (shrink)

Isaac Levi is one of the preeminent philosophers in the areas of pragmatic rationality and epistemology. This collection of essays constitutes an important presentation of his original and influential ideas about rational choice and belief. A wide range of topics is covered, including consequentialism and sequential choice, consensus, voluntarism of belief, and the tolerance of the opinions of others. The essays elaborate on the idea that principles of rationality are norms that regulate the coherence of our beliefs and values with (...) our rational choices. The norms impose minimal constraints on deliberation and inquiry, but they also impose demands well beyond the capacities of deliberating agents. This major collection will be eagerly sought out by a wide range of philosophers in epistemology, logic, and philosophy of science, as well as economists, decision theorists, and statisticians. (shrink)

Public reason liberalism holds that laws and policies must be justifiable to all reasonable citizens. Recently, David Enoch has offered an impressive and influential argument against the epistemological commitments of public reason liberalism on the grounds that they are ‘highly controversial’. After setting out this argument (Sections I and II), I show how its central claim is ambiguous between two senses of ‘controversial’. This gives rise to a dilemma: either Enoch's claim is that the relevant epistemological commitments are (...) controversial in the sense of being subject to controversy amongst actual people, in which case this is true but not troubling for public reason theorists; or the claim is that the relevant commitments are controversial in the sense of being subject to controversy amongst reasonable people, in which case this simply begs the question against public reason theorists (Section III). I then defend each horn of the dilemma against objections (Sections IV and V). I conclude by generalizing this dilemma, showing how it defuses not just Enoch's argument but also a number of other arguments frequently made in the literature on public reason liberalism (Section VI). (shrink)

Can it be rational to be religious? Robert Audi gives a persuasive positive answer through an account of rationality and a rich, nuanced understanding of what religious commitment means. It is not just a matter of belief, but of emotions and attitudes such as faith and hope, of one's outlook on the world, and of commitment to live in certain ways.

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by (...) appeal to the notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to contribute to a practice-based characterization of scientific inference. We want to explore whether Brandom’s pragmatist–inferentialist framework can suitably accommodate several types of ampliative inference common in scientific reasoning and explanation (probabilistic reasoning, abduction and idealisation). First, we argue that Brandom’s view of induction in terms of merely permissive inferences is inadequate; in order to overcome the shortcoming of Brandom’s proposal, we put forward an alternative conception of inductive, probabilistic reasoning by (...) appeal to the notion of degrees of commitment. Moreover, we examine the sorts of inferential commitments operative in other types of ampliative inferences, such as abduction or reasoning involving idealizations and assumptions. We suggest that agents engaging in these forms of reasoning often undertake restricted inferential commitments, whose scope and reach are more limited that in the case of the commitments associated with full beliefs. (shrink)