It is a popular view thatpractical deliberation excludes foreknowledge of one's choice. Wolfgang Spohn and Isaac Levi have argued that not even a purely probabilistic self-predictionis available to thedeliberator, if one takes subjective probabilities to be conceptually linked to betting rates. It makes no sense to have a betting rate for an option, for one's willingness to bet on the option depends on the net gain from the bet, in combination with the option's antecedent utility, rather than on the offered (...) odds. And even apart from this consideration, assigning probabilities to the options among which one is choosing is futile since such probabilities could be of no possible use in choice. The paper subjects these arguments to critical examination and suggests that, appearances notwithstanding, practical deliberation need not crowd outself-prediction. (shrink)

When Ingmar and I discuss metaphysics or morality, our views are seldom far apart. Hut on the subjects of this paper, rationality and reasons, we deeply disagree.

This volume is a selection of Broome's recent papers on normativity, rationality, and reasoning. It covers a variety of topics such as the meanings of 'ought', 'reason', and 'reasons'; the fundamental structure of normativity and the metaphysical priority of ought over reasons; the ownership - or agent-relativity - of oughts and reasons; the distinction between rationality and normativity; the notion of rational motivation; what characterizes the human activity of reasoning, and what is the role of (...) normativity within it; the nature of preferences and of reasoning with preferences; and others. These papers extend the work presented in his book Rationality Through Reasoning but there is little overlap between their content and the book's. They develop further some themes and arguments from the book, and answer some questions that the book left unanswered. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Reason, Rationality and Reasonableness is intended as a critical reflection on the nature of reason. It aims to show that, ...

John Broome has developed an account of rationality and reasoning which gives philosophical foundations for choice theory and the psychology of rational agents. We formalize his account into a model that differs from ordinary choice-theoretic models through focusing on psychology and the reasoning process. Within that model, we ask Broome’s central question of whether reasoning can make us more rational: whether it allows us to acquire transitive preferences, consistent beliefs, non-akratic intentions, and so on. We identify three structural types (...) of rationality requirements: consistency requirements, completeness requirements, and closedness requirements. Many standard rationality requirements fall under this typology. Based on three theorems, we argue that reasoning is successful in achieving closedness requirements, but not in achieving consistency or completeness requirements. We assess how far our negative results reveal gaps in Broome's theory, or deficiencies in choice theory and behavioral economics. (shrink)

This paper examines Guillermo Lariguet’s paper ‘Analytical Legal Philosophy Reloaded,’ offering two interpretations of the ‘reloading’ project. The paper argues that a naturalistic reading of the project is unmotivated and that a more promising way of interpreting Lariguet’s proposal is in terms of a rather ambitious methodological agenda, which is analogous to the broadly encompassing methodological criticism envisioned by Jürgen Habermas in some of his work, which centers on communicative action. This ‘reasonableness’ proposal, as I shall call it, is a (...) plea to invigorate and enrich not just legal philosophy, but philosophical discourse in general, and shows that the reloading of legal philosophy cannot be understood as a project that originates only from within legal philosophy.Resumen:En este trabajo se examina el ensayo de Guillermo Lariguet intitulado “Analytical Legal Philosophy Reloaded”, y se ofrecen dos interpretaciones de su proyecto de “renovar” la filosofía analítica del derecho. En primer lugar se sostiene que una lectura naturalista del proyecto es injustificada, y que la vía más prometedora de interpretar su propuesta es en términos una agenda metodológica más ambiciosa, la cual es análoga al criticismo metodológico exhaustivo imaginado por Jürgen Habermas en algunos de sus trabajos, en los que centra su acción comunicativa. La “razonabilidad” de la propuesta, como la denomino, es una invitación a revitalizar y enriquecer no sólo la filosofía jurídica, sino el discurso filosófico en general; además muestra que la “renovación” de la filosofía del derecho no puede ser entendida como un proyecto que se origine única- mente desde el interior de la filosofía jurídica. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge the claim that each party in the original position will have a first-ranked preference for an identical set of principles of justice. I maintain, by contrast, that the original position allows parties to choose on the basis of different conceptions of rationality, which in turn may lead to a reasonable disagreement concerning the principles of justice selected. I then argue that this reasonable disagreement should not lead us to abandon contractualism, but rather to reconstruct (...) it in the form of a two-stage process, where parties first build individual preference rankings for alternative conceptions of justice and then work towards a reconciliation of the divergent conceptions that are chosen in the first stage. Finally, I claim that threshold prioritarianism is a strong candidate for selection in this reconciliatory stage, since it manages to address both the legitimate complaints of parties that would prefer a conception of justice focused on the most disadvantaged positions in society and the legitimate complaints of parties that would prefer a conception of justice in which less or no special weight is assigned to the worst-off positions. (shrink)

In this paper I challenge the claim that each party in the original position will have a first-ranked preference for an identical set of principles of justice. I maintain, by contrast, that the original position allows parties to choose on the basis of different conceptions of rationality, which in turn may lead to a reasonable disagreement concerning the principles of justice selected. I then argue that this reasonable disagreement should not lead us to abandon contractualism, but rather to reconstruct (...) it in the form of a two-stage process, where parties first build individual preference rankings for alternative conceptions of justice and then work towards a reconciliation of the divergent conceptions that are chosen in the first stage. Finally, I claim that threshold prioritarianism is a strong candidate for selection in this reconciliatory stage, since it manages to address both the legitimate complaints of parties that would prefer a conception of justice focused on the most disadvantaged positions in society and the legitimate complaints of parties that would prefer a conception of justice in which less or no special weight is assigned to the worst-off positions. (shrink)

In this book, the author shows that it is necessary to enrich the conceptual frame of the theory of rational choice beyond consequentialism. He argues that consequentialism as a general theory of rational action fails and that this does not force us into the dichotomy teleology vs deontology. The unity of practical reason can be saved without consequentialism. In the process, he presents insightful criticism of standard models of action and rational choice. This will help readers discover a new perspective (...) on the theory of rationality. The approach is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions do exist that are outlined in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet, not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational only because there is no known underlying maximizing heuristic. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still left within the realm of cost-benefit-reasoning. The idea of social preferences or meta-preferences cannot encompass the plurality of human actions. According to the author they ignore the plurality of reasons that drive agency. Hence, they coerce agency in fitting into a theory that undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges lifeworld patterns of interaction and meaning. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In his ‘Rationality versus Normativity’, John Broome argues against the view that rationality is reducible to normativity. Broome’s argument rests on the claim that while rationality supervenes on the mind, normativity does not. In this commentary, I argue that Broome's arguments succeed only against views on which reasons and normativity are univocal. Once we admit of multiple kinds of normative reasons, some fact-given and others non-factive, a version of the reasons-responsiveness view emerges that (...) is untouched by Broome's arguments. On such a view, rationality supervenes on non-factive reasons, not on fact-given ones, so rationality supervenes on a kind of normativity that supervenes on the mind. This shows that Broome has not refuted reasons-responsiveness views wholesale. Moreover, because Broome’s arguments do refute univocal versions of reasons-responsiveness views, they provide a justification for preferring non-univocal versions of reasons-responsiveness views to univocal ones. (shrink)

Joshua Gert offers an original account of normative facts and properties, those which have implications for how we ought to behave. He argues that our ability to think and talk about normative notions such as reasons and benefits is dependent on how we respond to the world around us, including how we respond to the actions of other people.

Sidgwick's seminal textThe Methods of Ethicsleft off with an unresolved problem that Sidgwick referred to as the dualism of practical reason. The problem is that employing Sidgwick's methodology of rational intuitionism appears to show that there are reasons to favour both egoism and utilitarianism. Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Peter Singer offer a solution in the form of an evolutionary debunking argument: the appeal of egoism is explainable in terms of evolutionary theory. I argue that like rational prudence, rational benevolence (...) is subject to debunking arguments and so problematic, but also – and more importantly – that debunking arguments are irrelevant in the debate over the dualism of practical reason on the view of reason and rational intuitionism that Lazari-Radek and Singer embrace. Either both egoism and utilitarianism are debunked, or neither are. If I am right, Sidgwick's dualism is left standing. (shrink)

The present dissertation investigates certain facets of the logical structure of oughts – where “ought” is used as a noun, roughly meaning obligation. I do so by following two lines of inquiry. The first part of the thesis places oughts in the context of practical rationality. The second part of the thesis concerns the inference rules governing arguments about oughts, and specifically the inference rule of Reasoning by Cases. These two lines of inquiry, together, aim to expound upon oughts (...) in rationality and reasoning. The methodology used in this dissertation is the one of philosophical logic, in which logical, qualitative models are developed to support and foster conceptual analysis. The dissertation consists of four main chapters. The first two chapters are devoted to the role of oughts in practical rationality. I focus on the so-called Enkratic principle of rationality, which – in its most general formulation – requires that if an agent believes sincerely and with conviction that she ought to do X, then she intends to X. I develop a logical framework to investigate the (static and dynamic) relation between those oughts believed by the agent and her intentions. It is shown that, under certain minimal assumptions, the Enkratic principle of rationality is a principle of limited validity. The following two chapters of the dissertation constitute a study of the classical inference rule of Reasoning by Cases, which – in its simplest form – moves from the premises “A or B”, “if A then C” and “if B then C” to the conclusion “C”. Recent literature has called the validity of Reasoning by Cases into question, with the most influential counterexample being the so-called Miners’ Puzzle – an instance of Reasoning by Cases where “C” involves oughts. I provide a unifying explanation of why the Miners’ Puzzle emerges. It is shown that, within specific boundaries, Reasoning by Cases is a valid inference rule. (shrink)

This paper looks at whether it is possible to unify the requirements of rationality with the demands of normative reasons. It might seem impossible to do because one depends upon the agent’s perspective and the other upon features of the situation. Enter Reasons Perspectivism. Reasons perspectivists think they can show that rationality does consist in responding correctly to reasons by placing epistemic constraints on these reasons. They think that if normative reasons are (...) subject to the right epistemic constraints, rational requirements will correspond to the demands generated by normative reasons. While this proposal is prima facie plausible, it cannot ultimately unify reasons and rationality. There is no epistemic constraint that can do what reasons perspectivists would need it to do. Some constraints are too strict. The rest are too slack. This points to a general problem with the reasons-first program. Once we recognize that the agent’s epistemic position helps determine what she should do, we have to reject the idea that the features of the agent’s situation can help determine what we should do. Either rationality crowds out reasons and their demands or the reasons will make unreasonable demands. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a brief (and more than a little potted) history of the concepts of reason, rationality, reasonableness, and reasons in modern European philosophy and consider whether this history might support the "Anscombean" conclusion that, "The concepts of rationality and reasons ought to jettisoned if this is psychologically possible; because they are survivals, or derivatives from survivals, from an earlier conception of psychology and philosophy which no longer generally survives, and are only harmful (...) without it.". (shrink)

‘The idea that there are standards of practical reason apart from or independent of good character,’ Kieran Setiya trenchantly argues, ‘is a philosophical mirage’. 1 Setiya's argument in this fine book is a striking blend of philosophy of action and normative philosophy. A central claim is that the intention is a special kind of belief. I want both to challenge that claim and to reflect on a subtle argument in its favour that is in the background.1.Practical thinking, as understood by (...) Setiya, includes the thinking that is involved in ‘the motivation of action done for reasons …, the balancing of reasons …, and the forming and revising of intentions and desires’ . Dispositions of practical thinking are traits of character. So, we can evaluate a given disposition of practical thought by appealing to general standards of good character and asking whether that disposition of practical thought is good as a trait of character. The ‘Virtue Theory’ says that all standards of practical reason are, at bottom, the reflection of standards of good traits of character as those standards of good character are applied to, in particular, dispositions of practical thinking.What Setiya calls ‘rationalism’ is a theoretical alternative to the Virtue Theory. The idea is to find certain features of practical thinking that are essential to intentional agency, and then to show that these essential modes of practical thinking, without further appeal to general standards of good character, support standards of practical reason that apply to all cases of intentional agency.To assess such rationalism, we need a theory of intentional agency and of the practical thinking that is essential to it. According to Setiya, this theory will need to …. (shrink)

This book examines the issue of rational cooperation, especially cooperation between people with conflicting moral commitments. The first part considers how the two main aspects of cooperation - the choice by a group of a particular cooperative scheme and the decision by each member to contribute to that scheme - can be understood as guided by reason. The second part explores how the activity of reasoning itself can take a cooperative form. The book is distinctive in offering an account of (...) what people can accomplish by reasoning together, of the role of deliberation in democratic decision making, and of the negotiation of the proper use of concepts. Presenting for the first time a detailed analysis of the general problem of cooperation and collective reasoning between people with different moral commitments, this book will be of particular interest to philosophers of the social sciences and to students in political science, sociology and economics. (shrink)

This book provides answers to both normative and metaethical questions in a way that shows the interconnection of both types of questions, and also shows how a complete theory of reasons can be developed by moving back and forth between the two types of questions. It offers an account of the nature of intimate relationships and of the nature of the reasons that intimacy provides, and then uses that account to defend a traditional intuitionist metaethics. The book thus (...) combines attention to the details of the lived moral life – the context in which many of our most pressing moral questions arise, how we deliberate and make moral decisions, the complexities that plague our attempts to know what we ought to do – with theoretical rigor in offering an account of the nature of reasons, how we come to have moral knowledge, and how we can adjudicate between competing positions. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend the representationalist theory of phenomenal consciousness against a recent objection due to Hilla Jacobson, who charges representationalism with a failure to explain the role of pain in rationalizing certain forms of behavior. In rough outline, her objection is that the representationalist is unable to account for the rationality of certain acts, such as the act of taking pain killers, which are aimed at getting rid of the experience of pain rather than its intentional object. (...) If representationalism were true, she claims, then the act of taking pain killers would be just as irrational as the act of a ruler who responds to bad tidings by killing the messenger. This paper aims to show that these charges are mistaken. (shrink)

McNaughton and Rawling present a view on which practical reasons are facts, such as the fact that the rubbish bin is full. This is a non-normative fact, but it is a reason for you to do something, namely take the rubbish out. They see rationality as a matter of consistency. And they see duty as neither purely a matter of rationality nor of practical reason: on the one hand, the rational sociopath is immoral; but, on the other, (...) morality does not require that we always act on the weightiest moral reasons. McNaughton and Rawling criticize various forms of internalism, including Williams’s, and they tentatively propose a view of duty that is neither purely subjective in Prichard’s sense, nor purely objective. (shrink)

This paper explicates an account of argumentative rationality by articulating the common, basic idea of its nature, and then identifying a collection of assumptions inherent in it. Argumentative rationality is then contrasted with dual-process theories of reasoning and rationality prevalent in the psychology of reasoning. It is argued that argumentative rationality properly corresponds only with system-2 reasoning in dual-process theories. This result challenges the prescriptive force of argumentative norms derives if they derive at all from their (...) descriptive accuracy of our cognitive capacities. In response, I propose an activity-based account of reasoning which retains the assumptions of argumentative rationality while recontextualizing the relationship between reasoning as a justificatory activity and the psychological states and processes underlying that activity. (shrink)

Rationality and Religion deals with the perennial question of how far religious faith needs reason.

_Rationality and Religion_ deals with the perennial question of how far religious faith needs reason.

This book examines the issue of rational cooperation, especially cooperation between people with conflicting moral commitments. The first part considers how the two main aspects of cooperation - the choice by a group of a particular cooperative scheme and the decision by each member to contribute to that scheme - can be understood as guided by reason. The second part explores how the activity of reasoning itself can take a cooperative form. The book is distinctive in offering an account of (...) what people can accomplish by reasoning together, of the role of deliberation in democratic decision making, and of the negotiation of the proper use of concepts. Presenting for the first time a detailed analysis of the general problem of cooperation and collective reasoning between people with different moral commitments, this book will be of particular interest to philosophers of the social sciences and to students in political science, sociology and economics. (shrink)

The work of Tversky, Kahneman and others suggests that people often make use of cognitive heuristics such as availability, salience and representativeness in their reasoning and decision making. Through use of a historical example--the recent plate tectonics revolution in geology--I argue that such heuristics play a crucial role in scientific decision making also. I suggest how these heuristics are to be considered, along with noncognitive factors (such as motivation and social structures) when drawing historical and epistemological conclusions. The normative perspective (...) is community-wide, contextual, and instrumental. (shrink)

This paper argues that since the last decades of the twentieth century the discipline of modern finance has directed fiduciaries to act "rationally"—that is, in the sole financial interest of their funds--downplaying the effects of their investments on others. This approach has deemphasized a previous, more "reasonable" interpretation of fiduciary duty that drew on a conception of prudence characterized by wisdom, discretion and intelligence—one that accounts to a greater degree for the relationship between one's investments and their effects on others (...) in the world. The reasonable approach allows fiduciaries to a greater degree to assess the objective well-being of beneficiaries, to recognize fundamental sources of investment reward in the economy, and to fulfill their obligations to allocate benefits impartially between current and future generations. Reason and rationality can work in a complementary fashion to make investment long-term in its perspective and beneficial to society and the economy as well as to specific funds or portfolios. Determining how to accomplish this challenging task is part of the obligation of fiduciaries as they seek to realize the full potential of the investment assets entrusted to their care. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new account of bounded or minimal doxastic rationality (in the sense of Cherniak 1986), based on the notion that beliefs are answers to questions (à la Yalcin 2018). The core idea is that minimally rational beliefs are linked through thematic connections, rather than entailment relations. Consequently, such beliefs are not deductively closed, but they are closed under parthood (where a part is an entailment that answers a smaller question). And instead of avoiding all inconsistency, minimally (...) rational believers only avoid blatant inconsistencies (where some beliefs are blatantly inconsistent when they contradict one another on a particular question). Rather than cohering into a single overall world view, beliefs are more loosely connected in what is best described as a web of questions. This view of minimally rational belief naturally gives rise to an account of deductive inquiry on which deductive reasoning is a matter of posing new questions. (shrink)

Rationality and reasonableness can be illustrated as Janus-faced concepts, not only in a descriptive diagnosis but also in a normative construction of adjudication, and in the analysis of its practical and rhetorical effects. Considering such an illustration, the present reflection returns to the discussion on the relevance of rationality and reasonableness in legal interpretation, aiming at distinguishing and/or connecting principles and criteria, beyond formally logical and/or procedurally argumentative decision-making, and, thus, within a normatively practical adjudication. Such an approach (...) will be presented in two main steps. In a first step, the rationality/reasonableness dichotomy will be discussed within a constitutive connection between principles and criteria in adjudication, and understanding legal principles as normatively substantial foundations to legal criteria—the former as axiological references filtered into the juridical system and the latter as their concretizations, and whose practical adequacy is rhetorically assigned by the interpretive communities involved in/by adjudication, and normatively referred both to their practical accordance to the axiological normativity of the principles they shall presuppose and to their suitability as practical operators to the problematic relevance of the sub judice cases. In a second step, and consequently, encompassing the projection of legal interpretation, in semiotic and in practical-normative perspectives, in order to discuss their constituting practical relevance in adjudication, the rationality/reasonableness dichotomy will be experimented within formal-logical procedures and within practical-dialectical connections between juridical problem and juridical system—therefore stating a discussion on the foundations, the intentionality and the consequences of adjudication, amongst deduction and analogy. (shrink)

British psychologists have been at the forefront of research into human reasoning for 40 years. This article describes some past research milestones within this tradition before outlining the major theoretical positions developed in the UK. Most British reasoning researchers have contributed to one or more of these positions. We identify a common theme that is emerging in all these approaches, that is, the problem of explaining how prior general knowledge affects reasoning. In our concluding comments we outline the challenges for (...) future research posed by this problem. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Perfect Rationality A Dubious Presupposition Reasoning Animals and Their History Rationality without Perfection.

My main aim in this paper is to show that Kolodny’s intriguing argument against wide-scopism – ‘the Reasoning Argument’ – fails. A proper evaluation of the Reasoning Argument requires drawing two significant distinctions, one between thin and thick rational transitions and the other between bare-bones wide-scopism (and narrow-scopism) and embellished wide-scopism (and narrow-scopism). The Reasoning Argument is intended by Kolodny both as an argument against bare-bones wide-scopism and as an argument against embellished wide-scopism. I argue that despite its formidable virtue (...) of demonstrating the need for an account of thick subjective rationality, the Reasoning Argument works neither against bare-bones wide-scopism nor against embellished wide-scopism. (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)

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.

Recently, a cottage industry has formed with the goal of analyzing reasoning. The relevant notion of reasoning in which philosophers are expressly interested is fixed through an epistemic functional description: reasoning—whatever it is—is our personal-level, rationally evaluable means of meeting our rational requirements through managing and updating our attitudes. Roughly, the dominant view in the extant literature as developed by Paul Boghossian, John Broome, and others is that reasoning is a rule-governed operation over propositional attitudes that results in a change (...) in attitude. In this paper, I argue that our personal-level operations over mental models and visuospatial imagery, which are representations in a non-propositional/analogue format, can be rationally evaluable processes of managing our attitudes and, thus, should be considered reasoning in the relevant sense. Furthermore, I show that if reasoning can occur through operations over mental models and imagery, then the dominant rule-following account mischaracterizes the cognitive operations and representational states assumed to be constitutive of reasoning and what grounds the rational status of a line of reasoning. (shrink)

This volume broadens our concept of reasoning and rationality to allow for a more pluralistic and situational view of human thinking as a practical activity. Drawing on contributors across disciplines including philosophy, economics, psychology, statistics, computer science, engineering, and physics, _Reasoning, Rationality, and Probability_ argues that the search for strong theories should leave room for the construction of context-sensitive conceptual tools. Both science and everyday life, the authors argue, are too complex and multifaceted to be forced into ready-made (...) schemata. (shrink)

The claim that the answers we give to many of the central questions in genethics will depend crucially upon the particular rationality we adopt in addressing them is central to Matti Häyry’s thorough and admirably fair-minded book, Rationality and the Genetic Challenge. That claim implies, of course, that there exists a plurality of rationalities, or discrete styles of reasoning, that can be deployed when considering concrete moral problems. This, indeed, is Häyry’s position. Although he believes that there are (...) certain features definitive of any type of thinking that can accurately be labeled rational, he maintains that nothing about that set of features compels us to conclude that there is a single rationality. What is more, and significantly for the way in which Häyry’s book develops, there is no Archimedean point from which we are licensed to pronounce one flavor of rational deliberation to be intrinsically superior to any other or to be justified to the exclusion of all others. To this belief that “there are many divergent rationalities, all of which can be simultaneously valid,” we can perhaps give the name “the Doctrine of the Plurality of Rationalities” or, for short, “DPR.”. (shrink)

Recent evidence suggests that performance on reasoning tasks may reflect the operation of a number of distinct cognitive mechanisms and processes. This paper explores the implications of this view of the mind for the descriptive and normative assessment of reasoning. I suggest that descriptive questions such as “Are we equipped to reason using rule X?” and normative questions such as “Are we rational?” are obsolete—they do not possess a fine enough grain of architectural resolution to accurately characterize the mind. I (...) explore how this general lesson can apply to specific experimental interpretations, and suggest that 'rationality' must be evaluated along a number of importantly distinct dimensions. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide an answer to the question “what is it for a reason to be the reason for which a belief is held?” After arguing against the causal account of the reason-for-which connection, I present what I call the rationalization account, according to which a reason R a subject S has for a belief P is the reason for which S holds P just in case R is the premise in S’s rationalization for P, where the argument (...) from R to P becomes S’s rationalization in virtue of her endorsing it. In order to bring explicitly into view the version of the rationalization account I aim to argue for, I draw two distinctions, one between occurrent and dispositional endorsement and the other between personal and public endorsement. I show that the version of the rationalization account thus clarified receives intuitive support from various cases and survives some formidable objections that might be tempting to level against it. (shrink)

Some theories of language, thought, and experience require their adherents to say unpalatable things about human individuals whose capacities for rational activity are seriously diminished. Donald Davidson, for example, takes the interdependence of the concepts of thought and language to entail that thoughts may only be attributed to an individual who is an interpreter of others’ speech. And John McDowell's account of human experience as the involuntary exercise of conceptual capacities can be applied easily only to individuals who make some (...) reasonable judgments, because conceptual capacities are paradigmatically exercised in judgments. In both cases, we seem forced towards an error theory about any ordinary understanding of impaired human individuals as minded, or as undergoing human experience. (shrink)

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major theoretical and practical contributions. Jonathan St B T Evans is amongst the foremost cognitive psychologists of his generation, having been influential in spearheading developments in the psychological study of reasoning from its very beginnings in the 1970s up to the present day. This volume of self-selected papers (...) recognises Professor Evan's major contribution to the psychological study of thinking and reasoning by bringing together his most influential and important works. Early selections in the book focus upon experimental studies of reasoning - matching bias in the Wason selection task, belief bias in syllogistic reasoning, and also seminal work on the understanding of conditional statements. The later selections include Evans' work on more general forms of dual process and dual system theory, and his recent account of two minds in one brain. The volume also contains chapters which highlight Evans' contribution to the topic of human rationality, and also his influence on the development of the "new paradigm" in the psychology of reasoning. The key developments in the psychology of reasoning are paralleled by those in Evans's own intellectual history, and the book will therefore make essential reading for all researchers in the psychology of reasoning, and a wider audience of graduate and upper-level undergraduate students with an interest in reasoning and/or dual process theory. (shrink)

Wittgenstein does not talk much explicitly about reason as a general concept, but this paper aims to sketch some thoughts which might fit his later outlook and which are suggested by his approach to language. The need for some notions in the area of ‘reason’ and ‘rationality’ are rooted in our ability to engage in discursive and persuasive linguistic exchanges. But because such exchanges can (as Wittgenstein emphasises) be so various, we should expect the notions to come in many (...) versions, shaped by history and culture. Awareness of this variety, and of the distinctive elements of our own Western European history, may provide some defence against the temptation of conceptions, such as that of ‘perfect rationality’, which operate in unhelpfully simplified and idealised terms. (shrink)

McMahon's connections between collective reasoning and collective action are real and important. I suspect that they do not go deep enough, and that far more that we usually classify as individual is in fact collective.

This entry considers the question of whether rationality is normative; that is, the question of whether one always ought (or, more weakly, has a reason) to be rational. It first distinguishes substantive from structural rationality, noting how structural rationality presents a more serious challenge to the thesis that rationality is normative. It then considers the plausibility of skepticism about structural rationality, and notes some problems facing such skepticism. However, if we are not skeptics about structural (...) requirements, we face the task of formulating those requirements. But both narrow-scope and wide-scope formulations seem incompatible with the idea that we always ought to be rational. This suggests that we have good reason to think that rationality is not strongly normative. (shrink)