Do Intentions Set Up Rational Defaults? Commitments, Reasons, and the Diachronic Dimension of Rationality

Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99 (1):29-64 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Suppose that you do not do what you have previously decided to do. Are you to be charged with irrationality? A number of otherwise divergent theories of practical rationality hold that by default, you are; there are rational pressures, it is claimed, that favor the long-term stability and eventual execution of distal intentions. The article challenges this view by examining how these purported pressures can be spelled out. Is intention a normative commitment to act? Are intentions reasons for action – or at least for retaining one's intention until the time to act has come? Or is the rationality of ‘doing as you decide’ governed by diachronic wide-scope norms, as Michael Bratman and John Broome suggest? All of these approaches are shown to raise severe problems, which suggests a more modest view: diachronic pressures on intending are at each point in time confined to the very next instant.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive

    This entry is not archived by us. If you are the author and have permission from the publisher, we recommend that you archive it. Many publishers automatically grant permission to authors to archive pre-prints. By uploading a copy of your work, you will enable us to better index it, making it easier to find.

    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,956

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Diachronic constraints of practical rationality.Luca Ferrero - 2012 - Philosophical Issues 22 (1):144-164.
Reasoning with Unconditional Intention.Jens Gillessen - 2017 - Journal of Philosophical Research 42:177-201.
Requirements of intention in light of belief.Carlos Núñez - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (9):2471-2492.
Flat intentions – crazy dispositions?Jens Gillessen - 2017 - Philosophical Explorations 20 (1):54-69.
What The Tortoise Has To Say About Diachronic Rationality.Markos Valaris - 2016 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1):293-307.
A counterfactual account of diachronic structural rationality.Franz Altner - 2021 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 64:1-30.
Enkratic Rationality Is Instrumental Rationality.Wooram Lee - 2020 - Philosophical Perspectives 34 (1):164-183.
Intentions, Intending, and Belief: Noninferential Weak Cognitivism.Philip Clark - 2020 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 101 (2):308-327.
Trust and Reason.Edward Hinchman - 2000 - Dissertation, University of Michigan

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-08-28

Downloads
287 (#97,045)

6 months
2 (#1,626,901)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jens Gillessen
University of Marburg

Citations of this work

The Reasoning View and Defeasible Practical Reasoning.Samuel Asarnow - 2017 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (3):614-636.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Intention, plans, and practical reason.Michael Bratman - 1987 - Cambridge: Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Rationality Through Reasoning.John Broome (ed.) - 2013 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Knowledge and Its Limits.Timothy Williamson - 2000 - Philosophy 76 (297):460-464.
Effective intentions: the power of conscious will.Alfred Mele - 2009 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The Toxin Puzzle.Gregory S. Kavka - 1983 - Analysis 43 (1):33-36.

View all 23 references / Add more references