There are a number of proposals as to exactly how reasons, ends and rationality are related. It is often thought that practical reasons can be analyzed in terms of practical rationality, which, in turn, has something to do with the pursuit of ends. I want to argue against the conceptual priority of rationality and the pursuit of ends, and in favor of the conceptual priority of reasons. This case comes in two parts. I first argue for a new conception of (...) ends by which all ends are had under the guise of reasons. I then articulate a sense of rationality, procedural rationality, that is connected with the pursuit of ends so conceived, where one is rational to the extent that one is motivated to act in accordance with reasons as they appear to be. Unfortunately, these conceptions of ends and procedural rationality are inadequate for building an account of practical reasons, though I try to explain why it is that the rational pursuit of ends generates intuitive but misleading accounts of genuine normative reasons. The crux of the problem is an insensitivity to an is-seems distinction, where procedural rationality concerns reasons as they appear, and what we are after is a substantive sense of rationality that concerns reasons as they are. Based on these distinct senses of rationality, and some disambiguation of what it is to have a reason, I offer a critique of internalist analyses of one’s reasons in terms of the motivational states of one’s ideal, procedurally rational self, and I offer an alternative analysis of one’s practical reasons in terms of practical wisdom that overcomes objections to related reasons externalist views. The resulting theory is roughly Humean about procedural rationality and roughly Aristotelian about reasons, capturing the core truths of both camps. (shrink)

In general, the technical apparatus of decision theory is well developed. It has loads of theorems, and they can be proved from axioms. Many of the theorems are interesting, and useful both from a philosophical and a practical perspective. But decision theory does not have a well agreed upon interpretation. Its technical terms, in particular, ‘utility’ and ‘preference’ do not have a single clear and uncontroversial meaning. How to interpret these terms depends, of course, on what purposes in pursuit of (...) which one wants to put decision theory to use. One might want to use it as a model of economic decision-making, in order to predict the behavior of corporations or of the stock market. In that case, it might be useful to interpret the technical term ‘utility’ as meaning money profit. Decision theory would then be an empirical theory. I want to look into the question of what ‘utility’ could mean, if we want decision theory to function as a theory of practical rationality. I want to know whether it makes good sense to think of practical rationality as fully or even partly accounted for by decision theory. I shall lay my cards on the table: I hope it does make good sense to think of it that way. For, I think, if Humeans are right about practical rationality, then decision theory must play a very large part in their account. And I think Humeanism has very strong attractions. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the practicalities of nurse managers’ work. We expose how managers’ commitments to transformational leadership are undermined by the rationing practices and informatics of hospital reform underpinned by the ideas of new public management. Using institutional ethnography, we gathered data in a Canadian hospital. We began by interviewing and observing frontline leaders, nurse managers, and expanded our inquiry to include interviews with other nurses, staffing clerks, and administrators whose work intersected with that of nurse managers. We (...) learned how nurse managers’ responsibility for staffing is accomplished within tightening budgets and a burgeoning suite of technologies that direct decisions about whether or not there are enough nurses. Our inquiry explicates how technologies organize nurse managers to put aside their professional knowledge. We describe professionally committed nurse leaders attempting to activate transformational leadership and show how their intentions are subsumed within information systems. Seen in light of our analysis, transformational leadership is an idealized concept within which managers’ responsibilities are shaped to conform to institutional purposes. (shrink)

Most action can be explained in Humean or teleological terms; that is, in most cases, one can explain why someone acted by reference to that person’s beliefs and desires. However, trusting and being trustworthy are actions that do not permit such explanation. The action of trusting someone to do something is a matter of expecting someone to act for certain reasons, and acting trustworthily is one of acting for these reasons. It is better to say that people act out of (...) trust, rather than for some end. Thus, teleological considerations do not suffice to trust. This is the negative claim of the paper. Its positive proposal is an account of the practical rationality of trust. The key idea is that in trusting one takes on commitments, not merely to act in certain way, but also to premise one’s practical reasoning on a trust-based view of the interaction situation. (shrink)

Terrence Kelly argues for a theory of practical rationality to explain and handle the issue of residential segregation in the United States. Kelly claims that theories of "racism as irrational" and rational choice are not explanatorily adequate in this regard. I argue that the theory of practical rationality is also not adequate because by allowing agents to offer accounts of their calculated behaviour, it allows little appraisal of the behaviour itself. I argue instead that better explanations could be offered (...) by appeal to ethical theory. Key Words: residential segregation • trust • practical rationality • ethical theory. (shrink)

In Practical and Scientific Rationality: A Difficulty for Levi's Epistemology, Wayne Backman points to genuine difficulties in Isaac Levi's epistemology, difficulties that Backman attributes to Levi's having required, and for no good reason, that a rational person adopt but one standard of possibility for all her endeavors practical and scientific. I argue that Levi's requirement has, in fact, a deep and compelling motivation that tips the scales in favor of a different diagnosis of Levi's ills — i.e., that Levi's (...) error lies simply in his having set insufficiently high qualifications for admission into the corpus that determines a person's standard of possibility. (shrink)

_Tracing practical reason from its origins to its modern and contemporary permutations_ The Greek discovery of practical reason, as the skilled performance of strategic thinking in public and private affairs, was an intellectual breakthrough that remains both a feature of and a bug in our modern world. Countering arguments that rational choice-making is a contingent product of modernity, _The Greeks and the Rational_ traces the long history of theorizing rationality back to ancient Greece. In this book, Josiah Ober explores (...) how ancient Greek sophists, historians, and philosophers developed sophisticated and systematic ideas about practical reason. At the same time, they recognized its limits—that not every decision can be reduced to mechanistic calculations of optimal outcomes. Ober finds contemporary echoes of this tradition in the application of game theory to political science, economics, and business management. _The Greeks and the Rational_ offers a striking revisionist history with widespread implications for the study of ancient Greek civilization, the history of thought, and human rationality itself. (shrink)

This paper offers a grammatical investigation of some important aspects of our moral life taking a scene from the movie Mr. Deeds Goes to Town as a test case. The main question I try to answer is whether there are situations in our moral discussions in which the proper and rational attitude is to show disagreement, as opposed to continuing the dialogue. Many philosophers seem committed to a conception of moral reasoning that takes as its end rational agreement (...) among agents; from that perspective, expressing indignation would just amount to an irrational way of trying to get rid of the burdens put upon the agent's shoulders in the context of a moral discussion. Against that widespread viewIwill defend a Cavellian version of moral perfectionism, which takes rational disagreement as a legitimate outcomeof moral arguments. That view, as we shall see, will be predicated upon a distinctive understanding of practical rationality, hence the importance of comparing moral discussion to other forms of rational engagement. (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)

The article presents a proposal of explanation what practical rationality is, how it works and what are its criteria. In order to define practical rationality, the author starts from the general characteristics of reason, and then in the realm or reason activity distinguishes practical rationality from theoretical rationality. The necessary conditions of practical rationality are presented, as well as its standing between freedom and values. Next, the sources and nature of practical reasons are characterized, as well as their relation to (...) values and desires. The problem of practical syllogism is briefly commented on. In the final part of the article the author proposes five criteria of practical rationality. (shrink)

Donald Schön’s theory of reflective practice has received unprecedented attention as an approach to professional development in nursing and other health and social care professions. This paper examines technical rationality in Schön’s theory of reflective practice and argues that its critique is a broad and often overlooked epistemological underpinning in this work. This paper suggests that the popularity of Schön’s theory is tied in part to his critique of technical rationality, and to his acknowledgement of the significance of (...) practitioner experience and indeterminate zones of practice in the development of expertise. Schön tapped into a growing disillusionment with technical rationality that coincided with a crisis of knowledge across a range of disciplines. The question is raised as to whether Schön’s critique sets up a dichotomy between technical rationality and experience, or overcomes it. The conclusions suggest that Schön is not discarding research‐based professional knowledge, but rather challenging conflated views of its practical significance. In this way, it is proposed that his critique of technical rationality can be interpreted as an attempt to overcome dualistic thinking as it pertains to professional knowledge. (shrink)

In this article, we will present the contrast between the epistemic aspects of an approach that we will conveniently call - and not from a rigorous historical pretension – “Aristotelian”, such as that of Alasdair MacIntyre, and epistemic aspects of an approach that we will also conveniently call “Kantian”, such as that of Onora O'Neill. Our hypothesis is that the presentation of these different perspectives, in terms of practical rationality for the formulation of poverty mitigation policies, would allow us to (...) verify that the Aristotelian approach is contextually efficient, while the Kantian approach is universally demanding. However, if we take into account that a certain international political and economic conjuncture makes poverty mitigation difficult, the addressing of this problem would need to occur in a globally efficient and universally demanding manner. In this sense a Kantian theory of obligation seems to provide epistemic requirements necessary for the formulation of efficient policies. (shrink)

Philosophers have long distinguished between practical and theoretical rationality. The first section of this chapter begins by discussing the ways in which this distinction was drawn by Aristotle and Kant; then it sketches what seems to be the general consensus today about how, at least roughly, the distinction should be drawn. The rest of this chapter explores what practical and theoretical rationality have in common: in the second section, several parallels between practical and theoretical rationality are outlined, and it is (...) argued that these parallels make it plausible that a unifying account of rationality can be given. Finally, in the third section, a number of such unifying accounts of practical and theoretical rationality are surveyed. These include accounts that are inspired in various ways by Hume and by the results of formal decision theory, as well as views that appeal to reasons and to the distinctive value of correct or appropriate attitudes. (shrink)

In his pre-critical lectures on rational psychology, Kant employs an argument from the I to the transcendental freedom of the soul. In the (A-edition of the) first Critique, he distances himself from rational psychology, and instead offers four paralogisms of this doctrine, insisting that ‘I think’ no longer licenses any inferences about a soul. Kant also comes alive to the possibility that we could be thinking mechanisms – rational beings, but not agents. These developments rob him of (...) his pre-critical rationalist argument for freedom. In the Groundwork, this is a serious problem; if we are not free, morality will be a phantasm for us. In Groundwork III, Kant attempts to overcome this by offering a new argument for our freedom, involving the standpoint of practical reason. In this paper, I detail these developments and present a practical and phenomenological reading of Kant’s approach in Groundwork III. I also venture a defence of this new argument. (shrink)

Many theories of rational action are predicated on the idea that what it is rational to do in a given situation depends, in part, on what it is rational to believe in that situation. In short: they treat epistemic rationality as explanatorily prior to practical rationality. If they are right in doing so, it follows, on pain of explanatory circularity, that epistemic rationality cannot itself be a form of practical rationality. Yet, many epistemologists have defended just such (...) a view of epistemic rationality. According to them, there is no such thing as a distinctively epistemic form of rationality which could be explanatorily prior to practical rationality. Rather, they maintain, there is just one form of rationality—practical rationality—of which epistemic rationality is a species. What to make of this conflict? The aim of this paper is to motivate a view about the relationship between epistemic and practical rationality which resolves the conflict in a way that should be attractive to both sides. The central idea is to ground both epistemic and practical rationality in an independently motivated notion of evidential probability which is itself to be understood in non-normative terms. Doing so, I argue, allows us to unify epistemic and practical rationality in a way that does justice to the idea that what it is rational to do depends, in part, on what it is rational to believe; and to do so in a way that avoids explanatory circularity. (shrink)

I argue that if a normative theory of practical rationality is to represent an adequate and coherent response to a plurality of incommensurable goods, it cannot be a maximising theory. It will have to be a theory that recognises two responses to goods as morally licit – promotion and respect – and one as morally illicit – violation. This result has a number of interesting corollaries, some of which I indicate. Perhaps the most interesting is that it makes the existence (...) of a plurality of incommensurable goods incompatible with consequentialism. (shrink)

Explores the difficult problems that arise from efforts to understand the characteristic norms of practical rationality involved in planning agency. It is noted that "cognitivists" tend to view these rationality norms as norms of theoretical rationality while others see the notion that these rationality norms have a distinctive normative force as a "myth." The focus is on finding a middle path that emphasizes links between practical reason, planning structures, & the metaphysics of self-governance. The reason planning agents conform to norms (...) of practical rationality is based at least in part on their desire to govern their own lives. The norms of rationality examined are "wide-scope norms on sets of attitudes," described as norms that reject or proscribe combinations of attitudes. The relation between reasons & rationality is addressed, along with the normative significance of intention coherence & consistency; & problems that arise during attempts to account for the "distinctive normative force of Means-End Coherence in a way that is in the spirit of Reason for Means-End Coherence.". Adapted from the source document. (shrink)

Cognitivists about Practical Rationality argue that we can explain some of the requirements of practical rationality by appealing to the requirements of theoretical rationality. First, they argue that intentions involve beliefs, and, second, they show how the theoretical requirements governing those involved beliefs can explain some of the practical requirements governing those intentions. This paper avoids the ongoing controversy about whether and how intentions involve beliefs and focuses instead on this second part of the Cognitivist approach, where I think Cognitivism (...) faces significant difficulties. I proceed by considering two attempts by Cognitivists to explain requirements of practical rationality and I argue that neither of them succeed. (shrink)

The logical form of an inductive step figures as a deductive fallacy: concluding the antecedent from affirming a conditional and its consequent. In the sphere of practical rationality, however, where concerned with the presuppositions of action and the interactions between beliefs and desires, certain schemata have been proposed that express rational demands on agents who desire things to happen in the world. In this context, if agent A desires to φ and believes that ψ brings about φ, then, A (...) is rationally expected to desire to ψ. But it is equally rational to expect that A’s desire to φ presupposes her belief that a certain state of affairs obtains where φ is a possibility. It then follows that assuming a desire to φ and a belief that ψ brings about φ, we can derive an logical form that approximates that of the above inductive step: the beliefs that φ is possible and that ψ brings about φ entail the belief that ψ is possible. It remains an open question whether this conclusion adequately supports the rationality of the exact inductive schema. (shrink)

Resumen El uso del término imaginación remite a un cierto tipo de actividad mental que en su formulación más básica refiere a la capacidad humana para crear imágenes en ausencia de lo representado, es decir, para representarnos objetos o estados de cosas que están ausentes, y a la capacidad para crear imágenes a partir de otras que ya se poseen. Esta formulación permite dar cuenta de una amplia gama de experiencias humanas que van desde la creación artística y la innovación (...) técnica hasta la anticipación de posibles escenarios en los que intervenir. En particular voy a centrarme en un uso específico de la imaginación que denominaré imaginación práctica y que consiste principalmente en la anticipación contrafáctica de posibles estados de cosas resultantes de nuestras acciones. A partir de esto sostendré la existencia de una relación interna entre imaginación práctica y racionalidad práctica, en virtud de la cual la primera oficia de posibilitadora de la segunda. Para ello relevaré cuatro formas de ejercicio de la racionalidad práctica que han sido tematizadas a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía: la ética, la moral, la política y la legal.The use of the term imagination refers to a certain type of mental activity that in its most basic formulation refers to the human capacity to create images in the absence of what is represented, that is, to represent objects or states of things that are absent, and the ability to create images from others that are already possessed by the agent. This formulation allows to account for a wide range of human experiences ranging from artistic creation and technical innovation to the anticipation of possible scenarios in which to intervene. In particular, I will focus on a specific use of the imagination that I will call practical imagination and that consists mainly in the counterfactual anticipation of possible states of affairs resulting from our actions. From this perspective I will sustain the existence of an internal relation between practical imagination and practical rationality, by virtue of which the first enables the second. To do this, I will highlight four types of practical rationality that have been thematized throughout the history of philosophy: ethical, moral, political and legal rationality. (shrink)

Behaviorism is consistent with the assumptions of perfect competition, with the homo economicus model, and with a form of ethics that enshrines market-based notions of utility, justice, and rights and encourages rational maximizing. Economics and business courses foster this deficient form of ethics, assuming an overriding desire for money, which, according to MacIntyre and Aristotle, crowds out the associative virtues. These beliefs, often associated with Taylor and Friedman, lead to such practices as incentive compensation, which would be effective only (...) if employees were homines economici and thus rational in the sense of knowing how to satisfy whatever desires they have. Against Davidson’s view that psychology cannot be a natural science, Aristotle believes that there can be a teleological, if not exact, science of behavior. Aristotle believes that emotions and objectives may be rational or irrational. But rationality—phronesis, practical wisdom—is not a matter of applying algorithms. Doris questions whether character generates the first premises of an agent’s practical syllogisms, while Haidt has argued that we often act on emotions rather than on the basis of the reasons that we claim motivate us. Aristotle agrees that many people are not virtuous and that weakness of the will is a common occurrence, and he agrees that emotion drives actions. But if you are virtuous, your emotions and desires support your rationality. Aristotle gives us reason to reject the notion that people are homines economici and to treat them as rational deliberators, in part by creating an appropriate culture. The claim that it is in the nature of human beings to deliberate rationally is in part aspirational, but also in part scientific—in Aristotle’s modest sense. (shrink)

This fresh and original book argues that the central questions in Hegel's practical philosophy are the central questions in modern accounts of freedom: What is freedom, or what would it be to act freely? Is it possible so to act? And how important is leading a free life? Robert Pippin argues that the core of Hegel's answers is a social theory of agency, the view that agency is not exclusively a matter of the self-relation and self-determination of an individual but (...) requires the right sort of engagement with and recognition by others. Using a detailed analysis of key Hegelian texts, he develops this interpretation to reveal the bearing of Hegel's claims on many contemporary issues, including much-discussed core problems in the liberal democratic tradition. His important study will be valuable for all readers who are interested in Hegel's philosophy and in the modern problems of agency and freedom. (shrink)

Given the success of the formal approach, within contemporary epistemology, to understanding degreed belief, some philosophers have recently considered its extension to the challenge of understanding intention. According to them, (1) intentions can also admit of degrees, as beliefs do, and (2) these degreed states are all governed by the norms of the probability calculus, such that the rational norms for belief and for intention exhibit certain structural similarity. This paper, however, raises some worries about (2). It considers two (...) schemes for representing degreed intention, and casts some doubt on applying probabilistic norms to degreed intention on each scheme. And it argues that the norms of Intention–Belief Consistency and Enkrasia cannot plausibly be turned into norms prescribing a simple correspondence relation between one’s degrees of belief and intention. The results suggest a potential structural discrepancy between the norms of theoretical and practical rationality—at least for degreed belief and intention. This potential discrepancy not only raises interesting questions about the intention–belief relation and rational norms for degreed intention. It also poses a new challenge for intention-based expressivism about normative judgment and cognitivism about practical rationality. (shrink)

According to the principle of patient autonomy, patients have the right to be self-determining in decisions about their own medical care, which includes the right to refuse treatment. However, a treatment refusal may legitimately be overridden in cases where the decision is judged to be incompetent. It has recently been proposed that in assessments of competence, attention should be paid to the evaluative judgments that guide patients' treatment decisions.In this paper I examine this claim in light of theories of practical (...) rationality, focusing on the difficult case of an anorexic person who is judged to be competent and refuses treatment, thereby putting themselves at risk of serious harm. I argue that the standard criteria for competence assess whether a treatment decision satisfies the goals of practical decision-making, and that this same criterion can be applied to a patient's decision-guiding commitments. As a consequence I propose that a particular understanding of practical rationality offers a theoretical framework for justifying involuntary treatment in the anorexia case. (shrink)

This book brings together a number of contributions dealing with certain fundamental structures of practical rationality, as they are presented in the areas of the philosophy of action and normative ethics, namely: intentionality, normativity, and reflexivity. With the term “intentionality,” is meant a set of problems that are linked not only with the teleological structure of praxis-oriented rationality, but also with its temporal structure. “Normativity”, in turn, refers to a distinct set of problems, which cannot simply be reduced to those (...) entailed in the intentional nature of human action, even if this notion incorporates a reference to the good or value in its very structure. Finally, with the term “reflexivity” we point at the linkage between the normative dimension of reason with both the contingent circumstances of action and the moral receptivity of the agent, as it is experienced in moral judgment. (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)

Recent views on practical rationality harmonize well with a fundamentally Kantian conception of the foundations of morality. Rationality in practical thinking is not a matter of valid reasoning, or of foIlowing maximization principles. From an agent-centered perspective, it consists in observing certain standards of consistency. In themselves, these standards lack the force of duties, hence there can be no irresolvable conflict between rationality and morality. Furthermore, the Kantian test of universalization for maxims of action may be scen as adapting agent-centered (...) standards of consistency to the task of specifying moral duties, so that objective rationality and morality are one and the same. (shrink)

Actors may be called on to judge their reasons for action at two different points in time: once when they form an intention to act in the future and again at the time of action. At the time the actor forms her intention, her perspective is a general one, encompassing a range of possible circumstances that cannot be narrowed or fully specified in advance of action. At time of action, the actor's perspective is particularized, with more evidence available about reasons (...) for action. This difference in perspective presents a dilemma for rational agents. In many contexts, reliable advance planning has great value. It allows for intra-personal and interpersonal coordination and minimizes bias in favor of salient or emotionally charged facts. At the time of action, additional evidence about the context of the act clarifies, or appears to clarify, current reasons for action. I describe this dilemma in two contexts: rule-following and promissory commitment. In each case there may be significant practical reasons for agents to stand by their original intentions, treating them as exclusionary reasons for action. Yet, if the agent revisits her intentions at the time of action, her reasons for action may support, or appear to support, a change in course. I begin by examining theories of practical rationality that extend rationality over time and thus permit agents to act on their initial intentions. Understood in this way, practical rationality may require agents to follow rules or honor promises without further consideration of reasons for action. I argue, however, that on a plausible understanding of epistemic rationality and epistemic responsibility to respond to evidence, acting without reflection may be epistemically irrational. If this is correct, then the dilemma of general and particular decisionmaking persists, and affects important aspects of human life. We manage only by being imperfectly irrational. (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)

The purpose of the paper is to study the interrelatedness of rationality, virtue, and practical wisdom in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by offering a critical interpretation of the bipartition of the soul presented in Chap. 13 of the first book. Aristotle relies on the partition of the soul into a rational and a non-rational part when he distinguishes between ethical and intellectual virtues. The paper will question the adequacy of these divisions and show that Aristotle himself casts doubt on (...) them while leaving open the possibility of understanding the soul in an alternative way which will prove to fit better with his own exposition of deliberate choice and the integration of virtuous action and practical wisdom. (shrink)

Rational agency may be thought of as intentional activity that is guided by the agent's conception of what they have reason to do. The paper identifies and assesses three approaches to this phenomenon, which I call internalism, meta-internalism, and volitionalism. Internalism accounts for rational motivation by appeal to substantive desires of the agent's that are conceived as merely given; I argue that it fails to do full justice to the phenomenon of guidance by one's conception of one's reasons. (...) Meta-internalism explains this phenomenon by postulating higher-order dispositions, consitutive of (rational) agency itself, which causally interact with the agent's normative beliefs to produce corresponding motivations to action. I show that meta-internalism comes to grief over cases of akrasia, insofar as it leaves no room for the capacity for rational guidance when agents voluntarily act at variance with their judgments about what they have reason to do. Volitionalism, I contend, improves on both internalism and meta-internalism. Its distinctive feature is the postulation of a kind of motivation that is directly subject to the agent's control, and independent of the dispositions and desires to which the agent is passively subject. (shrink)

Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse is considered one of the founders of sociology as a discipline. His four books which form Principles of Sociology are published here together for the first time - representing a synthesis of the philosophical and scientific methods of social inquiry. Although very scarce, the study by Hobson and Ginsberg is still regarded as the most comprehensive account of Hobhouse's life and works. There is also a memoir by Hobson and a selection of Hobhouse's otherwise inaccessible writings.

Our capacity for planning agency is central to our human lives. These essays aim both to deepen our understanding of basic norms that guide our plan-infused thinking and to defend their status as norms of practical rationality. This defense appeals both to forms of pragmatic support and to the ways in which these norms track conditions of a planning agent's self-governance, both at a time and over time.

Bioethics functions within a world of deep moral pluralism; a universe of discourse debating ethical analysis, public policy, and clinical practice in which a common, generally accepted morality does not exist. While religious thinkers are often approached within a hermeneutic of suspicion for assuming moral standards that cannot be justified in rational terms, secular bioethicists routinely find themselves in exactly the same intellectual predicament. That ethical theory, proposed values, or normative content is secular, that it does not invoke (...) God or any particular religious perspective, does not mean that it is rationally grounded, necessarily true, or universally binding. As the authors in this issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy make clear, this normative reality directly impacts debates regarding concepts of health, illness, and disease, accounts of socially acceptable health-risky behaviors, and the political frameworks that shape public policy. As a result, honest discussion of diverse moral, religious, and political perspectives remains essential in clarifying the intellectual challenges, ethical intuitions, and ideological judgments that shape clinical practice and healthcare policy. Depending on which moral, political, or scientific concepts are guiding bioethical analysis, careful scrutiny will tend to support rather different policies and practices, each of which is likely to be worth careful consideration. (shrink)

The question of rationality and of its role in human agency has been at the core of pragmatist concerns since the beginning of this movement. While Peirce framed the horizon of a new understanding of human reason through the idea of inquiry as aiming at belief-fixation and James stressed the individualistic drives that move individuals to action, it is in Dewey’s writing that we find the deepest understanding of the naturalistic and normative traits of rationality considered as the qualifying attribute (...) of human agency. Recent developments in moral and political philosophy as well as in general pragmatist scholarship have shown a renewal of interest in the role of human reason in agency, both with respect to control of conduct (decisions about how to act) and with respect to normative attitudes (considerations of what is good and right). In this article I will examine some features of Dewey’s epistemology which are particularly promising for the elaboration of a theory of practical rationality based on pragmatist sources. In particular, I will focus on Dewey’s notion of “judgment of practice” in order to frame a distinctively Deweyan approach to practical rationality. In order to point out the specificity of Dewey’s epistemological framework, I will refer to it as an “epistemology of practice”i. The aim of this article is to clarify the epistemological meaning of the concepts of articulation and transformation, that Dewey places at the heart of his theory of inquiry. Part of my argument consists in showing that through these notions Dewey aimed at broadening the conception of rationality, bringing it beyond the reach of the standard notions of analysis and synthesis and of induction, deduction, and abduction. Once the specificity of Dewey’s conception of rationality will have been demonstrated, I will proceed to show some of its implications in the explanation of the rationality of human agency with reference to practical reasoning and value assessment. I will then conclude the article by drawing some implications of Dewey’s theory of judgment for a broader epistemology based upon the acknowledgment of the primacy of practice. (shrink)

Foot considers an objection to the suggestion that the same normative pattern is to be found in plants, animals, and human beings: i.e. human beings, because they are rational creatures, can question and indeed reject ‘natural goodness’. This is a problem about the rationality of doing what virtue demands. To meet the challenge, Foot embarks on a discussion of practical rationality, or the nature and provenance of human reasoning. Foot argues that an objective theory of morality can establish an (...) intelligible connection between objective moral evaluations and what we have reason to do as individuals. Rational choice is an aspect of human goodness, and at the heart of the virtues, rather than set apart from it as something to which goodness should conform. (shrink)