Rationality, Reasons, and Criticism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Kiesewetter
Keyword(s):  
Error Theory ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
The Other ◽  
Normative Question ◽  
Decisive Reason ◽  
The Normative Question

Chapter 2 elucidates why the normative question about rationality is important and why the normativity of rationality is plausible. It presents an argument to the effect that the criticizability of irrationality entails the normativity of rationality (2.1). It goes on to explain and support the main premise of this argument, namely that a person is criticizable only if she violates a decisive reason (2.2). This premise is defended against three possible alternative conceptions of criticism, which hold that criticizability can be grounded in the violation of a subjective ‘ought’ (2.3), in malfunctioning (2.4), or in acting in a less than virtuous way (2.5). The other premise of the argument, that irrationality is criticizable, is subsequently discussed. The main conclusion is that those sceptical about the normativity of rationality are committed to a highly revisionary error theory about ordinary attributions of rationality and irrationality (2.6).

Introduction: Governing Regulatory Interaction: the Normative Question

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktor Mayer-Schonberger ◽  
Alexander Somek
Keyword(s):  
Regulatory Interaction ◽  
Normative Question ◽  
The Normative Question

scholarly journals Challenges of Aligning Artificial Intelligence with Human Values

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Margit Sutrop ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Human Values ◽  
Moral Problem ◽  
Technical Challenge ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Normative Question ◽  
Alignment Problem ◽  
The Normative Question

As artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming increasingly autonomous and will soon be able to make decisions on their own about what to do, AI researchers have started to talk about the need to align AI with human values. The AI ‘value alignment problem’ faces two kinds of challenges—a technical and a normative one—which are interrelated. The technical challenge deals with the question of how to encode human values in artificial intelligence. The normative challenge is associated with two questions: “Which values or whose values should artificial intelligence align with?” My concern is that AI developers underestimate the difficulty of answering the normative question. They hope that we can easily identify the purposes we really desire and that they can focus on the design of those objectives. But how are we to decide which objectives or values to induce in AI, given that there is a plurality of values and moral principles and that our everyday life is full of moral disagreements? In my paper I will show that although it is not realistic to reach an agreement on what we, humans, really want as people value different things and seek different ends, it may be possible to agree on what we do not want to happen, considering the possibility that intelligence, equal to our own, or even exceeding it, can be created. I will argue for pluralism (and not for relativism!) which is compatible with objectivism. In spite of the fact that there is no uniquely best solution to every moral problem, it is still possible to identify which answers are wrong. And this is where we should begin the value alignment of AI.

Christine Korsgaard’s Self-Constitution

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Cuneo ◽  
Randall Harp
Keyword(s):  
Recent Attempt ◽  
Normative Question ◽  
The Normative Question

Christine Korsgaard’s 1996 book, The Sources of Normativity, attracted a great deal of attention. And rightly so. It is a highly engaging attempt to answer what she calls the normative question, which is the question of what could justify morality’s demands. Korsgaard’s latest book, Self-Constitution, develops and defends the broadly Kantian account of action and agency that hovers in the background of Sources, drawing out its implications for the normative question. In this review, we present the main lines of argument in Self-Constitution, raising objections to both Korsgaard’s account of action and agency and her most recent attempt to address the normative question.

Contractual Constructions

2020 ◽  
pp. 53-75
Author(s):  
Albert Weale
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Ethical Question ◽  
Logical Status ◽  
Normative Question ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The Normative Question

Social contract theory can be understood as a form of constructivism. Constructivism is the view that the content of morality can be defined by a procedure, the results of which define principles of actions. Constructivism can be understood as directed both to the normative question of what principles are justifiable and to the meta-ethical question as to the logical status of such principles. In respect of the latter, constructivism holds to a procedure-dependent conception of practical reason rather than a truth-directed view. In the case of social contract theory, the procedure is made up of three elements: an original position; the reasoning of the contracting parties; and the contents of the agreement that those contracting parties conclude with one another. Some contract theorists can be thought of as aspiring to a form of ethical reductionism, involving the defining of moral notions in non-moral terms by means of the constructed procedure, but this is not true of all. In this connection, there is a dispute as to whether rationality is to be defined in terms of self-interest. Constructivism is offered as an alternative to intuitionism, in which it is assumed that principles are in some sense self-evident.

scholarly journals What Should We Do With Traditional Logic?

2001 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesse P. Bohl
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Traditional Logic ◽  
Aristotelian Logic ◽  
Decisive Reason

There is a clash between some people's positive logical intuitions about traditional or Aristotelian logic and the assessment ofthat logic made by modem logic. In response to the clash, four sorts of reasons that might be given for referring one logic to the other are considered, but it is argued that none of them provides a decisive reason in favor of one rather than the other. A reformist and a radical response to the apparent inability to give reasons to prefer one logic to the other are considered and reasons given for preferring the radical response.

Climate Change and Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Normative Question ◽  
Human Interventions ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Scientific Challenge ◽  
The Normative Question

Understanding the complex set of processes collected under the heading of climate change represents a considerable scientific challenge. But it also raises important challenges for our best moral theories. For instance, in assessing the risks that climate change poses, we face profound questions about how to weigh the respective harms it may inflict on current and future generations, as well as on humans and other species. We also face difficult questions about how to act in conditions of uncertainty, in which at least some of the consequences of climate change—and of various human interventions to adapt to or mitigate it—are difficult to predict fully. Even if we agree that mitigating climate change is morally required, there is room for disagreement about the precise extent to which it ought to be mitigated (insofar as there is room for underlying disagreement about the level of temperature rises that are morally permissible). Finally, once we determine which actions to take to reduce or avoid climate change, we face the normative question of who ought to bear the costs of those actions, as well as the costs associated with any climate change that nevertheless comes to pass.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document