Rationality as a Virtue

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Normative Concept ◽  
Doxastic Justification ◽  
Rational Requirements

A concept that can be expressed by the term ‘rationality’ plays a central role in both epistemology and ethics—especially in formal epistemology and decision theory. It is argued here that when the term is used in this way, it expresses the concept of a kind of virtue, that has the central features that are ascribed to virtues by Plato and Aristotle, among others. Like other virtues, rationality comes in degrees. Just as Aristotle distinguished ‘just acts’ from acts that ‘manifest the virtue of justice’, we can distinguish the ‘abstract rationality’ from the manifestation of rational dispositions; this is the best account of the distinction between ‘propositional’ and ‘doxastic justification’. This approach also helps us to understand the relations between ‘rationality’ and ‘rational requirements’, and to answer further objections to the thesis that ‘rationality’ is a normative concept that are based on the principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’.

Is Rationality Normative?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
False Beliefs ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Normative Concept ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Formal Theories

In its original meaning, the word ‘rational’ referred to the faculty of reason—the capacity for reasoning. It is undeniable that the word later came also to express a normative concept—the concept of the proper use of this faculty. Does it express a normative concept when it is used in formal theories of rational belief or rational choice? Reasons are given for concluding that it does express a normative concept in these contexts. But this conclusion seems to imply that we ought always to think rationally. Four objections can be raised. (1) What about cases where thinking rationally has disastrous consequences? (2) What about cases where we have rational false beliefs about what we ought to do? (3) ‘Ought’ implies ‘can’—but is it true that we can always think rationally? (4) Rationality requires nothing more than coherence—but why does coherence matter?

Oxford Studies in Epistemology Volume 6

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Ethics Of Belief ◽  
Naturalized Epistemology ◽  
New Developments ◽  
The Status ◽  
Important Field ◽  
Belief Justification

Oxford Studies in Epistemology is a biennial publication offering a regular snapshot of state-of-the-art work in this important field. Under the guidance of a distinguished editorial board composed of leading epistemologists in North America, Europe and Australasia, it publishes exemplary papers in epistemology, broadly construed. Topics within its purview include: (a) traditional epistemological questions concerning the nature of belief, justification, and knowledge, the status of skepticism, the nature of the a priori, etc.; (b) new developments in epistemology, including movements such as naturalized epistemology, feminist epistemology, social epistemology, and virtue epistemology, and approaches such as contextualism; (c) foundational questions in decision-theory; (d) confirmation theory and other branches of philosophy of science that bear on traditional issues in epistemology; (e) topics in the philosophy of perception relevant to epistemology; (f) topics in cognitive science, computer science, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology that bear directly on traditional epistemological questions; and (g) work that examines connections between epistemology and other branches of philosophy, including work on testimony, the ethics of belief, etc. Topics addressed in volume 6 include the nature of perceptual justification, intentionality, modal knowledge, credences, epistemic supererogation, epistemic and rational norms, expressivism, skepticism, and pragmatic encroachment. The various writers make use of a variety of different tools and insights, including those of formal epistemology and decision theory, as well as traditional philosophical analysis and argumentation.

‘Rationally Ought’ Implies ‘Can’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Ought Implies Can ◽  
Rational Requirements ◽  
At Will

The principle that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ is defended: it follows from the classical semantics for ‘ought’, and the objections to it can be answered. If the ‘ought’ is a non-trivial agential ‘ought’, the agent must be also able to act or think otherwise than as she ought. Such a non-trivial ‘ought’ implies a ‘two-way power’ (the agent can act or think as she ought, and also act or think otherwise). This kind of two-way power is explained. It need not involve acting or thinking voluntarily or ‘at will’; but it must involve the agent’s having appropriate opportunities for exercising her capacities. It is suggested that opportunities can be reduced to chances, and capacities to dispositions, of appropriate kinds. Prima facie, this account is compatible with the idea that we are subject to non-trivial rational requirements, each of which entails a corresponding non-trivial agential ‘ought’.

scholarly journals Infinite regress in decision theory, philosophy of science, and formal epistemology

Synthese ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 191 (4) ◽  
pp. 627-628
Author(s):  
Jeanne Peijnenburg ◽  
Sylvia Wenmackers
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Formal Epistemology

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Religious Belief ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
World Religion ◽  
Fertile Period ◽  
The World ◽  
New Ideas

Recent decades have seen a fertile period of theorizing within mainstream epistemology which has had a dramatic impact on how epistemology is done. New insights from philosophy of language, social epistemology, decision theory, and formal epistemology have contributed to how we understand our epistemological place in the world. Religion is the place where such rethinking can potentially have its deepest impact and importance. Yet there has been surprisingly little infiltration of these new ideas into philosophy of religion and the epistemology of religious belief. This Introduction provides a brief overview of these developments, and offers a summary of the contributions to this volume.

Representation, abstraction, and simple-minded sophisticates

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dayan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Bayesian Decision Theory ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Model Based ◽  
Model Free

Abstract Bayesian decision theory provides a simple formal elucidation of some of the ways that representation and representational abstraction are involved with, and exploit, both prediction and its rather distant cousin, predictive coding. Both model-free and model-based methods are involved.

Rational Uses of Decision Theory

PsycCRITIQUES ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 54 (42) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Pitz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory
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