The Coherent and the Rational

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Errol Lord
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
John Broome ◽  
The Way

This chapter motivates Reasons Responsiveness by situating it within the metaethical literature on rationality. The first task is to show how Reasons Responsiveness can overcome prominent arguments given by John Broome that seek to show that rationality is not a function of normative reasons. The second task is to show that Reasons Responsiveness can capture the data that motivates rival coherentist accounts in the metaethical literature. It is argued that usually one is irrational when incoherent and that Reasons Responsiveness can explain this because of the way in which reasons transmit. Some forms of incoherence are not irrational. Reasons Responsiveness can explain this as well. The upshot is that Reasons Responsiveness can explain the data that motivates rival views without incurring their main problems.

Autonomy and Addiction

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Levy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Extended Agency ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Way

Whatever its implications for the other features of human agency at its best — for moral responsibility, reasons-responsiveness, self-realization, flourishing, and so on—addiction is universally recognized as impairing autonomy. But philosophers have frequently misunderstood the nature of addiction, and therefore have not adequately explained the manner in which it impairs autonomy. Once we recognize that addiction is not incompatible with choice or volition, it becomes clear that none of the Standard accounts of autonomy can satisfactorily explain the way in which it undermines fully autonomous agency. In order to understand to what extent and in what ways the addicted are autonomy-impaired, we need to understand autonomy as consisting, essentially, in the exercise of the capacity for extended agency. It is because addiction undermines extended agency, so that addicts are not able to integrate their lives and pursue a Single conception of the good, that it impairs autonomy.

Autonomy

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
Serene J. Khader
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Upward Mobility ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
The Way

This chapter explains three conceptions of personal autonomy through a discussion of two teen girls’ struggles for self-definition. Autonomy is the ability to live a life that is genuinely one’s own. Starr, the protagonist of Angie Thomas’s The Hate You Give, struggles to know herself because the demands of upward mobility seem to ask her to disavow her Blackness. Kiara, the author of a blog post on oppressive beauty standards, struggles to find self-worth in a society that devalues the way she looks. The chapter discusses how coherentist, reasons-responsiveness, and socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy illuminate the girls’ lives. It also explains why autonomy should not be conceived of as the rejection of all social influence.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Star
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Contemporary Literature ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Language Philosophy ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Way

The purpose and plan of the Handbook is described herein. Key concepts in the contemporary literature on reasons and normativity are introduced, and the forty-four chapters that make up the main body of the Handbook are each summarized. In the process, important connections between the chapters are highlighted. A distinctive feature of the Handbook is said to be the way in which it surveys work on normative reasons in both ethics and epistemology, focusing, when appropriate, on issues concerning unity or lack of it in different domains. It is noted that discussions of reasons and normativity in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and aesthetics are also surveyed in the Handbook.

Time, Rationality, and Self-Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Bratman
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Governance Strategy ◽  
John Broome ◽  
Over Time

Is there a diachronic rationality constraint on an agent’s intentions over time, one that favors stability of intention? I argue that there is reason to think that there is some such diachronic rationality constraint and that a plausible approach to this matter draws on our understanding of a planning agent’s self-governance over time. On natural assumptions, we normally have a reason of diachronic self-governance to conform to this constraint. This argues against what we can call brute shuffling in cases (of a sort discussed by John Broome) of continued incomparability over time. And we can embrace this norm without endorsing unacceptable forms of bootstrapping of normative reasons. In this way we extend the self-governance strategy for supporting basic norms of plan rationality from a focus on synchronic norms to this focus on a diachronic norm.

What You’re Rationally Required to Do and What You Ought to Do (Are the Same Thing!)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Errol Lord
Keyword(s):  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
John Broome

This chapter is about whether we ought to be rational—i.e., whether rationality is normative or deontically significant. Although this is a truism, skepticism about whether we ought to be rational is popular in the wake of very influential work by John Broome and Niko Kolodny. This chapter argues that Reasons Responsiveness vindicates the deontic significance of rationality. It is argued that it is independently plausible that what one deliberatively ought to do is determined by the reasons one possesses. The argument for this is anchored in the thought that there is a constitutive connection between deliberative obligations and being able to correctly respond to reasons. If this is right, then what one ought to do and what one is rationally required to do are the same thing. Thus, rationality has ultimate deontic significance.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Errol Lord
Keyword(s):  
Normative Theory ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness

This chapter introduces and motivates the main thesis of the book. This is a view of rationality called Reasons Responsiveness, which holds that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to possessed objective normative reasons. In this ‘Introduction: Reasons Responsiveness, the Reasons Program, and Knowledge-First’, the author offers a presentation of the main notions in this analysis, these being: objective normative reasons, possession, and correctly responding. It also ties Reasons Responsiveness to more general issues in metaphysical analysis. Finally, it shows how Reasons Responsiveness fits into two broader projects in normative theory, namely Reasons Fundamentalism and Knowledge-First epistemology.

Reflections on the Ideology of Reasons

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Hawthorne ◽  
Ofra Magidor
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
John Broome

In this chapter we offer a series of reflections on the ideology of reasons. Among the normative reasons for an agent X to phi, it is common to distinguish between those reasons that the agent possesses and those which she does not. After some background (5.1), we argue (5.2) that possession of a reason requires knowledge. In 5.3, we argue, first, that the normative reason construction is factive, and second, that possession ascriptions can be factored into a normative reason construction and a possession claim. In 5.4, we compare two prominent views concerning the nature of normative reasons: those of Kearns and Star and of John Broome. While both views have significant merit, we argue that they also face some non-trivial challenges, and discuss a range of considerations that can help to adjudicate between these two conceptions.

Weighing Reasons

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Kearns ◽  
Daniel Star
Keyword(s):  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Interesting Topic ◽  
John Broome

This paper is a response to two sets of published criticisms of the 'Reasons as Evidence’ thesis concerning normative reasons, proposed and defended in earlier papers. According to this thesis, a fact is a normative reason for an agent to Φ just in case this fact is evidence that this agent ought to Φ. John Broome and John Brunero have presented a number of challenging criticisms of this thesis which focus, for the most part, on problems that it appears to confront when it comes to the topic of the weighing of reasons. Our paper responds to all of the criticisms that these critics have provided, shedding fresh light on this interesting topic in the process.

Intention, Practical Rationality, and Self-Governance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E. Bratman
Keyword(s):  
Practical Rationality ◽  
Normative Reason ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Planning Agency ◽  
Joseph Raz ◽  
John Broome

Planning agency involves characteristic norms of practical rationality—in particular, norms of consistency and of means-end coherence of intentions. This essay defends the idea that there is normally a normative reason of self-governance in favor of conformity to these norms in the particular case. I contrast this self-governance-based view of these norms of plan rationality with the myth theories of Joseph Raz and Niko Kolodny, and with the cognitivism of Kieran Setiya. I explain how this view responds to concerns (including an argument from Setiya that focuses on nonmodifiable intentions) about the inappropriate bootstrapping of normative reasons. And I explore relations between this view and related work of John Broome, and between this view and Harry Frankfurt’s work on volitional necessity.

Self-sacrifice for in-group's history: A diachronic perspective

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Babińska ◽  
Michal Bilewicz
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Psychology ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Emotional Events ◽  
Reciprocal Process ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe problem of extended fusion and identification can be approached from a diachronic perspective. Based on our own research, as well as findings from the fields of social, political, and clinical psychology, we argue that the way contemporary emotional events shape local fusion is similar to the way in which historical experiences shape extended fusion. We propose a reciprocal process in which historical events shape contemporary identities, whereas contemporary identities shape interpretations of past traumas.

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