Practical Judgment and Its Corresponding Vices

Chapter 8 concludes the discussion of instrumental virtues started in the previous chapter. It argues that ETR gives us the tools to account for an overlooked instrumental virtue, which I call “practical judgment”. An agent exhibits the virtue of practical judgment insofar as she can pursue long-term ends without relying too much on restrictive implementation policies; this virtue turns out to be essential to our understanding of a rational agent who pursues indeterminate ends over time. The account also allows us to understand ordinary phenomena such as procrastination as manifestations of practical judgment’s corresponding vices, such as procrastination.

Extended Theory of Rationality

Chapter 2 presents the main tenets of the extended theory of rationality (ETR). According to ETR, both the given attitudes (“inputs”) and the conclusion of practical reasoning (“outputs”) are actions (more particularly, the intentional pursuit of ends). The principle of instrumental reasoning, which tells us (roughly) to adopt means to our ends, is the only principle of derivation, and a principle (roughly) requiring agents not to pursue incompatible ends is the only principle of coherence. The chapter also presents one of the main theses of ETR; namely that the rationality of an agent through an interval t1-tn does not supervene on the rationality of the agent at each moment t1-tn (what I call the “non-supervenience thesis”). In other words, someone may be irrational over a period of time without there being any moment during that time at which they were irrational.

Extended Action and Instrumental Rationality

Chapter 1 presents the general structure of a theory of instrumental rationality, as well as laying down some of the main ideas and motivations for the extended theory of instrumental rationality (ETR) developed in the book. It characterizes the content of a theory of instrumental rationality in terms of its given attitudes (the “inputs” for a theory of instrumental rationality), its principles of coherence, its principles of derivation, and what counts as the conclusion of practical reasoning or the exercise of our rational powers (the “outputs”) of instrumental rationality. On ETR, intentional actions are both the given attitudes and the exercises of our instrumental, rational powers.

Actions, Preferences, and Risk

Formal theories of instrumental rationality, such as orthodox decision theory, often provide a powerful account of the rationality of choice under risk. Can the extended theory of instrumental rationality (ETR) be similarly extended to contexts of risk and uncertainty? Chapter 9 argues that ETR can provide a satisfactory account of rationality in these contexts and that it can actually co-opt the resources of decision theory exactly in the cases in which the theory seems most plausible; namely, the pursuit of what I call “general means” (such as the pursuit of health or wealth). Moreover ETR plausibly renders coherent certain ubiquitous choice dispositions (such as the ones manifested in the Allais paradox) that seem incompatible with orthodox decision theory.

Persisting Intentions

Chapter 6 continues the discussion of putative requirements generated by future-directed intentions, turning to what I call “intention-persistence requirements”. These requirements seem particularly important in understanding choice among incommensurable or incomparable alternatives. In such choice situations, it seems irrational to engage in “brute shuffling”; that is, intending first to choose one option, then (possibly) incurring certain costs associated with bringing about this option, and then, in the absence of any new information or any reason to change one’s mind, switching to choose another, incomparable, option. However, unless we accept intention-persistence requirements, it might seem that we cannot explain why such behaviour is irrational. The chapter argues against the validity of such persistence requirements and proposes a different understanding of choices in these contexts. In particular, the chapter argues that only certain patterns of shuffling are irrational, and the irrationality of these patterns can be given a more direct and satisfying explanation without appeal to intention-persistence requirements.

Future-Directed Intentions and the Theory of Instrumental Rationality

This chapter considers a major alternative to the extended theory of instrumental rationality (ETR): the view, pioneered by Michael Bratman, that future-directed intentions (FDIs) have a fundamental role to play in our understanding of the rationality of extended agency. FDIs come in many flavours; they can be specific intentions, plans, policies, or projects. I argue in this chapter that ETR naturally classifies some of these “flavours” as instances of extended actions, and therefore they are structurally identical and subject to the exact same basic instrumental requirements as other instances of extended actions. Once we see this point, it turns out that purported norms and principles governing FDIs are either superfluous or invalid.

Pursuing Ends as the Fundamental Given Attitude

The extended theory of instrumental rationality (ETR) takes the intentional pursuit of ends to be the only relevant attitude for the theory of instrumental rationality, and takes the principle of instrumental reasoning, a non-comparative principle, to be the only principle of derivation. However, it seems that if the agent has more than one end, we’ll need to introduce comparative or graded attitudes, such as the preference orderings in orthodox decision theory, in order to explain the rationality of choices among competing ends. In fact, ETR can provide a significantly better account of how a rational agent pursues multiple indeterminate ends through time than theories that make use of comparative and graded attitudes. ETR proposes that in the pursuit of such ends a rational agent must inevitably “satisfice” rather than maximize. At the same time, the chapter explains how some comparative attitudes, such as preferences, can be incorporated into ETR.

Instrumental Virtues

Chapter 7 argues that (non-trivial) principles of rationality cannot fully capture the nature of our instrumentally rational powers. A fully rational agent not only complies with the principle of instrumental rationality but also exhibits a number of instrumental virtues of character. An agent suffers a defect of rationality insofar as she fails to have one of these virtues, or insofar as she manifests one of its corresponding vices. However, an agent can manifest instrumental vices without violating any principle of rationality. This chapter proposes that courage is one of the instrumental virtues, and shows how one of its corresponding vices, cowardice, must be understood as a defect of our rational powers.

Indeterminate Ends and the Puzzle of the Self-Torturer

Chapter 4 looks at Quinn’s puzzle of the rational self-torturer. The puzzle presents, in a clear way, a structure that pervades our pursuit of ends through time. The chapter argues that a proper solution for the puzzle, and thus a proper account of instrumental rationality that applies to extended action, must accept the non-supervenience thesis. We also need to understand how the agent’s extended perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of long-term ends) and the agent’s punctate perspective (the perspective of the pursuit of momentary actions) interact in realizing the agent’s indeterminate ends. This chapter presents ETR’s account of this interaction. Since extant theories of instrumental rationality cannot do justice to the non-supervenience thesis, and a fortiori, to the structure of agency illustrated in the puzzle of the rational self-torturer, this account represents an important argument in favour of ETR.