Amijee ("Inquiry and Metaphysical Rationalism") argues that as long as we have not yet discovered that any fact is ungrounded, we ought to be committed to a version of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), according to which every fact is grounded. In this note I present Amijee’s argument, rebut it, and diagnose where it fails. In a nutshell, the issue with Amijee's argument is that in general, rationally searching for something/seeking something/trying to achieve something does not require believing that (...) one is able to reach one's goal. (shrink)

It’s intuitive to think that (a) the more sure you are of something, the harder it’ll be to change your mind about it, and (b) you can’t be open-minded about something if you’re very sure about it. If these thoughts are right, then, with minimal assumptions, it follows that you can’t be in a good position to both escape echo chambers and be rationally resistant to fake news: the former requires open-mindedness, but the latter is inimical to it. I argue (...) that neither thought is true and that believing them will get us all mixed up. I show that you can be open-minded and have confidently held beliefs, and that beliefs in which you are less sure are not, thereby, more fragile. I close with some reflections on the nature of rational belief change and open-mindedness and a brief sketch about what might actually help us in the fight against misinformation and belief polarization …. [please read below the rest of the article]. (shrink)

Dean Zimmerman has made significant contributions to metaphysics, philosophy of time, and philosophy of religion. In this paper, I set my focus on Zimmerman’s approach to God, time, and creation. Zimmerman has defended a model of God called open theism on which God is essentially temporal. In this paper, I will first articulate open theism. Then I will explore a series of puzzles related to God’s perfect rationality and creation. These can be stated as the following three questions. Why didn’t (...) God create sooner? Why did God create anything at all? Why did God create this universe in particular? (shrink)

Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors and David Makinson published in 1985 a seminal article on belief change in the Journal of Symbolic Logic. Researchers from various disciplines, from computer science to mathematical economics to philosophical logic, have continued the work first presented in this seminal paper during the last two decades. This paper explores some salient foundational trends that interpret the act of changing view as a decision. We will argue that some of these foundational trends are already present, although only (...) tacitly, in the original article by the AGM trio. Other accounts decidedly depart from the view of contraction and revision presented in this seminal paper. I shall survey various types of theories that progressively depart form the axiomatic treatment defended by AGM. First, I consider theories where rational agents are considered as maximizers as opposed to optimizers ). Second, I consider which feasible set to use in contraction understood as a cognitive decision. This leads to rethink the very notion of what minimal change in contraction is. I shall conclude with some philosophical reflections concerning the sort of epistemological voluntarism that is tacit in seeing change in view as a rational choice. Carlos Alchourrón, Peter Gärdenfors y David Makinson publicaron en 1985 un artículo seminal sobre cambio de creencias en Journal of Symbolic Logic. Investigadores de varias disciplinas, desde la ciencia de la computación hasta la economía matemática y la lógica filosófica, han continuado en las dos últimas décadas esta línea de investigación. Este trabajo explora algunos aspectos fundacionalmente salientes que interpretan el acto de cambio de vista como una decisión. Argumentaremos que algunos de esos aspectos fundacionales ya estaban presentes, aunque solo tácitamente, en el artículo original del trío AGM. Otros abordajes parten decididamente de la contracción y revisión tal como fueran presentadas en el trabajo seminal. Inspeccionaré varios tipos de teorías que progresivamente parten del tratamiento axiomático defendido por AGM. Primero, considero teorías donde los agentes racionales aparecen como maximizadres opuestos a los optimiadores ). Segundo, me pregunto cuál conjunto derrotable debe usarse en una contracción entendida como una decisión cognitiva, lo cual lleva a repensar la importante cuestión de en qué consiste la noción de cambio mínimo en la contracción. Concluiré con algunas reflexiones filosóficas acerca de la suerte de voluntarismo epistemológico que está tácito en la concepción del cambio como una opción racional. (shrink)

A reading is offered of Carl Hempel’s and Thomas Kuhn’s positions on, and disagreements about, rationality in science that relates these issues to the debate between W.V. Quine and Rudolf Carnap on the analytic/synthetic distinction.

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 10, Page W1-W3, October 2011.

This paper offers a new definition of "adaptationism". An evolutionary account is adaptationist, it is suggested, if it allows for multiple independent origins for the same function -- i.e., if it violates the "Unique Origin Constraint". While this account captures much of the position Gould and Lewontin intended to stigmatize, it leaves it open that adaptationist accounts may sometimes be appropriate. However, there are many important cases, including that of human rationality, in which it is not.

Rationing in healthcare remains very much a taboo topic. Before COVID-19, it rarely received public attention, even when it occurred in everyday practices, mainly in the form of implicit rationing, as it continues to do today. There are different definitions, types and levels of healthcare rationing, according to different perspectives. With the aim of contributing to a more coherent debate on such a highly emotional healthcare issue as rationing, here are provided a number of reflections from a patient advocate perspective (...) which are specifically focused on bedside rationing, the most troublesome level, both for patients and clinicians, particularly in regard to cancer care. Oncology, with its numerous expensive therapies and increasing number of patients, is undeniably one of the main areas contributing to the increase in healthcare costs. However, the fixed budgets of today's publicly financed health systems cannot allow unlimited access to the potentially beneficial treatments to all patients. Bedside rationing constitutes the last phase of many decision-making processes occurring at different interrelated levels (macro-levels), both inside and outside healthcare systems, which implicitly and inevitably result in a bottleneck determined by the upstream decisions themselves. Shifting from implicit to explicit bedside rationing essentially means moving from a paternalistic to a citizen-before-patient approach; this implies, first of all, a cultural change. Practical bedside rationing is an ethically complex topic, but one that needs to be urgently addressed in a transparent and open debate. In this scenario, the oncological community – patients, patient advocates and clinicians – can and should play an important role. (shrink)

Empirical research on Rational Choice Theory has brought up two focus of the economics laws problem. On one hand, we find the authors who state that the neoclassical economics laws are explanatory and predictive on specific cases: in transparent contexts in which the standard rationality operates successfully. On the other hand, we find the authors who state that the descriptive theories of the rational choice opens up a research path in which fundamental principles of the neoclassical building could (...) be questioned. Both view points have generated an important standard Rational Choice Theory revision what has produced the so called descriptive view point . It implies understanding that most of the choices take place under risky or uncertainty conditions and, that, these choices are far more complex than the normative Rational Choice Theory supposes. This article's main goal is to expand the descriptive point of view in rational choice, theorizing how some factors, coming from the social and cultural environment, operate within the rational choice. Into space of this research essay we find the debatable question of whether these sort of proposals expands the explanation of the deviation of the rational choice normative theory, and that, of the disturbing causes of the microeconomics laws, or they call into question fundamental principles of these laws and therefore they are opening the possibility to focus some economics issues in a new different manner. (shrink)

Empirical research on Rational Choice Theory has brought up two focus of the economics laws problem. On one hand, we find the authors who state that the neoclassical economics laws are explanatory and predictive on specific cases: in transparent contexts in which the standard rationality operates successfully. On the other hand, we find the authors who state that the descriptive theories of the rational choice opens up a research path in which fundamental principles of the neoclassical building could (...) be questioned. Both view points have generated an important standard Rational Choice Theory revision what has produced the so called descriptive view point. It implies understanding that most of the choices take place under risky or uncertainty conditions and, that, these choices are far more complex than the normative Rational Choice Theory supposes. This article's main goal is to expand the descriptive point of view in rational choice, theorizing how some factors, coming from the social and cultural environment, operate within the rational choice. Into space of this research essay we find the debatable question of whether these sort of proposals expands the explanation of the deviation of the rational choice normative theory, and that, of the disturbing causes of the microeconomics laws, or they call into question fundamental principles of these laws and therefore they are opening the possibility to focus some economics issues in a new different manner. (shrink)

'The Rational and the Moral Order' is a significant book providing a comprehensive theory of morality. The opening chapter is simply marvellous. Baier provides a cogent response to Hume's conundrums on practical reasoning: logical entailment, he argues, is not the correct model of the relation between reasons and that for which they are reasons. Indeed, the giving of reasons is, in part, a social enterprise, and there is no necessary connection between rationality and self-interest. Just as the giving of (...) reasons is a social enterprise taught to succeeding generations, so too is the moral enterprise, for a moral order is a social order of some sort. It is a social order that encourages a critical stance toward, and permits the correction of, its mores. Moral precepts can be sound or unsound, and yet can be relative to a moral order. In the concluding chapter Baier shows how his theoretical framework can be used to confront some of the moral problems people face, problems which have also exercised contemporary philosophers. Though there are many philosophers who believe that killing is worse than letting anyone die, there are few that defend the view other than by raw intuition. Baier deploys the resources of his theory of morality in support of this widely shared but poorly defended viewpoints. "Along the way, Baier deals with virtually all the problems that have taxed moral philosophers for a very long time -- rationality, responsibility, morality's relation to law, the good life, prisoner's dilemma, moral motivation, and others. The Rational and the Moral Order is careful, insightful, and convincing." --Theodore M. Benditt, University of Alabama. (shrink)

We argue that indeterminate probabilities are not only rationally permissible for a Bayesian agent, but they may even be rationally required . Our first argument begins by assuming a version of interpretivism: your mental state is the set of probability and utility functions that rationalize your behavioral dispositions as well as possible. This set may consist of multiple probability functions. Then according to interpretivism, this makes it the case that your credal state is indeterminate. Our second argument begins with our (...) describing a world that plausibly has indeterminate chances. Rationality requires a certain alignment of your credences with corresponding hypotheses about the chances. Thus, if you hypothesize the chances to be indeterminate, your will inherit their indeterminacy in your corresponding credences. Our third argument is motivated by a dilemma. Epistemic rationality requires you to stay open-minded about contingent matters about which your evidence has not definitively legislated. Practical rationality requires you to be able to act decisively at least sometimes. These requirements can conflict with each other-for thanks to your open-mindedness, some of your options may have undefined expected utility, and if you are choosing among them, decision theory has no advice to give you. Such an option is playing Nover and Hájek’s Pasadena Game , and indeed any option for which there is a positive probability of playing the Pasadena Game. You can serve both masters, epistemic rationality and practical rationality, with an indeterminate credence to the prospect of playing the Pasadena game. You serve epistemic rationality by making your upper probability positive-it ensures that you are open-minded. You serve practical rationality by making your lower probability 0-it provides guidance to your decision-making. No sharp credence could do both. (shrink)

Charles Taber and Milton Lodge provide compelling evidence that people's minds may be closed to information that is inconsistent with their prior beliefs. This type of inconsistency has often been termed ?irrational.? However, recent research suggests that being open or closed minded is not an unchanging variable but depends on one's goals, including one's need for closure, which vary from person to person and situation to situation. In this vein, as Taber and Lodge suggest, those who have more political information (...) may, after having been open minded enough to acquire the information, become closed minded by virtue of having acquired it. At the same time, being more open minded to inaccurate information might lead one in the wrong direction; hence, open mindedness does not necessarily enhance the accuracy of one's judgments or the quality of one's decisions. We may need to rethink the concept of an enlightened, well-informed electorate, to the extent that it assumes the unqualified benefits of open mindedness. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that if we challenge some tacit assumptions of narrow rationality that endure in much of entrepreneurial studies, we can elevate entrepreneurial ethics beyond mere external constraints on rational action, and move toward fuller integration of ethics as an intrinsic part of the process of value creation itself. To this end, I propose the concept of practical wisdom as a framework for exploring entrepreneurial decision making and action that can broaden the scope of our research (...) to recognize entrepreneurship as an inherendy normative enterprise. Specifically, I suggest that a framework built upon a concept of practical wisdom enables us to adopt a richer and more complex view of entrepreneurial decision making that is well suited to the dynamic and uncertain context of entrepreneurship. Further, this framework enriches our view of entrepreneurial ethics to include consideration of the personal character, values, and purpose of the entrepreneur. By examining entrepreneurship through a lens of practical wisdom, we can open up new avenues of fruitful inquiry for scholars of entrepreneurship. (shrink)

BackgroundRationing of care in nursing is nurses' inability to complete all care activities for patients because of scarcity in time and resource. Literature suggests that rationing of care is closely related to patient safety and quality of care. The phenomena have been defined and studied from varied perspectives and contexts. A systematic review of studies related to the concept was aimed at identifying and synthesizing the finding.MethodsThe review followed Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐analysis guidelines, and literature searches (...) were conducted in MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycInfo, Web of Science and EMBASE databases. Fifty‐seven quantitative studies were included in the review.FindingsThe review observed that nursing activities addressing the emotional, educational, mobility and hygiene needs of the patients were commonly rationed. Antecedents of rationing included resource inadequacy and organizational work environment. Rationing influenced patient satisfaction, mortality and a number of adverse events and was associated with decreased job satisfaction, increased intention to leave and high turnover among nurses.DiscussionsThis review concludes that rationing in nursing is ubiquitous, embedded in the work environment and poses a threat to the professional health and philosophical base of nursing in addition to having serious implications on patients' safety. Strategies to reframe and reconsider organizational traits, and open discussion with other healthcare stakeholders can reduce rationing of nursing care. The review suggests future researchers adopt different methodological layout to study rationing. (shrink)

The connection between economics and ethics is as old as economics itself, and central to both disciplines. It is an issue that has recently attracted much interest from economists and philosophers. The connection is, in part, a result of the desire of economists to make policy prescriptions, which clearly require some normative criteria. More deeply, much economic theory is founded on the assumption of utility maximization, thereby creating an immediate connection between the foundations of economics and the philosophical literature on (...) utilitarianism and reasons for action. In fact, some influential contemporary approaches to ethics advocate decision-theoretic or game-theoretic foundations of some sort for moral principles, while several economic theorists are now prepared to take into account the ethical dimensions of rational decisions. As a result, it appears that economics and ethics are somehow inextricably linked through theories of rational decision-making. Most of us would probably find it disturbing to concede that there are contradictions between the prescriptions of rationality and the requirements of moral `rightness'. The essays included in the present volume provide a detailed analysis of the connections between ethics and economics as viewed from several different - sometimes conflicting - perspectives. This book, the outcome of a joint meeting of philosophers and economists, has three main themes: the validity of utilitarianism much used by economists, the notion of fairness and equity, and the coherence of the rationality postulate of economics. The book does not reach any final conclusions, but it greatly illuminates the exact areas of possible disagreement and indeed the open-ended nature of ethical reasoning. There is much that economists, and especially welfare economists, can learn from these papers - not least circumspection. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that there is a rational requirement, “Enkrasia”, which requires that you intend what you believe you ought to do. This paper argues that Enkrasia is not an independent requirement of practical rationality: it is a special case of the requirement to be instrumentally rational. I argue for this view of Enkrasia through an analysis of an all‐things‐considered belief about what you ought to do. Believing, all‐thing‐considered, that you ought to φ implies being settled on (...) a set of options from which to take an option. I argue that this state of being settled on a set of options cannot be a matter of believing. Rather, it should be understood as intending that you do what you ought to do out of that set. If an all‐things‐considered belief implies such an intention, however, satisfying Enkrasia is a matter of satisfying the requirement to intend a necessary means to an end that you intend [*published with open access]. (shrink)

Since Gettier, much of epistemology has focused on analyzing “S knows that P”, but that is not my interest. My general interest is in rational cognition — both in what it is to be rational, and in how rational cognition works. The traditional epistemological question, “How do you know?”, can be taken as addressing part of the more general problem of producing a theory of rational cognition. It is about specifically epistemic rationality. I interpret this question (...) literally, as a question about how we should proceed in our epistemic endeavors. Epistemological theories that try to answer this question are theories of procedural epistemology (see my 1998), and when, from this perspective, we assess beliefs in terms of their justifiedness, the concept of justification is one of procedural epistemic justification. Whether this has anything to do with the analysis of knowledge is an open question, and not one that I have much interest in addressing. (shrink)

Having its seeds in the 2nd International Lauener Symposium held in honour of Dagfinn Follesdal, the present collection contains a rich, kaleidoscopic ensemble of previously unpublished contributions by leading authors, representing diverse approaches to a variety of philosophical themes on which Follesdal has had a longstanding, formative impact. Follesdal himself contributes an orientating essay continuing to develop his pioneering theory of reference as well as in-depth commentaries on each of the other authors elaborated papers plus candid answers in the added (...) interview. The volume assembles a wealth of original articles containing in part direct discussions of Follesdal s work and covering a broad range of topics like subjectivity, intersubjectivity, objectivity, rationality, logics and mathematics, choice theory, values, modalities, intentionality, individuation, perception, communication, meaning, reference, the slingshot, one- and two-sorted semantics, evidence, neuropsychology, space and time, science and society, methodology, fallibilism, the relative a priori, justification, holism, the life-world, reflective equilibrium, empathy, and ethics. Moreover the book includes an incisive memoir of Follesdal the philosopher as well as a spanning interview with him, which are both critically directing toward Follesdal s subtly differentiated understanding of the dynamic philosophical horizon he shares in. With contributions from Dagfinn Follesdal, Charles Parsons, Patrick Suppes, Jon Elster, John Perry, Michael Friedman, Dag Prawitz, Wilhelm K. Essler, David Woodruff Smith, Olav Gjelsvik, Graciela De Pierris, Nils Roll-Hansen, Christian Beyer, Oystein Linnebo, Michael Frauchiger. Excerpt Open publication". (shrink)

It is with these words that Alan Gewirth opened his 1972 Lindley Lecture at the University of Kansas. And he immediately followed up his opening words with a more or less blanket indictment of almost the entire group of contemporary writers on meta-ethics, who, he would aver, while claiming to be "rationalists" in the matter of the rational justification of moral principles, and while making much of how far they have distanced themselves from the old-line emotivists in this very (...) regard, have nevertheless just not brought it off, so far as their own provision for any such rational justification is concerned. Thus while the emotivists had tended to hold that such reasons as a person might give in support of moral principles could not really function as reasons, but only as causes that might impel or compel acceptance of such principles, the latter-day "rationalists," as Gewirth calls them, insist that good reasons are always in order and logically relevant, so far as any moral or even evaluative judgment is concerned. Indeed, merely to call a thing good, or to judge an action right or wrong, already implies that such a judgment is put forward as one that is universalizable and for which good reasons can be given. Unfortunately, however,—Gewirth goes on to insist—reasons and justifications of this sort turn out, even on the admission of the rationalists themselves, to be valid only on the prior assumption of what might be called "the moral point of view.". (shrink)

pGiven the long-standing and deeply rooted intertwinement between reason and philosophy, there is a pressing need to reappraise our operative conceptions of rationality and critical inquiry in the wake of the transition from foundationalism to postfoundationalism.nbsp; For while opening up exciting new vistas, this transition poses perplexing problems regarding how we might go about justifying our knowledge claims without the possibility of recourse to incontrovertible foundations, indubitable starting points, or algorithmic procedures.nbsp; The challenge is all the more acute given that (...) the turn to language and intersubjectivity that characterises this transition has fostered the proliferation of a diversity of competing and allegedly self-validating worldviews, that render the encounter with difference an indispensable feature of the contemporary epistemological landscape while reinforcing the threat of relativism and groundlessness./ppThrough engaging with the work of Juuml;rgen Habermas, Hans-Georg Gadamer and Michel Foucault, three theorists widely recognized as major contributors to the contemporary debate, the present paper responds to these problems by seeking to delineate the constitutive features of a dialogically-oriented conception of rationality and critical inquiry capable of meeting postfoundationalist needs.nbsp; In the process, it reinforces the advantages of the reading these theorists as complementary rather than as oppositional, as has typically been the case./p. (shrink)

It is demonstrated that Maxwellian electrodynamics was created as a result of the old pre-Maxwellian programmes’s reconciliation: the electrodynamics of Ampère–Weber, the wave theory of Young–Fresnel and Faraday’s programme. Maxwell’s programme finally superseded the Ampère–Weber one because it assimilated the ideas of the Ampère–Weber programme, as well as the presuppositions of the programmes of Young–Fresnel and Faraday. Maxwell’s victory became possible because the core of Maxwell’s unification strategy was formed by Kantian epistemology. Maxwell put forward as a basic synthetic principle (...) an idea that radically differed from that of rival approaches by its open, flexible and contra-ontological character. “Action at a distance”, “incompressible fluid”, “molecular vortices” were contrived analogies for Maxwell, capable only of directing the researcher to the “right” mathematical relations Kantian epistemology subsequently enabled Helmholtz and Hertz to arrive at a version of Maxwell’s theory that served as a heuristical basis for the discovery of radio waves. Finally, though neither of Einstein’s relativistic ideas came directly from Kant, they were made possible by the Kantian worldview that had permeated Einstein’s thinking. The Maxwellian revolution can be described in terms of Habermas’s communicative rationality encouraging the establishment of mutual understanding between the various scientific communities. Maxwell’s programme constituted a progressive step in respect to its rivals because it constituted a basis of communication and interpenetration between the main paradigms of 19th century physics. (shrink)

In a free society, it is common to hear the request that one â ~keep an open mind.â Just what exactly is it, however, to keep an open-mind? How does open-mindedness function? How does it square with important personal commitments? These issues are particularly acute when it comes to matters of religious belief in which open-mindedness can sound to the pious a bit too much like doubt. Certainly, in a discipline whose discourse remains rational dialogue, effort should be spent (...) discerning the contours of this virtue, especially in light of its formal role in establishing responsiveness to new inquiries in matters philosophical and religious. This book provides a collection of essays serving to promote conversation about open-mindedness, its virtue, and its role and application in problems in the philosophy of religion in particular. (shrink)

This paper argues that Habermas's conception of the rationality of moral and legal discussions has import for argumentation theorists interested in the rationality of public deliberations in politics and law. I begin with a survey of Haber mas's discourse theory and his criteria of rationality for moral and legal discourse. I then explain why, in his view, the forms of rational discourse in morality and law complement each other. My aim is to show how Habermas's account of this complementary (...) relationship opens up fruitful perspectives for argumentation theory. Specifically, his thought can stimulate research regarding, on the one hand, the ways in which legal procedures provide for presumptively rational resolutions of moral disputes and, on the other hand, the applicability of ideal argumentation-theoretic models to the legal field. I conclude with a proposal for integrating Habermas's ideas in a research program for legal argumentation. (shrink)

Open-mindedness appears as a potential intellectual virtue from the beginning of the rise of the literature on intellectual virtues. It often takes up a special role, sometimes thought of as a meta-virtue rather than a first-order virtue: as an ingredient that makes other virtues virtuous. Jason Baehr has attempted to give a unified account of open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue. He argues that the conceptual core of open-mindedness lies in the fact that a person departs, moves beyond, or transcends a (...) certain default cognitive standpoint. Two of his main aims are to show that (1) one does not need to assume a doxastic conflict or disagreement to be at the heart of open-mindedness—that is, there are also instances where the virtue of open-mindedness is needed when there is no opposing view to be considered—and (2) that not all forms of open-mindedness include rational assessment—that is, sometimes being open-minded is not about weighing evidence for and against a claim. So, his main aim is to show that there are various situations that afford open-mindedness, in each of which a slightly different kind of open-mindedness is called for. To unify all these different kinds of open-mindedness is then the goal of his work. He arrives at the following definition of open-mindedness (OM): an open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up or take seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint. In this article, I take seriously Baehr’s suggestion of how to understand open-mindedness as an intellectual virtue and argue that the crux lies in formulating how we can be able to transcend a default cognitive standpoint. This is not as obvious as it has been taken to be in the literature on open-mindedness. Biases, overconfidence, and wishful thinking are difficult exactly because we don’t know that we are engaging in them. That is, they are systematically hidden from our consciousness, otherwise they would not be a bias, overconfidence, or wishful thinking. Hence, the crux of making open-mindedness open-minded is to see how it is possible to make something of one’s own mind visible that is systematically hidden from oneself. I argue that this problem can be solved by looking at research on attention. I base my considerations in this article on Sebastian Watzl’s account of attention, which essentially holds that paying attention is an activity of foregrounding and backgrounding mental contents. That is, attention is the activity of structuring mental contents into a priority structure of foreground and background. If I pay attention to the scene in front of me, I foreground the black letters on my screen, and I background the coffee cup next to them. In this way, I create a priority structure between the letters (as they appear to me) and the coffee cup (as it appears to me). I argue that what allows us to make something of our own mind visible that is systematically hidden from us is a special way of paying attention, hence a special way of foregrounding and backgrounding the involved mental contents. That is, the crux of what enables us to transcend a default cognitive standpoint, the conceptual core of open-mindedness, is a special kind of attention, which I will call ‘open-minded attention’ (OMA). The claim of this article is not that open-minded attention fully describes the virtue of open-mindedness (OMA is not sufficient for open-mindedness). Rather, what I try to show is that in all cases of open-mindedness it turns out that open-minded attention is the necessary component that ensures that we can indeed get rid of prior biases, that is, transcend also those implicit beliefs and expectations that are systematically hidden from us (OMA is necessary for open-mindedness). (shrink)

When is it rational to undergo cognitive enhancement? In the case of what I’ll call massive cognitive enhancement, my answer is never. The reason is that one must base one’s decision to undergo massive cognitive enhancement on what I’ll call either phenomenal or non-phenomenal outcomes. If the former, the choice is not rational because massive cognitive enhancements are transformative and, I’ll argue with Paul (2015), transformative experiences cannot be chosen rationally. If the latter, the choice is not (...) class='Hi'>rational because it ought to be based at least partly on phenomenal outcomes. This argument, however, leaves open the idea that it may nonetheless be rational to choose massive cognitive enhancement for others—for example, one’s children. The article explores this possibility, arguing that choosing enhancement for others can be rational or moral, but not both. (shrink)

In her book Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology (2015), Annalisa Coliva puts forward an anti-sceptical proposal based on the idea that the notion of rationality extends to the unwarrantable presuppositions “that make the acquisition of perceptual warrants possible” (2015: 150). These presuppositions are commonly the target of sceptical arguments, and by showing that they are on the one hand unwarrantable, but on the other are constitutive components of rationality itself, she reveals that they are beyond rational doubt and thus (...) avoids scepticism. Part of Coliva’s defence of using extended rationality in this way involves distancing it from relativist interpretations, which she describes as “devastating” (2015: 120). She proposes two ways that someone might attempt to formulate epistemic relativism from her extended rationality view, and argues that both would be unsuccessful because they require describing alternative conceptions of rationality which are “unintelligible” (in the first case), or “inconceivable” (in the second). The superficial claim of this chapter is that Coliva’s arguments, as they stand, are insufficient to dismiss relativism. She fails to show that the conception of rationality needed for the first formulation of relativism is unintelligible, and overestimates the significance of the second formulation’s conception turning out to be inconceivable. But I also highlight a deeper problem: neither formulation follows a realistic blueprint for relativism, and so these were the wrong possibilities to consider in the first place. To address this issue, I propose a third, more plausible, way in which someone might attempt to formulate relativism on the basis of Coliva’s account. I leave open whether this strategy is successful, or whether a version of Coliva’s criticisms apply to it too. (shrink)

THE OPENING OF MARTIN HEIDEGGER'S summer of 1928 Marburg lectures on logic is, to use a word he himself invokes elsewhere about these matters, "dismaying"--providing perhaps additional evidence for the perennial charge that aspects of his work contain tendencies toward irrationalism, mysticism, and forms of nostalgic romanticism. In fact, the lectures show Heidegger calling for nothing less than a "destruction of logic," a move not only consistent with a similar destruction in Being and Time, published a year previously, but also (...) consistent with a context which its author describes as one in which "the inner rebellion against knowledge, the revolt against rationality, and the struggle against intellectualism have become fashionable." His ensuing condemnation of "the widespread sterility of academic courses" in this area and the call for "loosening up traditional logic," would seem to lead directly to the proclamation which would issue from Heidegger's struggle with Nietzsche in the decade thereafter, that "reason, glorified for centuries, is the most stiff-necked adversary of thought." The question of Heidegger's account in this regard has continually troubled those writing in its wake--not only in the continental traditional, such as Gadamer, Adorno, Habermas, Merleau-Ponty, or Derrida, but also those "beyond" it, such as Carnap, Ryle, Rorty, or Putnam. And yet, such claims seem only to provide added weight to the concern that the "retrieval of metaphysics" thought to be essential to these issues based upon the Daseinanalytik of Being and Time would only lead the classical issues in philosophy associated with justification and decidability into a quagmire. Its emphasis upon the conjunct in its title, being and time, could only lead, on the one hand, to anthropological reductionism--since it returned the interrogation of Being back to the commitments of the being through whom the questioning arose-and on the other hand, to a new version of historicism--since it claimed that questions concerning "truth" were tied essentially to time, and specifically, to the latter's appearance within the temporal horizon of the being to whom they appeared. Moreover, that even those closest to Heidegger viewed the matter similarly is clear, for example, in the criticisms his mentor, Edmund Husserl voiced in the 1931 response, "Phenomenology and Anthropology." There the strategy Husserl used in arguing against Dilthey's flirtation with relativism in a Logos essay of 1911 was reinvoked against Heidegger himself. In this regard, far from contributing to a retrieval of classical issues in philosophy, Heidegger would be simply guilty of effecting their ultimate dissolution, a claim which, like that of irrationalism, has accompanied his works ever since. (shrink)

Joshua Greene’s dual process account contends that deontological moral judgments are the result of intuitions that are automatic, emotional and arational. Deontological intuitions cannot be trusted, Greene argues, because they are arationally acquired and deployed. However, the empirical evidence taken to support this view is methodologically flawed and does not support the utilitarianism-rational and deontology-emotional links that dual process theorists postulate. Instead, the available evidence supports a social domain account of moral development, in which the acquisition of moral intuitions (...) is a rational process. That is, one acquires moral intuitions through repeated exposure to and reasoned engagement with moral information. The deployment of moral intuitions is not arational merely because it is not easily open to introspection. Indeed, if introspection were the sine qua non of rationality, then it would follow that the deployment of consequentialist intuitions is also arational. Although deontological intuitions are not infallible, the infirmities of deontological intuitions are equally shared by utilitarian intuitions. Thus, contrary to Greene’s recommendation, one need not abandon her deontological moral intuitions. Instead, intuitions – be they deontological or consequentialist – can be useful tools to guide moral reasoning. (shrink)

Intellectual virtues like open-mindedness, clarity, intellectual honesty and the willingness to participate in rational discussions, are conceived as important aims of education. In this paper an attempt is made to clarify the specific nature of intellectual virtues. Firstly, the intellectual virtues are systematically compared with moral virtues. The upshot is that considering a trait of character to be an intellectual virtue implies assuming that such a trait can be derived from, or is a specification of, the cardinal virtue of (...) concern and respect for truth. Secondly, several (possible) misconceptions of intellectual virtues are avoided by making the required distinctions. For example, it is argued that our concept of an intellectual virtue should not be confused with a normative conception of intellectual virtuousness. (shrink)

In her book The Rationality of Perception, Susanna Siegel argues for the interesting idea that perceptual experiences are in an important epistemic sense much more like beliefs than has previously been supposed. Like beliefs, perceptual experiences themselves already manifest a certain epistemic status, and, like beliefs, the way in which those experiences are formed will impact what that epistemic status will be. In what follows, I will first contrast this view of the rationality of perception with the usual way of (...) thinking about perception and justification and explain some of its crucial motivations (§1). I will then go on to critically discuss some of the details of Siegel’s account about what grounds the epistemic status of experience (§2) and how that status is inferentially modulated (§3). Although this raises some doubts about the specific way in which Siegel cashes out the rationality of perception, the core idea remains an interesting open possibility. (shrink)

Rational agents are important objects of study in several research communities, including economics, philosophy, cognitive science, and most recently computer science and artificial intelligence. Crudely, a rational agent is an entity that is capable of acting on its environment, and which chooses to act in such a way as to further its own best interests. There has recently been much interest in the use of mathematical logic for developing formal theories of such agents. Such theories view agents as (...) practical reasoning systems, deciding moment by moment which action to perform next, given the beliefs they have about the world and their desires with respect to how they would like the world to be. In this article, we survey the state of the art in developing logical theories of rational agency. Following a discussion on the dimensions along which such theories can vary, we briefly survey the logical tools available in order to construct such theories. We then review and critically assess three of the best known theories of rational agency: Cohen and Levesque's intention logic, Rao and Georgeff's BDI logics, and the KARO framework of Meyer et al. We then discuss the various roles that such logics can play in helping us to engineer rational agents, and conclude with a discussion of open problems. (shrink)

Rationing is the allocation of a good under conditions of scarcity, which necessarily implies that some who want and could be benefitted by that good will not receive it. One reflection of our ambivalence towards health care rationing is reflected in our resistance to having it distributed in a market like most other goods—most Americans reject ability to pay as the basis for distributing health care. They do not view health care as just another commodity to be distributed by markets. (...) Despite this widespread view, we are the only developed country without some form of universal health insurance, and so for the 46 million Americans without health insurance their access to health care often does depend on their ability to pay for it. Rationing largely remains a topic that the public, their elected leaders, and many health care professionals prefer to avoid. Ever-growing costs of health care will increasingly force the practice and issue of health care resource prioritization and rationing into the open for public, professional, and political attention. This paper explores some of the features of those practices and issues that make them especially ethically and politically difficult. Those issues will not be easily resolved, but avoiding them will not avoid the need or reality of rationing, it will only mean that it will go on covertly and unexamined. That will lead neither to better or more legitimate prioritization and rationing decisions. (shrink)

The topic of this study is to what extent standards of rational inquiry can be rationally criticized and revised. It is argued that it is rational to treat all such standards as open to criticism and revision. Arguments to the effect that we are fallible with regard to all standards of rational inquiry are presented. Standards cannot be ultimately justified and with certainty established either as adequate or as inescapable presuppositions. Apel's attempt to give ultimate justifications of (...) certain moral and logical rules is examined and criticized. Special attention is given to our fallibility with regard to logical inference rules. The idea that certain logical rules cannot be put into question because any critical argument presupposes them is criticized. It has been claimed that there must be some basic standards which are such that they cannot be rationally evaluated and hence are rationally unrevisable. This is called "the unrevisability thesis". Related to this thesis is the normative policy according to which rationality requires that some standards be treated as unrevisable, the unrevisability policy. Two arguments that have been used to defend the unrevisability thesis and policy are examined and criticized. The conclusion is that we are not forced to accept either the thesis or the policy. The negation of the unrevisability policy is the revisability policy, according to which it is rational to treat all standards as open to rational criticism and revision. Objections that have been directed against the revisability policy are discussed and criticized. According to the objections, the revisability policy leads to rationality relativism. These objections are refuted, and it is argued that it is, on the contrary, rational to adopt the revisability policy and treat all standards of rational inquiry as criticizable and revisable. It is proposed that the rational change of standards should be viewed as a bootstrap process. General features of a bootstrap view of rational change of standards are presented, and it is argued that it is impossible to formulate a real theory of bootstrapping. Two models of standard change are presented and discussed: Laudan's reticulated model of scientific rationality and Briskman's bootstrap theory. It is claimed that in spite of defects and limitations, these models contribute to a richer understanding of bootstrapping. The fallibility and revisability of standards of rational inquiry have consequences for how the normativity of rationality should be understood. The book ends with an account of how the rationality of cognitive actions is related to the idea of the adequacy of standards. A distinction between absolute and standard-relative rationality is made, and it is argued that what an inquiring agent rationally ought to do coincides with what it is standard-relatively rational for him to do. It is shown that this view of rationality of inquiry is nevertheless inconsistent with rationality relativism, and that it is compatible with an objectivistic view of rationality. (shrink)

Identity arguments for the existence of god offer an intriguing blend of conceptual and existential claims. As it happens, this sort of blend has been probed for more than a century in metaethics, ever since G.E. Moore formulated the Open Question Argument against metaethical naturalism. Moore envisaged naturalism as offering identity claims between good and natural properties. His central worry was that such identity claims should render certain questions closed and hence meaningless. However, he contended that speakers competent with the (...) respective concepts would find these questions meaningful, thereby indicating the failure of the identity claim in question, and of all such identity claims. The history of this issue in metaethics provides an important perspective on the prospects of devising cogent, rhetorically successful versions of identity arguments for the existence of god. Both the conceptual and existential premises of such arguments involve conceptual nuances that metaethicists have studied. Overall, the history of the Open Question Argument provides reason to think that rationally compelling versions of identity arguments for the existence of god are very unlikely to be constructed. (shrink)

This paper looks at a dispute decision theory about how best to characterize expected utility maximization and express the logic of rational choice. Where A1, … , An are actions open to some particular agent, and S1, … , Sn are mutually exclusive states of the world such that the agent knows at least one of which obtains, does the logic of rational choice require an agent to consider the conditional probability of choice Ai given that some state (...) Si obtains, Prob(Ai/Si). Or, is the logic of choice better represented by considering the probability of the counterfactual if Ai then Si, Prob(Ai ⟥-> Si). Causal decision theory, developed by Allan Gibbard, William Harper, and David Lewis defend the counterfactual analysis; whereas, Richard Jeffrey and others defend the conditional probability analysis, evidential decision theory. I argue that the problems posed by cases of decision instability favor evidential decision theory. (shrink)

This paper argues that economic rationality and ethical behavior cannot be reduced one to the other, thus casting doubt on the validity of assertions such as ‘profit is ethical’ or ‘ethics pays’. In order to express ethical dilemmas in a way which opposes economic interest with ethical concerns, we propose a model of rational behavior that combines these two irreducible dimensions in an open but not arbitrary manner. Behaviors that are neither ethical nor profitable are considered irrational . However, (...) behaviors that are profitable but unethical, and behaviors that are ethical but not profitable, are all treated as rational . Combining ethical concerns with economic interest, ethical business is in turn seen as an optimal form of rationality between venality and sacrifice. Because everyone prefers to communicate that they act ethically, ethical business remains ambiguous until some economic interest is actually sacrificed. We argue, however, that ethical business has an interest in demonstrating its consistency between communication and behavior by a transparent attitude. On the other hand, venal behaviors must remain confidential to hide the corresponding lack of consistency. This discursive approach based on transparency and confidentiality helps to further distinguish between ethical and unethical business behaviors. (shrink)

Human beings are not general problem solvers. Their mental architecture is modular and the microfoundations for the social sciences have to take that into consideration. Modularity means that there are hardwired and softwired functionally specific subroutines, such as face recognition and habits that make the individual particularly sensitive to a narrow range of information from both inside and outside. Goals are the most important creators of modules that contain both hard- and softwired submodules. Goals determine what we attend to, what (...) information we are sensitive to, what information we neglect, what chunks of knowledge and what concepts are being activated at a given moment, what we like and dislike, what criteria for goal achievement are being applied, etc. Overarching goals govern large classes of submodules, and therefore the social sciences have to deal especially with these overarching goals. Three such overarching goals are identified: hedonic, gain, and normative goals. At every given moment one of them is focal (a goal-frame) and self-regulation is the process by which humans balance the dominance of goal-frames. In turn, self-regulation (here seen as the heart of ‘social rationality’), depends much on social circumstances that are open to sociological investigation. (shrink)

The tu quoque argument is the argument that since in the end rationalism rests on an irrational choice of and commitment to rationality, rationalism is as irrational as any other commitment. Popper's and Polanyi's philosophies of science both accept the argument, and have on that account many similarities; yet Popper manages to remain a rationalist whereas Polanyi decided for an irrationalist version of rationalism. This is more marked in works of their respective followers, W. W. Bartley III and Thomas S. (...) Kuhn. Bartley declares the rationalist's very openness to criticism open to criticism, in the hope of rendering Popper's critical rationalism quite comprehensive. Kuhn makes rationality depend on the existence of an accepted model for scientific research (paradigm), thus rendering Polanyi's view of the authority of scientific leadership a sine qua non for scientific progress. The question raised here is, in what sense is a rationalist committed to his rationality, or an irrationalist to his specific axiom ? The tradition views only the life?long commitment as real. Viewing rationality as experimental open?mindedness, we may consider a rationalist unable to retreat into any life?long commitment ? even commitment to science. In this way the logic of the tu quoque argument is made irrelevant: anyone able to face the choice between rationality and commitment is already beyond such a choice; it is one thing to be still naïve and another ? and paradoxical ? thing to return to one's naïveté. (shrink)

Over the past decades psychological theories have made significant headway into economics, culminating in the 2002 (partially) and 2017 Nobel prizes awarded for work in the field of Behavioral Economics. Many of the insights imported from psychology into economics share a common trait: the presumption that decision makers use shortcuts that lead to deviations from rational behaviour (the Heuristics-and-Biases program). Many economists seem unaware that this viewpoint has long been contested in cognitive psychology. Proponents of an alternative program (the (...) Ecological-Rationality program) argue that heuristics need not be irrational, particularly when judged relative to characteristics of the environment. We sketch out the historical context of the antagonism between these two research programs and then review more recent work in the Ecological-Rationality tradition. While the heuristics-and-biases program is now well-established in (mainstream neo-classical) economics via Behavioral Economics, we show there is considerable scope for the Ecological-Rationality program to interact with economics. In fact, we argue that there are many existing, yet overlooked, bridges between the two, based on independently derived research in economics that can be construed as being aligned with the tradition of the Ecological-Rationality program. We close the paper with a discussion of the open challenges and difficulties of integrating the Ecological Rationality program with economics. (shrink)

Smith begins by noting the isomorphism between the rational transition to a psychological state from others and the derivation of a concluding proposition from premises in the deductive theoretical realm, and he argues that this isomorphism led Hume to think that the rationality of the psychological transition is to be explained by the deductive validity of the derivation. Generalizing, Smith argues, Hume concluded that the concept of a reason—that is, the concept of a consideration that justifies—must be prior to (...) and explain the concept of rationality. The fact that there is no such isomorphism in the practical and inductive realms is therefore, Smith suggests, what led Hume to his inductive and practical skepticism. Pace Hume, however, Smith argues that we need not agree that the concept of a reason is prior to the concept of rationality: we have an independent idea of the coherence of a set of psychological states and this is sufficient to provide us with an account of what it is for beliefs and desires to be justified. But it remains an open question whether the Kantians are right that practical coherence can be extended as far as yielding justified desires to do as morality bids. (shrink)

Suppose you think that whether you believe some proposition A at some future time t might have a causal influence on whether A is true. For instance, maybe you think a woman can read your mind, and either (1) you think she will snap her fingers shortly after t if and only if you believe at t that she will, or (2) you think she will snap her fingers shortly after t if and only if you don't believe at t (...) that she will. Let A be the proposition that she snaps her fingers shortly after t. In case (1), theoretical rationality seems to leave it open whether you should believe A or not. Perhaps, for all it has to say, you could just directly choose whether to believe A. David Velleman seems to be committed to something close to that, but his view has been unpopular. In case (2), you seem to be in a theoretical dilemma, a situation where any attitude you adopt toward A will be self-undermining in a way that makes you irrational. Such theoretical dilemmas ought to be impossible, just as genuine moral dilemmas ought to be impossible, but it is surprisingly hard to show that they are (perhaps because they aren't). I study cases analogous to (1) and (2) in a probabilistic framework where degrees of belief rather than all-or-nothing beliefs are taken as basic. My principal conclusions are that Velleman's view is closer to the truth than it is generally thought to be, that case (2) type theoretical dilemmas only arise for hyperidealised agents unlike ourselves, and that there are related cases that can arise for agents like us that are very disturbing but might not quite amount to theoretical dilemmas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters, and: The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen BuddhismEric Sean NelsonOpening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters. By Steven Heine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 200 pp.The Kōan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism. Edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 322 pp.The Zen koan is mysterious to many and its significance remains (...) disputed by scholars. Is it a challenging therapeutic device, to be left behind like a raft after crossing the river, or a self-transparent statement of the liberated mind? Is it a logic-defying paradox or does it have its own performative rationality? Is it a spontaneous and often irreverent oral expression or a complex and staged literary form understandable within its context? Is it a narrative with multiple levels of meaning or something that potentially interrupts the work of meaning, narrative coherence, and conventional understanding?Although paradoxical and even shocking language occurs in other traditions, these two provocative volumes illustrate the uniqueness, significance, and interpretive difficulty of one of Zen's primary practices. Both works are valuable contributions to understanding the context, development, and meaning of the koan from its origins and growth in T'ang and Sung China to later Japanese developments.Steven Heine's Opening a Mountain: Kōans of the Zen Masters includes translations of sixty koan cases, selected traditional commentary, and his account of each case. This rich work gathers significant koans about Zen's encounter with its "other" from a variety of koan collections compiled in Sung China and Kamakura Japan.The volume is organized around the theme of "opening a mountain." Masters opened up mountains for Zen by confronting and converting local spirits, hermits, and other forces that would prevent or endanger its practice. It refers more broadly to the confrontation and contest between Zen masters and figures representing supernatural forces, indigenous and popular religiosity, and rival forms of practice such as that of the isolated hermit without vows and outside the Buddhist community.The koans are presented and discussed in five sections concerning: (1) supernatural mountain landscapes; (2) irregular rivals such as hermits, wizards, and dangerous women; (3) supernatural experiences in which bodhisattvas, demons, and magical animals are encountered in dreams and visions; (4) the use of symbols of authority and transmission such as the flywhisk; and (5) experiences of confession, repentance, self-mutilation, death, and the afterlife.Heine argues that emphasizing the ritual, symbolic, and cultural dimensions of the koan complements understanding it as using paradoxical language to free one from the reification of language through aporia and double-binds. He insightfully shows through his translations and discussions the often ignored mythological and religious dimension of many koans. Even when koans use mythic or supernatural elements ironically, it is still in reference to such a context of belief. Since the outcomes [End Page 284] of these confrontations between Zen iconoclasm and irregular practices and unconventional beings are often uncertain, the koan embodies these tensions between supernaturalism and iconoclasm, ritual and meditative clarity, devotion and enlightenment. Zen masters are not always unambiguously victorious in their confrontations and competition with popular religion in these stories of opening mountains and taming and converting spirits, shamans, hermits, unconventional and rival women (such as the "Zen grannies" and the nuns of cases 23-26), and other irregular practitioners and dangerous forces.Zen iconoclasm is best exemplified by Lin-chi (J.:Rinzai), known for his advice to kill the Buddha and the patriarchs, who forbade travel to Mount Wu-t'ai, where popular devotional Buddhists believed Mañjus´rī appeared (see cases 13-15). Lin-chi's Mañjus´rī cannot be seen on sacred mountains but is manifested in your own activity. However, even some koans involving Lin-chi focus on his ambiguous success in dealing with P'u-hua (cases 16, 57), an irregular practitioner attributed with magical powers. Despite such warnings, the bodhisattva of compassion's sacred mountain continued to appeal to ordinary Buddhists and even Zen practitioners. In these koans, Zen is not simply demythologizing. It is playing a dangerous game of ironic ambiguity and... (shrink)

In Making Sense of Free Will and Moral Responsibility Dana Nelkin defends the “rational abilities view.” According to this view, agents are responsible for their behavior if and only if they act with the ability to recognize and act for good reasons. It follows that agents who act well are open to praise regardless of whether they could have acted differently, but agents who act badly are open to blame only if they could have acted on the moral reasons (...) that counted against their behavior. I summarize the main themes of Nelkin’s theory of responsibility and offer reasons for rejecting the claim that agents are blameworthy only if they could have responded to moral considerations. It is true that wrongdoers who could not have responded appropriately to moral considerations are often excused from blame, but I argue that not all the forms that such incapacity can take will furnish grounds for excuse. In other words, some circumstances that entail that a wrongdoer cannot respond to moral considerations are compatible with that agent fulfilling conditions that are sufficient for moral responsibility. (shrink)

People frequently advance political proposals in the name of a goal while remaining apparently indifferent to the fact that those proposals, if implemented, would frustrate that goal. Theorists of "deliberative democracy" purport to avoid this difficulty by arguing that deliberation is primarily about moral not empirical issues. We reject this view (the moral turn) and propose a method (The Display Test) to check whether a political utterance is best explained by the rational ignorance hypothesis or by the moral turn: (...) the speaker must be prepared to openly acknowledge the bad consequences of his political position. If he is, the position is genuinely moral; if he is not, the position evinces either rational ignorance or posturing. We introduce deontological notions to explain when the moral turn works and when it does not. We discuss and reject possible replies, in particular the view that a moral-political stance insensitive to consequences relies on a distribution of moral responsibility in evildoing. Finally, we show that even the most plausible candidates for the category of purely moral political proposals are best explained by the rational ignorance/posturing hypothesis, if only because enforcing morality gives rise to complex causal issues. (shrink)