Rationality Through Reasoning (eBook)

John Broome is White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. He is the author of amongst others Weighing Goods (1991), Ethics Out of Economics (1999), Weighing Lives (2004), and Climate matters (2012).

Preface xi

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Motivation 1

1.2 This book 4

Notes 6

2 Ought 8

2.1 The meaning of 'ought' 8

2.2 Normative and non-normative oughts 9

2.3 Owned and unowned oughts 12

2.4 Qualified and unqualified oughts 25

Notes 29

3 Objective, Subjective and Prospective Oughts 31

3.1 Sidgwick's View 31

3.2 The need to decide 34

3.3 Objective and prospective oughts 36

3.4 Valuing prospects 41

3.5 Summary 45

Notes 45

4 Reasons 46

4.1 Introduction and preliminaries 46

4.2 Pro toto reasons 49

4.3 Pro tanto reasons 51

4.4 Most reason 62

4.5 Ownership of reasons 65

5 Responding to Reasons 71

5.1 Rationality and responding to reasons 71

5.2 The quick objection 74

5.3 Attitudinal reasons 75

5.4 Sufficiency of reasons 82

Notes 87

6 Responding to Reason-Beliefs 88

6.1 The Enkratic Condition 88

6.2 Meeting your own standards 91

6.3 Responding correctly to P-beliefs 101

6.4 Conclusion 107

Notes 108

7 Requirements 109

7.1 Two sorts of requirement 109

7.2 Property requirements 110

7.3 Source requirements 116

7.4 Logic for requirements? 119

7.5 Ought 126

Notes 129

8 Conditional Requirements 132

8.1 Application and content 132

8.2 Conditional requirements of rationality 134

Notes 146

Appendix to Chapter 8 148

9 Synchronic Rationality 149

9.1 Introduction and method 149

9.2 Consistency 154

9.3 Deduction 157

9.4 Instrumental Rationality 159

9.5 Enkrasia 170

9.6 Bayesian requirements 175

Notes 175

10 Diachronic Rationality 177

10.1 Persistence of Intention 177

10.2 The rationality of doing as you decide 181

10.3 Diachronic requirements on beliefs 185

Notes 69

10.4 Basing prohibitions and basing permissions 186

Notes 191

11 Rationality and Normativity 192

11.1 The Normative Question 192

11.2 More on rationality and reasons 193

11.3 Is rationality derivatively normative? 197

11.4 Is rationality non-derivatively normative? 204

Notes 205

12 Higher-Order Reasoning 206

12.1 The reasoning process 206

12.2 Reasoning through an intention 210

12.3 Reasoning with judgement-sensitive attitudes 216

12.4 One more point 219

Notes 220

13 First-Order Reasoning 221

13.1 The reasoning process 221

13.2 Necessary and sufficient conditions for reasoning 225

13.3 Operating on contents 231

13.4 Reasoning as activity 235

13.5 Reasoning at the first order 242

13.6 The direction of reasoning 243

13.7 Correct belief reasoning 246

Notes 248

14 Practical Reasoning 250

14.1 Reasoning with attitudes other than beliefs 250

14.2 Correctness 255

14.3 Choosing a means 261

14.4 Hypothesizing 264

Notes 265

15 Explicit Reasoning 267

15.1 Markers 267

15.2 Bayesian and expressivist reasoning 275

15.3 Reasoning with absences 278

15.4 Theoretical and practical reasoning 281

15.5 Intention reasoning with other markers 285

Notes 286

16 Enkratic Reasoning 288

16.1 Enkratic reasoning 288

16.2 Humean objections 291

16.3 Conclusion 294

Notes 294

Bibliography 295

Index 303

"Rationality Through Reasoning is clearly written, and it contains many discussions with other experts in this genre of analytic philosophy, such as Gilbert Harman, Niko Kolodny, and Derek Parfit, to whom the book is dedicated." (Ethical Perspectives, 1 March 2014)

"This book is a masterclass in how to deploy illuminating examples and penetrating analyses to illuminate the connections between reasons, rationality, what ought to be done and intention."
--Frank Jackson, The Australian National University

"We ought to be deeply grateful to John Broome for having shed so much light on the nature of rationality, reasons and reasoning. His book will set a new standard of clarity in the discussion of these difficult but fundamental topics."
--Paul Boghossian, New York University