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Instrumental Rationality

Download or Read eBook Instrumental Rationality PDF written by John Brunero and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-29 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Instrumental Rationality
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 240
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780191063947
ISBN-13 : 0191063940
Rating : 4/5 (47 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Instrumental Rationality by : John Brunero

Book excerpt: Rationality requires that we intend the means that we believe are necessary for achieving our ends. Instrumental Rationality explores the formulation and status of this requirement of means-ends coherence. In particular, it is concerned with understanding what means-ends coherence requires of us as believers and agents, and why. Means-ends coherence is a genuine requirement of rationality and cannot be explained away as a myth, confused with a disjunction of requirements to have, or not have, specific attitudes. Nor is means-ends coherence strongly normative, such that we always ought to be means-ends coherent. A promising strategy for assessing why this requirement should exist is to consider the constitutive aim of intention. Just as belief has a constitutive aim (truth) that can explain some of the theoretical requirements of consistency and coherence governing beliefs, intention has a constitutive aim (here called "controlled action") that can explain some of the requirements of consistency and coherence governing intentions. We can therefore better understand means-ends coherence by understanding the constitutive aims of both of the attitudes governed by the requirement, intention, and belief.


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