Vol. 38 No. 2 (2018)
Articles

Are We Rationally Required to Be Efficient?

PDF (Español (España))
  • Julen Ibarrondo Murguialday
Julen Ibarrondo Murguialday
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36446/af.2018.301

Published 2018-11-01

Keywords

  • Instrumental Rationality,
  • Rational Requirements,
  • Normativity of Rationality,
  • James Broome
  • Racionalidad instrumental,
  • Normatividad de la racionalidad,
  • Requisitos de racionalidad,
  • James Broome
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Being efficient when it comes to take the appropriate means for our ends has been regarded as one of the paradigmatic aspects of rationality. Nevertheless, to recognize the normativity of instrumental rationality seems to imply the dubious claim that one must take the relevant means in virtue of having these ends regardless of how irrational or immoral these are. In the following pages I defend a conception of instrumental rationality that allows us to affirm both that instrumental rationality is normative and that there are means one should not take even when he intends the ends for which they are appropriate.

PDF (Español (España))

References

Albritton, R. (1985), “Freedom of Will and Freedom of Action”, Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 59 (2), pp. 239-251.
Bratman, M. E. (1987), Intentions, Plans and Practical Reason, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.
Broome, J. (2002), “Practical reasoning”, en Bermudez, J. y Millar, A. (eds.), Reason and Nature: Essays in the Theory of Rationality, Oxford, Clarendon Press, pp. 85-111.
Broome, J. (2013), Rationality through Reasoning, Chichester, Willey Backwell.
Chisholm, R. (1956), “Epistemic Statements and the Ethics of Belief”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 16, pp. 447-460.
Dancy, J. (2009), “Reasons and Rationality”, en Robertson, S. (ed.), Spheres of Reason, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 93-112.
Frankfurt, H. (1971), “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person”, The Journal of Philosophy, 68, pp. 5-20.
Kiesewetter, B. (2015), “Instrumental Normativity: In Defense of the Transmission Principle”, Ethics, 125 (4), pp. 921-946.
Kolodny, N. (2005), “Why Be Rational?”, Mind, 114, pp. 509-563.
Kolodny, N. (2018), “Instrumental Reasons”, en Star, D. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook on Reasons and Normativity, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Korsgaard, C. (1996), The Sources of Normativity, New York, Cambridge University Press.
Korsgaard, C. (1997), “The Normativity of Instrumental Reason”, en Cullity, G. y Berys, G. (eds.), Ethics and Practical Reason, Oxford, Claredon Press.
Nozick, R. (1993), The Nature of Rationality, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Parfit, D. (2011), On What Matters, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Raz, J. (2005), “The Myth of Instrumental Rationality”, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 1 (1), pp. 1-28.
Scanlon, T.M. (2014), Being Realistic about Reasons, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Schroeder, M. (2004), “The Scope of Instrumental Reason”, Philosophical Perspectives, 18, pp. 337-364.
Setiya, K. (2007), Reasons without Rationalism, Princeton, Princeton University Press.
Shah, N. (2006), “A New Argument for Evidentialism”, Philosophical Quarterly, 56, pp. 481-498.
Skorupski, J. (2007), “What is Normativity?”, Disputatio, 2 (23), pp. 1-23.
Smith, M. (1994), The Moral Problem, Malden, Blackwell.
Sylvan, K. (2015), “What Apparent Reasons Appear to Be”, Philosophical Studies, 172 (3), pp. 587-606.
Wallace, R. J. (2006), Normativity and the Will: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Practical Reason, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Wedgwood, R. (2014), “Rationality as a Virtue”, Analytic Philosophy, 55 (4), pp. 319-338.
Williams, B. (1995), “Acting as the Virtuous Person Acts”, en Heinaman, R. (ed.), Aristotle and Moral Realism, Boulder, Westview Press, pp. 13-23.