Making space for the normativity of coherence

Noûs 56 (2):393-415 (2022)
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Abstract

This paper offers a new account of how structural rationality, or coherence, is normative. The central challenge to the normativity of coherence – which I term the problem of “making space” for the normativity of coherence – is this: if considerations of coherence matter normatively, it is not clear how we ought to take account of them in our deliberation. Coherence considerations don’t seem to show up in reasoning about what to believe, intend, desire, hope, fear, and so on; moreover, they seem awkward to take account of alongside more “substantive” considerations about the merits of such attitudes. I aim here to solve this problem, and in so doing to offer the aforementioned new account of how coherence is normative. On the view I defend, which I call the Reasons-to-Structure-Deliberation model, considerations of coherence constitute reasons for structuring deliberation in certain ways: more particularly, to treat incoherent combinations of attitudes as off-limits, and so to focus one’s deliberation on choosing between the coherent combinations.

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Alex Worsnip
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Citations of this work

Structural Rationality and the Property of Coherence.Marc-Kevin Daoust - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (1):170-194.
The accuracy-coherence tradeoff in cognition.David Thorstad - forthcoming - British Journal for Philosophy of Science.
The Aesthetic Enkratic Principle.Irene Martínez Marín - 2023 - British Journal of Aesthetics 63 (2):251–268.
Encroachment on Emotion.James Fritz - 2022 - Episteme 19 (4):515-533.

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References found in this work

Why be rational.Niko Kolodny - 2005 - Mind 114 (455):509-563.
Normative requirements.John Broome - 1999 - Ratio 12 (4):398–419.
Value and the right kind of reason.Mark Schroeder - 2010 - Oxford Studies in Metaethics 5:25-55.
The Conflict of Evidence and Coherence.Alex Worsnip - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 96 (1):3-44.

View all 37 references / Add more references