How do we think about what we plan to do? One dominant answer is that we select the best possible option available. However, a growing number of philosophers would offer a different answer: since we are not equipped to maximize we often choose the next best alternative, one that is no more than satisfactory. This strategy choice is called satisficing. This collection of essays explores both these accounts of practical reason, examining the consequences for adopting one or the other for (...) moral theory in general and the theory of practical rationality in particular. It aims to address a constituency larger than contemporary moral philosophers and bring these questions to the attention of those interested in the applications of decision theory in economics, psychology and political science. (shrink)

It is common, though perhaps not correct, to think that practical rationality is strictly instrumental.1 The functions of instrumental reason include finding suitable means to our determinate ends, helping to determine our indeterminate ends, and implementing our principles in appropriate actions. One reason that might be given for adopting instrumentalism with respect to rationality might be that our best scientific evidence offers little support for the idea that our brains have powers to detect good and bad as such in persons, (...) actions, or lives. But whatever one’s reasons for taking up instrumentalism, it remains to specify the relationship means are to have with ends. A natural demand is that instrumentally rational actions implement the best means to one’s given ends. Optimizing conceptions of rationality endorse this demand. A competing conception of rationality—the satisficing conception—weakens this requirement and permits some rational actions to implement (merely) satisfactory means to the agent’s given ends. The present article argues that instrumentalist theories of rationality as commonly understood cannot consistently accommodate this satisficing conception of rationality. (shrink)

In Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes famously characterizes the state of nature as a predicament in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” The only means of escape from that dire condition is to found the commonwealth, with its notorious sovereign. Hobbes invests the sovereign with virtually absolute power over the poor subjects of the commonwealth, and that vast and unlimited sovereign has drawn the reader’s eye for 350 years. -/- Yet Hobbes has a great deal to say about subjects (...) in a commonwealth as well, and he articulates a normative conception of a good subject. This book develops a novel interpretation of the role of submission in Leviathan, and it introduces the concept of subjection to explain the expectations Hobbes has for good subjects. (shrink)

The causal theory of reference (CTR) provides a well-articulated and widely-accepted account of the reference relation. On CTR the reference of a term is fixed by whatever property causally regulates the competent use of that term. CTR poses a metaethical challenge to realists by demanding an account of the properties that regulate the competent use of normative predicates. CTR might pose a challenge to ethical theorists as well. Long argues that CTR entails the falsity of any normative ethical theory. First-order (...) theory attempts to specify what purely descriptive property is a fundamental right-making property (FRM). Long contends that the notion that the FRM causally regulates competent use of the predicate ‘right’ leads to a reductio. The failure of this argument is nevertheless instructive concerning a point at which ethics and metaethics overlap. (shrink)

Luciano Floridi has proposed that we are on the cusp of a fourth revolution in human self-understanding. The information revolution with its prospect of digitally enhancing human beings opens the door to engineering human nature. Floridi has emphasized the importance of making this transition as ethically smooth as possible. He is quite right to worry about ethics after the fourth revolution. The coming revolution, if it unfolds as he envisions, spells the demise of traditional ethical theorizing.

Gauthier argues in Morals by Agreement that morality is derivable from rationality. A crucial premise is that rational bargaining is procedurally fair. Gauthier defends this claim by trying to show that his principle of rational bargaining determines a fair distribution of the overall return from cooperation, including the cooperative surplus. He supports this point in part by the argument from agreement: since (1) procedurally fair principles proportion return to contribution, and since (2) every bargainer has the power to agree in (...) equal measure, and since (3) the agreement component of the bargainer’s contribution is what makes the cooperative surplus available, it follows (4) that fairness requires a distributive principle that divides the cooperative surplus equally among the bargainers. I argue that the falsity of (3) not only renders the argument unsound, it refutes the conclusion. Hence Gauthier should think that rational bargaining is not procedurally fair and that his own derivation of morality from rationality is unsound. (shrink)

Computer-based Introduction to Formal Logic.

Original chapters complement anthologized readings on topics in research ethics such as informed consent, the use of humans and animals in research, research misconduct, and conflicts of interest.

In a recent paper, Philip Kitcher boldly challenges the very idea of objectivism in ethics.1 The structure of his argument is disarmingly simple: objectivist moral theories must take a certain explanatory form. If they take that form, then they fail on their own terms. Hence objectivism cannot be a satisfactory theory. Proving impossibility is a dicey matter, and Kitcher qualifies his premises and conclusions in ways that my summary misses. His arguments are nuanced, and he never states his conclusion as (...) baldly as I have. Moreover, he focuses on one particular form of objectivism—Thomas Hurka’s perfectionism2—and an uncharitable reading of Kitcher would accuse him of hasty generalization: the demise of objectivism surely does not follow from Hurka’s purported shortcomings. Nevertheless, the thrust of the argument is as I have said: objectivism has no future. (shrink)

Consider the paradox of altruism: the existence of truly altruistic behaviors is difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory if natural selection operates only on individuals, since in that case individuals should be unwilling to sacrifice their own fitness for the sake of others. Evolutionists have frequently turned to the hypothesis of group selection to explain the existence of altruism; but group selection cannot explain the evolution of morality, since morality is a one-group phenomenon and group selection is a many-group phenomenon. (...) After spelling out just what the problem is, this paper discusses several ways of solving it. (shrink)

Consider the paradox of altruism: the existence of truly altruistic behaviors is difficult to reconcile with evolutionary theory if natural selection operates only on individuals, since in that case individuals should be unwilling to sacrifice their own fitness for the sake of others. Evolutionists have frequently turned to the hypothesis of group selection to explain the existence of altruism; but group selection cannot explain the evolution of morality, since morality is a one-group phenomenon and group selection is a many-group phenomenon. (...) After spelling out just what the problem is, this paper discusses several ways of solving it. (shrink)

The Prosecutor's Fallacy is a well-known hazard in the assessment of probabilistic evidence that can lead to faulty inferences. It is perhaps best known via its role in the assessment of DNA match evidence in courts of law. A prosecutor, call him Burger, presents DNA evidence in court that links a defendant, Crumb, to a crime. The conditional probability of a DNA match given that Crumb is not guilty, or p(M | ~G), is very low: according to Burger, one chance (...) in tens of millions. Burger goes on to argue that this very low probability entails another low probability. He asserts that it is very improbable that Crumb is not guilty given the match, and so p(~G | M) is also very low. As this latter probability is precisely what the jury is called upon to assess, Burger's assertion is likely to lead the jury into convicting Crumb. (shrink)

Heir to Augustine’s and Anselm’s encounters with the Psalmist’s fool, Hobbes s confronts his own foolish interlocutor in Leviathan. This Foole says in his heart: there is no justice. Hobbes rebuts the unjust Foole’s objection by defending the reasonableness of justice. Readers’ ideas about the adequacy of Hobbes’s response to the Foole vary according to their views about what reason, justice, and covenant-keeping require. A confounding and little-remarked feature of this passage in Leviathan is Hobbes’s claim that his unjust Foole (...) is the same with respect to his atheism as the Psalmist’s fool. This identity, far from being accidental or coincidental, is crucial to an adequate understanding of the Foole’s objection and Hobbes’s rebuttal. (shrink)

In Leviathan chapter 31 Hobbes refers to atheists and deists as "God's enemies." The contrast class is God's subjects in what he calls the Kingdom of God by Nature. This chapter offers an account of how one submits to God to become God's natural subject. The explanation reinforces the distinction between a primary and secondary state of nature. Submission to God obligates natural subjects to obey the laws of nature because the precepts of those laws acquire thereby the normative force (...) of law. The view further explains why submission to God differs from submission to a civil sovereign, despite the fact that both are voluntary. (shrink)

Human rights have become an enormously useful tool in our time, and this for a variety of reasons. Useful, yes: but are rights real? I propose first to examine the most significant philosophical attempts to justify human rights. A universally justified conception of rights I call ‘robust,’ since a successful rational justification would fully underwrite the real existence of rights. Alas, we have no such justification; the second part of my remarks sketches devastating objections to each proposed justification. But all (...) is not lost for rights: a new pragmatic justification for rights talk is available, one that is modest. On the modest view rights are real; but then we should like to know whether rights are as useful as they are on the robust view. Not as useful, no; but a. (shrink)

Consider the paradox of altruism: the existence of truly altruistic behaviors is difficult to reconcile with an evolutionary theory which holds that natural selection operates only on individuals, since in that case individuals should be unwilling to sacrifice their own fitness for the sake of others. Evolutionists have frequently turned to the hypothesis of group selection to explain the existence of altruism; but, even setting aside difficulties about understanding the relationship between altruistic behaviors and morality, group selection cannot explain the (...) evolution of morality, since morality is a one-group phenomenon and group selection is a many-group phenomenon. After spelling out just what the problem is, this paper discusses several ways out and concludes by offering suggestions why one seems best. (shrink)

Fifty years ago, Herbert Simon complained that the available models of rational choice were not feasible decision procedures for agents like us. These models involved variants on the theme of maximizing expected utility: the rational action for an agent is the one that is most likely to bring about outcomes that the agent prefers. Simon ’s complaints about these models included the now-familiar notions that human beings do not manage probabilities well, that we have at best radically incomplete utility functions, (...) and that we lack the cognitive resources to calculate the expected utilities of even a few alternatives. (shrink)

Many philosophy instructors came up in departments that taught in a traditional style. Our professors lectured to us while we took notes, they encouraged us to ask questions when we sought clarity on a particular point or passage, and required us to write a term paper. The model worked for graduate school, too. Some instructors encouraged more discussion in class than others. Work outside class meant reading the assigned text, talking about it with a friend, and writing the term paper (...) on your own in the library. (shrink)

The 1995 film, Dead Man Walking, concerns the life and execution of a convicted murderer in Louisiana. It is based on the experiences of Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who found herself caught up in the case. The film is not really an anti-death penalty piece: the convict’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, no mistaken identity or extenuating circumstances relieve the prisoner of responsibility. The viewer is told that the convict committed the brutal double rape and murder for which (...) he was sentenced to die. If anyone deserved the death penalty, this man did, and the film captures this horrible truth. And yet the humanity and compassion of Sister Prejean in her dealings with this man still raise questions about the justifiability of the death penalty. Only a remarkable piece of art can convey both sides of a passionate debate with such a clear-eyed sense of the truth. (shrink)

The 1995 film, Dead Man Walking, concerns the life and execution of a convicted murderer in Louisiana. It is based on the experiences of Sister Helen Prejean, a Catholic nun who found herself caught up in the case. The film is not really an anti-death penalty piece: the convict’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, no mistaken identity or extenuating circumstances relieve the prisoner of responsibility. The viewer is told that the convict committed the brutal double rape and murder for which (...) he was sentenced to die. If anyone deserved the death penalty, this man did, and the film captures this horrible truth. And yet the humanity and compassion of Sister Prejean in her dealings with this man still raise questions about the justifiability of the death penalty. Only a remarkable piece of art can convey both sides of a passionate debate with such a clear-eyed sense of the truth. (shrink)

In “Deliberation Down and Dirty,” David Estlund seeks a deeper understanding of that most American of political paradoxes: regulated free speech. To that end, he sketches a normative basis for an intuitively appealing idea. The idea is: the boundaries of civility in political expression are proportional to power’s interference with reason. That is, the more that power undermines the conditions of free and orderly political expression, the wider the scope of what should count as “civil” expression, including perhaps even violence. (...) Estlund explicates his account with three important claims. First, democratic deliberation fosters what he calls the “social discovery of truth.” The epistemic value of such deliberation is the primary rationale for narrow norms of civility, since sharp political expression would be counter-productive in circumstances of ideal deliberation. Second, when the conditions of democratic deliberation are undermined in specific ways, the scope of civility widens. Estlund calls this a “breakdown” account of civility: when open deliberation breaks down (though this is, Estlund realizes, a matter of degree), formerly uncivil measures become civil. Third, permissible sharp expression should aim to restore the conditions of narrow civility. Sharp expression when civil is thus remedial, since it must aim to recreate the circumstances of free and open deliberation. These three claims form the heart of Estlund’s account of civil expression, and I would like to explore each of them in turn. (shrink)

Recent literature defends consequentialism against the charge that consequentialists cannot be friends. This paper argues in rebuttal that consequentialists value friends for the wrong reasons. Even if they are motivated by love and affection, consequentialists must act as if they valued their friends as merely instrumental goods, a mode of valuing I call. I conclude by suggesting the root cause of the problem of intrinsic value for consequentialism.