Rationality as a capacity

• Grant number: 16/02075-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2016
• End date: June 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marco Antonio Caron Ruffino
• Grantee: David Horst
• Host Institution: Centro de Lógica, Epistemologia e História da Ciência (CLE). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Human thought and action is subject to a distinctive kind of assessment: it can be judged rational or irrational. The overall question I aim to answer in my research project is: what is it to think and act rationally? According to the currently prevailing account of rationality, thinking and acting rationally is a matter of following certain rules, rules that tell us what would be most rational to think and do under various circumstances. By contrast, I aim to show that the rule-following picture of rationality is deeply flawed: if the norms for rational thought and action are understood as rules, it becomes completely mysterious how these norms can guide or govern our thinking and acting. Instead, I propose a novel account of rational thought and action that is immune to the problems facing the rule-following picture. On the view I develop, rational thought and action is a matter, not of following certain rules, but of exercising a certain kind of capacity. I call this the capacity-view of rationality. According to this view, the norms of rationality are to be understood, not on the model of rules, but as standards internal to certain of our capacities - i.e., standards that partly spell out what it is to exercise these capacities well. This conception of rational norms has also important consequences for the recent debate on the normativity of rationality. Here, I argue that, contrary to what many think, for rationality to be normative, it is not necessary that there are reasons to be rational. Instead, I suggest that the capacity-view of rationality offers an alternative conception: rationality is normative, not because there are reasons to be rational, but because it consists in standards internal to capacities we possess just in virtue of being subjects capable of belief and action. (AU)