The Importance of Being Rational

The Importance of Being Rational systematically defends a novel reasons-based account of rationality. The book's central thesis is that what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. Errol Lord defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons. He shows that these views not only help to support the book's main thesis, they also help to resolve several important problems that are independent of rationality. The account of possession provides novel contributions to debates about what determines what we ought to do, and the account of correctly responding to reasons provides novel contributions to debates about causal theories of reacting for reasons.

After defending views about possession and correctly responding, Lord shows that the account of rationality can solve two difficult problems about rationality. The first is the New Evil Demon problem. The book argues that the account has the resources to show that internal duplicates necessarily have the same rational status. The second problem concerns the deontic significance of rationality. Recently it has been doubted whether we ought to be rational. The ultimate conclusion of the book is that the requirements of rationality are the requirements that we ultimately ought to comply with. If this is right, then rationality is of fundamental importance to our deliberative lives.

Author: Errol Lord
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 11/25/2022
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 9.11h x 6.20w x 0.59d
ISBN13: 9780192882035
ISBN10: 0192882031
BISAC Categories:
- Philosophy | Ethics & Moral Philosophy
- Philosophy | Epistemology
- Philosophy | Mind & Body

About the Author

Errol Lord, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Pennslyvania

Errol Lord is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He works in ethical theory, epistemology, the philosophy of action, and aesthetics. He has published papers in Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, and British Journal of Aesthetics, among other places. He co-edited Weighing Reasons (OUP, 2016) with Barry Maguire.