Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Instrumental Rationality: The Normativity of Means-Ends Coherence

Instrumental Rationality: The Normativity of Means-Ends Coherence

Brunero, John

Hardcover

Philosophy

ISBN10: 0198746938
ISBN13: 9780198746935
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: Jun 22 2020
Pages: 240
Weight: 1.10
Height: 0.80 Width: 6.10 Depth: 9.30
Language: English
Rationality requires that we intend the means that we believe are necessary for achieving our ends. Instrumental Rationality explores the formulation and status of this requirement of means-ends coherence. In particular, it is concerned with understanding what means-ends coherence requires of us as believers and agents, and why.

Means-ends coherence is a genuine requirement of rationality and cannot be explained away as a myth, confused with a disjunction of requirements to have, or not have, specific attitudes. Nor is means-ends coherence strongly normative, such that we always ought to be means-ends coherent. A promising strategy for assessing why this requirement should exist is to consider the constitutive aim of intention. Just as belief has a constitutive aim (truth) that can explain some of the theoretical requirements of consistency and coherence governing beliefs, intention has a constitutive aim (here called controlled action) that can explain some of the requirements of consistency and coherence governing intentions. We can therefore better understand means-ends coherence by understanding the constitutive aims of both of the attitudes governed by the requirement, intention, and belief.

Also in

Philosophy

View All