Introduction: Practical reasoning and normativity

Practical Reasoning and Rationality

Practical reasoning and enkrasia

Akrasia has been traditionally defined as a failure to do what one has most reasons to do, or what one judges that one ought to do (McIntyre 2006; Wedgwood 2007). Traditional conceptions on akrasia take it as a violation of a commitment of the agent: “[for traditional conceptions] an agent who decisively judges it best to A is thereby rationally committed to A-ing, in the sense that (as long as...

Knowledge, Practical Reasoning And Action

Is knowledge necessary or sufficient or both necessary and sufficient for acceptable practical reasoning and rational action? Several authors (e.g., Williamson, Hawthorne, and Stanley) have recently argued that the answer to these questions is positive. In this paper I present several objections against this view (both in its basic form as well in more developed forms). I also offer a sketch of...

Normative Practical Reasoning

1. Instrumental reasoning. Aristotle identified practical reasoning as reasoning that concludes in an act, and he was thinking of a non-mental act such as tasting food. But reasoning is a mental process, which takes place in the reasoner's mind. Its conclusion must be a mental state or a mental event; it cannot be a non-mental act. I therefore identify practical reasoning as reasoning that conc...

Value-based Practical Reasoning

CRRAR Surely one of the most important contributions of Trevor Bench-Capon to computer science, and especially to artificial intelligence and law, and for that matter to argumentation theory and cognitive science generally, is the model of value-based practical reasoning he has given us. He introduced value-based argumentation frameworks (VAF's) in (Bench-Capon, 2002; Bench-Capon, 2002a; Bench-...