Practical Reason, Instrumental Irrationality, and Time

Normativity, Commitment, and Instrumental Reason

R. Jay Wallace There are two tendencies in our thinking about instrumental rationality that do not seem to cohere very well. On the one hand, the instrumental principle—enjoining us to take the means that are necessary relative to our ends—does not seem to apply indifferently to any end that we might be motivated to pursue. There is, for instance, no genuine requirement to take the means that a...

The Scope of Instrumental Reason

Two Dualisms of Practical Reason

Dualism is one way to put the traditional dualism of practical reason, i.e., that practical reason can never declare that there is greater overall reason to conform to moral, or prudential, requirements in a case of conflict between our own self-interest and our obligations to others.1 In this paper, I distinguish two methods by which one might accept Dualism. First, I discuss a substantive dua...

Practical Reason and the Possibility of Error

The Structure of Instrumental Practical Reasoning