Wide or Narrow Scope?

John Broome

doi:10.1093/mind/fzm359

Abstract

This paper is a response to ‘Why Be Rational?’ by Niko Kolodny. Kolodny argues that we have no reason to satisfy the requirements of rationality. His argument assumes that these requirements have a logically narrow scope. To see what the question of scope turns on, this comment provides a semantics for ‘requirement’. It shows that requirements of rationality have a wide scope, at least under one sense of ‘requirement’. Consequently Kolodny's conclusion cannot be derived.

Book Chapter
19
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199684908.003.0015

Reasons and Rationality

Mar 01, 2015
Lara Buchak + 1 more +1

John Broome has argued that there are distinct requirements of rationality and reason. Niko Kolodny has defended an error theory about requirements of rationality, arguing that requirements of rationality fall out of the requirements of reason, not in the straightforward sense that one has a reason to be rational as such, but in the sense that requirements of rationality are a byproduct of requirements of reason. Recent work in the theory of group agency and the problem of judgment aggregation raises a difficulty for applying Kolodny's error theory to the case of requirements of group rationality and group reason. This chapter explores ways in which the conflict between the proposed error theory in the group case and the results concerning judgment aggregation might be resolved. The chapter also considers what bearing the group case has on the success of the error theory in the individual case.