Self‐Realization and Owing to Others: An Indirect Constraint?

Abstract

The relationship between self‐realization, and so what I really wholeheartedly endorse and owe to myself, and morality or what we owe to others is normally thought of as antagonism, or as a pleasant coincidence: only if I am indebted to such relations as my fundamental projects that I care wholeheartedly about does morality have a direct connection to self‐realization. The aim of this article is to argue against this picture. It will be argued that the structure of self‐realization and the caring activity involved commits the person to values that are beyond the object of his wholehearted caring, in a way that might just pave the way to morality.     

Resilience and Rationality

In this article, I consider the relationship between rationality and resilience. First, I outline six responses to life’s adversities: (a) a true disturbed response; (b) a feigned disturbed response; (c) a feigned indifferent response; (d) a true healthy response; (e) a feigned healthy response; and (f) a mixed response. These responses underpin two rational resilience credos, which will be then outlined: an ideal rational resilience credo and a realistic rational resilience credo. The implications of these credos for coaching will be explored.     

Reason and Love: A Non-Reductive Analysis of the Normativity of Agent-Relative Reasons

Why do agent-relative reasons have authority over us, reflective creatures? Reductive accounts base the normativity of agent-relative reasons on agent-neutral considerations like ‘having parents caring especially for their own children serves best the interests of all children’. Such accounts, however, beg the question about the source of normativity of agent-relative ways of reason-giving. In this paper, I argue for a non-reductive account of the reflective necessity of agent-relative concerns. Such an account will reveal an important structural complexity of practical reasoning in general. Christine Korsgaard relates the rational binding force of practical reasons to the various identities or self-conceptions under which we value ourselves. The problem is that it is not clear why such self-conceptions would necessitate us rationally, given the fact that most of our identities are simply given. Perhaps, Harry Frankfurt is right in arguing that we are not only necessitated by reason, but also, and predominantly by what we love. I argue, however, that “the necessities of love” (in Frankfurt’s phrase) are not to be separated from, but should be seen as belonging to the necessities of reason. Our loves, concerns and related identities provide for a specific and important structure to practical reflection. They function on the background of reasoning, having a specific default role: they would lose their character as concerns, if there was a need for them to be cited on the foreground of deliberation or if there was a need to justify them. This does not mean that our deep concerns cannot be scrutinised. They can only be scrutinised in an indirect way, however, which explains their role in grounding the normativity of agent-relative reasons. It appears that this account can provide for a viable interpretation of Korsgaard’s argument about the foundational role of practical identities.     

Rationality and Judgment

Abstract: Philosophical/epistemic theories of rationality differ over the role of judgment in rational argumentation. According to the “classical model” of rationality, rational justification is a matter of conformity with explicit rules or principles. Critics of the classical model, such as Harold Brown and Trudy Govier, argue that the model is subject to insuperable difficulties. They propose, instead, that rationality be understood, ultimately, in terms of judgment rather than rules. In this article I respond to Brown's and Govier's criticisms of the classical model, and to the “judgment model” they propose in its place. I argue that that model is unable both to distinguish between rational and irrational judgment and to avoid recourse to rules, and is therefore inadequate as an account of rationality, critical thinking, or argument appraisal. More positively, I argue that an adequate account of rationality must include a place for both rules and judgment.     

Epistemic Rationality

Many epistemologists and philosophers of science, especially those with “naturalist” inclinations, argue that if there is to be any such thing as normativity or rationality in these domains, it must be instrumental—roughly, a matter of goal satisfaction—rather than something involving normative “oughts” that are independent of the satisfaction of our epistemic, cognitive, or other ends. This paper argues that while such an instrumental conception of epistemic rationality is perfectly respectable, even insofar as it concerns specifically epistemic ends, it cannot be the whole story about such normativity. Rather, it must be accompanied by a “categorical,” goal‐independent sort of normativity that cannot be reduced to instrumental rationality, both because instrumental rationality itself depends on a noninstrumental relationship between a belief/claim/theory and the evidence that renders it rational, and because the epistemic rationality of many beliefs is independent of the goals of their believers.     

善的多元论与合理性

当代西方伦理学家布兰特和罗尔斯,一个注重现实的伦理道德规范,一个深究善的合理性之所在,都是既诉诸现实的人类理性、又关注社会生活实际,但分别独特地阐明了善恶规则的多元性与道德善的合理性,并致力于解答个人与社会、功利与道德、情感与理性、个人的自由平等与社会公平正义等的矛盾统一.他们的基本出发点和主要理论极富启发意义,而缺乏历史观的共同缺陷则是我们应当引以为戒的.     

Rationality and Synchronic Identity

Many requirements of rationality rely for their application on facts about identity at a time. Take the requirement not to have contradictory beliefs. It is irrational if a single agent believes P and believes ～P, but it is not irrational if one agent believes P and another believes ～P. There are puzzle cases, however, in which it is unclear whether we have a single agent, or instead two or more. I consider and reject possible criteria of identity at a time before proposing a pluralist alternative on which there are vastly more agents than we might have thought. This pluralist thesis is analogous to mereological universalism, on which there are all sorts of strange disconnected objects of which we don’t usually take note. I conclude by giving a pragmatic account of which of these rational agents it makes sense to attend to, by appealing the purposes that we have in employing rationally evaluative language.     

决策与决策执行的关系——一种行动理性的观点

本文以分析决策与执行的关系为出发点,对人类理性的本质进行了讨论。指出决策研究中存在的“理性分析范式”偏面地把认知分析当作人类理性的本质,忽视了行动的作用,提出了人类理性是“行动理性”的思想。行动既是一种分析方法,是人们深化对客观世界的认识,理解决策问题的独特手段,也是人们创造外界环境、实现决策目标的有效途径。由此提出,决策研究,尤其是组织决策研究,应该重视“行动分析范式”。     

Instrumental Rationality and Carroll's Tortoise

Some philosophers have tried to establish a connection between the normativity of instrumental rationality and the paradox presented by Lewis Carroll in his 1895 paper “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.” I here examine and argue against accounts of this connection presented by Peter Railton and James Dreier before presenting my own account and discussing its implications for instrumentalism (the view that all there is to practical rationality is instrumental rationality). In my view, the potential for a Carroll-style regress just shows us that since instrumental rationality involves a higher-order commitment to combine our willing an end with our taking the necessary means, it therefore cannot, on pain of regress, itself be added as a conjunct to one of the elements to be combined. This view does not support instrumentalism.     

论情绪的生态理性

生态理性强调环境对人的塑造作用,强调人在适应环境过程中获得的功能作用.该文在全面解读生态理性内涵的基础上,从两个方面寻找证据论证情绪具有生态理性：（1）情绪是环境自然塑造的结果,携带着丰富的环境信息;（2）情绪的功能反映环境结构,自动调节人类行为。在上述论证的基础上,我们尝试提出情绪影响个体行为的工作机制,并在一定范围内分析了不良情绪与生态理性之间的关系。     

Gert on Subjective Practical Rationality

The purpose of this paper is to consider Joshua Gert’s novel view of subjective practical rationality in his book Brute Rationality. After briefly outlining the account, I present two objections to his view and then consider his own objections to a rival approach to understanding subjective rationality which I take to be much more plausible.

风险沟通与公众理性

突发风险事件所导致的恐慌,其危害程度可能远远大于风险事件本身。当灾害突然降临的时候,公众能够启动理性的程度是应对危机的重要基础。文章提出了公众理性的概念,并界定和探讨了公众理性的构成以及公众理性的干扰因素;同时,通过SARS事件,着重分析了风险沟通的性质、特点,以及风险沟通对公众理性干预的可能途径和条件;目的是为总结SARS风险危机和建立应对突发风险事件的心理系统提供理论依据,以更好地促进我国在风险沟通领域的研究与实践。     

Normativity and Interpersonal Reasons

What is one who takes normativity seriously to do if normativity can neither be discovered lurking out there in the world independently of us nor can it be sufficiently grasped from a merely explanatory perspective? One option is to accept that the normative challenge cannot be met and to retreat to some form of moral skepticism. Another possibility has recently been proposed by Christine Korsgaard in The Sources of Normativity where she aims to develop an account of normativity which is grounded in autonomy. Furthermore, she argues that on her account reasons are "essentially public" and that this captures how it is that we can obligate one another. In this paper I argue that there is a serious tension between her account of normativity and the publicity of reasons-namely, that if reasons are essentially public, then it is not possible for individuals to legislate laws for themselves. However, I then argue that if we revise her conception of normativity such that it is understood to involve collective rather than individual legislation that it may then be possible to account for interpersonal reasons.     

制造疾病：工具理性的泛滥

工具理性的泛滥导致医疗的商品化和技术主体化,产生“制造疾病”的现象层出不穷。究其原因概括为：其一,求“效率”过程无意中“制造疾病”;其二,为追求利益最大化有意“制造疾病”,将科学简单地等同于数据,认为科学可以解释一切疾病,无视患者自愈的能力,将“正常”的生命现象视为疾病;其三,视人为物,为社会管理“制造疾病”。医者应将自己的工具理性,约束在为患者谋利的价值理性之下,弘扬医学人文去遏制制造疾病的恶行。

     

Threats to Democratic Rationality

This article examines trends that are impacting democratic rationality. It is found that the trends are almost uniformly negative. Viewed from within the legislative branch, trends are negatively impacting legislators’ time, complexifying problems, constraining options, and limiting the evaluation of options. Trends external to the legislative branch are reducing citizen participation and knowledge about public affairs, skewing the balance of power among the branches and states, and decreasing accountability of public officials. In combination, democratic rationality, the process of making good, efficient, and timely decisions to promote higher quality of life and the public good, is seriously threatened. Recommendations include public financing of campaigns, more structured legislative decision-making processes, simplification tests for all new legislation and regulations, and a major new initiative to foster public involvement in public decision making.     

Environments That Make Us Smart: Ecological Rationality

ABSTRACT— Traditional views of rationality posit general-purpose decision mechanisms based on logic or optimization. The study of ecological rationality focuses on uncovering the "adaptive toolbox" of domain-specific simple heuristics that real, computationally bounded minds employ, and explaining how these heuristics produce accurate decisions by exploiting the structures of information in the environments in which they are applied. Knowing when and how people use particular heuristics can facilitate the shaping of environments to engender better decisions.     

Rationality and autonomy from the Enlightenment and Islamic perspectives

Rationality and autonomy are foundational concepts in anglophone or ‘Western’ countries that originated primarily from the Enlightenment period. When compared with ‘Western’ ideologies, non-Western belief systems such as Islam may not appear, at first glance, to place as much emphasis on the value and attainment of rationality and autonomy. This may lead some people to conclude that Islam necessarily marginalises or even suppresses its believers’ development of rationality and autonomy. This article compares the concepts of rationality and autonomy from the Enlightenment and Islamic perspectives. It is argued that there exist Islamic traditions that promote the inculcation of ‘normal rationality’ and ‘normal autonomy’ within a convictional community from which beliefs develop. However, the extent to which Muslims are encouraged to cultivate and exercise their rationality and autonomy would depend, among other factors, on the specific interpretations of rationality and autonomy privileged by the Islamic tradition they belong to.     

重型肝炎治疗方案的理性选择

针对我国重型肝炎治疗现状,对重型肝炎常用的以及部分有争议的治疗药物和方法进行分析和讨论,就如何选择治疗方案提出医疗原则,认为应采取内科治疗-人工肝-肝移植的综合治疗模式,结合患者的治疗愿望及经济承受力,理性地选择治疗方案,以期达到合理、有效和经济的目的。     

经济活动中的道德理性

经济活动不仅是人们的物质生产活动,也是人们“理性化”的认知活动和实践活动。它既体现了人类主体对技术、工具手段的认知理性,又体现了人类主体“合理性”、“合目的性”的价值理性。而道德价值理性是一切合理有序的经济活动的价值标矢和理性基础。     

Rationality, Reason and the History of Thought

Philosophers over the course of the last century, including Edmund Husserl, Chaim Perelman, and Jacques Derrida, have attempted to unravel the tangled relationship between the rational and the reasonable in order to understand how the history of thought progresses. Critical political theorists, including Michel Foucault and Ernesto Laclau have also investigated this issue from a range of perspectives, especially as it relates to the relationship between ideational limits and their transgression and the universal and the particular. This essay compares these perspectives to locate the rational dimensions of the reasonable, and to relate that “meta-reason” to the irrational and unreasonable aspects of identity formation and the unfolding of world history.