Rationality Through Reasoning

John Broome is White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford, a fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University. He is the author of amongst others Weighing Goods (1991), Ethics Out of Economics (1999), Weighing Lives (2004), and Climate matters (2012).

• Preface xi1 Introduction 11.1 Motivation 11.2 This book 4Notes 62 Ought 82.1 The meaning of ‘ought’ 82.2 Normative and non-normative oughts 92.3 Owned and unowned oughts 122.4 Qualified and unqualified oughts 25Notes 293 Objective, Subjective and Prospective Oughts 313.1 Sidgwick’s View 313.2 The need to decide 343.3 Objective and prospective oughts 363.4 Valuing prospects 413.5 Summary 45Notes 454 Reasons 464.1 Introduction and preliminaries 464.2 Pro toto reasons 494.3 Pro tanto reasons 514.4 Most reason 624.5 Ownership of reasons 655 Responding to Reasons 715.1 Rationality and responding to reasons 715.2 The quick objection 745.3 Attitudinal reasons 755.4 Sufficiency of reasons 82Notes 876 Responding to Reason-Beliefs 886.1 The Enkratic Condition 886.2 Meeting your own standards 916.3 Responding correctly to P-beliefs 1016.4 Conclusion 107Notes 1087 Requirements 1097.1 Two sorts of requirement 1097.2 Property requirements 1107.3 Source requirements 1167.4 Logic for requirements? 1197.5 Ought 126Notes 1298 Conditional Requirements 1328.1 Application and content 1328.2 Conditional requirements of rationality 134Notes 146Appendix to Chapter 8 1489 Synchronic Rationality 1499.1 Introduction and method 1499.2 Consistency 1549.3 Deduction 1579.4 Instrumental Rationality 1599.5 Enkrasia 1709.6 Bayesian requirements 175Notes 17510 Diachronic Rationality 17710.1 Persistence of Intention 17710.2 The rationality of doing as you decide 18110.3 Diachronic requirements on beliefs 185Notes 6910.4 Basing prohibitions and basing permissions 186Notes 19111 Rationality and Normativity 19211.1 The Normative Question 19211.2 More on rationality and reasons 19311.3 Is rationality derivatively normative? 19711.4 Is rationality non-derivatively normative? 204Notes 20512 Higher-Order Reasoning 20612.1 The reasoning process 20612.2 Reasoning through an intention 21012.3 Reasoning with judgement-sensitive attitudes 21612.4 One more point 219Notes 22013 First-Order Reasoning 22113.1 The reasoning process 22113.2 Necessary and sufficient conditions for reasoning 22513.3 Operating on contents 23113.4 Reasoning as activity 23513.5 Reasoning at the first order 24213.6 The direction of reasoning 24313.7 Correct belief reasoning 246Notes 24814 Practical Reasoning 25014.1 Reasoning with attitudes other than beliefs 25014.2 Correctness 25514.3 Choosing a means 26114.4 Hypothesizing 264Notes 26515 Explicit Reasoning 26715.1 Markers 26715.2 Bayesian and expressivist reasoning 27515.3 Reasoning with absences 27815.4 Theoretical and practical reasoning 28115.5 Intention reasoning with other markers 285Notes 28616 Enkratic Reasoning 28816.1 Enkratic reasoning 28816.2 Humean objections 29116.3 Conclusion 294Notes 294Bibliography 295Index 303

"Rationality Through Reasoning is clearly written, and it contains many discussions with other experts in this genre of analytic philosophy, such as Gilbert Harman, Niko Kolodny, and Derek Parfit, to whom the book is dedicated." (Ethical Perspectives, 1 March 2014)