TY - JOUR
T1 - Risk and motivation
T2 - When the will is required to determine what to do
AU - Murray, Dylan
AU - Buchak, Lara
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Dylan Murray & Lara Buchak.
PY - 2019/5
Y1 - 2019/5
N2 - Within philosophy of action, there are three broad views about what, in addition to beliefs, answer the question of “what to do?” and so determine an agent’s motivation: desires (Humeanism), judgments about values/reasons (rationalism), or states of the will, such as intentions (volitionalism). We argue that recent work in decision theory vindicates the volitionalist. “What to do?” isn’t settled by “what do I value” or “what reasons are there?” Rational motivation further requires determining how to trade off the possibility of a good outcome against the possibility of a bad one—i.e., determining how much of a risk to take. The risk attitudes that embody this tradeoff seem best understood as intentions: as self-governing policies to weight desires or reasons in certain ways. That we need to settle our risk attitudes before making most decisions corroborates Bratman’s claim that self-governing policies are required for resolving impasses of evaluative and normative underdetermination. Moreover, far from being rare or confined to tie-breakings, cases that are underdetermined but for one’s risk attitudes are typical of everyday decision-making. The will is required for most rational action.
AB - Within philosophy of action, there are three broad views about what, in addition to beliefs, answer the question of “what to do?” and so determine an agent’s motivation: desires (Humeanism), judgments about values/reasons (rationalism), or states of the will, such as intentions (volitionalism). We argue that recent work in decision theory vindicates the volitionalist. “What to do?” isn’t settled by “what do I value” or “what reasons are there?” Rational motivation further requires determining how to trade off the possibility of a good outcome against the possibility of a bad one—i.e., determining how much of a risk to take. The risk attitudes that embody this tradeoff seem best understood as intentions: as self-governing policies to weight desires or reasons in certain ways. That we need to settle our risk attitudes before making most decisions corroborates Bratman’s claim that self-governing policies are required for resolving impasses of evaluative and normative underdetermination. Moreover, far from being rare or confined to tie-breakings, cases that are underdetermined but for one’s risk attitudes are typical of everyday decision-making. The will is required for most rational action.
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M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069460639
SN - 1533-628X
VL - 19
JO - Philosophers Imprint
JF - Philosophers Imprint
IS - 16
ER -