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Joseph Boyle Department of Philosophy University of Toronto March 2, 2007 Friday, 3:30pm-5:00pm Nursing, Room 127 There is a disagreement among philosophers and among other students of human decision making about whether there are options for choice that are incommensurable in desirability, that is, whether or not there are options whose comparison reveals that neither is better than nor equal to the other in desirability. I believe that this disagreement is more profound and more difficult to settle than is generally supposed. In this paper I develop in my own way Joseph Raz's claim that this disagreement reveals a deeper disagreement concerning the nature of practical reason: does practical reason always determine which option is better, or is its role in many cases only to make options eligible? Those I will call "comparabilists" hold for the first conception of practical reason; those I will call "incommensurabilists" hold for the second. To do this I will consider two central comparabilist arguments; and one central incommensurabilist argument. I conclude that the truth of the comparabilist or the incommensurabilist position can be vindicated finally only by reference to the debate about freedom of the will. If psychological determinism is true, then the only possible results of comparing options for choice are determination by rational or sub-rational factors. But if humans can make incompatibilist free choices, there will not be rational or subrational determination of the choice, and so responsiveness to incommensurable desirability of an option is both possible and rational. In that case the agent endorses one of the options and embraces the reasons supporting its desirability as those determining the agent's action.  |
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Last updated 4/8/08 10:33 PM
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