Importance of Being Rational

Errol Lord offers a new account of the nature of rationality: what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. Lord defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons, and dispels doubts about whether we ought to be rational.

List of contents

• Part I: Initial Motivations


• 1: Introduction


• 2: The Coherent and the Rational


• Part II: Possessing Reasons


• 3: Possession: The Epistemic Condition


• 4: Possession: The Practical Condition


• Part III: Correctly Responding to Reasons


• 5: Correctly Responding to Reasons


• 6: Achievements and Intelligibility


• Part IV: Two Problems Solved


• 7: Defeating the Externalist's Demons


• 8: What you're Rationally Required to Do and What you Ought to Do

About the author

Errol Lord is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He works in ethical theory, epistemology, the philosophy of action, and aesthetics. He has published papers in Mind, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Oxford Studies in Metaethics, and British Journal of Aesthetics, among other places. He co-edited Weighing Reasons (OUP, 2016) with Barry Maguire.

Summary

Errol Lord offers a new account of the nature of rationality: what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. Lord defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons, and dispels doubts about whether we ought to be rational.

Additional text

an informed, original, rich, sophisticated and exceptionally well-illustrated case for the claim that what we are rationally required to do and what we substantially ought to do is really the same thing. To follow Errol Lord on his route to this conclusion is a frequently rewarding experience and one that is well worth undertaking.

Product details

• Authors: Errol Lord, Errol (Associate Professor of Philosophy Lord, Lord Errol
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.08.2022
• EAN: 9780192882035
• ISBN: 978-0-19-288203-5
• No. of pages: 288
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Philosophy > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Philosophy: general, reference works; PHILOSOPHY / Mind & Body, PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology, PHILOSOPHY / Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition, Ethics & moral philosophy, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Ethics and moral philosophy, Cognition and cognitive psychology, Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge, Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge