A Theory of Practical Reason 9783031173189, 9783031173196

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A Theory of Practical Reason

Julian Nida-Rümelin

A Theory of Practical Reason “A Theory of Practical Reason lays out a comprehensive vision that speaks to perennial problems in practical philosophy. Nida-Rümelin defends a version of what the ancients call the unity of reason. There is no deep distinction between moral and epistemic norms. Emotions are located in an agent’s “reason,” the state of mind relevant to deliberation and rational action. This research program is of great interest to theorists from a wide range of traditions and disciplines.” —Katja Maria Vogt, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University “Julian Nida-Ruemelin is in the very top rank of contemporary German philosophers. This volume is the first extensive presentation in English of his conception of practical reason, or rationality in action. It deserves a place on the bookshelf of any philosopher interested in practical rationality, alongside the works of such authors as T.M. Scanlon and John Skorupski. Nida-Ruemelin’s approach is a form of ‘reasons realism’ in that it begins with the assumption that individuals can have good reason to do something apart from their current beliefs and preferences. But he then argues that what counts as a good reason is not independent of an individual’s overall belief- and preference-structure and that of the larger collectivities with which the individual interacts. His model is thus a distinctive combination of realism and coherentism about reasons.” —Paul Guyer, Jonathan Nelson Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Brown University, USA “A Theory of Practical Reason is a major contribution to philosophy, manifesting to the full the author’s immense scholarship in philosophy, economics and decision theory.” —David Gordon, Mises Institute

Julian Nida-Rümelin

A Theory of Practical Reason

Julian Nida-Rümelin Faculty of Philosophy Ludwig-Maximilians Universität Munich, Germany

ISBN 978-3-031-17318-9    ISBN 978-3-031-17319-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

One cannot say that others have no reason at all. If that were true, one need not talk to each other at all. Humans do not talk to bricks. – The artist Ai Weiwei, when asked about his interaction with Chinese security forces

Preface

In this book, I present a theory of practical reason. It can be rational to do something because it is part of a structure of action for which there are good reasons. The theory is based on our lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons—it is a reasons’ account of rationality. Hence the expression structural rationality. The theory of rationality (decision and game theory, collective choice) has developed into an independent discipline, but one that runs counter to the traditional faculties. Its main results have been elaborated by mathematicians (such as Frank P.  Ramsey or John von Neumann), philosophers (such as Richard Jeffrey or Alan Gibbard), statisticians (such as Leonard Savage or Robert Luce), and economists (such as Kenneth Arrow or Amartya Sen); they form the background of some of the central arguments of this book, especially in Chap. 3, even though I rarely make this explicit. Indeed, it was the phenomenon of rational cooperation that motivated my change to a structural point of view. Cooperation is a paradigmatic example of the theory of structural rationality. My PhD thesis1 tackled the relation between decision theory and ethics. Its main result was that ethical reasoning requires a more complex conceptual frame than is offered by decision and game theory.  Handed in 1983 at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Munich, published in 1987 and again in 2005 (D&E, see list of sigla at the end of the book, Appendix). 1

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Nevertheless, decision and game theory are indispensable tools of ethical analysis, as Richard Braithwaite once postulated in his inaugural lecture in 1954.2 My habilitation thesis3 radicalized this critique and argued that a consequentialist understanding is inadequate, not only for moral action, but also for rational action. The account of structural rationality is the constructive counterpart to my critique of consequentialism. In 1991, I presented my ideas on structural rationality4 to an international audience and linked it to political philosophy: “Structural Rationality and Democracy” at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, invited by Percy Lehning and Albert Weale.5 This was preceded by an invitation from Robert Sugden to a conference in Norwich/East Anglia in March 1989, where David Gauthier’s particular version of contractualism was discussed and to which I contributed “Practical Reason, Collective Rationality and Contractarianism.”6 In 1993, I gave a lecture in Aix-en-Provence, France, titled “Structural Rationality” at the first annual meeting of the European Society of Analytical Philosophy. In 1996, I had the opportunity to discuss my reflections on structural rationality during a lecture tour to Philosophy Departments in the United States, including the Universities of Stanford, California at Davis, CalTech, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Green State Ohio, and Minnesota State. I had a personal exchange on my concept of structural rationality with Thomas Scanlon, then Dean of the

2  Braithwaite, Richard B. 2009. Theory of Games as a Tool for the Moral Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3  Kritik des Konsequentialismus (KdK), handed in 1988 at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Munich, published in 1993. 4  For a short exposition of the concept, see HandBook. 5  The Proceedings were published in 1997 by Percy Lehning and Albert Weale. In Citizenship, Democracy and Justice in the New Europe, 33–48. London and New  York: Routledge. 6  This paper was published in the Proceedings edited by David Gauthier and Robert Sugden. 1993. Rationality, Justice and the Social Contract, 53–74. New York et al.: Harvester. I compare cooperative rationality in prisoner’s dilemma situations with the dispositional structure of human action as presented by Gauthier.

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Faculty at Harvard University.7 I also have fond memories of the discussions on practical rationality with Ed McClennen, Michael Slote, Nicholas Rescher, David Copp, Nicholas White, Amartya Sen, Paul Guyer, Henry Richardson, and many others on this lecture tour. I hesitate to call the conception presented here a “Kantian” one, for reasons that will be discussed in this book (Chap. 5), but there are Kantian, Aristotelian (Chap. 4), and Stoicist elements in structural rationality. The special human capability to be guided by reasons is what8 I understand as the central thesis of humanism as a cluster of philosophical theories as well as cultural, political, and social practices, especially in the field of education, that is, what in German is called Bildung. The idea of being the author of our lives, of being responsible for what we think and do, of being able to judge and decide autonomously, prevails in different versions of humanism in otherwise widely divergent cultures from antiquity to the present. In this sense, the theory of practical reason presented here can be understood as humanist.9 Practical philosophy should not strive at new constructions of normative theories; instead, it should understand itself as a continuation, 7  Sometime later, Thomas Scanlon sent me the manuscript of his book What We Owe to Each Other and I still regret that in the following months I did not find the time to read and comment on it as the author probably expected. In 2004 Scanlon accepted my invitation to Berlin as keynote speaker at a conference, Philosophy Meets Politics, in Berlin. The focus of the forum, however, was on the connection between political philosophy and political practice, so we did not again exchange views on philosophical questions of rationality. However, the differences between my conception of structural rationality (dating back to the 1990s; cf. StructR) and his, which he introduced in 2007, are obvious: mine is Ramsey-compatible (see the Appendix), his is not; his is instrumental, mine is not. We share some version of “realism about reasons,” but the two versions differ considerably, as becomes clear in the last two chapters of this book. Cf. Scanlon, Thomas. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge/ Mass.: Belknap Press; id. 2014. Being Realistic About Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press; id. 2007. Structural Irrationality. In Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip Pettit, ed. Geoffrey Brennan, Robert Goodin, Frank Jackson and Michael Smith, 84-103. Oxford: Clarendon Press, and id. 2005. Political Equality. Philosophy Meets Politics 8, ed. Julian Nida-Rümelin and Wolfgang Thierse. Essen: Klartext; see also Gutwald, Rebecca and Niina Zuber. 2018. The Meaning(s) of Structural Rationality. ProtoSociology 35: 314–321, and HandBook. 8  Jürgen Habermas speaks of being affected by reasons, which is more specific, since this is where the affective/motive dimension comes into play. I try to use a terminology that overcomes the traditional dichotomies between reason and emotion as well as theoretical and practical reason. 9  Cf. HumR and HumB.

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systematization, and rationalization of our lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons. Therein lies my dissent with the rationalist tradition in philosophy, which developed fascinating forms in Descartes, Leibniz, and especially Spinoza, and which surprisingly still dominates a good part of practical philosophy today.10 I have tried to present my theory of practical reason in such a way that it can be understood and criticized from within, without the need to consult other texts. For those interested in some details, also regarding formal aspects of the theory, I can refer to a collection of essays on practical reason that I published in 2019.11 These essays can now be read as satellites of this monograph. It was not my goal to develop concrete normative criteria for rational practice. The idea of a recipe book which still shapes economics as well as applied ethics12 is misleading. Therefore, the term “theory” is used in a very weak sense here. “Perspective,” “approach,” “account,” “conception” are appropriate characterizations of what I present here as a Theory of Practical Reason. Munich, Germany

Julian Nida-Rümelin

10  Prominent examples are Richard Hare (1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford: Oxford University Press) and Peter Singer (2011. Practical Ethics. New York: Cambridge University Press). 11  StructR. 12  AngE.

Acknowledgments

I thank my family—Nathalie, Juliette, Colette, and Noel—for being patient with me and allowing me to work even during holidays. I particularly thank my wife for our special form of cooperation which developed over the years. For many philosophical discussions important to this book, I would like to thank the students of my courses, my colleagues at various faculties, my critics, and numerous participants from colloquia, conferences, and lectures. I thank the University of Turin—especially Maurizio Ferraris and Tiziana Andina—which gave me the opportunity to present my theory of practical reason during the spring term of 2019 and to discuss it with advanced students and faculty as visiting scientist of Labont (laboratorio ontologico). I am grateful for the good working atmosphere at the Parmenides Foundation and the collaboration with Albrecht von Müller, its founder. A special thank goes to Christian Zott for dedicating a grant to my chair for translations into English and to Nora Angleys, Adriano Mannino, Pia Morar, Samuel Pedziwiatr, and Martin Rechenauer for delivering or commenting first drafts of the English version; Elias Unger and Sarah Köglsperger for fine-tuning the Index and proofreading. But I bear the sole responsibility for the final version of the manuscript, including all remaining mistakes. Two anonymous reviewers of Palgrave Macmillan made important proposals that helped to improve the book. Christoph Schirmer from De Gruyter and Phil Getz from Palgrave Macmillan accompanied the project from the beginning. I am grateful for their engagement. xi

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The German book version Eine Theorie praktischer Vernunft (De Gruyter) has more than 500 pages; this book has only half of it. It leaves out part of the broader contexts in which my philosophy is situated, but it keeps the essential argumentations unchanged. This Theory of Practical Reason owes a lot to rational choice theory, with its three branches decision theory, game theory, and collective choice, even if this might not always be apparent, as well as to Kurt Baier, Stephen Toulmin, Karl Popper, Elisabeth Anscombe, Peter Strawson, Richard Hare, John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Bernard Williams, Christine Korsgaard, Onora O’Neill, Robert Brandom, and Jürgen Habermas. I learned most, also about the limits of philosophy, from Aristotle and Kant, Dewey and Wittgenstein, from STOA and ZEN—gratitude, however, would be the wrong expression here.

Contents

1 Introduction and Overview  1 2 Practical Philosophy  7 2.1 Philosophy as Theory of Reason  7 2.2 Practical Coherence 11 2.3 What Kind of Theory? 14 3 Structural Rationality 15 3.1 Practical Reason and Rational Choice 15 3.2 Instrumental Rationality 18 3.3 Paradoxa of Cooperation 23 3.4 The Structural Interpretation of Cooperative Decisions 31 3.5 Rational Cooperation 35 3.6 Collective Intentionality 41 4 Structural Agency 45 4.1 Prohairesis 45 4.2 The Incoherence of Decision Theory 47 4.3 Collective Irrationality 52 4.4 Structural Intentions 54 4.5 The Structural Concept of Action 57 4.6 Structural Action and Causality 61 4.7 Freedom and Determination in Structural Practice 65

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4.8 The Role of Chance 67 4.9 Token and Type 72 4.10 Diachronic Structure 77 4.11 Interpersonal Structure 80 5 The  Phenomenology of Structural Rationality 85 5.1 Structural Practice 85 5.2 Self-Control 88 5.3 Self-Restraint 93 5.4 Duties to Oneself 95 5.5 Honesty 99 5.6 Politeness102 5.7 Appropriateness105 5.8 Fairness109 5.9 Equality115 5.10 Relativity121 5.11 Communication127 5.12 Rules132 6 Morality and Rationality137 6.1 Critique of Consequentialism137 6.2 Impartiality140 6.3 Individuality143 6.4 Individual Rights146 6.5 Integrity151 6.6 Irreducible Plurality153 6.7 Quietism157 6.8 Fragmentation160 6.9 Moral Dilemmas165 6.10 Rationality and Morality173 7 The  Efficacy of Reasons177 7.1 Reasons177 7.2 Normativity179 7.3 Social Facts183 7.4 Objectivity187 7.5 Non-Algorithmicity191

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7.6 Theoretical and Practical Reasons196 7.7 Autonomy201 7.8 Intertemporal and Interpersonal Coherence204 7.9 Normative Beliefs206 7.10 Emotive Attitudes212 8 Metaphysical Aspects217 8.1 Metaphysics217 8.2 Freedom218 8.3 Responsibility225 8.4 Authorship232 8.5 The Status of Reasons236 Appendix245 List of Sigla: Publications by the Author263 Bibliography265 Index273

CHAPTER 1

Introduction and Overview

In this book, I present a theory of practical reason that is objectivist, or rather realist, that is intended as an alternative to rationalism in modern ethics but trusts in the human ability to reason.1 The theory has pragmatic traits that can be read as a constructive counterpart to my critique of consequentialism.2 Nevertheless, its conception of rationality can be embedded in the conceptual framework of decision and game theory. A philosophical theory that has this combination of characteristics seems implausible from the start. I cannot convince those who decide to stop reading at this point. To those who are more patient, however, I promise the following: You will see that the individual parts of the argument, as improbable as this may seem initially, fit well: objectivism and realism with immanentism and coherentism, anti-rationalism with trust in reason. It is not the objective of this book to inform the reader about the latest debate in contemporary practical philosophy. Those who are familiar with it may miss one or the other reference, others will be glad that the 1  Using the German language in philosophical discourse sometimes allows to be more concise, since there exist different German terms for different concepts which do not exist in English. But this is also true the other way round: “reason,” “reasoning,” and “reasons” is a good example. In English the close connection between these three concepts is terminologically obvious, this is not the case in German: Between “Vernunft,” “abwägen (deliberieren),” and “Gründe” there is no terminological connection. That, what seems obvious in English, must be argued for in German. 2  KdK and “Why consequentialism fails” in StructR, part II.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_1

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academic ballast has been kept to a minimum. The arguments stand for themselves. This treatise is a systematic clarification of what constitutes practical reason, it might be classified as a reasons’ account of rationality.3 The building blocks of the theory of practical reason, which I shall outline in the following, are not self-sufficient. They explicate themselves reciprocally; there is not one, as it were, load-bearing building block that supports the rest of the building: “one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house.”4 First Building Block: Normative, Non-naturalistic Realism of Practical Reasons Reasons, theoretical reasons for beliefs, practical reasons for actions, and emotive reasons for attitudes are normative, they speak in favor of (the belief, the action, the emotive attitude). Reasons are therefore not empirical, but normative. Reasons do not belong to the world of physics or psychology. A person may have a good reason to do something without realizing it. One might say of a person that it is a (normative) fact that she ought to do that, even if she doesn’t realize that she ought to do it. Reasons are objective insofar as their existence is logically independent of the subjective preferences (more generally: prohairetic attitudes) of the acting person. This logical independence does not imply that her prohairetic attitudes (preferences, desires, hopes, and fears) are irrelevant for the reasons she has for doing something. For example, she has a good—prima facie— reason to do x if x helps to avoid pain she would suffer otherwise. Analogously: It is possible that I hold a belief without having good reasons for that belief. This belief then would be unjustified. Or: Person A despises person B without being able to give a good reason for this. An explanation of it might be, that this emotive attitude is unfounded; consequently, we can say that this is merely a case of ressentiment. If, however, B has behaved poorly, then A may have a good (emotive) reason for his contempt. Reasons are not epistemic; they are not part of the epistemic state of an individual. Nor are reasons prohairetical, they are not part of the preferential state of an individual. Reasons are not emotional; they are not 3  Cf. Nida-Rümelin, Julian. 2019. The Reasons Account of Free Will: A Compatibilist-­ Libertarian Hybrid. Archives for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy 105: 3–10. 4  Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1969. On Certainty. Oxford: Blackwell: § 248.

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part of the emotional state of an individual. Reasons are objective. “Subjective” reasons refer to what a person regards as reasons. A subjective reason is not necessarily a reason, just as a subjective fact is not necessarily a fact. It would be better to speak of “opinions” or “motives” rather than to speak of “subjective facts” or “subjective reasons.” Objective reasons play a causal role in that they can be recognized by rational beings, that is, by individuals who possess an ability to reason, and are affected by reasons they adopt. Although the objects to which reasons refer can be differentiated according to the three categories, the form of deliberating theoretical, practical, and emotive reasons remains the same: We try to determine what speaks in favor of x, regardless of the category of objects to which x belongs: beliefs, actions, or emotive attitudes. Whoever has good reasons for x but does not realize x (does not adopt the respective belief, does not carry out the respective action, does not take on a certain emotive attitude), is irrational in this respect. Reasons and their efficacy constitute the reasonableness or rationality5 of a person. Second Building Block: Unity of Reason Reasons form a complex whole. Having a pro tanto reason for x implies that there are no reasons that invalidate it. The description of reasons must therefore at least implicitly make use of ceteris paribus assumptions or of small worlds. We are familiar with this method from physics where it has proven itself time and again: Every explanation is based on a high degree of simplification; it rests on blending out determinants that must be assumed irrelevant in the specific case for the explanation in question to be successful. Rational decision theory draws attention to an essential aspect of this holism of reasons: The two fundamental value functions, the subjective probability function and the subjective desirability function (utility function), can only be ascribed simultaneously and not in isolation.6 Only under the assumption of a given utility function we can ascribe subjective probabilities on the basis of a person’s choices, and vice versa: utility functions can only be ascribed under the assumption of a given subjective 5  For reasons, which we discuss later in the book, we do not discriminate between “rational” and “reasonable,” “rationality” and “reason”; see Sect. 3.1. 6  This is presented particularly clearly by Richard Jeffrey. Cf. Jeffrey, Richard. 1990. The Logic of Decision. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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probability function. This seeming circulus vitiosus forces a simultaneous ascription of both types of propositional attitudes, which lose their under-­ determination only through restrictive conditions of coherence regarding epistemic and prohairetic evaluations. The unity of reason does not reveal itself only in the mutual conditionality of beliefs, actions, and emotive attitudes, but above all in the individual’s lifeform as a whole. Feelings of regret or remorse indicate incoherences. A coherent lifeform is characterized by the fact that these feelings rarely occur. Of course, it may turn out that a decision based on good reasons was unfavorable or even disastrous, because circumstances occurred which were justifiably considered improbable. In this case, however, remorse would be an unjustified emotive attitude, because what qualifies as a good reason, that is, a reason that speaks for or against a certain decision, is dependent on the epistemic conditions at the time of decision. The theory of practical reason developed here follows a specific heuristic, that of the unity of ought: there are no area-specific rationalities, there is no economic vs. social vs. moral vs. technical and so on rationality, there is instead a multitude of reasons that are relevant to a different degree in different areas, but in the end, the practice of a person, of a society or of a collective must be reasonable as a whole. No one can be broken up into functionalities or sociological roles, rather, every person must integrate different normative aspects such that their practice is coherent in its entirety. Even the rationalities concerning certain areas, as postulated by scientific disciplines, focus at best on specific aspects of rational judgment, rational practice, or rational emotive attitudes. These specific aspects and criteria are often condensed into a rationality paradigm that claims to have grasped rationality as such. It would be an interesting project of interdisciplinary comparative philosophy of science to systematize and integrate this diversity where possible. We will make our contribution to this project by occasionally looking at behavioral economics and the standard model of economic rationality. Third Building Block: Cooperation Cooperative practice, which can be defined by choosing the strategy C in a prisoner’s dilemma game7 under specific conditions, plays a paradigmatic role in this theory of practical reason. Genuine “social” cooperation is characterized by interacting persons choosing C in the expectation of the 7

 Cf. Appendix, Prisoner’s Dilemma.

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others choosing C. The outcome of this combination of individual acts, the collective action, is more favorable for everyone, than if every individual optimized their personal interests. However, this does not change the fact that it would be more beneficial for everyone to optimize individually, independently of how the others would act. This means that in this paradigmatic case the person decides against her own interests and in favor of a shared desirable praxis. Cooperative motives for action transcend the egoistic standpoint. Strictly individualistic theories of rationality cannot adequately capture this phenomenon. Cooperation is a paradigmatic case of structural rationality. Fourth Building Block: Diachronic Coherence Agents who optimize their momentary inclinations and desires, including those that are directed toward the future, would disintegrate into incoherent, temporally disparate individual agents. Reasonable practice, in contrast, is characterized by coherence across different points in time. Although desires change over time, persons are able to structurally embed the expected changes of their prohairetic state into a coherent practice. The person then chooses the action regarding a diachronic structure of agency she desires. This does not mean that the desired diachronic structure determines the respective action, usually, there is a wide margin of under-determinedness. Diachronic coherence is another paradigmatic example of structural rationality. Fifth Building Block: Ramsey Coherence The traditional interpretation of the utility theorem of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, which had already been anticipated many years earlier by the mathematician and philosopher Frank P.  Ramsey, is consequentialist: it is assumed, at least when applied in economics, that the postulates of the utility theorem are fulfilled by rational agents because they want to maximize their utility, be that in terms of individual wellbeing or preference fulfillment. However, none of the postulates presupposes a self-oriented optimization as a motive for action. Every type of preferences, even exclusively morally motivated ones, should be coherent. Ramsey compatibility, that is, the fulfillment of the postulates of the utility theorem by rational agents, should be interpreted coherentistically, that is, as a requirement for coherent preferences, regardless of how these are individually motivated. The concept of structural rationality is compatible with this version of a coherence theory of rationality and since structural

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rationality is incompatible with pointwise consequentialist optimization, the theory of practical reason developed here offers a coherentist alternative to consequentialist theories of rationality. Sixth Building Block: Suspending the Dichotomy of Instrumental and Substantive Rationality The opposition of instrumental and substantive conceptions of rationality dissolves in this theory of practical reason. Instrumental conceptions of practical rationality understand actions as a means to achieve the goals of the acting individual. Substantive conceptions of rationality are traditionally understood to determine the goals. Instrumental conceptions seem to recognize individual freedom. Substantial theories seem to threaten it. The theory of structural rationality surmounts this opposition: We seek to determine what is reasonable (for us). We weigh them against each other to determine which one we should reasonably pursue. The freedom of human persons is expressed in the fact that they—as authors of their life— are able to, and responsible for, practical deliberations. It is the adequate integration of good reasons that constitutes rational action.

CHAPTER 2

Practical Philosophy

2.1   Philosophy as Theory of Reason I propose that we understand philosophy as the clarification of human reason. Philosophical activity aims at clarifying what qualifies beliefs and actions as reasonable. After its most successful sub-disciplines have become independent scientific endeavors, most of them empirical disciplines like physics or sociology, some a priori disciplines like formal logics and meta-­ mathematics, some normative disciplines like medical ethics, contemporary philosophy is restricted to the theory of reason. Philosophy, as theory of reason, is not a rationalist project, which deduces knowledge from axioms, nor a constructivist project, which “constructs” meaning and normativity, nor a search for certainty, which gives an answer to global skepticism. Instead, the theory of reason aligns with our lifeworld beliefs, which represent the theory’s inescapable justificatory benchmarks. This does not, however, make philosophy an uncritical, merely reconstructive project. Systematization and conceptual analysis of our beliefs and practices, debating the criteria and norms guiding these beliefs and practices is not l’art pour l’art, not a thought experiment only relevant for those working in philosophy and academia. It is an attempt for greater clarity and coherence, motivated by the observation of confusion and inconsistencies. We should harness methodical doubt as one of philosophy’s guiding principles to identify common elements in our obvious misconceptions and wrong decisions, which should culminate in © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_2

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a comprehensive fallibilistic account. We should acknowledge that all our beliefs and practices are potentially misguided. To be clear: I do not argue for a global skepticism that questions everything and thereby destroys that which must remain the touchstone for philosophical debate. Doubt must remain local for being reasonable. Philosophy as theory of reason aims at continuity with lifeworld discourses via which philosophy again exerts influence on our lifeform. It is continuous with the methods of the natural and the social sciences; it is not an alternative form of thinking. It does not oppose the methods and results of scientific disciplines, instead, it should contribute to merging them into a coherent worldview. Since most of philosophy’s former sub-disciplines have developed into independent sciences such as physics, psychology, social sciences, or humanities, modern philosophy lacks the expertise for empirically oriented research programs, despite recent anti-analytical trends such as experimental philosophy. However, a merely aprioristic practical philosophy would remain stuck in postulates and their logical deductions, that is, remain attached to the rationalist program and thus forfeit every justificatory benchmark. In fact, many utilitarian and Kantian theories in contemporary ethics remain faithful to this rationalist program. The alternative of empirical ethics, the mere description of behavior, values, and judgments, would, however, make practical philosophy a part of social science and thereby strip it of its normative content. What remains is a practical philosophy that ties in with and systematizes our shared practice of normative judgment. It derives its normative content from the reasons we give to justify our normative beliefs, actions, and emotive attitudes. Shared reasons, which are deemed indisputable, serve as a—of course always provisional—justificatory benchmark. We review and assess controversial normative beliefs and practices with reference to what, between us, are undisputed beliefs and practices. The normative content of philosophical theory is not constructed by philosophy, but rather instilled, as it were, into philosophy by lifeworld communication practices. Philosophy does not stand outside our lifeworld, but rather is continuous with it. It elucidates the practice of giving and taking reasons, that is, reasons for beliefs (theoretical reason/theoretical philosophy) and reasons for actions (practical reason/practical philosophy). And if the reasoning and considerations in this book are not completely misguided, the intimate connection of these two realms is what guarantees the unity of philosophy as theory of reason.

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It is confusing, however, that this practice, which we are all remarkably familiar with since it is the practice of our lifeworld, raises such serious problems regarding its explication. How can it be that there is such a broad spectrum of mutually incompatible philosophical concepts of reason? We can explain this phenomenon with the rationalistic misconception about philosophy that emerged in the early modern era. It purports that philosophy alone is capable to generate true, unquestionable knowledge which exceeds mere belief. It is this misconception that paved the way for different philosophical theories of reason that all lack a justificatory benchmark, that is, a standard that would ensure convergence of theories and prevent theoretical overshooting. Only a philosophy that frees itself from its splendid isolation acknowledges the shared practices of giving and taking reasons and aims for continuity with these practices can prevent arbitrary philosophical theory construction on reason. Philosophy as I understand it is a mediator between science and lifeworld: It corrects the ideological exaggeration of successful scientific research programs, revises scientific conceptual frameworks, and aims for coherence between our worldviews and scientific findings. In this sense, it reclaims the role of a mother discipline and integrates scientific terminologies, paradigms, and findings into the everyday practice of reason. Philosophy understood as a theory of reason is not an empirical discipline; it does not describe how people deliberate; it is itself a form of deliberation. Philosophy is therefore neither an annex to the psychology of belief-formation nor an annex to physics, neurophysiology, or sociology. Science is a collection of different forms of reasoning. There are also different forms of lifeworld reasoning. Philosophy reflects on these uses of reasons, and on its own use of reasons as meta-philosophy. It seems adequate to describe this epistemic situation as a continuum. In this continuum, the various areas of deliberation form an interdependent network: All disciplines are, in whatever intricate ways, intertwined and together they form a more or less coherent network. The idea of deliberative practices disintegrating into separate parts, as is sometimes suggested by Wittgenstein’s language game metaphor and postmodern conceptions of our epistemic situation, is misguided. Our entire deliberative practice ultimately forms one entity and philosophy is merely one little part of that practice. Philosophy does cover particularly fundamental and general aspects of that practice, but it is not separated from it. There is a continuum between philosophy, sciences, and lifeworld; the epistemic network is not a collection of independent parts.

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The deliberative practice itself cannot be transformed in processes that can be described by the means of physics and neurophysiology, epistemic unity is not brought about by sensory stimuli and their causal effects, it is created by the normativity and objectivity of good reasons. Not causes, but reasons are what binds our deliberative practice together. Likewise, it is not the rules of our linguistic behavior—disintegrating into different languages and lifeforms—that determine what is reasonable. It is the general human ability to jointly direct our attention to objects of common interest, to develop a shared, cooperative practice in handling these objects, and to coordinate this practice in accordance with good reasons. Humans, having this ability to participate in the normativity and objectivity of good reasons, cannot be understood as stimulus-response mechanisms or as optimizing homines oeconomici. They develop the ability to distance themselves from their own self-interest and egocentric perspective, and, at least to some extent, grasp what is justified by good reasons. The logical realm of objectively good reasons impacts the mental and the physical world through our ability to deliberate and by affecting our beliefs, actions, and emotive attitudes. Human reason is the capacity for deliberation and the willingness to be influenced by its results. Reasons are not empirical facts (as Scanlon thinks1), but relations between empirical facts and that which is to be justified. Justifications have an inferential, logical structure, reasons are always embedded in a system of reasons of which only tiny excerpts are made explicit in the form of verbally presented justifications. Descriptive, normative, and emotive reasons span a web in which deliberation takes place. This web is modified, improved, certain reasons are abandoned, others are added, structural characteristics of this web—in the form of certain inferential invariances— are modified, and excessive tensions are mitigated by new connections. All of this occurs, however, without us being able to exit this web. Even if we change parts of this web, we always move within it, we are dependent on it, if we do not want to fall. There is no external epistemological point of view from which this web could be rewoven ab ovo. Change always occurs within the large overall web of a discursive lifeform endowed with reasons, regardless of what the object of change may be, or what parts of this web are to be withdrawn. Change remains always embedded in our lifeworld, or else it becomes irrational. The assumptions established at different points of argumentation refer implicitly to 1

 Cf. Scanlon (2014).

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uncountably many other assumptions, presuppositions, and implications, which are all interlinked inferentially and thus form a web of explicit and implicit beliefs. Every single part of this web is fallible, including its structural traits, for they can be questioned under certain conditions. But the web as a whole cannot be left, global skepticism is not possible. We remain embedded in the web that constitutes our lifeform with all its descriptive, prescriptive, inferential, and presuppositional traits. The Kantian invariances of space and time have been called into question by modern physics, but this could not affect our lifeworld knowledge. There is no synthetic a priori, there are only gradual differences in epistemic robustness. Some things can only be questioned when many other things have already been questioned; the development of modern physics is an example of this. But the revolutions in the sciences occur at the periphery of our shared lifeform. That is to say, the center of our lifeform remains unaffected. There are no epistemic revolutions at the center. They only occur in the periphery of our lifeform. Scientism seeks to make the periphery the center which is why it must fail. The robust realism of our lifeworld is not an ontological postulate, but a characteristic of the epistemic system in which we operate.

2.2   Practical Coherence Our actions are determined by reasons. We decide based on a judgment or statement or pro-attitude, that, what the Stoics called synkatathesis: it constitutes agency and discriminates agency from mere behavior. The transition from desires to actions is mediated by an element of rationality. A completely irrational action is inconceivable: We would not be able to understand it as such, and we would classify it as a reflex or an expression of some behavioral disposition. “Responsibility,” “rationality,” and “action” form a triad of concepts that cannot be resolved. There is an obvious reductio ad absurdum for a simple dichotomous concept of rationality: every action would be rational, and if a behavioral component is considered irrational, then it is not an action, and the agent would be relieved of any responsibility. A gradualist and coherentist conception of rationality escapes this reductio. There are degrees of practical rationality and degrees of responsibility. Our behavior is controlled to varying degrees, although it is guided by the agent’s synkatathesis, which is based on the evaluation of our own desires, hopes, and fears. The a posteriori character of the theory of reason excludes a certain form of coherentism. Theories are usually called coherentist, when they

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make coherence the criterion of truth: a belief is true when it is perfectly coherent with other beliefs. Put differently: a proposition is true if and only if it is part of an ideally coherent system of propositions. If there were several systems of propositions, each of which were ideally coherent, this coherentist definition of truth would lead to the paradoxical conclusion that contradictory propositions could be equally true. Since this contradicts any reasonable understanding of truth (even though such “pluralistic” concepts of truth are common in postmodern discourses), this form of coherentism eradicates itself. Only with the bold additional assumption that there is only one ideally coherent system of propositions, is it possible to retain a certain initial plausibility. But even if one abandons coherence as a theory of truth and moves on to coherence as a theory of justification, there is a danger of apriorism. Whoever tries to find a principle of all justification via a concept of coherence is already following this wrong idea of an a priori. There is no concept of coherence beyond all practices of justification. What and how things cohere, what types of reasons lead to what conflicts of beliefs, is revealed in the respective practices of justification and not outside these practices. Coherence is merely a regulatory idea that guides our deliberations. This exclusion of the external (a priori) point of view is compatible with systematizing the practice of justification and with seeking rules of maximum generality which characterize different practices of justification. The subjectivist theory of probability and its application in epistemological Bayesianism is an example. The counterpart in the practical domain is formal decision theory. Indeed, the central theorem of modern economics, the utility theorem, should be interpreted as a coherentist result, not as a proof of a consequentialist theory of economic rationality.2 The different systems of deontic logic are likewise to be interpreted as systematizations of normative language. A system of deontic logic that comes into insoluble conflict with uncontroversial parts of our normative language has failed ipso facto. Coherence is not much more than a metaphor for some kind of interrelation between different propositional attitudes. Likewise, system is a metaphor for there being something like a structure, that there is something more fundamental and less fundamental, that there are inferential relations between these elements. Those who emphasize the character of 2

 Cf. Appendix, Ramsey Compatibility.

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the system tend to overstretch this metaphor and to postulate a foundation that supports the superstructure in one way or another: a fundamentum inconcussum, as it was called in the Middle Ages. The coherence metaphor, however, runs the risk of considering the different elements as equal, as denying asymmetrical supportive relations. It thus runs the risk of losing sight of the fact that the gradient of subjective certainty is what makes justification possible in the first place. Justifications begin and end with beliefs. Justifications aim at making the uncertain more certain or at verifying its falseness by drawing on things that are certain, or things that appear certain. In this sense, justifications are always immanent, they remain in the epistemic system, they do not have an external starting point. When beliefs are incompatible, when they directly contradict each other, we feel compelled to modify our beliefs such that this incoherence disappears. Not because we have chosen to be coherentists, but rather because this is our practice of justification. When people shrug off contradictions in their statements, then we no longer understand them, we no longer know with whom we are dealing. If someone noticeably does not try to present his beliefs coherently, then this affects his status as a person. Justifications do not go ad infinitum because we are satisfied when the doubt is removed. We have doubts when there are reasons to doubt. We do not have unfounded doubts in our lifeworld. We limit our doubt to cases where there are reasons to believe that something is wrong. We have reason to believe that something is wrong when something does not match up, when something is incoherent. When this incoherence is resolved, we have no longer reason to doubt and no reason for further justification. Justification has an end. It ends in the matter of facts of our lifeworld. In the sciences there is an analogy to this; scientific justification ends where something is self-evident, unquestioned of the respective paradigm or the theory. However, while in the sciences it is possible to question the theory as a whole, this is not possible in the lifeworld: the epistemic system as a whole cannot be questioned in the lifeworld, because this would destroy the foundation for further justifications and doubts. In this respect, there is an obvious difference between scientific and lifeworld justification: The latter has its limits in the shared practice of giving and taking reasons, in the lifeform in which we participate. Coherence encompasses the whole, not only the lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons, but also that of “systems” of economics or

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politics or art, as well as of the sciences. The epistemic system is coherent only as a whole, not in its parts. This need for global coherence can best be explained by the fact that we interpret our beliefs realistically in the lifeworld, in systems and in sciences. Coherentism, as I understand it, is not an alternative to realism, it is inseparably interwoven with it.

2.3   What Kind of Theory? The theory presented here has pragmatist, Kantian, Stoicist, and Aristotelian traits. This combination is peculiar and therefore it might be easier to say first, what it is not: It is no Humean theory of rationality, that restricts practical reason to choosing the best means to reach our goals, which are determined by our given desires. Humeans of different kinds are the implicit opponents of this theory: Humeans like Harry Frankfurt who insist that it is desire and not reason that constitutes rationality, Bernard Williams’ internalism, Donald Davidson’s anomal monism, David Broome’s consequentialism (“teleology”), and Thomas Scanlon’s early form of contractualism and unnumerable other important Humean contributions to the theory of practical rationality. The theory presented here has pragmatist traits, it relies on lifeworld practices of giving and taking reasons and it presents itself as an alternative to rationalism and principlism (as Jonathan Dancy calls it). It has Kantian traits as it assumes that it is reason, not desire, that constitutes rationality. It relies on the human capacity to act guided by reasons. It has Stoicist traits as it extends the guidance and affection by reasons, the role of rational judgment (synkatathesis), from the moral sphere to agency in general. And it has Aristotelian traits: the ideal type of rationality is not the sophos of Plato, but the phronimos of Aristotle. Practical rationality does not rely on scientific insights, but on phronesis, good judgment of ordinary people based on empirical and moral experience from everyday life.

CHAPTER 3

Structural Rationality

3.1   Practical Reason and Rational Choice John Rawls, who originally presented his theory of justice as an application of the rational choice model, distinguished reason from rationality in his later writings. He defines rationality instrumentally, that is, choosing the adequate means to an end, while he links reasons to reasoning, that is, giving reasons. This juxtaposition results in a dichotomy within practical philosophy for which, I believe, there are no good reasons, but at best habitually established patterns of argumentation in economics, social sciences and practical philosophy. If reason and rationality, that is, practical reason and rationality, represented different assessment criteria, it would be possible that compelling reasons speak against a rational action. An action could be unreasonable but also rational. Some of the economists with whom I discussed this issue were and still are ardent advocates of this dichotomy. After all, they claim to have a precise concept of (economic) rationality and this concept must not be absorbed by the vague terminology of giving and taking reasons or, even worse, moral reasons. This precise concept of economic rationality in the form of the utility theorem has been well established since the middle of the last century. Von Neumann and Morgenstern present the concept in Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (1947) and later on Jacob

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Marshak,1 who, more elegantly, fixed its axiomatic status. According to the theorem, it is possible to transform the qualitative concept of preference into a quantitative concept of utility if a person’s preferences meet certain coherence conditions. The utility theorem, that is, the fundamental theorem of modern economics, claims that if the preferences of a person fulfill certain coherence postulates, they can be represented by a quantitative, real-valued utility function. If all conditions are met, the utility function that represents a person’s preferences is uniquely determined up to positive linear transformations. Therefore, this conceptual set-up, per se, does not allow interpersonal comparisons. This means that even though we can now assign a utility value to the alternatives, this value is not uniquely determined because of positive linear transformations. Thus, we cannot say that realizing a certain alternative increases Bill’s utility more than Susan’s. Interpersonal comparisons require a stronger conceptual framework, as it was, for example, presented by the economist John C. Harsanyi, a later Nobel laureate.2 Harsanyi suggested that it is plausible to assume that any person’s utility function has a lower and upper bound. It, therefore, seems natural to normalize these lower and upper bounds, for instance to the interval of zero to one.3 The rationality criterion is expected utility maximization. Strictly speaking, this is simply an implication of the coherence conditions specified by the utility theorem.4 There is no additional rationality criterion being adduced here, rather, one can logico-mathematically prove that a preference relation that fulfills the postulates of the utility theorem has the property of there being a utility function which is optimized by the respective person (i.e., a utility function whose expected value is being maximized). The transition from preference to decision is accomplished by interpreting preferences as nothing other than choices between alternatives: A person (strictly) prefers x over y if, when she must choose 1  Marshak, Jacob. 1950. Rational Behaviour, Uncertain Prospects, and Measurable Utility. Econometrica 18: 111–141. 2  Harsanyi, John C. 1980. Rule Utilitarianism, Rights, Obligations and the Theory of Behavior. Theory and Decision 12: 115–133. 3  An interesting question is whether this interval is open, that is, does not include zero and one, or closed, that is, including zero and one, I find the first variant more attractive for different reasons; cf. D&E. 4  Cf. RatC.

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between x or y, chooses x. The preference relations ascribed to a person represent her decisions (including hypothetical decisions, that is, decisions expected if the person faces a certain alternative; in this sense, we could also speak of preferences as dispositions). The rationality criterion of expected utility maximization is not an additional postulate; it is an implication of the postulates grounding the utility theorem. Likewise, we can interpret the utility or probability function, which we can ascribe to persons if they fulfill the coherence conditions of the utility theorem, as representations of two types of propositional attitudes: epistemic and prohairetic. Epistemic attitudes refer to the person’s expectations of what (with whatever subjective probability) will happen, while the utility function represents the person’s (coherent) preferences. The person is rational if and only if she fulfills the coherence conditions, that is, if the preference relation we ascribe to her fulfills the postulates of the utility theorem. We must abstain from all mystification of this theorem. The utility theorem merely shows that the qualitative concept of preference can be converted into a quantitative concept of utility. This “utility” is not what is usually associated with this term. The person might have altruistic motives and then we must not interpret this utility function as a representation of their own interests, but as an interpretation of the person’s assessment of the interests of others. It gets even worse: Take the Kantian agent, that is, an agent who aligns his preferences or the maxims guiding his preferences with the Categorical Imperative. That is to say, he only adopts maxims that accord with the Categorical Imperative, that is, maxims that can be transformed into universal laws. Doesn’t this agent stand for the exact opposite of the homo oeconomicus? So, it seems: The majority of contemporary economists consider the Kantian agent not as an example of economic rationality but of moral reason that cannot be integrated into the concept of economic rationality. I cannot see how and in what way the ideal Kantian agent, who consistently aligns his preferences with maxims that can be universalized, should violate any of the utility postulates. His action-guiding preferences, too, will be transitive, complete, monotonous, and continuous. Why should they violate any of these postulates? I fail to see any reasonable argument to back this claim. The Kantian agent (if sufficiently coherent) fulfills the postulates of the utility theorem. We can attribute to this agent a utility function and the agent will maximize expected utility (qua fulfilling the conditions and only qua fulfilling these conditions).

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Does this mean that the Kantian agent is one who maximizes utility? The answer is: Yes, in the formal sense of the von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function (utility1). No, if utility is interpreted as the representation of the agent’s self-interest (utility2). The Kantian agent does maximize utility1, but not utility2. It is an obvious fallacy to assume that the utility theorem proves that a rational person optimizes her self-interest. I find it, however, highly plausible that all reasonable agents ideally fulfill the coherence conditions of the utility theorem. Consequently, we can apply the entire conceptual apparatus of rational choice theory to morally or otherwise motivated decisions as well. The restriction to self-­interest optimization may be a useful heuristic principle for economic analysis (whether this principle is true may and must be doubted), but it should not prevent us from applying rational choice theory beyond this narrow economic application. We should understand rational choice as based on coherent preferences and the practice of giving and taking reasons helps to make our preferences coherent. This coherentist interpretation of rational choice theory is neutral regarding motivations and reasons. There is no basis for a dichotomy between rationality and reason. Rational choice is to be understood as a set of minimal yet demanding conditions of epistemic and prohairetic coherence. It is based on the coherence of propositional attitudes. It is minimalist, lacks content and is, therefore, an incomplete theory of rationality. Yet, it represents an indispensable component of both practical and theoretical deliberation. Therefore, there cannot be any unreasonable practice that is still considered rational, and this is why we cannot separate the commandments of reason and the claims of rationality.

3.2  Instrumental Rationality At this point in the debate, Max Weber’s concept of instrumental rationality seems an attractive fallback position.5 According to Weber, ends are defined by other factors than rationality, for example, by culture or existential decisions (“Follow thy daemon”). There can be no ends-­oriented rationality, we can only consider the consequences and side effects of 5  Cf. Weber, Max. 2012. The “Objectivity” of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy. In Collected Methodological Writings, 100–129. London and New York: Routledge, and id. 2012. The Meaning of “Value Freedom” in the Sociological and Economic Sciences. In Collected Methodological Writings, 304–334. London and New York: Routledge.

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realizing a certain end. Rationality must be limited to instrumental rationality, that is, choosing the appropriate means for any given end. The advocate of instrumental rationality could concede that it was up to another instance, beyond their control, to determine the ends of actions and that one might confidently leave this issue to religion or culture. Economics and social sciences, however, must focus on the rational core, that is, on how to choose the means to certain ends. The more congenial and liberal version of a theory of instrumental rationality goes something like this: Persons must determine for themselves what to strive for, what gives their life meaning, and align their actions with these ends. In this picture, science helps to identify the appropriate means to any given end. We abstain from any evaluation or assessment of these ends, not least out of respect for the autonomy of the individual. This modern, liberal version promotes indifference claiming that, ultimately, it is irrelevant what provides orientation to the individual, as long as this orientation does not restrict others in finding their meaning of life and living by their own ideas. One small step further and we are at the onset of a minimalist deontological ethic that acknowledges that our lives follow to a large part pragmatic imperatives. Imperatives that focus on personal happiness or what confers meaning to our lives. Morality must be limited to rules that ensure that any individually chosen lifeform does not deny others the possibility to find a meaningful lifeform of their own. In other words: These rules must reflect the respect for the autonomy of others. If this were true, morality’s subject-matter would have to be limited to what can be validated by the Kantian compatibility test, that is, the Categorical Imperative. At this point, and this may seem strange, the minimal conditions of (economic) rationality we discussed in the previous section interface with the Categorical Imperative as a formal principle of practical reason. Both focus on types of maxims or preference relations, not on their specific content or what motivates them. Pragmatic imperatives, on the other hand, are determined by their content, namely that of human happiness, or more precisely the happiness of the individual agents. This is where Kant exposes himself as a supporter of instrumental rationality. It seems that beyond the a priori synthetic condition of practical reason in the sense of respect for the Moral Law, that is, acting from duty (not only “in accordance with duty”), the practical philosophy of Kant is not only instrumentalist, but even reductionist in the sense of eudaemonism: Apart from the moral motive for acting from duty, that is, out of respect for the

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Moral Law, the only priority is my own well-being—contrary to all lifeworld experience. In our lifeworld experience, the normativity we encounter in all its cultural-specific forms seldom corresponds to the Categorical Imperative.6 Equally rare, however, are actions exclusively motivated by optimizing our own well-being. This might be the case in situations of personal discomfort. We might, for example, have a strong motive for taking a certain medicine that quickly puts an end to pain; or, in a situation of hunger, we prefer one food to another because it is more suitable to alleviate it. As a rule, however, our motives are far more varied and complex. We have made a commitment to others to do something, and we want to fulfill this commitment, we have been asked by others to do something and now want to do it, our social roles charge us with certain duties that we want to fulfill, and so on. Whether our actions optimize our well-being is usually irrelevant. Personal well-being, or distress, becomes relevant only in cases of conflict within a practice guided by these and other categories of practical reasons.7 We pursue certain projects in our lives to which we feel committed. These projects usually do not aim at our well-being. In some cases, when practicing strained rationalization, persons may painfully realize that implementing a certain project will massively impair their own well-being. They might even allow themselves, in a heretical moment, the idea of abandoning this project altogether and enjoying their life. However, they will only do so in the rarest of cases. As soon as everyday practice, interaction with others, the fulfillment of duties and obligations, and their social roles catch up with them, the interest in optimizing personal well-­ being recedes into the background. Personal well-being taking the back seat is even necessary for some patterns of social interaction. Take the highly topical example of Plato8: If a physician provides a diagnosis or prescribes a medication that serves her own well-being, she is not a physician anymore but an egoist or a merchant at best. The focus on the patient’s and not the physician’s well-being is constitutive of genuine medical practice. The shortcomings in the theory of instrumental rationality I have raised so far are only preliminary remarks compared to my central argument 6  Cf. Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1984. Psychology of Moral Development: The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages: Essays on Moral Development Series. New York: Joanna Cotler Books. 7  Cf. Chap. 5. 8  Cf. Plato. Gorgias.

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against this account. This argument will show that there cannot be a (normative) theory of instrumental rationality, that such a theory is logically impossible. This argument is independent of the paradoxes of consequentialism, that is, the problems we run into when we interpret rational action as optimizing consequences. We will address these later.9 The argument is based on the distinction between two different uses of “ought.” The first use is purely descriptive, the second normative. If you go to your bank and inquire how you can invest a certain amount of money so that you get the highest return at the lowest risk, a serious bank employee will make you various offers and point out the relation between interest yield and safety of investment: the safer an investment, the lower the interest yield. The bank employee will then determine the degree to which you are risk-seeking or risk-averse, what other reserves you have, and so on, and will eventually suggest different options varying in risk and returns. Perhaps, once he believes, he has a good understanding of your goals and interests, he will suggest you opt for one specific investment or a mix of different investments. Further inquiry on your part may reveal that this investment is expected to generate the highest interest while the risk of partial or even total loss of the investment is negligible. This use of “ought” can be translated into a purely descriptive factual statement: “This investment achieves, as desired, the highest (expected) interest yield at an extremely low risk of loss.” In this context, the description of this fact fully captures the notion of “ought.” In such cases, the philosophical literature sometimes speaks of hypothetical imperatives, that is, imperatives that make sense only in the context of aiming to realize a certain goal or end. Some philosophers have championed the idea that ethics are exclusively about hypothetical imperatives,10 others claimed that it is ethics’ very nature to formulate categorical imperatives.11 Let us take an example that uses hypothetical imperatives: Sheila asks her friend Mary: “Should I keep my promise to go on holiday with him even though I have met another man?” Mary will inquire about the circumstances, for example, what role this new man plays in Sheila’s life, whether she believes this holiday to be some sort of a last resort to save the  Cf. Chap. 5.  Cf. Foot, Philippa. 1972. Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives. The Philosophical Review 81: 305–316. 11  The ethics of Immanuel Kant and his universal-deontological successors are paradigmatic for this claim. 9

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existing relationship, how serious she was about the promise at that time and how seriously this promise was taken, and so on. In the end, Mary might say: “You should stand by your promise and go on holiday with him” or maybe “The conditions have changed which is why I would explain to him why you are unable to keep the promise you made.” Mary takes Sheila’s interests into account when giving her advice, but—if she is a responsible friend—she will also ensure that if Sheila followed her advice, nobody’s self-respect would be existentially harmed in the hypothetical scenario; no one would have reason to claim unfair treatment, and so on. Such advice is based on weighing reasons and takes place under certain empirical conditions that affect Sheila’s decision. In the end, there is an ought, a claim or assessment of what Sheila—let us use a realistic manner of speaking here—actually ought to do. The friend could insist and say: “Yes, I am convinced that Sheila ought to do this (under the given circumstances).” Maybe she adds, “I’m in favor of Sheila doing this.” This kind of “ought” is not purely descriptive. True, the conditions for the decision influenced the ultimate advice and one could therefore claim that this qualifies as a hypothetical imperative. Still, this ought cannot be reflected in its entirety in the description of an empirical fact. Contrary to the first example, this sentence on what Sheila ought to do cannot be translated into a mere description of facts without a change of meaning. Mary may say: “I am actually convinced that Sheila should keep her promise.” The bank employee will most certainly abstain from such a normative statement. Probably he will evade the request for such a statement and say: “I don’t know what the customer ought to do” or “I don’t presume to judge what the customer ought to do, I limit myself to pointing out potential returns and possible risks”; maybe he has taken an ethics class during his business studies and adds “I refrain from making a normative judgment.” If certain interests are morally acceptable, they provide good reasons for the person having those interests. A theory of rationality is normative, even if it gives normative advice on the condition of specific interests the acting person has, otherwise it is a misuse of title, because it merely describes causal or probabilistic interrelations.

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3.3   Paradoxa of Cooperation The most important red flag for rational choice traditionally understood is the phenomenon of cooperation. This phenomenon jeopardizes some of its characteristic features, such as methodological egoism, normative instrumentalism, radical consequentialism, and atomistic individualism. There have been many attempts to immunize the essence of the homo oeconomicus against criticism. Literature on this issue fills libraries and the debate in economic theory, social sciences, and practical philosophy reminds me of late baroque aesthetics—more and more embellishments have been made and it’s sometimes difficult to remain with the core elements. In game theory, the problem of cooperation is called the prisoner’s dilemma.12 It owes its name to the following story: Two thieves have committed an armed robbery and are arrested by the police shortly afterward. As they were armed, they can be charged with the criminal possession of a weapon. There is, however, no proof that they committed the robbery as well. Now, both thieves are remanded in custody in separate cells and are interrogated separately. They have two options: To confess or not to confess, that is, remain silent. For the sake of argument, we are in a legal system that grants the status of a principal witness for the prosecution also in cases of smaller offenses and not only in cases of a felony. This means, if one of the two culprits support the prosecution in resolving the case with his confession, he would get away without punishment. This would be the case if the other prisoner did not confess to the robbery. If both confess, no one will be released as the prosecution’s principal witness and they will serve a long, say, ten-year prison sentence. If both remain silent, they will each be sentenced to one year in prison for criminal possession of a weapon. The accused who does not confess but is still convicted of robbery since the other does confess will be sentenced to eleven years of prison since his lack of willingness to cooperate increases his sentence. Let us assume both prisoners do not have altruistic feelings for each other. In their current situation, all they want to do is save their own skin, that is, try to get the shortest sentence possible. Each of the two prisoners can choose to confess or to remain silent. This leaves us with four possible combinations: both confess (both get ten years in jail), both do not confess (both get one year in jail), one confesses and is released as a principal witness of the prosecution and the other does not confess and gets  Cf. Appendix, Prisoner’s Dilemma.

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sentenced to eleven years in prison (in either combination). Thus, confessing is obviously the dominant strategy since it presents the criminal with the most favorable decision option under all possible conditions: Assuming the other prisoner confesses, it is better for him to confess as well, because otherwise he will face eleven years in prison instead of ten. Now suppose the other prisoner remains silent, then he can go free by confessing and become the prosecution’s principal witness and he thus does not even have to spend one year in prison for carrying an illegal weapon. Again, confessing is the dominant strategy for both prisoners. What could be a reason not to choose a strategy with which I can achieve my goals to a greater extent than with any other available strategy? Rational agents, it seems, should choose dominant strategies. Unfortunately, however, the combination of the two dominant strategies (or the n-dominant strategies for n-agents in n-person prisoner’s dilemmas) does worse in terms of the prisoner’s individual goals than if they had jointly chosen the non-dominant (dominated, suboptimal) strategy. In this specific case, both prisoners will unnecessarily spend nine years in prison (if they both had not confessed the crime, they would have faced one year in prison, since they both have now confessed, they are each sentenced to ten years in prison). If each of the two prisoners consults a lawyer, he will probably recommend confessing, since it seems unlikely that the first prisoner’s confession increases the probability of the other prisoner confessing as well. Interestingly, right from the outset of the debate on social dilemmas, Anatol Rapoport,13 one of the pioneers of the research on cooperation 13  Rapoport, Anatol and Albert M.  Chammah. 1965. Prisoner’s Dilemma. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. For a more recent overview of experimental findings on the prisoner’s dilemma see Sally, David. 1995. Conversation and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas. Rationality and Society 7: 58–92, and on the (positive) relationship between intelligence and cooperation (groups of more intelligent people are more likely to cooperate): Al-Ubaydli, Omar, Garett Jones and Jaap Weel. 2016. Average Player Traits as Predictors of Cooperation in a Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 64: 5–60; and for a compact presentation of the role of trust and reciprocity in solving social dilemma situations in collective, culturally embedded practice, see a lecture by 2009 Nobel Laureate in Economics Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory of Collective Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association 1997. American Political Science Review 92: 1–22, and her major work: 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. An interesting result: Dreber, Anna, David Rand, Drew Fudenberg and Martin Nowak. 2008. Winners Don’t Punish. Nature 425: 348–351.

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dilemmas had already countered the abovementioned approach with the symmetry of the decision-making situation: Since both agents are facing the same dilemma, they can assume that, if they are both equally rational, they will arrive at the same conclusion. If one rational agent chooses to cooperate, the other will do the same because both are in the same situation. It seems, then, that under these conditions, there are only two possible combinations, either both confess or both remain silent. I find Rapoport’s interpretation implausible for two reasons: First, because this argument seems to establish a causal interdependence based on rationality theory, and second, because in his interpretation cooperation would be the only rational option. Instead, the causal and epistemic independence of each individual’s decision is constitutive of the cooperation dilemma. The combination of an instrumental conception of rationality—an action is nothing but a means to optimize certain ends—with methodological egoism, according to which each agent focuses on optimizing his own utility, leaves “confessing” as the only rational option in types of decision-­ making situations like the prisoner’s dilemma. The situation changes once we allow altruistic motives: Suppose the other prisoner does not confess which means that, if both prisoners do not confess, both face a prison sentence of only one year for criminal possession of a weapon. In this case, the decision to confess results in a decrease by one year for one prisoner (because the prisoner who confesses becomes the witness of the prosecution and is ultimately free to go). For the other prisoner, on the other hand, it results in an increase by ten years, that is, from one year (criminal possession of a weapon) to eleven years for robbery and lack of cooperation with the prosecution. If the altruistic share of the motivation for action is high enough to allocate a tenth of the weighting, the slightly altruistic criminal would be indifferent about confessing and not confessing on the condition that the other prisoner chooses not to confess. If the altruistic tendency intensifies and exceeds one-tenth, the altruistic thief prefers “not to confess” in this scenario. If the other prisoner confesses, the number of prison years for the (first) prisoner could also be decreased by one year (from eleven to ten), while for the other prisoner the number of prison years would again be reduced by ten years if the first prisoner did not confess (the other prisoner would then be released as a principal witness of the prosecution). Allocating one-tenth of the weighting is sufficient to generate a rational indifference between confessing and not confessing; and if the altruistic tendency of the thief were to exceed one-­ tenth, not confessing would become rational, although this means that the

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one confessing would face eleven years in prison as the only convict. It goes without saying, that this is not a general solution for guaranteeing cooperation in prisoner’s dilemma cases, it depends on the distribution of outcomes, here years in prison. However, characterizing altruism in terms of weighting factors is far too coarse. It is unlikely to assume that the willingness to take the other prisoner’s interests into account will remain the same regardless of how the other prisoner decides. Rather, we can assume that the other prisoner’s decision not to cooperate plus the fact that he would be the only one benefitting from his own cooperation, will drastically reduce the criminal’s willingness to consider the interests of the other prisoner. The altruistic thieves re-evaluate the consequences of their actions because they, at least to some extent, abandon minimizing their own prison stay as their only goal. They consider the negative consequences of one extra year in prison for the other prisoner. In the following analysis, we drop the premise of methodological egoism: We no longer assume that every rational decision exclusively serves the optimization of self-interest. In other words: We allow for the possibility of motives for action other than the optimization of self-interest. Let us assume, then, that even rational persons can have motives for action other than the optimization of their own interests. Although economic theory and its application is dominated by methodological egoism, some economists are willing to include altruistic motives for action as a supplement to egoistic motives in their analysis. Consequently, the complexity of practical reasons is reduced to two types: egoistic and altruistic. This reductionist account averts increased complexity in the analysis of action motives and sustains the model of optimization of outcomes in the sense of subjective well-being. Now it is not only personal subjective well-being that is important, but also under certain circumstances (with a certain weighting factor) the subjective well-being of others. This assumption leaves methodological egoism behind, but still excludes cooperation as a reason for action. Economic rationality considers Pareto-inefficient distributions (including outcomes of an interaction situation) as undesirable. After all, everybody could be better off if they had only made a different decision. An instrumental conception of rationality is sufficient to arrive at this result: The participants strive for goals that they do not fully achieve. The two prisoners unnecessarily spent nine years in prison (the law enforcement authorities or the public which is interested in their prosecution certainly

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have a different take on the matter). The question is, then: Does a certain degree of altruism provide a plausible resolution of the dilemma? And can we then expect this form of altruism also in cases where we are uncooperative while the others involved in the interaction, that is, n-persons, are cooperative? These considerations may have prompted Amartya Sen, to distinguish between three levels of morality regarding the cooperation dilemma: The first level is egoism: All persons involved optimize their own interests, in this case, minimize their prison stay, and as a result, end up in prison for ten years. Mutual confession is an equilibrium point in dominant strategies. The second level of morality is reached if the persons involved cooperate only under the condition that the others cooperate as well. Sen called this type of interaction Assurance Game.14 In this case there are two equilibrium points depending on the mutual expectations of agents involved. If both expect the other to cooperate, they both cooperate and spend only one year in prison each. If, however, they mutually expect the other not to cooperate, both will refuse cooperation and spend ten years in prison as the consequence of their unwillingness to cooperate (or rather, of their assessment of the other agent’s willingness to cooperate). Tragedy strikes both thieves if they are both willing to cooperate but falsely assume that the other prisoner is not: The poor assessment of motives leads to non-­ cooperation although both are willing to cooperate. The third and highest level of morality is reached, according to Sen, if the persons involved cooperate, even if they assume that the others will not cooperate. Interestingly, Sen calls this interaction situation Other Regarding. As if the only possible motivation for an agent’s unconditional willingness to cooperate was altruism. At this point, it seems indeed adequate to speak of three levels of morality: The higher the level of morality, the stronger the willingness to cooperate. One condition for the willingness to cooperate is increased consideration for others. As plausible as this interpretation seems, it is spurious. Cooperation cannot be secured through altruistic motivations, as we have seen. What is more: The cooperation dilemma reveals the most fundamental flaw in traditional rational choice theory. Fixing this flaw requires a paradigm shift from a myopic and atomistic perspective to a 14  Cf. Sen, Amartya. 1974. Choice, Ordering and Morality. In Practical Reason, ed. Stephan Körner. Oxford: Blackwell. See “Structural Rationality in Game Theory”, in StructR, part II.

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structural and holistic one. Structural rationality has at its core the thesis that genuine cooperation—in contrast to what traditional rational choice theory claims—is possible. Such a radical paradigm shift requires careful explanation, or better, preparation. I want to pave the way for abandoning one prevailing dogma in rational choice theory that fascinates even those who are aware of its problematic implications. Could we take the findings of the last paragraphs as an indicator for being on the right track? If this were so, it would be the premise of methodological egoism and not that of instrumental rationality that led to the cooperation dilemma. It seems odd that the necessary degree of altruism to overcome the cooperation dilemma, i.e., the weighting with which the interest of others factor into our assessment of consequences, depends on the specific allocation of consequences to each person involved. In our example a weighting factor of only one-tenth is sufficient. A different distribution of prison years among both agents would require a higher or lower degree of altruism to overcome the cooperation dilemma. Some readers will find that quite plausible: If major personal interests are on the line, it requires a high degree of altruism to overcome the egoist perspective. If the stakes are low, a low degree of altruism is enough. Extreme cases on the other hand require an extreme degree of altruism to generate the willingness to cooperate. In fact, the situation is quite different: Altruistic persons can transform original interaction situations into a new one that via altruistic transfers has become a cooperation dilemma.15 It seems not true, then, that increased altruism would rid us of the cooperation problem. If the interests of others are considered less important than one’s own, we might speak of “weak altruism.” Conversely of “strong altruism” as soon as the weighting of the interests of others exceeds one’s own. The extreme case would be the weighting of one’s own interests approaching zero while the interests of others approach a weighting of one. The sum of the weighting factors should always amount to one (in all n-person situations). Even more important and fundamental, however, is the following objection: There is no reasonable ethical theory that prefers Pareto-­ inefficient distributions to Pareto-efficient ones. Any theory of ethics, including theories of justice, ranging from contract theories of ethics and 15  Cf. Saint’s Dilemma in Rescher, Nicholas. 1975. Unselfishness: The Role of the Vicarious Affects in Moral Philosophy and Social Theory. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press: 41ff. Cf. Appendix, Saint’s Dilemma.

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utilitarianism to Kantianism and ideal observer theories are Pareto-­ inclusive16: Reasonable ethical theories require persons to behave in ways that do not unnecessarily damage everyone involved. In the world of our artificial example which has only two agents and factors out all external effects (deterrence effect of state punishment, dissatisfaction of those who learn that a criminal has been released), all reasonable ethical theories demand cooperative behavior instead of uncooperative behavior. If we were to adhere to a concept of instrumental rationality and considered merely the interests of others, we would always have to choose the weighting factors in such a way that cooperation is possible to meet the requirements of all reasonable ethical theories. It seems implausible to determine the degree of altruism on a case-by-case basis and thereby ensure cooperation between all agents involved. In fact, there exists such a (sufficiently high) degree of altruism for every cooperation dilemma. It seems more plausible, however, to search for a universal degree of altruism that applies to all cooperation dilemmas and enables cooperation or, even better, guarantees it. This level of altruism exists: It is reached when the weighting factor for one’s own interests and the interests of others is exactly the same. Cooperation is guaranteed for any distribution of positive and negative outcomes in the form of consequences of collective decisions (here: combinations of individual decisions) if everyone allocated the same weight to their interest as to the interests of others. The same weighing of all interests excludes the possibility of insufficient altruism which would result in the original dilemma situation (i.e., the phenomenon that each person’s optimization leads to an overall worse result for each person). At the same time, it prevents a non-dilemma situation to transform into a dilemma situation via altruistic transfers of utility. There is a possibility, then, of maintaining cooperation based on altruistic motives for action and sustaining the instrumental conception of rationality. This seems to prove that we can convincingly overcome the challenges of cooperation with instrumental rationality once we abandon methodological egoism. We could even go further and claim this result to be a justification of act-utilitarianism. A person who equally weighs the 16  The Rawlsian Difference principle fulfills this condition, and so does the vast majority of its competitors, e. g. utilitarian theories of justice. Problems arise when we incorporate individual rights and the historical genesis of distributions, as libertarian theories do, most prominently Robert Nozick’s in Anarchy, State and Utopia. As Sen’s liberal paradox shows, this can result in an incompatibility between (the execution of) individual rights and Pareto-optimality.

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interests of all others involved acts according to the utilitarian criterion. The sum of utility allocates the same weight to each person, that is, the utility functions are summed all with the weighting factor. The maximization (in case of probabilistic scenarios, the optimization) of this sum, qualifies the same actions as instrumentally rational as the actions of an altruistically motivated agent who allocates the same weight to all individual interests. There seems to be no problem of cooperation in a utilitarian society. So, cooperation is guaranteed concerning one specific form of altruistic motivation. The respective decision equally optimizes the interests of all, all are treated equally, and Pareto-inefficient distributions (as consequences of collective actions) no longer occur. This scenario, however, comes at a price. One that is too high, I believe: The incorporation of cooperation as an everyday phenomenon in rational theory is based on a prerequisite that never occurs in reality: All persons allocate the same weight to their own interests and the interests of others and choose an action that maximizes the sum of all interests involved. I consider the demand to equally consider my interests and the interests of others with whom I have no friendly or family relationship to be supererogatory, that is, beyond what can reasonably be asked for. The only explanation for the fact that so many ethicists (i.e., all those in the utilitarian camp) do not consider this demand to be absurd is, I believe, the unjustified equation of this implausible demand with that of equal treatment. It is plausible to demand that the rules restricting agents striving for individual optimization are designed such that they take the interests of all into account equally. This requirement is also plausible because reasonable rules should be acceptable to everybody. This claim for rules being acceptable to all and considering all interests equally, in turn, is not supererogatory only if these rules leave sufficient leeway for choosing a personal lifestyle, in other words: If they are perceived as deontological, not consequentialist rules. We all have an equal interest in ensuring that the rule to keep promises is respected and that it restricts the optimization of self-interests: In many situations, I put my self-interest aside to adhere to this rule. This is not supererogatory because this rule leaves enough leeway to live my life the way I want and to prioritize my own interests. If these rules denied us such a leeway, that is, uniquely determined what to do in every situation, it would be incompatible with the autonomy, the authorship of one’s life, the prioritizing of personal interests and projects, as well as with interests and projects of those close to me. However, just from the fact that these

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rules are generally acceptable since they do not favor anyone and can therefore be supported by everyone, we cannot derive the utilitarian criterion of maximizing the sum of utility. The utilitarian criterion is consequentialist; that is, it requires acting in such a way that the utility sum is optimized. There is no leeway for one’s own way of life, for personal responsibility, for individual projects, for special interests. This approach cannot account for the asymmetry between what is personal and what is foreign that is deeply rooted in our lifeworld. There is no room for the separateness of persons, as John Rawls called his most fundamental objection to utilitarianism. This would mean too great a sacrifice for the sake of cooperation. It cannot be the case that cooperative behavior has such strong prerequisites, especially since empirical findings unambiguously prove how prevalent cooperation is. Within the framework of a theory of instrumental rationality, general cooperation proves to be impossible or only possible under conditions whose realization we cannot demand or expect.

3.4  The Structural Interpretation of Cooperative Decisions No matter how you slice it, we cannot hope to solve the problem of cooperation and explain cooperative actions of persons, by tinkering with the assessment of the consequences. Indeed, these assessments and evaluations may vary a great deal, but they are just one thing—the willingness to cooperate is another. The amalgamation of the assessment of consequences with willingness to cooperate is systematically misguided. Nevertheless, it dominated the literature on the prisoner’s dilemma for decades. The reason for this is obvious: The rather dogmatic fixation on a consequentialist and at the same time radically individualistic (atomistic) conception of rationality. Thus, an adequate explication of the phenomenon of cooperation requires giving up on this fixation. We must transition from a consequentialist conception of individual (atomistic) rationality to a structural conception of rationality. Such a structural conception of rationality does not postulate the replacement of individual agents with collective agents. Neither does it advocate rule fetishism. Nevertheless, it is an alternative to the consequentialist conception as we will see. We understand cooperation as a paradigmatic example of structural rationality. Suppose you go to your bank where you encounter a scrupulous financial advisor. She still vividly remembers how recklessly banks recommended seemingly bomb-proof investments that eventually turned

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out to be unprofitable during the financial crisis. They offer two forms of investment, both with an investment sum of 10,000 euros over ten years. The best-case scenario for the first investment would be a total return of 4000 euros. In the worst-case scenario of another financial crisis, however, interest income would be reduced by half. The second investment would, under the expected favorable conditions, generate an interest income of only 3000 euros; in the event of another financial crisis, however, the advisor expects merely a return on investment of 1000 euros. It goes without saying that the investment decision has no impact whatsoever on the likelihood of another global financial crisis. And since there are only two alternatives, the rational decision is obviously the first investment strategy since it has dominance over the second alternative: Whatever the circumstances, it is better to choose the first type of investment. Anyone who opts for the second investment strategy, despite the available information, is clearly acting irrationally, if we assume that there are no other relevant aspects to this assessment; for example, the second strategy would invest in a sustainable financial practice while the first one would not. Now, let us assume the expected return on investment did not depend on the global economy and the occurrence of another financial crisis in particular, but on the decision of another person with the same conditions regarding the returns on investment. The actual payout depends exclusively on the other person choosing between the first and second investment strategy. If both agents choose the second alternative, they both receive a return of 3000 euros; if they both choose the first alternative, the return is only 2000 euros. If one person opts for the first investment strategy and the other for the second, the return for the person choosing the first strategy is 4000 euros while it is only 1000 euros for the person who chose the second strategy. The reader will have already recognized this example as a mere reformulation of the prisoner’s dilemma. In this case, however, a high percentage of people are willing to opt for the second investment strategy, even though the first strategy is dominant in the game-theoretic sense, that is, yields higher returns regardless of how the other person decides. The decision situation, one might argue, has not changed between the first case (an uncontrollable event such as another financial crisis affecting payout) and the second case (the uncontrollable decision of another person affecting payout). If choosing the first strategy is rational (as we assumed) in the first case, this must apply to the second case as well. Nothing changed for the agent. It seems, then, that there is no difference

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between payout being affected by environmental conditions or another person’s decision. If this were true, we would have to admit that cooperation, that is, choosing the second investment strategy, is always irrational in interaction situations exhibiting such a payout structure. In fact, however, there is a fundamental difference and the fact that this difference is not captured (cannot be captured) by rational choice orthodoxy points to a fundamental flaw in this conception of rationality, which we can only overcome by taking a structural perspective. The action-guiding intentions of agents are what links a person to a structural perspective. If agents in a prisoner’s dilemma situation cooperate and opt for the second investment strategy, knowing well that in both cases, that is, irrespective of how the other person decides, the first investment strategy yields higher returns, and are also aware that mutually deciding for the second investment strategy yields a higher return for both (3000 euros each) than both opting for the first investment strategy (2000 euros each), we could justify their decisions as follows: “I wanted to do my part in us both (possibly) being successful together” (“While expecting the other person to do the same”). If the other person turns out to be non-cooperative, the person willing to cooperate is usually disappointed. This type of action-guiding intentionality is possible only in situations of interaction, that is, situations where persons interact with at least one other person and are not confronted with environmental factors alone. A cooperative attitude toward the weather or other natural events would be irrational, although such behavior is typical for animistic cultures and surprisingly widespread in post-animistic cultures such as ours. We could— admittedly cynically—say that animism is useful: Persons who believe that they can influence the behavior of others with their willingness to cooperate are—collectively, not distributively—better off. Indeed, a community of agents willing to cooperate achieves higher individual utility (utility here is understood as preference fulfillment) than communities of individually optimizing agents. We can demystify cooperative action if we take a structural perspective, if we take it to be possible that a rational person intends to contribute to a common cooperative practice, respectively if we consider such a motive for action as permissible for rational agents. Contrary to what it claims, contemporary rational choice orthodoxy is not neutral regarding individual preferences: Persons are not free to determine their action-guiding preferences. The rational agent must choose the dominating strategy, and this means in an interaction of the prisoner’s dilemma type not to cooperate, because cooperation is dominated, not

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dominating. But the preference for acting cooperatively is not inherently irrational, this should be part of any adequate theory of rationality. Considering cooperative action as rationally permissible has far-reaching consequences. It requires breaking with the exclusive orientation toward individual optimization of outcomes. Cooperative action has an irreducible structural aspect: It can only be grasped within a structure of interaction (prisoner’s dilemma); that is, information on outcomes for given alternatives alone is not enough, as we have seen in the investment example. We take cooperation as the paradigmatic example of structural rationality. Let me stress that I do not claim that non-cooperative behavior in prisoner’s dilemma situations is irrational. But I do claim that cooperative behavior in prisoner’s dilemma situations can be rational and that this form of rationality has an irreducible structural character. We must take the interactive structure into account (which goes beyond outcome functions), otherwise cooperation remains irrational. Once we abandon the consequentialist (instrumental) conception of rationality, we can develop an unbiased understanding of cooperation: It should be taken seriously as a motive for action: This motive cannot be reduced to a re-assessment of consequences. Cooperation is not brought about by re-assessing consequences, it is a separate type of motivation, which cannot be described by the intention to optimize consequences. Cooperating means choosing an action that, if others behave accordingly, is collectively rational. In other words: Cooperation is a decision against the strategy of individual optimization in cases where the combination of these strategies leads to collective irrationality. Cooperation is a common motive for action17 and we should take this phenomenon for what it is: A specific, important type of intentionality, which can be described as follows: I want to contribute my part to a cooperative practice, knowing full well I can choose another strategy that optimizes the consequences of my actions regardless of what others do. This means, I consciously and rationally decide against optimizing the consequences of my actions and instead in favor of my individual contribution to a cooperative practice, which I hope will be realized by the fact that others are also motivated by cooperation. 17  Numerous empirical studies confirm this, for example, Sennett, Richard. 2012. Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-Operation. London: Penguin Books; Henrich, Joseph and Natalie Henrich. 2007. Why Humans Cooperate: A Cultural and Evolutionary Explanation. Oxford: Oxford University Press; and Tomasello, Michael. 2009. Why We Cooperate. Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press.

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3.5  Rational Cooperation The foundational crisis of neoclassical economics triggered a recent trend toward so-called behavioral economics. This trend leaves the mainstream paradigm of rational choice theory intact but insists that individual real-­ life behavior diverts significantly from it. The findings of behavioral economics are of great interest for a structural theory of practical reason. Both accounts assign an important role to structures (and regularities). Behavioral economics interprets these as empirical findings that restrict economic rationality by casting doubt on the concept of homo oeconomicus as an analytical tool for real economic processes. This is an important common feature of both behavioral economics and my own theory: I too doubt that the homo oeconomicus model is adequate, in its radical form of methodological egoism as well as in the watered-down form of consequentialist optimization. Unlike behavioral economics, however, I do not believe that this criticism requires abandoning “rationalist” premises, that is, the assumption that persons are capable of rational behavior. Rather, it exposes an inadequate model of rationality. Not all, but many regularities analyzed in behavioral economics do not indicate a (systematic) deviation from the criteria for rational choice but point to the shortcomings of an instrumental, consequentialist, and atomistic understanding of rationality in economics, large parts of contemporary social sciences, and even in practical philosophy. Of course, I do not claim that all observable regularities can be interpreted as aspects of structural rationality, but it is a reasonable heuristic assumption that most of them do.18 Cooperation is a paradigm for this. As discussed in the previous section, the empirical findings on the cooperation problem reveal a clear tendency: Agents tend to cooperate if they expect cooperative behavior from others. According to rational choice orthodoxy, however, cooperation is always irrational. Behavioral economics usually objects: Since cooperation is an undeniable fact and the extent to which it occurs depends on the respective surrounding conditions (framing), these behavioral regularities must be incorporated in empirical analysis, even if it is irrational. This, however, implicitly concedes, that the model of homo oeconomicus in contemporary economics adequately characterizes rationality. If this were not the case, we would first need to analyze which behavioral regularities qualify as rational or irrational. We  As will be exemplified in Chap. 5.

18

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would first have to determine whether empirical findings on the problem of cooperation indicate that agents are mostly irrational. We thus choose a clearly different approach in discussing rational choice orthodoxy: We do not contrast empirical behavioral regularities with ideals of rationality theory, we examine two different ideals of rationality. One is virtually incompatible with our lifeworld and economic practice, while the other ties in closely with it. One rationality conception proceeds deductively, the other (predominantly) in an inductive or coherentist manner. One accepts optimizing consequences—in the case of methodological egoism, optimizing self-interest—as the only reason for action, the other acknowledges the irreducible plurality of practical reasons. We will argue for the latter and use our opponent’s arguments in doing so. What is more: We will not alter the theoretical core of the opposing approach (the utility theorem, as discussed above), and we do not claim that the economic theory of rationality (ideal economic agents optimizing their returns) is useless. Rational choice can prove itself quite useful in understanding certain areas of human practice, even in its most narrow interpretation of methodological egoism, atomism, and consequentialism. As a general concept of practical reason, however, it is inadequate. One major reason is that it does not account for the possibility of cooperation being rational. Pareto-optimality does not guarantee collective rationality, but any Pareto-inefficient collective decision is collectively irrational. Pareto-­ optimality is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for collective rationality. The structural dimension becomes relevant as soon as a person who faces a decision situation like the prisoner’s dilemma realizes that there is a combination of individual strategies that is more desirable than the combination of individual strategies that is realized when each agent aims exclusively at optimizing the consequences individually. The willingness to cooperate is a rational reaction to this realization: A person is willing to play their part in avoiding a collectively irrational decision. What could justify rejecting such a motive for action? Why should a respective intention to act be considered inherently irrational? We would violate the postulate of neutrality if we were to take the orthodox view. We would regard a comprehensible, widespread, socially desirable, ethically

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necessary19 motive for action as irrational based on nothing more than one specific, indeed inadequate conception of rationality according to which the single act must always optimize its consequences. The price for sustaining a consequentialist account of rationality is too high. The abstract (strictly speaking, meta-theoretical) principle of individual optimization clashes with the abstract principle of neutrality. We now see that both principles are mutually exclusive because there are cases in which only one of them can apply. Cooperation as a paradigm case confronts us with two alternatives: Either we abandon atomistic consequentialism or we abandon the possibility of rational cooperation and thereby the principle of neutrality. I propose that we abandon consequentialism (as a meta-­ criterion of rationality). I believe that this meta-criterion is based on a widespread though erroneous interpretation of the utility theorem in economics and the social sciences. The “costs” of abandoning this criterion are therefore significantly lower than it would seem to most advocates of consequentialist rationality. The fundamental postulates of the utility theorem remain unchanged. We merely dismiss their consequentialist interpretation, which indeed enjoys great popularity, but is not the only interpretation available. We accept that willingness to cooperate can be a rational motive for action and abandon thereby a specific atomistic and consequentialist version of rational choice. We based our definition of cooperation on the prisoner’s dilemma as a specific type of interaction. When faced with it, cooperation means choosing a strategy that is Pareto-efficient—provided that the other participants also decide in favor of this collective strategy. According to this definition, agents cooperate if they refrain from optimizing the consequences of their actions to contribute to the realization of a combination of single actions that is Pareto-efficient. The negative definition would be a person cooperates if she decides against the dominant strategy in prisoner’s dilemma situations.

19  Virtually all ethical theories require cooperative decision-making in prisoner’s dilemma situations. From the vantage point of deontological Kantian ethics, the reason is obvious since willingness to cooperate is the only universalizable maxim. For pluralistic deontological Rossian ethics, willingness to cooperate is a prima facie duty. For act-utilitarian theories, cooperation is required when the individual cooperative action results in the optimization of the sum of utilities. Whether an action meets this requirement, depends on the specific payouts in the prisoner’s dilemma, which we must assume to be interpersonally comparable. Also, rule-utilitarian theories demand cooperative behavior throughout.

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The analysis becomes more complex with the availability of different options for cooperation. Sometimes, this is merely a question of coordination, that is, all those involved must coordinate their actions. In other cases, however, there are conflicts of interest between different cooperative solutions, which can result in decisions that are taken together collectively irrational, or Pareto-inefficient.20 The availability of multiple cooperative solutions21 might reduce the person’s willingness to cooperate: “I am basically willing to contribute to a cooperative solution, provided that it is fair,” or “I am basically willing to contribute to a cooperative solution, provided that it does not violate my individual rights,” and so on. The process of choosing one cooperative solution (which is realized only if everyone contributes to it) may result in a new type of decision-­ making situation, namely of the type of battle of the sexes.22 We can illustrate this matrix as the situation of a couple having a conflict of interests, for example regarding their individual contribution to the household income or about who assumes which family responsibilities ( or ). Both participants have a clear preference for “staying together” over “separation” (both participants prefer or over “separation” ). We denote him by A and her by B. Now, if A tells B that he will, in any case, opt for the first strategy (first line), regardless of what his wife does, she (rational as she is) optimizes her interests by choosing her first strategy as well (first column). In other words: A won the conflict of interest versus . Interaction situations like the battle of the sexes may seem irritating because once an “irrational” person decisively chooses a certain strategy (and communicates this choice), this person prevails independently of the consequences for a rational person who only acts

20  David Gauthier’s theory in Morals by Agreement presents an attempt to solve this problem by developing the criterion of relative maximum concession. Among all Pareto-­efficient results of a bargaining game, the criterion identifies exactly one result that should be acceptable to all parties, because it accords the smallest possible concession to the person having to make the largest concession relative to their own optimum (compared to the available alternatives) and because the reference point for the relative concessions is not merely the random starting point of the distribution of goods, but respects a Lockean proviso according to which only those distributions count as legitimate starting points that have come about without any violation of individual rights. Cf. Gauthier, David. 1986. Morals by Agreement. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 21  Here, “multiple” merely means “more than one”; this may also include “infinitely many”, for example in the case of the continuous distribution of a good. 22  Cf. Appendix, Battle of the Sexes.

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after weighing the consequences of their actions. In this constellation, irrationality seems to pay off while rationality loses out. Just as with the prisoner’s dilemma, our question is this: What is the rationally recommended mode of action? Assuming A not only knows that B considers the consequences of her actions, but that she optimizes them as well. Then A can simply win the conflict of interest by announcing that he chooses his first strategy. He can be sure that B will accordingly choose her first strategy over the second one, since the second strategy would be better only if A chose his second strategy as well. The order in which agents choose seems to be pivotal in this scenario: Who is first in announcing his or her strategy and places the other in a tight spot? For B to give in it is sufficient for her to know that A (being a Vabanque player) aims at his own advantage and loves the risks. It seems, then, that the proverb “The wiser head gives in” is true—and stupidity wins the day? If one understands rationality as the guarantee for increasing the success of an action or at least the probability of success, this result is confusing. The structural dimension at play is even more obvious in another version of this game format: A tells B: “If you don’t do what I want (choose the first column), I will make sure that you suffer significant damage— regardless of the fact that my action will also damage my self-­interest ().” The one who is not intimidated by the threat of considerable damage and still does what she thinks is right, even if it is to her disadvantage, deserves our respect—the stubborn player in the battle of the sexes does not. The form of interaction remains the same, but the normative assessment changes. In both cases, however, considering the structural dimension results in a more refined and plausible analysis. The person not giving in to extortion has a certain disposition to act, and if others are aware of this disposition, they will not even try to blackmail this person. The interpretation of such behavior as (postmodern) “staging” or attempts to influence the actions of others may be beside the point. It overlooks the structural character of being immune to blackmailing. The causalist alternative, according to which structural characteristics are effects of socialization, which restrict the person’s alternatives for action, that is, causally affect their behavior, is misguided. Character traits do not limit a person’s autonomy, they are, ideally, an expression of autonomy. Aristotle was aware of this connection: In his Nicomachean Ethics, he describes virtues as being a hexis (attitude) as well as a prohairesis (expression of a decision or individual preference). Virtues (character traits) are not just results of a process of socialization that forces us to overcome the

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natural order and to enter a social order, they are expressions of the authorship of our lives, of our ability to give life structure and meaning. The individual optimizer would disintegrate, only the structurally rational agent can preserve his identity over time. The respective preferences reflect not only instantaneous propositional attitudes, but they also reflect general attitudes, virtues, and preferences, that is, that which provides structure to a person’s life. Introducing stubbornness into a battle of the sexes means attributing a structural element. This is extremely relevant for the analysis, for if this structural characteristic did not exist, A announcing his strategy would make little impression on B. The second interpretation of the battle of the sexes involves a reinterpretation of the ordinal numbers, which now represent evaluations that transcend individual interests. The person insusceptible to extortion not only aims to optimize her own interests, but she also aims at doing what she believes is right despite (illegitimate) threats. The person willing to cooperate usually reveals a structural attitude as well, namely an evaluation that applies to situations like the prisoner’s dilemma in general, not just to specific realizations of it. This does not amount to abandoning the conditionality of a person’s willingness to cooperate. I am willing to cooperate if I can expect others to cooperate. If I cannot expect the cooperation of the other person involved, I do not opt for the cooperative alternative and instead optimize my individual outcome. The Kantian agent, too, has made a structural decision: He tests his maxims for their suitability to become a general rule of action. If a maxim fails the test, he does not adhere to it. In prisoner’s dilemma situations, however, the results of this test are quite ambivalent: Our prisoners, testing their maxim, might each conclude the following: “I cannot wish to live in a society (of thieves) who, when under pressure, rat out their accomplices. The maxim of blowing the whistle on my accomplice whenever it serves my own interests cannot be universalized (in a society of thieves).” If we provide an index for the decision situation (“thief practice”), cooperation is a moral duty for Kantian thieves. The question “Can I wish to live in a society in which thieves remain silent in such situations?” may lead, however, to the maxim’s rejection. This implies that the index for thief practice has been revoked. The claim that such an index is inadmissible according to Kantian ethics is invalid since Kant’s own examples permit such indices. Whatever the result of the Kantian maxim test, it seems obvious to me that even unconditional cooperation (as a possible result of

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the test) can be rational. Why shouldn’t a person identify with this structural feature of her behavior and accordingly make a structurally rational decision? This would give her life a structure and possibly make her prone to exploitation by others (the decent becomes the stupid), but this need not concern the rational Kantian person. The neutrality requirement still applies: We should regard such motives for action as possibly rational (we should not, however, make cooperative motive a rule). Cooperation can be rational even if one cannot expect others to cooperate and even if one should expect others to refuse cooperation. Even the rigid moral agent is not necessarily irrational.

3.6  Collective Intentionality Cooperation is realized when each participant wants to contribute to a common practice that he knows is desirable or at least acceptable to all participants and which would be preferable (from each person’s perspective) to the collective practice which would result from the optimization of individual consequences of action. This is a form of collective intentionality: I want us to do something, and I am willing to do my part. Collective intentionality is constituted by the reciprocal individual assessments, which determine whether collective intentions are at hand. All participants having the same intentions is not enough for collective intentions. All children in a class wanting the rest of the day off because of hot weather is merely a collective desire. Collective intentions, however, require all participants to be aware that others have the same desire as they do. This desire transforms into a collective intention if it becomes the motivation for an action (motivating collective intention) or is directed at the execution of a collective action (prior collective intention or collective decision). The simplest form of collective intention is thus: 1. All persons want a collective action (i.e., nothing other than a combination of single actions) to be executed. 2. Every person knows that (1).

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3. Every person knows that (2).23 Everybody not only has an intention to act (which is directed at the realization of the same collective action), all participants also have a collective knowledge about everybody’s individual intention to act. An important characteristic of collective intentionality is thus the willingness to contribute to a reasonable collective practice as well as the epistemic situation of collective intentionality, that is, the common knowledge about the individual willingness to act. In this case, however, prohairetic attitudes interlock with epistemic attitudes: My willingness to act does not simply occur at the individual level, it is conditional upon the expectation that others share this willingness to act. My intention to act (to contribute to cooperation) therefore depends on me expecting (assuming or even knowing) others to be willing to cooperate. Collective intentionality in the paradigmatic case of cooperation is thus based on two inextricably linked propositional attitudes: action-guiding desires (intentions) and expectations (knowledge) about the intentions of others. We already established that cooperation is not defined by the assessment and evaluation of consequences alone. The information about consequences and the assessment of possible combinations of single actions is insufficient to adequately describe a situation in which cooperative actions are possible. An adequate description must consider the (conceptual!) interdependence between the epistemic and prohairetic propositional attitudes. This conceptual (analytical) link is constitutive of cooperation. Collective intentionality does not presuppose collective agents. It does not assume, in addition to individual agents, a type of collective agent to whom we could ascribe mental states such as intentions or knowledge. Collective intentionality is grounded in individual persons and the relations that hold between them. Cooperation is constituted by individual persons and their epistemic as well as prohairetic propositional attitudes. Individual persons are not functions of a collective will as is claimed by collectivist approaches such as Marxism, Hegelianism, Systems Theory (Luhmann) or Social Darwinism. Individuals are not the puppets or executive body of a collective will. The collective will (i.e., the intentionality pertaining to 23  These replications can be continued indefinitely. It is obvious that, in reality, they have to end somewhere. This endpoint will vary for each participant: A knows that B knows that A desires, A knows that B knows that A knows that B knows that A knows that B knows that A desires, ... but also A knows that B knows that C knows that B desires ….

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collective actions) is rather composed, as it were, of individual intentionalities. The collective will represent individual intentions to act. This concept of collective intentionality differs significantly from the atomistic view, which regards other agents participating in interaction as part of the environment, as environmental conditions. My willingness to cooperate does not make the cooperation of others more likely; my cooperative action does not influence the behavior of others interacting with me. That is why, for the proponent of atomism, the behavior of others is merely an environmental condition rather than a part of the world I am interacting with. The concept of collective intentionality, as introduced here, differs crucially from this atomistic version of individualism. It remains individualistic insofar as collective intentionality is constituted by individual intentionalities. This structuralist account of collective intentionality, according to which cooperation itself is the motive for action, differs from conceptions of collective intentionality that interpret cooperation as an expression of a communal membership or of a group ethos.24 These phenomena do of course exist: Cooperation is often motivated by the feeling of belonging to a certain community or group, by sharing common values, and by the desire to interact with the people of one’s own community in the future. However, this kind of motivation is by no means necessary to justify cooperation as rational. My thesis is this: Cooperation can be rational even without any communitarian dimension. Cooperation is thus a paradigm of structural rationality, not of communitarianism.

24  Cf. Tuomela, Raimo. 2013. Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents. New York: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 4

Structural Agency

4.1   Prohairesis Action theory in classical antiquity undoubtedly had in mind what we in this book have called “structural rationality”: How does the single action fit into a larger context of a practice or mode of action? Aristotle claimed that each action is an expression of a certain attitude (hexis), preference (prohairesis), or virtue (arete). Contemporary Aristotelian interpretations define arete either as a form of capability or leaning toward the behavioristic tradition, as a behavioral habit or disposition. Both interpretations are a watered-down version of Aristotelian virtue ethics. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle explicitly states that while arete is formed by habits it is also (an expression of) hexis and prohairesis. This characterization refutes the objection that virtue ethics has no adequate understanding of persons because what is morally essential is determined by upbringing and belonging to a community. Virtue properly understood, however, is in fact that which we are responsible for, not our parents or other factors influencing upbringing. According to our conception, this means that virtues are also guided by reasons. It is always my reasons that determine my (evaluative) attitudes. And since my reasons are a decisive factor, I am responsible for their effects. Modern action theory takes as its paradigm the single act, executed at a certain point in time and based on individual benefit calculation (this applies to Hobbes as well as to modern economic theory). A large part of © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_4

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modern philosophical ethics is dedicated to finding a normative remedy for the shortcomings in this paradigm. One drastic example of this is the Kantian Categorical Imperative, another the communal obligations in communitarianism. The result is a juxtaposition of individual, pointwise1 rationality and structural, practical reason, of self-interest and morality. Economic theory takes this distinction to extremes and claims the irrationality of moral action. In the more moderate Kantian version, genuine moral actions are characterized as a result of a universalization test of maxims, whereby this test ensures that a subjective action-guiding rule for a particular action can be conceptualized (or stronger: desired) as a general law.2 Kant’s pragmatic imperatives aim at optimizing individual well-being. In this context, the structural aspects of virtue are irrelevant, which seems to be incompatible with our lifeworld experiences and the claim of classical accounts of ethics that it is precisely virtues that enable us to lead a good life. The belief-desire theory advocates an even more radical version of the paradigm of individual action. According to this version, it is preference (the desires of a person at a certain point in time) that, modulo belief, that is, given the assessment of available options for actions as well as their respective chance of success, brings about a certain action. Some philosophers interpret this generation of action as a causal process. Donald Davidson calls it “anomalous monism” because he sticks to the idea of the causal closure of the material world, in which mental events have no causal role, but, at the same time, he interprets the combination of certain mental states (having certain preferences and certain beliefs) as causing the resulting action. This would work well under two presuppositions: (1) if mental states were type-identical with neurophysiological states and (2) if there existed causal laws, describing the coincidences of these mental states with resulting actions. Whereas Davidson seems to hold (1), he explicitly 1  In German, I use the term “punktuell,” meaning something like “restricted to a point in time and social agency,” but there seems to be no perfect English translation. Therefore, in most cases “single act” or “individual action” might suffice, to make clear, what is meant, in other cases, as here, I use “pointwise” for “punktuell.” 2  What cannot be thought of cannot be desired. However, some things that can be thought of cannot be desired. The desirability criterion on which Kant himself bases the application of the Categorical Imperative is therefore an even stronger version of the categorical imperative. Of course, we can think of a society whose people commit prudential suicide. If Kant is right, however, a society in which people commit prudential suicide is not desirable. Therefore, I am morally forbidden to commit prudential suicide.

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rejects (2), this is meant by the term “anomalous monism,” it is supposed to underline Davidson’s claim that there are no laws, in analogy with scientific laws, governing this causal relation, that is, the regularity theory of causality does not apply in case of human agency.3 Another possible interpretation of the belief-desire-theory is to conceive it as a justificatory scheme of single acts. The first interpretation is empirical and causal, the second normative and non-causal. Both versions face the problem of structural rationality, that is, how to embed an individual, pointwise act in a broader practice. We demonstrated this difficulty within the conceptual framework of a game theory before (the problem of cooperation). In the following, I discuss some essential traits of a structural theory of action in general.

4.2   The Incoherence of Decision Theory Contrary to a popular misconception, it is precisely rational decision theory, the mathematical apparatus of modern economics, which strikingly displays the deficits of the paradigm of individual optimization. The criterion of practical rationality that commonly underlies the various models of decision theory, that is, the maximization of expected utility, is abandoned in the transition to game theory (the theory of rational interactions). Many who work with the conceptual apparatus of decision theory and game theory are unaware of this. In the Bayesian interpretation, which is the most universally applicable, the agent’s subjective expectations (probabilities) and subjective desirabilities (preferences) can always be assumed to be given. Subjective preferences can be ascribed based on manifest or potential choices between probabilistic alternatives, and subjective desirabilities can be ascribed in terms of the specific maximum odds that the person is willing to accept in a bet. Obviously, it is necessary for this practice of ascription to likewise assume certain temporal invariances. For if we had to assume that the preferences and subjective probabilities of the acting person changed within seconds, it would only be possible to determine specific decisions made, but it would not be 3  Cf. Davidson, Donald. 1963. Actions, Reasons, and Causes. Journal of Philosophy 60: 685–700, and id. 2001. Essays on Actions and Events. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 3–20. In Chaps. 7 and 8 of this book, we reject the first assumption (1): Reasons are not causes in a naturalist understanding; that is, they cannot be described within the conceptual frames of physics or neurophysiology. And the second assumption (2) illustrates that (1) cannot be upheld; see also Sect. 4.6.

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possible to determine their coherence with both kinds of propositional attitudes (desires and expectations). The assessment of the decision situation, that is, of all the aspects of the current and future state of the world that are potentially relevant for the decision, condenses to the respective agent’s subjective probabilities. What is appealing about the Bayesian interpretation is precisely that it renders itself independent from the availability of objective probabilities and thereby secures its universal applicability. If the so-called utility function is interpreted merely as a representation of subjective preferences irrespective of their motivation, this model of rationality seems limitless in terms of application. The coupling of the probability and utility function ensures that there is always at least one course of action available that maximizes expected utility. If there are several courses of action that maximize expected utility, the person is indifferent between them. In this respect, there is always a rational recommendation for action. At least one course of action can be considered to be rational, and if there are several, then what arises is not a dilemma but merely a situation of indifference. Some consider this harmonic picture to be boring because of its excessive simplicity; others find it fascinating precisely for the same reason. This picture, however, cannot, in any case, be applied to rationality in interaction situations, that is, to game theory, because game theory cannot provide rational recommendations for many cases in a sense that can be made mathematically precise. This has to do with the fact that most game formats do not have a Nash equilibrium or have several Nash equilibria that are not realizable for the individual agent if she cannot coordinate with other agents; or because the interests regarding the various equilibria diverge between the parties involved in the interaction. How can we explain this incoherence between decision theory in the narrower sense, that is, the theory of a person’s rational decisions given a specific uncertain environment, and game theory, which deals with rationality in interactions? Equilibria are an indispensable condition for rationality in game theory because its rationality recommendation is potentially directed at all agents, including the participants of an interaction. In more philosophical terms: The radical atomistic individualism of decision theory in the narrower sense is given up in the transition to game theory. The other agents involved in an interaction are not merely part of the environment. They are part of a shared world and are themselves potential addressees of game theory’s recommendation.

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Nevertheless, game theory remains an individualistic theory of rationality. It does not appeal to a collective of agents because in this case only Pareto-efficient combinations of individual strategies would qualify as rationality recommendations. However, the framework of game theory does not exclude equilibria that are not Pareto-efficient as rationality recommendations. Game theory does not provide recommendations for action to a collective, but merely recommendations for action to individuals, under the condition that the simultaneous recommendation of a practice to different persons participating in the interaction is compatible with the fact that all persons are informed about this recommendation. An equilibrium is nothing other than a combination of individual strategies for which it is the case that none of the agents involved in the interaction have a reason to individually deviate from this combination of strategies provided they assume that the other participants of the interaction adhere to their respective strategies. It is obvious that there is an epistemic coherence condition involved, namely that the respective rationality recommendation is compatible with shared knowledge of all rationality recommendations in this situation. From the perspective of decision theory4 and its atomistic individualism, everything apart from the agent becomes part of the environment, except the mental states (preferences, probabilities, decisions) of the acting person. In this regard one could call it a version of solipsism: For the agent, everything else becomes an external condition of agency, there is no genuine interaction. The social world is the agent’s environment. Game theory parts ways with this version of solipsism insofar as what was understood as environment in the context of decision-theoretic analysis remains a condition of the success of one’s own actions but is now itself an addressee of the rationality recommendation. This compels a special form of coordinating the respective individual recommendations for action, which have to be compatible with the fact that everybody has the same knowledge concerning these recommendations. What used to be the agent’s environment—irrational, given—is now part of a shared world— rational and variable. Decision and game theory both assume rational agents, that is, persons who follow the respective recommendations provided by the theory. In decision theory, it is only the individual agent who follows these recommendations, in game theory, it is all participants of an interaction. 4

 In the following “decision theory” means “decision theory in the narrower sense.”

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The peculiar phenomenon that it does not make sense to have probabilities for one’s own actions now reaches beyond the individual agent and onto everybody involved in the interaction. They are the addressees of the recommendation for action, but not a potential object for a probabilistic assessment anymore. This is indeed a far-reaching shift, since the agents’ probabilistic estimates, their subjective probabilities, represent their epistemic states as a whole. In extremis, we can imagine a comprehensive probabilistic assessment based on the power set of all the world’s elementary states, which includes all concrete, empirical knowledge, and all assumptions of causality, hypotheses, and theories. Elements of this power set can be identified with events, that is, precisely with the respective set of world states that are compatible with the presence of this event. Causal relations in probabilistic language would not limit the respective sets but would manifest in the respective probabilistic assessment over the set of its subsets. The rationality recommendations of game theory are still individualistic, but they are not atomistic.5 They are structurally embedded in the form of an epistemic condition, namely the shared beliefs about the rationality recommendations for all persons involved in the interaction. This has two severe disadvantages, however: First, in contrast with decision theory, the rationality recommendations of game theory are no longer unambiguous. In the decision-theoretic framework, the person is indifferent between options in case there are several options available that maximize expected utility since these recommendations for actions all have the same expected value. This does not hold anymore once we transition to a game-theoretical analysis. Now there can be several equilibria, which the persons are usually not indifferent about (if all persons are indifferent concerning the different equilibria, we are dealing with pure coordination games). This under-determination cannot be resolved within the conceptual framework of non-cooperative games. The combination of individual decisions that follow the recommendations of game theory does not necessarily form an equilibrium, since there may exist at least one person involved in the interaction who tries to realize a different equilibrium than other persons involved in the interaction. Moreover, it would be a mistake to think that mutual information would solve this problem. This is only the case for pure coordination games. A

5

 Cf. RatC.

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simple form of an interaction situation with two equilibria and diverging interests is the format battle of the sexes, that we discussed above.6 One might think that mutual information is enough to determine which of the two equilibria in this game format (battle of the sexes) is realized by rational agents. This is not the case, however. In fact, the person, let us assume it’s A, who informs the other person B that she chooses according to her interest (a1), expecting the other person to stick to the equilibrium point , forces B to choose between a total loss (O), in case he chooses b2 or accepting an inferior outcome (1). Those who stick to the maximizing model of rational choice would claim that it is obvious how the other person decides. That this is not the case can be seen from the fact that the other person B could react and communicate to A that he would stick to the equilibrium that is more advantageous for him. B on his turn is then forcing A to choose between complete loss or an inferior outcome. The temporal sequence of the mutual information loses its relevance precisely under the assumption that we are dealing with rational persons. For such persons, there is no self-restriction that takes all options out of the game. However, the empirical analysis of negotiation strategies knows a multitude of self-restricting behavior to force others into the defensive. For example, a public commitment of a public agent who must make sure not to lose credibility looks like a self-restricting commitment, which has to appear like an externally determined commitment for the others involved in the negotiation. The consequence is then that the different participants of the negotiation make different commitments that are mutually incompatible and that lead to the infamous rationality traps. The ethification of game theory, in particular the theory of negotiation games, has tried to address this problem from a theoretical standpoint. The success was moderate because the criteria were limited to equilibrium solutions and thus were too restrictive for ethification from the outset. Without making the transition to a structural understanding of the rationality of action, the aporias of rational interaction cannot be resolved. The fact that many interaction situations do not contain equilibria and that there is therefore no rational recommendation from a game-theoretic perspective should be motivation enough to follow this path. In its current version that gears toward individual rationality, game theory simultaneously suffers from an over-determination of its rationality recommendations in 6

 Cf. Appendix, Battle of the Sexes.

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the case of multiple equilibria and from under-determination in cases when there are no equilibrium points. But even if there is a unique equilibrium point, there is no guarantee that it complies with minimal requirements for structural rationality.

4.3  Collective Irrationality Single optimizing actions pose problems not only in interaction situations for game theory, as we saw in the previous section, but also for collective decisions. Collective choice theory generated important insights in this regard which we will briefly discuss here to lay the foundation for a structural theory of action. The Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem is particularly instructive in that regard. In fact, there are two theorems that, on closer analysis, turn out to be equivalent. The first theorem states that there are no manipulation-free procedures for collective decision-making. The second theorem claims that there are no strategy-free procedures for collective decision-making. And since all procedures of manipulation-free collective decision-making are strategy-free and vice versa, the two theorems state the same proposition.7 A process of collective decision-making is strategy-proof if— broadly speaking—none of the participants involved in the collective decision-making would achieve a more favorable result if they fed other preferences than they actually have into the aggregation. Several persons collectively optimizing their subjective value functions produce unstable situations, regardless of the chosen decision procedure (rule of aggregation). Depending on their individual preferences, they themselves and others feed false preferences into the decision-making process to achieve a more favorable outcome for themselves. In this situation, the expected strategic decisions will obviously be met with counterstrategies.8 It should be clear that these mutual strategic replications are unstable in so far as the number of replications, even with complete information on all sides, is in principle unlimited, and convergence seems, in general, unlikely. Individually optimizing agents create socially unstable situations. Although all individuals act rationally in so far as they optimize self-interest, the result, that is, the combination of individual optimization  Cf. LkE, Chap. 5.  Cf. Nida-Rümelin, Julian, Thomas Schmidt, and Axel Munk. 1996. Interpersonal dependency of preferences. Theory and Decision 41: 257–280. 7 8

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strategies, can no longer be determined. It is under-determined because any termination of replications would be arbitrary and unstable. This problem in its most generalized form, that is, transferring individual rationality to collective rationality, represents the key motivation for a conception of structural rationality and highlights the importance of normative rules in general: Individual rationality cannot be merged into an overall reasonable practice—this applies to persons and their individual way of life as well as to collectives, societies, or the humanity as a whole. We might assume, from a perspective of evolutionary biology, that family cohesion, empathy among loved ones, willingness to cooperate in larger groups, and other similar phenomena are consequences of an adaptive evolutionary, process as a driver for competition. This is at least true for competition among different human cultures. While kin selection has remained controversial in Darwinian evolutionary biology, its cultural analog cannot be denied: Human communities framed by mutual trust and willingness to cooperate face more favorable conditions for their development than communities struggling with mutual mistrust and lack of cooperation. Smaller communities with close cooperation offer more favorable conditions for the convergence of an individually optimizing, yet collectively rational, practice. In larger communities, divergence is increasing, which in turn raises the cost for behavioral control through incentives and sanctions to counteract collective irrationality and instability. Communication plays a crucial role in this context. Communication itself depends on demanding ethical conditions since truthfulness and trust are necessary conditions for successful communication. In fact, all cultures ethically require some degree of truthfulness, although this degree varies between different cultures: People expect each other to only claim what the speaker believes to be true. The ostracism from closer social networks for violating this rule is stronger than in cases of sporadic interaction between people that are basically strangers. Some archaic cultures limit the scope of truthfulness and trust to family or ethnicity. This, however, means that reliable communication is also limited to these specific networks within a culture. According to the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, truthfulness, and trust are not only moral rules that enable communicative acts and sustain meanings of linguistic expressions, but they also help to safeguard collective rationality. If we assume incorporating individual preference as a public process, that is, accessible to all involved in a collective decision, truthfulness and trust as constitutive rules for communication make manipulative and

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strategic behavior impossible or at least restrict it depending on the respective level of conformity with these rules and the severity of sanctioning in case of non-compliance. Ethical rules such as truthfulness and trust are stabilizers that counteract the chaotic tendencies of individual optimizing behavior. They safeguard one aspect of structural rationality: reliable communication and deliberative (political) practice.

4.4  Structural Intentions If the action of a person is understood as a causal intervention, guided by motivational intentions, taking into account the consequences of the action, and if the criteria of rationality are limited to the consequences to be expected, then the adherence to rules such as truthfulness and trust is only rational if this ensures the success of this causal intervention, or more precisely, optimizes the action’s consequences. In this understanding, compliance with rules is either contingent or the consequence of incentives and sanctions that make compliance with rules individually optimizing. Insight into the reasonableness of a rule alone is insufficient here. One could say that modern theory of action has devoted itself to the Hobbesian paradigm. Hobbes has impressively argued that people’s insight into the reasonableness of certain rules of action is insufficient to render compliance with these rules rational. Leges naturales which would secure civil peace are advocated by all rational agents. That is to say, all rational agents desire that everyone would adhere to these leges naturales, yet, at the same time, it is individually irrational to adhere to them. The reasonableness of a rule does not guarantee that its observance is reasonable. In modern economic theory and its practical applications, this understanding has coagulated into a dogma. This explains the extensive and detailed incentive programs of present-day companies. However, if we shift the focus from the extremes to lifeworld practice, it becomes evident that individual optimization and structural conformity go hand in hand. Single actions form smaller and larger units that only make sense as a whole. If each of these single actions were chosen to optimize the given options for action and possible consequences of action, it would almost be impossible that the sequence of the entirety of these single actions would produce a coherent picture. The attempt to capture this in the paradigm of pointwise optimization, in which the single action determines the conditions of subsequent actions, misses the lifeworld practice of behavioral control. We perform a single action because it fits

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into a desired structure of action. Almost every choice of action (pragma) is motivated by the fact that it is part of a temporally extended behavior or practice (praxis) which we intend to realize. We perform an action as part of a more comprehensive practice. The intentions that are decisive in the particular case are to be understood as part of more comprehensive intentions that guide the respective practice. We need to know what function the single action has within a larger structural framework in order to be able to judge whether this action is reasonable. This is how we control our behavior: we decide on our agency (praxis) in order to determine acts (pragmata) on that basis. This is how we act. This is how we operate. This is not a philosophical theory, but only a description of what is familiar to all of us. I have to drive my daughter to school on time and I have to pick up my shirts from the dry cleaners that I need for my flight to Berlin at 10:15 am. There are several goals here: to drop my daughter off at school on time, to equip myself with fresh shirts, to arrive punctually at the airport and to do so with as little time, money, and energy spent as possible. Economists would say here that rationality consists of minimizing costs, that is, time, money, and energy expenditure, such that these goals are achieved even if unexpected events occur, like a traffic jam on the motorway. There is nothing wrong with this interpretation, but we must not overlook the fact that this optimization takes place within the framework of given or chosen structures: The entire sequence of individual decisions required to achieve these objectives is guided by a comprehensive, coordinated combination of intentions. Every single action only makes sense within the framework of this complex practice. The single actions are reasonable even if there are alternatives that could have been realized at lower costs. In fact, in the lifeworld practice, we pursue a satisficing rather than an optimizing concept.9 If we characterize actions as behavior that is controlled by motivating, preceding, and accompanying intentionality, the limitation to single acts would appear arbitrary. For it is obvious that also praxeis10 are guided by motivating, preceding, and accompanying intentions. Motivating intentions express themselves insofar as behavior, which has action 9  Cf. Simon, Herbert A. 1955. A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice. Quarterly Journal of Economics 69: 99–118, and id. 1972. Theories of Bounded Rationality. Decision and Organization 1: 161–176; Gigerenzer, Gerd. 2010. Moral Satisficing: Rethinking Moral Behavior as Bounded Rationality. Topics in Cognitive Science 2: 528–554. 10  The plural of praxis.

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character, can be justified by the acting person: the person can give reasons for any behavior that is an action. If this is not so, the person is either forgetful or does not want to admit what motivated them; or else it is not an action, but behavior that does not have an action character. Motivational intentionality and the ability to give reasons are not logically independent of each other: by motivational intentions, we precisely mean those which are (or can be) given as reasons for our actions. Previous intentions express themselves in decisions taken. Decisions always precede actions and invariably include a rudimentary deliberation of whatever kind. Decisions are only made, if there is no further weighing of the pros and cons, no deliberation, no reflection on the reasons after the decision has been made. There is no action without a decision. Actions always precede intentions which are met by the respective actions in the sense of the act-token. This is the difference between motivating and preceding intentions: motivating intentions guide actions, but they are not realized by the action itself, whereas preceding intentions (decisions) are realized by the action itself: The decision is realized in acting and the seriousness of decision is expressed in acting, this, in turn, occurs both as pragma and praxis. The structural praxis determines the rationality of the single acts from which it is composed. It is not possible to characterize the act as rational or irrational in isolation from the intended praxis. It is only the structural context of a practice that makes an act appear more or less rational as part of this practice. For the sake of argument, we shall compare two extremes: the radical optimizing theory and the radical structural theory. The first theory requires the agent to optimize given the circumstances of every single act, that is, choose the alternative that maximizes expected value given utility and subjective probability. The obvious problem with this radical optimizing theory of action is not only that it is far removed from the lifeworld practice in which we all partake, but also that no sensible practice generally results from the sequence of optimizing actions. The problems of interpersonal coordination of action present themselves analogously to people in an interpersonal shape in the temporal sequence of different optimizing acts. The radical alternative would be the structurally rational wise, who makes only one single decision, namely, the one concerning the choice of her own lifeform. She chooses all individual decisions as instrumentally rational with regard to this comprehensive existential decision for one specific form of life. The objection that one cannot make such an existential

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overall decision because one does not yet know the future and thus the concrete conditions for action is correct, practically speaking. Yet in theory, it is irrelevant. The choice of an overall strategy, the choice of a lifeform can consist in the determination of a strategy. This strategy determines those acts for all possible decision situations, which would establish the desired lifeform. Only once does the structurally rational wise person decide for this super-strategy of her life. Both extremes are far removed from the reality of life: that of the structurally rational sage which resembles Far Eastern wisdom, and that of the optimizer, who lives mostly in economic textbooks. The conception of structural rationality of action avoids both extremes. Behavioral control through intentions is only possible and only makes sense in a medium range. We control our practice and direct the individual sections of this practice accordingly. At the same time, we remain open to revisions and change decisions in favor of a structurally more coherent agency. Pointwise optimization has its place in structural agency, if it respects the limits, set by structures that we are not prepared to abandon. Rational optimization takes place within the framework of established and desired structures of agency. As agents we are effective in the world, we influence how this world develops, we intervene in and change causal chains. This active role is an expression of our special ability to be guided by reasons. Being affected by reasons gives us this freedom and makes us agents. As optimizing monads we would not be effective, instead, we would be confronted with a chaotic scenario of unintended effects, we would become witnesses of an incoherent individual and collective practice.

4.5   The Structural Concept of Action There has been an intense debate since Elizabeth Anscombe’s analysis of intention,11 about the phenomenon that we realize some action by performing another action. We do something and by doing it, we do something else. I operate a lever and in doing so, I fill water into a tank which supplies the inhabitants of a house with water, and since the reservoir from which the water is sourced is poisoned, I inflict physical damage on the inhabitants or worse, I kill them.

 Anscombe, Elizabeth. 1957. Intention. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Which of these activities, from operating a lever to killing an inhabitant, qualifies as an action and can be ascribed to me as an action performed by me? The British legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart developed the thesis that action and responsibility are to be ascribed simultaneously.12 He faced harsh legal and philosophical criticism for this claim and this debate gave important impulses to analytical philosophy of action.13 The focus seemed to be on sustaining certain Hartian claims but to definitely abandon the close connection between ascription of action and ascription of responsibility. In my analysis, I took the other way round and argued to characterize actions as the part of our behavior for which we are responsible. To be responsible for something is connected to the fact that I am (can be), in principle, affected by reasons. This suggests a connection between ascribing responsibility and the ability to be affected by reasons which in turn extends the concept of responsibility beyond the realm of action to that of judgment and emotive attitudes.14 The list of activities mentioned in the example above is determined by causal processes, not by the intentions of the acting person. Let us assume the person operating the lever thought it was pure water that he filled into the tank, when in fact the water was poisoned. Then we can say “the person poisoned the contents of the tank” or, focusing on the negative consequences, of the agent’s action, “he poisoned a house inhabitant” (thereby referring to the causal effects of the person’s action). However, if the person undoubtedly did not know that the water was poisoned and we cannot blame him for his ignorance (perhaps he should have informed himself, but failed to do so, perhaps there were ways to check if the water is clean...), we won’t hold him responsible for the unintended and unforeseeable consequences of his actions. In other words: We do not actually ascribe the act of poisoning to that person, although, causally speaking, he poisoned the inhabitants. Actions are intentional behavior, that is, a practice controlled by motivating, preceding, and concomitant intentions, and responsibility only extends to activities characterized 12  Cf. Hart, H.L.A. 1948. The Ascription of Responsibility and Rights. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 49: 171–194. 13  Cf. Pitcher, George. 1960. Hart on Action and Responsibility. Philosophical Review 69: 226–235; and most prominent: Feinberg, Joel. 1970. Action and Responsibility. In Doing and Deserving. Essays in the Theory of Responsibility. Princeton: University Press. 14  Cf. Nida-Rümelin, Julian. 2018. Responsibility in Philosophy and Law. Keynote on the Symposium Rights, Responsibility and Justice. 24th World Congress of Philosophy in Beijing August 2018 (published in the Proceedings).

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accordingly. Responsibility does not extend to all causal effects of an action, if those effects weren’t known and could not have been foreseen by the person executing the action. The easiest way to grasp this is to hold a person responsible for their actions, that is, to characterize actions as those aspects of a person’s behavior for which the person is responsible and to derive all ascription of responsibility from this primary responsibility. Thus, people would be exclusively responsible for their actions (in the realm of practice, not in the realm of emotions and beliefs). Further ascriptions of responsibility, for example damaging third parties, must be reduced to, or rather, be derived from this primary responsibility for actions. We can use the example above to verify the plausibility of this approach. Suppose the person in question did what he does every day during dry season, that is, fill the cistern with water from an emergency tank and operate a lever to do so. The motivating intention is to supply the house inhabitants with water and to fill the tank with water in order to do so. A preceding intention could be: This morning at 6:30 a.m. I am going to climb the roof of the house and refill the tank. The person performs this action (refilling the tank) by operating a lever. Both actions, operating the lever and refilling the tank, can be ascribed to the person as actions; these actions fulfill previous intentions or decisions that were already made. Both decisions are linked by the person’s belief that operating the lever will refill the tank. In this example, refilling the tank is a structurally framing action and repeatedly pulling the lever back and forth is a single action. We can assume that the single action does not segment into more single actions. That is to say, the person moves the lever once and again and again and again and again and each time she can decide to leave it at that and the consequence of these single actions results in a structural action because of the causal process that is triggered by the single actions refilling the tank. The framing intention is directed at refilling the tank, the individual intentions—resulting from or motivated by the framing intention—are directed at the repeated operation of the lever. The details of realizing this framing intention are irrelevant. The single activities are motivated by structural activities—provided a person can justify their structural intentions. The opposite, however, does not apply: Individual intentions do not motivate structural intentions. The extent to which we ascribe actions depends on the epistemic state of the acting person. Thus, responsibility is limited to an agent’s epistemic and prohairetic state at the time of action. Ascribing responsibility requires

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a certain behavior to exhibit action character, that is, the prerequisite for responsibility ascription is that the behavior was intentionally controlled and guided by reasons, not just mere behavior. Intentional control as a condition for the action character of behavior is widely accepted, linking the character of actions to reasons, however, requires justification. This connection is established as follows: No decisions without motives (previous intentions), no motives without reasons. If you have a motive, you can justify your action upon questioning. Motives are nothing other than what can be cited as a reason for an action. Reasons that are irrelevant for motives are not action-guiding reasons and therefore have no justificatory role. Only intentionally controlled behavior has action character. Intentional control has three dimensions: Motives, decisions, and behavior-concomitant intentionality. The difference between an intentionally controlled action and decisions can be characterized via the role of reasons: Decisions are fulfilled by actions and decisions conclude the process of deliberation. The time passed between a decision and its corresponding action may vary, during this time, however, reasons are no longer effective. Decisions terminate the effectiveness of reasons, the transition from decision to action is no longer guided by the reasons that motivated the action. We will discuss further necessary differentiations in the next section. It is important to emphasize that the justificatory relations cascade from a framing action down to the component actions (i.e., actions that make up a framing action), not vice versa: The operation of the lever would be incomprehensible without the person’s intention of supplying the house inhabitants with water. The framing intention to refill the water tank in order to supply the house inhabitants with water justifies the partial intentions such as climbing the roof and repeatedly operating the lever. The motive for operating the lever is refilling the water tank, not the other way around: My wanting to operate the lever is not the motive for refilling the tank. The causal relation extends from parts to the whole, the justificatory relation from the whole to its parts. The motivating intention that controls my behavior is refilling the tank to supply the house inhabitants with water and the single actions that my behavior is composed of do not require additional motivation. In fact, they have no motives of their own. The motive for single actions is derived exclusively from the motive for the overall action. The ascription of action is limited by the scope of expectations and intentions that a person associates with a certain action.

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In this example, the structural action is the primary action in so far as it is guided by preceding, motivating, and concomitant intentions, which makes it an intentionally structured action. My framing (structural) actions impact the world, I am responsible for those actions. The reasons I can give for a certain action always refer to structural actions while single actions make sense only as a means for realizing a structural action. Their motivation derives from the motives for a structural action. In other words: The structural action is the logically primary action and single actions are its derivative. This means the action character of single actions is secondary. Their character is expressed in the intentional control of these actions. Single actions become less action-like in an increasingly routine practice; they become automatisms and eventually turn into mere behavioral components lacking any action character. This does not weaken the intentional control I have over my practice; it increases it. The more automated single actions become, the less prone a structural practice is to error. More automated behavioral components that are not subject to individual intentional control do usually not result in a loss of authorship. On the contrary, routine practice can limit itself to the interventions essential for intentional control of behavior; it relieves the author of annoying detailed control that makes structural actions cumbersome and prone to error.

4.6  Structural Action and Causality When people speak of causality, it is usually assumed that this concept is clearly defined in natural science. However, in the most advanced of the natural sciences, theoretical physics, causality plays no prominent role. In classical physics (classical mechanics, thermodynamics, and electro­ dynamics) it is laws that are postulated and empirically tested. Regardless of the emergence of relativistic physics in the beginning of the twentieth century and of quantum physics some years later, these classical laws are extremely precise and reliable. The regularities of classical physics establish links between physical units of measurement, for example, mass and acceleration according to the Newtonian law that force is the product of mass and acceleration, or between the forces acting on a current-carrying conductor and the strength of a magnetic field, or between thermal conductivity, depending on the material and its thickness, and the quantity of heat that is transferred. Or between the position and the velocity of a body in a gravitational field at a given point in time and the position and velocity of

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the same body at a later moment in time after it has passed through the gravitational field and so on. Physical units of measurement are set into relation; the mathematical form utilizes different real-valued functions. Talk of causality becomes superfluous. Our intuitive understanding of causality forms a connection between events. One event happens, another event happens, and if the event of the latter type follows the event of the former type regularly, we assume a causal link. Classical physics, however, does not speak of events. It describes processes and systematically captures the relations between different processes. Systematically here means in mathematical language that the empirically determinable processes are approximately depictable in the mathematical model. The angle at which the moon stands relative to a given point on the Earth’s surface at a given point in time can be derived mathematically in this form of description from the moon’s angle and angular velocity at an earlier moment in time. But this connection is not a causal one. Of course, one can interpret a law of behavior as a sequence of individual events, but that does not add anything substantial to what we already know, namely the law. This interpretation of causality appears out of place due to the lack of intervening events. The canonical place to speak of causation is not physics, but human action. It is our experience as free agents that we intervene in the course of the world with our decisions. The world would look different if I had decided differently. Actions causally affect the world. It is our experience as agents that determines our understanding of causality: I had the opportunity to decide differently. I could have assured myself that the water in the reservoir was clean and nobody would have died. My actions are causally effective in the world because there were other options, because I could have acted differently. Without alternative possibilities, without real choice, there is no decision and no action, no authorship. We are the authors of our life insofar as we decide to act one way and not another even though we could have decided differently. This is the paradigm of causality: Having decided one way and not the other, even though there were other options, and thus having exerted a causal effect in the world. This efficacy of agency is controlled, it is guided by our motivating intentions.15 This guidance does not go from the single and individual to the comprehensive and structural: our intentions are aimed at providing the residents of the house with potable water. This is what motivates us to  For more on this, see Chap. 5.

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operate the lever, not the other way around. Our intention is to exert influence on the world in a certain way and our practice selects differently fine-grained single actions in order to realize this comprehensive, structural action. The rationality of the single act results from the rationality of the overarching action of which it is an (intended) part. It is not the momentary desire that causally brings about the action together with the simultaneously momentary epistemic state.16 Rather, it is the structural intention that determines an action to be the appropriate means of its realization (via reasons, or their deliberation, respectively) and thus also the sequence of single actions that are suitable for the realization of these structural intentions. The scope of the structural intention depends on epistemic conditions and character dispositions. The epistemic conditions determine how far the action’s consequences can be anticipated and the character dispositions determine the degree of the decision-making power or rather the willpower. The ability to integrate single actions into a desired structural context of practice as a whole comprises the core of what we call willpower. The more structured our practice is, the freer and more self-determined we are. The seemingly paradoxical thesis of Immanuel Kant, which says that reasonableness and freedom are two sides of the same coin, is, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, supported by the structural theory of action. Let us assume for the sake of argument that we had a value function that we use to determine the choice of the respective action. That is to say that we try to decide in such a manner that the consequences of the 16  Davidson’s anomalous monism seems to be a version of the causal efficacy of reasons, but this is not the case. In fact, it is explaining away the causal efficacy of reasons. If the epistemic states of the agents are the causal effects of their genetic make-up and their epigenetic and sensory history, and if the respective action-guiding motives can be reduced to given desires that are themselves not the result of deliberations, the causal role of reasons vanishes in the sequence of causally determined natural events. Davidson assumes, that the respective combinations of epistemic and prohairetic states (belief/desire) are causally effective for the action that follows, but that there is no law that describes this relation. I agree that the regularity account of causality does not apply to human agency. I also agree that accepted reasons, that is, mental states, are causally relevant for what I do. But contrary to Davidson I am convinced that this speaks against monism: The efficacy of reasons cannot be described within the conceptual frames of natural science, and the fact that there are no lawful relations between propositional attitudes and acts (the anomaly) speaks against monism. The combination of anomaly and monism does not work. Either there are natural laws that causally explain how propositional attitudes result in acts, or monism has to be given up regarding the causal role of reasons. I opt for the latter. Cf. Davidson (2001).

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respective action optimize this value function. It cannot be assumed that the individually optimizing actions constitute a structural action that optimizes this value function. Usually, these two optimization procedures will diverge. Correspondingly, we act structurally rationally to the extent that we refrain from optimization through single actions if this optimization is incompatible with structural optimization. Weakness of the will expresses itself in the optimization of single actions that are incompatible with the respective structures. Even if every single action is causally effective, provided that it realizes a specific option despite other options being available, the effectiveness of my practice is larger if I act structurally rational. This “larger” expresses itself in the fact that the results correspond to my own evaluation to a greater extent. My prohairetic (propositional) attitudes are more effective in the case of structurally rational action than in the case of individual optimizing action. Without alternative possibilities, there is no causality (of actions). This action-theoretic understanding of causality is also visible in scientific contexts: We ascribe causality to a natural event if it was decisive for the event whose cause we are looking for. This factor of being “decisive” is determined by what is considered normal and what is considered surprising, but also by the degree of change that would have been to be expected if the event had not happened. What is a trivial condition in the context of action, namely the existence of alternative possibilities, becomes dubious when it is transferred to the scientific domain. Here, alternative possibilities are not real but only counterfactual and hypothetical (at least in the context of deterministic theories). A person who decides to get up even though she could have remained seated had the real possibility of staying seated. The moon, by contrast, would assume a different angle relative to a respective point on the Earth’s surface if it had had a different position beforehand, but this possibility did not exist. The moon’s motion was determined by the preceding natural history. As an agent, I am not completely determined by my previous life history whenever I intervene by acting. As a structurally rational agent, I am causally effective because my action-guiding intentions, my prohairetic attitudes, my subjective assessments, determine the course of events. I choose between options that are real alternatives and I have no reason for regret if my assessments were correct and the consequences of my chosen actions are structurally rational: My life as a whole represents the reasons that guide my practice. Ideally, these reasons are coherent and the practice as a whole is structurally rational.

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4.7  Freedom and Determination in Structural Practice The ancient Greek language has a terminology that is more suitable for our purposes because it is more complex and at the same time more precise in describing human action. Aristotle distinguishes between poiesis and praxis. Poiesis comprises activities that are directed at making and producing (an ergon, a work), whereas the praxis is the activity as such.17 In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguished between two forms of being active, one of which is its own end (Aristotle uses the expression energeia to characterize this), the other of which has its end in a work (ergon) that the activity produces (for example shoemaking). The structural understanding of human practice integrates both of these versions of agency. In rational choice theory, a single action is rational if it optimizes the agent’s subjective value (the utility function) given his epistemic state at the moment of the decision (i.e., if it optimized expected utility). The rational choice account freezes the decision situation at this moment in time, so to speak: The epistemic state comprises the agent’s expectations regarding the consequences of his actions, including the possible actions of other persons (from a decision-theoretic perspective) and it turns his own future decisions into environmental factors. This is highly counterintuitive for the simple reason that this aspect of the circumstances is under the agent’s intentional control, which is why he cannot form expectations concerning them. It does not make sense to have subjective probabilities concerning one’s own future decisions/actions. In the structural view, by contrast, the pragma is part of a praxis and both are in the control of the acting person. We do not choose a single action under a given (fixed) praxis, but rather move back and forth, consider which single action fits well with other single actions at a later point in time in order to form a coherent praxis. The pragmata later in time are not the subject of guesswork, but of decisions and prohairetic attitudes. My freedom as an agent is not limited to the single act of choosing between two options that are given at a respective moment in time, but rather extends—diachronically and interpersonally—to a temporal perspective that is open with regard to the future and to other persons. The person’s freedom expresses itself in the ability to shape the  Cf. Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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future and social interactions (within the bounds of their own efficacy as an agent). It is not limited to choosing one of the options that exist in the given moment and to treating this choice as an environmental factor in the next moment, and future choices as more or less probable states of affairs in the decision’s environment. Even without Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist exaggerations (prior to his Marxist self-disciplining), the extent of freedom that rational agents have reaches beyond the moment of decision into one’s own future praxis. The reasonable person chooses the single act as a constitutive part of a practice she endorses. Since this practice cannot be fixed in advance, she constrains her options act by act as a causally intervening agent. Her biography solidifies as the years go by, it becomes less fluid and increasingly crystallized, accompanied by a change in cognitive capacities, which psychologists call the transition from fluid to crystallized intelligence. Those who are in harmony with their own biography need not lament the loss of this fluidity and need not excessively give in to the sentimental moods that often affect those who age even in young years. After all, the non-determinedness and the openness of one’s own biography in an initially seemingly unlimited future perspective can also give rise to insecurities and fears. It is not only Plato’s praise of seniority which sets this against the calmness of decisions already made and that which is already clarified—of the static. The kalè psychè, the beautiful soul, has come to rest, whereas the unfinished souls need dynamic change permanently. The persona of the structurally rational sage aged prematurely, one could say mockingly, she does not expose herself to openness but rather choose, from the variety of possible lifeforms, her own lifeform once and for all. The myth of ÈR suggests that this truly is our life situation and that it is the fault of the choosing person to have chosen the wrong lifeform in case she did.18 In the myth of ÈR it is the one-time choice of a lifeform from a limited number of different lifeforms. The myth of ÈR is directed against a twofold illusion: on the one hand, the illusion that we keep choosing time and time again, and on the other hand, the illusion that there are infinite possible ways of living. At least the myth includes some consolation, namely that this life that has been chosen in each case was not the only one. Determination through structural rationality is self-imposed; it is a form of determination that makes freedom itself possible in the first place.  Cf. Plato. Politeia, book 10.

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The freedom of arbitrary or even optimizing choice of every single act would end in chaos and in an unstructured life full of regrets and self-­ deception. The freedom of a structurally rational person consists in determining her form of life by herself, in adopting structures that give her life meaning. The fact that these choices—of the pragmata and praxeis—are an expression of accepted reasons is incompatible with existentialism’s radical subjectivity. The freedom of choice is framed within the knowledge of the good. But it is my knowledge and my reasons. The determination of structural rationality does not impede my freedom because it is self-­ imposed. Relinquishing freedom of choice does not weaken but rather strengthens authorship. The pragmata are now not only mere instruments of a machinery of optimization, but are rather coherent parts of a meaningful praxis, a lifeform that is not only coherent in and of itself, but that is also guided by good reasons that provide value and meaning and enable interaction and communication.

4.8   The Role of Chance In rational choice theory, every decision is allocated to a certain point in time when it is made. Preferences are ascribed, based on choices for actions. Choice and preference are amalgamated through the ascription of preferences on the basis of manifest behavior (revealed preference). The rationality of a decision/an action is measured according to the preferences given at this temporal moment (represented by the utility function) and the empirical beliefs and expectations (represented by the subjective probability function). A decision/an action is rational if it maximizes the expected value of the utility function given the subjective probabilities at that moment in time. In the structural theory of action, actions are expanded over time and space: Structural actions are not realized in one moment in one specific situation but are rather realized over a period of time or over a series of points in time over different situations, including interaction and communication, because structural agency (praxis) is realized by a multitude of single acts (pragmata). When we transition from an individual to a structural understanding, we have to preserve an element of the rational choice doctrine, namely the indexing of rationality criteria with the point in time at which the respective decision is made.

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Our lifeworld practice of ascribing responsibility does not hold persons responsible for things that happen by chance or things other persons decided on. Chance can become effective in various ways. It can prevent an evil deed from happening. This, however, does not morally exonerate the agent. Chance might cause a good deed to have terrible consequences. In existential cases, we speak of “tragic” actions. Ethical heroism is widespread in philosophical debate. It claims that the person carries responsibility for all consequences of their actions, regardless of whether or not these consequences were foreseeable. However, the representatives of ethical heroism, including the contemporary classical authors Bernard Williams19 and Thomas Nagel,20 overlook that this stance also strengthens the case for a moral exculpation through chance. The hired assassin in the war zone of Raqqa who sabotages the evacuation of women and children from residential buildings as a roof-top sniper from the safe distance of another house by killing fleeing persons is not morally exonerated if a bird happens to fly into the path of his bullet which prevents the death of a child. What is morally relevant here is the evil will, not coincidences that happen to prevent terrible consequences. The bird’s trajectory does not change anything about the sniper’s moral fault, even if the law (and martial law) may be lenient and will only convict the sniper for attempted murder. These occasional divergences between morality and law, which would merit their own examination, should not influence the criteria of ascribing moral responsibility.21 Moral responsibility is based on three sources of information: 1. The intentions (which motives did the agent have and which reasons guided these motives?) 2. The beliefs (which descriptive and normative beliefs governed the decision?) 3. The act itself (which is composed by an outer, behavioral part in time and space, and an inner part, which is mental, especially intentional)

19  Cf. Williams, Bernard. 1981. Moral Luck. In Moral Luck Philosophical Papers 1973–1980, 20–39. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 20  Cf. Nagel, Thomas. 2013. Moral Luck. In The Philosophy of Free Will, ed. Paul Russell and Oisin Deery, 31–42. New York: Oxford University Press. 21  Cf. Nida-Rümelin (2018).

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These three sources of information are not separate but interwoven, and it is the job of philosophical action and decision theory, but also of psychology, sociology, jurisprudence, and other disciplines, to systematically clarify this interrelation. The theory of practical reason presented in this book is intended as a contribution to this endeavor. It maintains a central element of the rational choice interpretation of rationality, albeit modified, namely the relativization of rationality (and responsibility) to the epistemic and prohairetic state of the agent at the moment of decision. In line with lifeworld and juridical practices, however, there are additional conditions: Could it reasonably be expected from the person that she forms a more comprehensive idea (of the consequences of their action) before deciding? Or to put it in a different and popular formulation: “Could the person have known that p?” The rationality of a person is not merely assessed by the desires and beliefs that she actually has at the moment of the decision, but also by the objective reasons involved. Not-­ knowing alone does not absolve from moral culpability, it does so only in the case of not-being-able-to-know. The same holds for the prohairetic aspect of the action: Are the goals that the person was pursuing at least acceptable, ideally well-justified? The sniper’s goals of hindering or sabotaging the evacuation by killing innocent people do not justify the action; they are unacceptable. The motives are evil, the will guiding the action is evil and the deed is a crime, regardless of the respective consequences of each shot. The acting person is not only responsible to ensure that the action is an appropriate means for reaching subjective goals, she is also responsible for the appropriateness of her motives and (empirical and normative) beliefs. This double appropriateness is assessed according to (objective) reasons. Disputes about what is and what is not appropriate speak in favor of a realist interpretation of the guiding theoretical and practical reasons. In such assessments, we grant agents a lot of leeway in making judgments and consider the acting person’s own interests to be an important determining factor of good (i.e., objectively good) reasons for action. It is legitimate to fulfill one’s own interests as long as certain conditions are met, for example, the condition that others are not harmed in the process. The mere intention of harming an innocent person makes the action morally bad, in the case of the sniper, it makes it a crime even if the realization of the sniper’s intention is thwarted by chance.

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Ethical heroism, that is the thesis of moral luck,22 confuses behavior with acts, both in the sense of pragma and praxis. If I do not know that the water in the reservoir that I filled into a container on the roof was poisoned, and in the good intention of providing water to the residents of the house, I thus caused the death of a person, I (de facto) have killed a person through my action. Whether or not I killed the person is assessed based on the causal role that a behavior (operating a lever) played in the killing of the resident. Even if I have killed a person through my behavior, I can be completely free from moral fault. In other words: Whether the act of killing human persons can be ascribed does not exclusively depend on the causal effects of some behavior but also on the intentional and epistemic conditions of the behavior in question. For example, if I could not have known that there was poisoned water in the reservoir. Ethical heroism would have to maintain even in such a case that I had become morally guilty, which seems to me to be obviously inadequate. The epistemic optimism that our theoretical deliberation rests on—the weighing of pro and con arguments to find out which beliefs are justified and which are not, in order to find out the actual facts of the matter, which beliefs are mistaken and which are correct—has a practical counterpart: the trust that it is worthwhile to make an effort to follow better reasons in order to realize a successful life both on an individual level and in interaction with others. If good arguments and bad arguments both spoke in favor of correct beliefs with the same probability, epistemic optimism would be untenable. If good intentions led to good consequences and bad consequences with the same probability, then there would be nothing that would speak in favor of being guided by practical reason. We should uphold the relativization of the (rationality) conditions onto the moment of the decision but should critically reexamine the unintended negative consequences of one’s own actions. In decision theory, the so-called maximin criterion is used when the probabilities of the consequences of one’s actions seem hard to estimate. John Rawls makes extensive use of this criterion in his Theory of Justice.23 He does so because otherwise the decision situation under the veil of ignorance as he conceptualizes it would lead to an average benefit maximization principle and not to the Difference Principle, which puts the worst-off persons into as good a position as possible.  Cf. Nagel (2013).  Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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This detour via uncertain or unknown probabilities fails to convince me, however. The mere fact that an action may have unacceptable consequences speaks against it. The conservative, catholic German moral philosopher Robert Spaemann once objected to nuclear energy by saying that one does not play roulette with the head of a child. In a similar vein, Hans Jonas pleads for giving up maximizing utilities in favor of a precautionary principle in his book The Imperative of Responsibility24: We ought to act (technologically) in a way that does not endanger the permanence of genuine human life on earth. It is not the absence of probabilities that speaks against the respective action, but rather the fact that there is a possibility, that something terrible might happen which I can under no circumstances accept, regardless of how the calculation of the expected utilities turns out. Lifeworld morality demands of responsible agents that they avoid actions where they have to worry that the action’s result might be the opposite of what was originally intended. In other words: We expect a kind of practical reason in which the action-guiding intentions and the expected consequences of the action are sufficiently closely correlated. The ethical asymmetry between the duty not to harm others, whereas there is no moral duty to provide advantages to others, extends into the theory of practical reason: Avoiding unintended harm has priority over the realization of good intentions. The deontological structure of moral practice results in the risk aversion of practical reason. Within the context of the theory of structural rationality, the decision has a point in time that can be just as clearly defined, namely as the conclusion of deliberation. Beyond this point in time, there is no more weighing of action-guiding reasons: Structurally rational persons have committed themselves and realize this commitment through a desired praxis, regardless of how long it takes, which in turn still needs to be realized by various pragmata. Other options for action prevail, but a strong-willed, structurally rational person will not be tempted by these alternatives to restart deliberation on a decision she has already made.

24  Jonas, Hans. 1984. The Imperative of Responsibility. In Search for an Ethics of the Technological Age. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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4.9   Token and Type A specific action is a token, that is, a spatiotemporal process, controlled by motivating, preceding, and concomitant intentionality, as we described it in the previous section. The motivating and relevant intentions, however, are not directed at one specific action token, that is, one particular action as an individually occurring spatiotemporal process, but at a type, that is, an action of a certain kind. We may decide to get married next year but not decide on the date of the marriage, what wedding procedure we’ll have; maybe we haven’t even decided on a wedding location or made a list of everybody involved (the civil registry office, best man or woman...). The decision of two people to get married next year, however, has a clearly specified content: This preceding intention of getting married will be realized by a marriage next year, no matter the actual date or form. The marriage between two people planned for next year is an action type which is somewhat complex and whose realization requires certain institutional conditions to be fulfilled and institutional agents (registrars) to get involved. The two people who are now engaged cannot perform this act alone although their active consent is a constituent of getting married. If the engaged couple suddenly has doubts and they want to postpone the marriage for another year or give it up altogether, these doubts nullify the seemingly already made decision. It means that both have not yet actually decided although they might have thought they did. Since a decision terminates the phase of deliberation and is realized by an action of a certain type (getting married next year). Let us take a more unusual, albeit much discussed example: The famous experiment by Benjamin Libet, which is cited as evidence that human action controlled by the agent’s intention is an illusion and that actions (in this case motor-acts) merely follow automatic neurophysiological processes that precede intentionality. In this experiment, participants are tasked to move their hand within thirty seconds. At the same time, they must not decide in advance at which point in time within the specified thirty seconds they will move their hand. During the thirty seconds, the participant faces a screen where a flying spot moves around in a circle and one orbit takes 2.56 seconds. The participant is asked to remember the position of the flying spot at that moment when she decided to move her hand. The famous result of this experiment was that, on average, participants stated that they decided to move their hands a quarter of a second before they did while the neurophysiological analysis shows that the so-called readiness

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potential, a term coined by the German neurologist Hans Helmut Kornhuber, builds up about half a second before the participants move their hands. Benjamin Libet himself developed the controversial thesis that the causal process leading to the hand movement (moto act) arises independently of the participant’s intentions (decisions). Therefore, the feeling of having decided to move one’s hand before doing so is an illusion. Furthermore, Libet argued that a weak form of control was still preserved in the form of a veto option, which makes it possible to interrupt or stop this process up to a tenth of a second before the movement. Patients who suffer from Tourette syndrome evidently lacked this veto option due to a neurophysiological defect.25 Philosophical neuroscientists and philosophers interested in neuroscience have developed a non-rational philosophy of action based on Libet’s and other findings. They claim that the neurophysiological system is governed by deterministic laws just like any other natural, that is, scientifically observable processes, which is why intentions, the deliberating on reasons, and the control over one’s practice are just a—potentially useful—illusion. A little conceptual clarification should be enough to reveal how far-fetched this interpretation of Libet’s experiment actually is. No one will seriously doubt that the participants’ willingness to move their hands within the prescribed period of only thirty seconds is a decision made out of free will. They formed the intention to participate in the experiment and to follow the instructions of the research staff. The researcher asks the participants not to worry about exactly when to move their right hand, but simply to make sure that they move it within a period of thirty seconds that begins as soon as the flying spot starts its 2.56 seconds-­long orbit. At this point, we should already be suspicious of the experiment’s design which requires the participants to decide to move their hands within the next thirty seconds while simultaneously asking them not to decide when they will move their hand. This is quite a paradoxical request which requires the participants to hold two conflicting, not easily reconcilable intentions at the same time, namely (1) refrain from intentionally controlling the action: “Do not decide in advance when to move your hand” and (2) “Move your hand within the next thirty seconds.” Such paradoxical intentionality would be impossible to realize in our marriage example. This decision is 25  Cf. Libet, Benjamin. 1999. Do we have free will? Journal of Consciousness Studies 6: 47–57; Libet, Benjamin. 2005. Mind Time. The Temporal Factor in Consciousness. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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realized via further decisions such as deciding on the location, a guest list, the ceremony, and so on. The practice (getting married next year) cannot be realized without the subsequent and more specific decision that determines the pragmata which together realize the praxis. Getting married is nothing you do by accident, except maybe for a German starlet who returned from the US and was quite surprised to find out that she was now married.26 Again, the instruction of Libet’s experiment is: “Once we start, you have thirty seconds to move your hand. Don’t think beforehand about when you’re going to move your hand within those thirty seconds!” Within these thirty seconds, there is no good or bad timing, that is, the points in time do not differ in any relevant aspect, except for the latest possible point in time within the thirty-seconds period. The participants could of course decide to move their hand right at the beginning or after fifteen seconds or only at the very end or sometime in between. According to the experimental design, however, they are not allowed to do that. The mental processes in such a paradoxical situation are hard to describe. Since most of the participants do move their hands within the thirty seconds, we can assume some kind of wait-and-see attitude, that is, the participant waits for an impulse to act and give in to it.27 In any case, we are dealing with a situation which is abnormal in two ways: First, it is forbidden to make a decision at the time of action and at the same time the participant must indicate the moment of their decision later on. Second, the question which of the pragmata realize the praxis (moving my hand within the next thirty seconds) is completely arbitrary within the set-up of the experiment. There are no reasons speaking in favor of or against it; this is different from deciding on the month, weekday, and civil registry office in order to realize the decision of getting married this year. Still, the specific action which fulfills the request of the researcher seems intentionally controlled in so far as it ultimately complies with the researcher’s request. Thus, it must be the participants’ intention to move their hands in thirty seconds 26  I’m alluding here to Sophia Thomalla’s marriage in Georgia, USA: “I don’t really remember that anymore,” said Thomalla, asked how it happened that she got married to Andy La Plegua, “Sometimes you do things in life without thinking them through.” Cf. Gala, June 11, 2016. 27  It is not entirely clear whether the time of the decision really corresponds to the point in time the test person indicates. There might still be a difference between the time a person decided to move their hand and what they say about the position of the flying spot while they were making the decision.

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(it goes without saying that the hand would not move without this intention), and it seems sufficient to develop such a vague action-guiding intention and then—quasi in a wait-and-see mode without taking a preliminary decision—to realize the hand movement which fulfills the researcher’s request. Citing this finding as a proof for the irrelevance of intentions for a person’s behavior is, of course, totally misguided. I am not getting married without the decision to get married. I will not move my hand without the researcher’s instruction to move my hand within the next thirty seconds. It is not the hand that is moved, rather I move my hand, I decide to move my hand. I am not being led down the aisle by mysterious forces that transcend all conscious control of my behavior; rather, eventually standing before the altar requires my own willingness to do so, a preceding intentionality, and a decision that I coordinated with my partner. It is almost touching to see how desperately a philosophy under the influence of postmodern ideology, or rather, ideology of non-action, that is, of the non-I, which is based on a radical critique of the subject and logocentrism, clings to an empirical result whose original interpretation by Libet himself was already highly dubious and which today can be considered debunked.28 However, let us assume for argument’s sake that the decision for the practice to move the right hand within the next thirty seconds is enough to execute a hand movement that fulfills this decision (to move the hand during the next thirty seconds) according to a purely stochastic process. The single action, which ultimately realizes the structural action, would be intentionally controlled in the usual way because only then can we follow the request of the researcher and decide to move our hand in the next 28  Libet’s experiment has numerous follow-up experiments, which either make the same mistake with regard to action theory or contradict Libet’s original findings. Cf. Henz, Sonja, Julian Nida-Rümelin et al. 2015. Stimulus-dependent deliberation process leading to a specific motor action demonstrated via a multi-channel EEG analysis. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9: 1–14: A plausible explanation for the anomaly in Libet’s findings is that the negative potentiality that can be observed in the run-up to the hand movement actually represents a kind of readiness, just as Kornhuber originally assumed. The negative potential would then be the neurophysiological correlate to the readiness to move the hand and not the beginning of the causal process that determines the hand movement. Libet’s findings on a person’s veto option support this assumption. However, such anomalies no longer exist in normal scenarios where the choice of action is controlled by prior deliberations and decisions; that is, the neurophysiological correlates occur after the perception that determines a specific decision.

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thirty seconds. In fact, I am then doing exactly what I intended, even if the hand movement fulfilling this intention follows a stochastic process that is no longer intentionally controlled in detail. In a previous section, we discussed routine actions as those actions which are determined by the guiding intentionality of structural actions. Take experienced drivers for example: Unlike beginners, they don’t have to decide every time on the sequence of actions to make a turn, that is, operating the pointer, checking the mirror, disengaging the clutch, shifting to a smaller gear, and so on. Novice drivers, on the other hand, have to make all these decisions consciously in close succession which is why their driving seems cumbersome. They have to re-think again and again about which decision they have to make at which point in time. Not so experienced drivers: They merely decide to turn right at the next street corner and the specific behavioral components, via which they realize a token that fulfills their intention, need not be under their intentional control. To be clear: They do of course intentionally control their structural action of turning right, the concrete steps, however, through which the structural action of turning right is realized are no longer intentionally controlled. This does not weaken the experienced drivers’ control, it strengthens it! The realization of their intentions, to turn right at the next intersection, for instance, is more reliable than that of a novice driver who may realize too late that he has overlooked a cyclist and therefore cannot turn right. Action-guiding intentionality is always directed at types, never at tokens. The verbal representation of such intentions is a strong indicator for that: Their level of detail is never specific enough so that we could single out individual tokens. There is always a multitude of tokens, one could even say an infinite multitude (at least if we use real-valued functions for description), which fulfill the respective guiding intentions (preceding intentions, decisions). What we have called “concomitant intentionality” is no exception in this context. It depends on an agent remaining aware of their behavior as a whole realizing a certain action type and therefore corresponds in its concrete form to the action-guiding overall intention. However, this concomitant intentionality, which, if neurophysiology is right, precedes concrete behavior by at least 0.1  seconds, can again be realized by a plurality of tokens. At this point, at the latest, it seems plausible to speak of complex stochastic processes which, as tokens, are not controlled by the acting person. This obvious, phenomenological description of human practice counters the widespread irrationalism in philosophy of

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neuroscience while it is perfectly compatible with empirical findings, including those of Libet’s experiment. It emphasizes the intentional control, but it acknowledges the stochastic and deterministic, that is, automated aspects of human action.

4.10   Diachronic Structure Rational choice traditionally understood is linked to a certain type of belief in miracles. Like every belief in miracles, it demands a great deal of its followers. Most importantly, they must not allow themselves to be influenced too quickly by contradicting experiences and arguments. They must stand firm in faith. If there are numerous testimonies about a relic weeping once a year, skepticism is inappropriate. Everyday knowledge that is incompatible with the belief in miracles must be considered less relevant, it must be suspended, so to speak, in the face of miraculous phenomena. Above all, however, this belief requires highly sophisticated interpretation skills: Contradicting data must be adapted so that it does not conflict with the belief in miracles.29 Rational choice orthodoxy must believe in the miracle that individual optimizing behavior (pragmata) in a temporal sequence will add up to a coherent praxis. Our everyday experience, however, counters such a belief. If I optimize my well-being today, tomorrow, and so on, there will soon come a time when I will face great difficulties because of numerous unpleasant and therefore uncompleted tasks. Young children seem to know that they harm themselves in following their inclination to follow their momentary desires and therefore want somebody to “take care” of them. Growing up and becoming more mature means learning to take care of oneself, that is, to act structurally rational. Since a proponent of rational choice orthodoxy does not acknowledge structural rationality, he must believe in the miracle that individual optimization will somehow bring about structural rationality. And literature proves that there are no limits to what one can imagine in this regard. The most widespread and quite simple method of cementing the belief in miracles is to attribute the phenomenon of seemingly structural rationality to sanctions. People seem to act structurally rational, in reality, however, they act according to individual optimization, they merely 29  I am alluding to a 1950s Catholic relic presented in a large modern building in Syracuse, Sicily, whose authenticity has been confirmed by a scientific commission of the Vatican.

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acknowledge the sanctions in case they ignored rules that secure structural rationality.30 The miracle that requires explanation is that, from a diachronic perspective, individual optimizing behavior supposedly corresponds to those structures that constitute a coherent practice. Why should precisely these practical structures, which might be desirable from an agent’s perspective, occur without the agent intending these structures? A first attempt to explain the miracle: The future disadvantages become already noticeable in sanctions at the point in time of the pragma. This could be explained for instance by recourse to Hobbesian prospectus theory: Since humans, unlike all other living beings, have the ability of prospectus, that is, foresight: Human beings fear things other living beings do not; for example, their own death. These fears motivate us to avoid anything that increases the probability of the unwanted event occurring. According to the miracle interpretation, the mental anticipation of possible future experiences—positive and negative—translates into reliable incentives and sanctions at the time of the decision. Virtually everybody, and students in particular, knows that this is not how it works. The fear of failing your final exams after three years is too little a motivation for people to devote more than an hour and a half to study today. However, people, even the young, are capable of intending and realizing structures of their practice. Why shouldn’t I be able to decide to spend at least an hour and a half studying every day? It is hard to deny the fact that humans are capable of this. Why, then, should we deny this in theory? Committing oneself does not require any sanctions, neither those which allegedly entail reliable behavioral control via the Hobbesian prospectus, nor those which I impose on myself in form of systems of sanctions and incentives. It goes without saying that this assessment is compatible with the fact that people, especially akratic people, resort to such self-sanctioning and self-incentivizing as an emergency solution. But why shouldn’t I be able to decide to spend an hour and a half studying every afternoon? As we have seen, individual intentions depend on structural ones and not vice versa. The decision to sit at my desk for an hour and a half every day has the consequence that I must make do without the second cappuccino in order to have enough time to sit at my desk, even though I would have very much liked a second cappuccino. In such cases, we say 30  I use the term “structural rationality” in the sense exposed in this book. But there are different usages, too. For an overview see HandBook.

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that we must make do without the second cappuccino to express a kind of commitment to ourselves. The obvious interpretation of this obligation is structural: I have chosen a specific practice which I can only realize if I align my individual decisions to correspond with this practice. Respect for the interests and rights of others generates duties that have their equivalent in the respect for those structures I have decided to realize. One could say, I am considerate about these structures, or in Kantian terms: There are obligations against oneself. In Aristotelian-inspired exalted terms, I have a duty to be virtuous, not in the sense of anxious self-restraint against mental and physical pleasures, rather as fully developing my abilities—I have a duty to develop these abilities, a duty to myself. Even if one rejects this ethical exaltation, the experience prevails that we live our lives by explicitly and implicitly imposing structures on our practice that are intentionally controlled, that realize decisions, and that secure a rational lifeform. Since self-imposed and externally introduced sanctions and incentives are usually insufficient to secure structural rationality, the miraculous belief of rational choice orthodoxy needs stronger support which it finds, again, in the Hobbesian idea of sanctions in foro interno: The idea is to assume sanctions even if there are none (a tested tool to support superstitious beliefs). These sanctions are not manifest, but rather are assumed as a kind of punishment that only works internally and not externally. Thus, people behave structurally conform, not because they want to, that is, because they have decided to behave accordingly, but because they want to avoid virtual punishment in form of a bad conscience. It may look like they behave structurally rational, in fact, however, they merely optimize the state of their conscience. It remains a mystery, however, why people with a strong character who cannot be easily upset and neither have a propensity for anxiety (Hobbesian prospectus) nor for a bad conscience (in foro interno) are particularly suitable for structurally rational action. The fallback option of fears and remorse exhibits all the traits of an ad hoc hypothesis à la Popper in order to immunize a theory. The question we must ask rational choice orthodoxy is: Why should it not be possible to choose a certain practice? The answer that we can only opt for single actions (pragmata) and that mode of actions, that is, structurally conforming practices, are not a possible subject-matter of motivating and preceding intentions has been nullified by our analysis in the previous sections. Actions are always complex, they always have

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structural features, so to speak, which is why a restriction to pragmata as the only possible subject-matter of rational decision is unfounded, arbitrary, and counterintuitive. We are free to choose the structures of our actions and our lives and we remain free, even after this decision. As rational agents, we only impose sanctions on ourselves (in foro externo or in foro interno) when we lack willpower. Willpower allows us to remain free, that is, to refrain from limiting the latitude in options within our practice. We are free to adhere to the structures we chose, or to detach ourselves from them anytime we want. The strong-willed person can remain free without becoming structurally irrational.31

4.11  Interpersonal Structure We discussed in detail the paradigmatic example of interpersonal structural rationality, that is, of cooperation. We concluded that the individualistic characterization of rationality by means of optimization strategies is not an adequate interpretation of cooperative practice. Again, the starting point of the analysis is the fact of cooperation, that is, the capability of persons to cooperate with other persons. We were not convinced by the responses of rational choice orthodoxy to regard these phenomena either as a symptom of widespread irrationality or to explain their plausibility with iteration or altruistic motives. The popular explanation of a seemingly cooperative practice actually being an individually optimizing practice in iterative prisoner’s dilemma games did not concern us for long since it cannot grasp the phenomenon of cooperation in One-Shot Prisoner’s Dilemmas. We can find the same extent of rational choice orthodoxy’s belief in miracles, which we discussed in the previous section, with all its ad hoc hypotheses and excuses in the context of diachronic structural rationality of the individual person. The claim that, contrary to everyday experience and numerous empirical studies in psychology and sociology, including political science, there can be no genuine cooperation and the widespread phenomenon of cooperation is miraculously to arise solely from individually optimizing behavior requires some interpretative efforts.

31  An example that shows that the sequence of rational individual optimization may have detrimental results for a person is presented in the Appendix, The Smoking Example.

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Cooperation, however, is not an extraordinary phenomenon, but the core of structural rationality in interpersonal contexts. This claim can be justified: Every adherence to normative rules constitutes an n-person prisoner’s dilemma. That is to say, for rational choice orthodoxy, the high degree of conformity appears as an enigma in need of explanation in face of the high incidence of individual non-conformity being in the interest of individual agents. The obvious explanation, that interpersonal structural rationality can be explained with the acknowledgment of normative rules, is not available for rational choice orthodoxy. The diachronic and interpersonal cases are completely analogous. Why shouldn’t people individually decide that they want to participate in a cooperative practice, usually expecting that other people are also willing to participate in that cooperative practice? I can choose this cooperative practice, even if I alone cannot guarantee the success of this cooperative practice. I decide on a cooperative practice because I want to contribute to an interpersonal structure of action that I and others (at least that is the belief I hold) consider justified. Persons are not optimizing monads, they stand in social relations to each other, they see themselves as part of forms of interaction and communication, of social practices and cultural communities. However, we should not take the path of communitarianism and reduce phenomena of cooperation to community building and convergence of values. The willingness to cooperate is indeed facilitated by experiences of common practice and common values. However, these are not a necessary condition for the willingness to cooperate. Cooperation is also possible among persons who have no experiences of common practice and diverge regarding cultural and moral values. The difference with diachronic structural rationality is that interpersonal structural rationality is enabled by shared intentionality, that is, an intentionality that is only brought about by unlimited reciprocal replications: “I expect you to be willing to cooperate if you can expect me to be also willing to cooperate and you expect that I expect that etc.” The analogy between the two cases of structural rationality is that the pragmata do not guarantee an intended structural praxis: I did not smoke today in order to quit smoking for the rest of my life. After a few weeks, it turns out that I will relapse into smoking again.32 The intended praxis is  Cf. Appendix, The Smoking Example.

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not realized, although it motivated the individual decision (not to smoke today). The analogy with interpersonal structures: I choose my action so that it is embedded (would be embedded) in an interpersonal cooperative action structure. However, since the others potentially involved in the interaction are either not cooperatively motivated or seek to realize another cooperative action, a cooperative collective action is not realized. In both cases, the intentions guiding the action may have been reasonable, although the action itself is not realized due to a lack of structural rationality—in the interpersonal or diachronic sense—and the pragmata therefore become meaningless. Interactions are guided by giving and taking reasons. This is not to say that they are based exclusively on the exchange of reasons. This exchange, however, plays an important role in enabling and promoting structural action. Shared reasons are choice-determining reasons in the following sense: In the abstract description of interpersonal practice (which can be specified in terms of game theory), a choice function is required on the set of collective options for action. This choice function has the character of a normative value: Given a certain structure of interests, preferences, and assessments, a specific combination of individual pragmata appears reasonable, appropriate, just, that is, structurally rational. The lifeworld practice of communication about reasons is more effective, more flexible, and more complex than contractarian models of justice and justification. It allocates to a person a certain latitude for individual arbitrariness which, within its scope, cannot be made subject to criticism. Kantian ethics has tried to capture this formally, albeit inadequately, through the criterion of the Categorical Imperative. Deontological ethics is more continuous with our lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons, because, unlike consequentialist ethics, it does not judge interactions in terms of optimization criteria but in terms of compliance with minimum normative conditions. Consequentialist ethics is based on an optimization criterion and thus allows only one collective practice except for the case of indifference. In contrast, deontological social ethics establish a choice function that, in principle, assigns to each constellation of interests and moral values a set of options for viable collective action that mark a latitude for individual and collective arbitrariness. However, deontological social ethics also falls short of the complexity of established lifeworld communicative practices. The form of this

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communicative practice provides the basis for the concept of practical reason developed in this book. The starting points are individual contexts: What interests, mutual expectations, claims, rights, and obligations are at play? In many cases, individual contexts do not have to be explicitly discussed because they are undisputedly taken as given. In other cases, diverging normative judgments or rejections of those involved indicate a need for clarification. This is where the practice of giving and taking reasons comes into play. A characterization of one’s own situation can be doubted by others; in fact, characterizing only makes sense on the assumption of such doubts. We assert and contest things in the empirical as well as the normative mode and these modi cannot be differentiated with respect to their grammatical form. In this respect, this distinction is an import from philosophy and an example of the impregnation of lifeworld practice by theory. “Are you denying that I have the right to choose the person I want to marry?” says the adult daughter of a Hindu family living in London. She is convinced that she has this right, while her parents think that she does not. She is not talking about a legal right here, which, living in Great Britain, she obviously has. She is talking about her rights in a moral sense. She believes it to be a moral fact that she can decide for herself who she marries and that she does not have to leave this decision to her parents. Maybe, this conflict represents a clash of two cultures that lack a shared basis of understanding. The reasons put forward by both sides remain ineffective because they are not supported by shared normative beliefs. However, justifying arguments are aimed at resolving differences of belief and this can only succeed if they are convincing. This, in turn, presupposes, that reasons are based on normative beliefs that are shared by the addressee. Successful justifications, therefore, presuppose a large overlap in empirical and normative beliefs; they are effective only against the background of shared empirical and moral experiences and descriptive as well as normative beliefs. Therefore, people who take part in a practice of communication position themselves with every reason they bring forward, that something is such-and-such—empirically and normatively. A relativistic attitude is, at best, possible only from the distance, that is, from the perspective of an impartial person, who does not take part in a specific lifeform. Our picture of a world of normative and empirical facts is based on this practice of giving and rejecting reasons, finding common justificatory

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benchmarks, and changing beliefs to adapt them to better arguments. We position ourselves and act in the world through this practice of giving and taking reasons. Structural rationality can only be realized against a common background of shared reasons, that is, a common world of empirical and normative facts. The radically different lifeform, which is characterized by radically diverging values and beliefs, does not allow for a shared practice of collective reasoning. We could not cooperate with the lion, even if the lion could talk, to modify a statement by Wittgenstein.33

33  Cf. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Part 2, XI: “If a lion could talk, we would not understand him.”

CHAPTER 5

The Phenomenology of Structural Rationality

5.1   Structural Practice The phenomenology of structural practice is inexhaustible. All we can do in this part of the book is single out some exemplary cases and hope that they can be interpreted as pieces of a more comprehensive picture of rational human practice. Hence, we do not intend to create a mosaic or paint a complete picture. We will provide a few brushstrokes here and there, and if we are successful, it will allow the reader to continue working on the picture on their own. Different pictures would result, but they would share something in common: the structural embeddedness of the single action, if rational, within a broader context. Physicists occasionally speak of phenomenological theories in the sense that they remain close to the appearances, the phenomena, the empirical data, but do not claim to achieve a systematic analysis, more specifically, a reduction to paradigms which are already established and have been confirmed multiple times. Phenomenological theories remain on the surface, as it were; they do not claim any deeper explanatory power. That does not at all mean that somebody who develops phenomenological theories must reject the possibility of a systematic or far-reaching theory as, for example, theoretical physics provides. It may simply be the case that such a theory is not (yet) available. Perhaps it would be too complicated to reduce the complex phenomenological facts to one single, all-comprising theory. Phenomenological theories usually follow a heuristic of scientific research. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_5

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They are developed in the hope that they will eventually become unnecessary in light of a more fundamental, systematic, and explanatory theory. However, the epistemic situation is also characterized by gradualism and coherentism in the natural sciences. The one theory to explain everything (the Theory of Everything, which journalists ask about again and again) does not exist. Instead, there are theories that have a more comprehensive explanatory power than others. Theories that accomplish greater systematization, which afford us a more coherent picture of the way things are interconnected. However, if the unification of a theory leads to a loss of explanatory power, if the phenomena, which are to be described and explained, are not adequately accounted for, if the empirical data cannot be made to fit in, if the supposed anomalies increase, if even parts of our experiential knowledge have to be ignored in order to sustain a theory, then we are on the wrong track, which will eventually lead to immunization strategies, dogmatism, and ideology. Ultimately, we will risk losing epistemic rationality. Hence, it is sometimes more reasonable to leave it at a phenomenological description and careful systematization at best. An extreme form of this epistemic attitude is the particularism by Jonathan Dancy.1 The structural account of practical reason is skeptical toward the big, systematizing and principle-oriented accounts of ethics and rationality. After all, it has turned out again and again that these cannot be reconciled with the complexity of our practice of normative assessment, or with the variety of human action. However, the theory of structural rationality does not oppose ethical theory formation in principle. What it comes down to is the appropriate form: we are not searching for the hidden principle or the Ten Commandments. We usually know pretty well what ought to be done even before all theorizing and principles. Mostly it is not principles (which in the most favorable case are the result of ethical theory development) which give us normative orientation— the criticism of principlism and generalism is justified. Nevertheless, rules which prevail within the lifeworld practice of normative assessment can help resolve doubtful cases and moral conflicts.

1

 Cf. Jonathan Dancy. 2004. Ethics without Principles. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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The phenomenology2 of structural practice is supposed to help us move past widespread but misleading dichotomies and oppositions. Consider the undeniable phenomenon that there are numerous concrete decision-­ making situations, in which humans do not maximize expected utility in accordance with orthodox rational choice theory and the homo oeconomicus model. This has led to the thesis that humans tend to act far less rationally than (economic) theory would have us assume, which would, of course, limit the empirical relevance of economic theory. Alternatively, and following Herbert Simon, these phenomena have been interpreted as lending support to a different paradigm of rationality theory, which is usually identified with the satisficing concept. Yet a third approach interprets these phenomena as heuristic or practical rules, which are seen as an expression of an incomplete or bounded rationality, which results from the epistemic and practical limitations of the respective decision situations and decision-­ makers. The meta-theoretical background of so-called behavioral economics tends to the first interpretation mentioned above, according to which there are several empirical phenomena of human action, which cannot be integrated into the rational choice model. However, the careful description of these phenomena provides clues as to which behavior is to be expected and how behavior can be controlled, for example by nudging, that is, merely changing the choice architecture without manipulating the expected consequences of action. The mere fact that nudging is successful in actually changing behavior is presented in turn as proof of the irrationality of agents. The phenomenology of structural practice suggests a different perspective, namely that in many cases the behavioral phenomena, which deviate from the rational choice model, are not irrational. They are forms of structural embeddedness of pragmata in praxis. This embedding does not make the respective pragmata irrational; on the contrary, it is what secures their rationality. A special form of this tension between optimization in terms of the rational choice model and structural embeddedness is the relation between rationality and morality, which we will address in this chapter. 2  When we speak of the phenomenology of structural practice, we do not mean the specific philosophical method of phenomenology, even if the basic intuitions of the theory of practical reason—to engage with the things themselves, not to allow one’s view to be distorted by hasty interpretations and systematizations, to refrain from theory at first— are certainly related to those of philosophical phenomenology.

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5.2   Self-Control Humeans immunize their conception of instrumental rationality, that is, the appropriate choice with respect to given desires at the moment of the decision, against criticism by postulating that desires are always to be conceived in a way which blocks any criticism brought forward. Let us vary an old example by Thomas Nagel3: Somebody wants to go to Rome on vacation in two weeks and knows that it would be useful to be able to speak basic Italian. So, she has booked a language course, which, however, takes away valuable time from other desirable things. This presents a difficulty for the belief-desire model: It is certainly plausible to assume that the respective desires a person has at a given moment are more likely better fulfilled by not attending the Italian course and, instead, meeting friends in a café, watching a nice movie, or reading a book. The strong-willed and rational person will nonetheless refrain from optimizing the momentary fulfillment of her desire at the moment of the decision and will attend the Italian course – provided that the pleasures forfeited by visiting the Italian language course do not (according to rational consideration) outweigh the advantage of having Italian skills in Rome. Humeans can immunize their theory against such objections by assuming that, precisely at the moment of the decision, the rational agent develops a desire to do something now, that is, to visit the Italian language course, in order to be able to do something later, namely speak Italian. This will be beneficial for their expected desire fulfillment. This immunization is psychologically implausible: That is not how our desires work. Unless, of course, we trivialize the concept of desires so that everything that manifests in our actions is ascribed to us as a desire. In other words: unless we assimilate the concept of desire to the concept of revealed preference. If we adopt this concept, we always desire what we do, and any further consideration of rationality becomes superfluous. In fact, the revealed preference concept is only distinct to the extent that it is connected to coherence conditions like the postulates of the utility theorem.4 A more decisive point here is this: If the desires of a rational person always anticipate the respective desire fulfillment, then practical rationality is integrated into a psychological theory of the genesis of desires. This would mean a highly implausible shift from the normative theory of 3 4

 Cf. Nagel, Thomas. 1970. The Possibility of Altruism. Oxford: Clarendon Press.  Cf. Appendix, Ramsey Compatibility.

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rationality to empirical psychology. This is not how the genesis of desires works. Practical rationality precisely consists of evaluating particular momentary desires, forming a judgment on them, even if only implicitly and rudimentarily, in order to then align our actions with those momentary desires which pass this test. Much speaks in favor of distancing oneself even further from the belief-desire model. Desires are not merely subjected to a test of rationality or at least permissibility. Rather, this practice is an expression of a normative judgment, into which not only own desires enter, but also the desires of others, expectations for the future, and normative judgments of different types. It is the judgment which constitutes the decision. The decision is not an expression of a desire, but rather an expression of a normative judgment: it is reasonable (for me) to do this now. The complex relation between our own desires and reasons for action can be illustrated with an everyday example: the decision-making of somebody who is unsure whether or not to quit smoking. Let us assume the smoker has reached the conclusion that, all things considered, it would be rational for her to quit smoking. She can base this conclusion on the advice of her primary care physician, medical studies, or on her own interest in sports and a long life. Given the same information from medical science, other smokers might reach a different conclusion. They might, for instance, regard a certain shortening of their life as subordinate to the pleasure of smoking and the supposed or real increase in concentration, possibly even the meditative aspect of lighting a cigarette. From a lifeworld perspective, the situation seems clear: The smoker who considers the impact of her habit to be net negative has every reason to quit smoking. Not quitting would be irrational or rather a sign of weakness of will. In theory, however, the situation is far more complex. Refuting the Humean interpretation is relatively easy: according to the Humean view, it would not be irrational to continue smoking, despite what our smoker has concluded, because what is decisive is the fulfillment of the momentary desire and the corresponding instrumentally rational choice of lighting the next cigarette. The simple form of Humeanism is not convincing. The more sophisticated Humean,5 however, offers a solution: The person who is unsatisfied with her action-guiding desires or preferences (more 5  Like Harry Frankfurt, 1971. Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person. Journal of Philosophy 68: 5–20.

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precisely: volitions) develops meta-preferences. Her status as a person depends on allowing these meta-preferences to become effective for action, which is to say that their meta-preferences determine their first-­ order volitions. Where this does not happen, the person is weak-willed and the smoker, a limine, loses her status as a person. She mutates to a Wanton, who follows her particular preferences of each moment. This process described above undoubtedly happens: Persons who have strong volitions but reject their practical consequences, develop meta-­ preferences, just like in the example of the reasonable smoker. They desire to have other desires than they actually have. However, this interpretation, despite its popularity in the contemporary, predominantly analytical philosophy of action, is implausible: The strong-willed person is characterized precisely by not needing to have other desires than the ones that she has, because she follows her rational insight and quits smoking despite having the strong desire to light her next cigarette. Willpower – and this is something that Aristotle observed much more acutely than Harry Frankfurt— consists in following rational insight and not momentary desires. If this insight is itself determined by the expected desire fulfillment over time, then one can also say that the strong-willed person makes the desire fulfillment over time (more precisely, the temporal integral of desire fulfillment) the standard of her actions and uses momentary desires merely as parameters of this integral. The strong-willed smoker quits smoking because of the insight that smoking is harmful to her. There is no need for a detour via the change of desires. It does, however, make it easier for the strong-­ willed smoker to make rational insight and not momentary desires the standard of her decisions, if she knows that the strong desire to light another cigarette will most likely decrease in the course of the following days and weeks without nicotine consumption and will completely vanish eventually. The natural interpretation of willpower is obvious: It is nothing other than structural rationality. The smoker has reached the insight that a lifestyle without tobacco consumption is better for her and she does what fulfills this structure (in this case: continued non-smoking). The fact that weaker-willed smokers choose coping strategies and develop competing desires in order to suppress the desire to light the next cigarette, for example by doing sports and wanting to perform particularly well there, in no way contradicts this interpretation of willpower. Such coping strategies are reasonable—they can help implement rational insights—but they should not be considered the signum of personhood.

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Freedom of the will consists in following rational insights and not in developing second-order volitions whose practical relevance only becomes manifest once they have changed the existing desires. Frankfurt is wrong to think that it is desire, not reason, that constitutes rationality. The opposite holds: It is reason, not desire, that constitutes rationality. Note that we do not deny the phenomenon of meta-preferences; we even grant them an important role in the formation of prohairetic attitudes. However, we should not make an expression of weakness of the will the hallmark of personhood. To put it differently and more positively: What Frankfurt is aiming at is in fact a deficit of the traditional Humean model of action, namely diachronic incoherence. He illustrates this with the example of a drug addict and, by introducing second-order volitions, that is, meta-desires, hopes to secure sufficient structural rationality without having to depart from the primacy of desires. But wouldn’t it be enough to depart from the traditional Humean model, that is, not taking the momentary desire fulfillment as the criterion of rationality, but rather the long-term optimization of desire fulfillment? Let us make an assumption favorable to this, namely that only the fulfillment of one’s own desires is normatively relevant. So, the agent can ignore all other aspects, such as the desire fulfillment of others or respect for their rights. For the sake of the argument, we would then assume a temporal discount rate of 0 for one’s own desire fulfillment and would hope that, under this strong premise of rationality, the insight that it would be best for the smoker to quit smoking can be realized by the optimization of the temporal integral of desire fulfillment. This raises quite challenging questions, some of them mathematical. Let us assume that the health benefits, which were decisive for the insight of the smoker that it would be best for them to quit smoking, increase continually with each day of not smoking. In the simplest case, this relation would be a linear function in time. It would be even more favorable to the claim that individual optimizing behavior is sufficient, given a temporally undiscounted value function, to secure the rational decision of quitting smoking, if the positive effects were not linear in time, but instead corresponded to a monotonically increasing function of continuously falling marginal value, asymptotically approaching a lowest upper bound (supremum). But this favorable form of the utility function may correlate with the inverse of the loss function. It may very well be the case that the first day of not smoking, let us say, is characterized by such

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suffering that the temporal integral’s utility is smaller than the loss incurred.6 The puzzling result of this quite true-to-life modeling would be this: Against his better insight, the rational consequentialist, who eschews all temporal discounting, that is, who weights future desire fulfillment equally to present desire fulfillment regardless of how far into the future it may happen (quite a strong assumption), does not quit smoking. It would even be irrational to quit smoking, if one accepts the consequentialist optimization principle as a criterion of rationality – at least until the cost-benefit ratio has changed, for example because the person develops a smoking-related illness. A different possibility of securing the rationality of continuing to smoke, despite one’s better judgment, consists in the assumption of thresholds. Empirical studies show that we have perceptual thresholds, that is, that we do not perceive minimal changes, that there is a Δ which needs to be passed for us to perceive a change in temperature, for instance. Applied to our example, it would certainly be plausible to assume that, in the long run, it is completely irrelevant for the health condition and the preference fulfillment of the smoker whether she quits smoking on the 1st of January or the 2nd of January 2020. The positive effects differ so minimally that they are not perceptible to them. If we also assume this to be the case for the postponement of the date on which the reasonable smoker quits her habit, from the 2nd to the 3rd of January, from the 3rd to the 4th, and so on, then it is modulo preference thresholds rational for the reasonable smoker to keep on smoking. In reality, the situation is of course precisely the other way around: It is not rational to continue smoking; rather it is the irrationality of consequentialist individual optimization which becomes apparent here. The transition to structural rationality is obvious: The smoker favors a life without smoking for good reasons and, therefore, quits smoking—starting today. Perhaps we will generously allow that it can be rational to continue smoking under specific conditions, but we should under no circumstances exclude that this decision is irrational, even if the preference threshold theory or the previously performed cost-benefit analysis is correct. The move to structural rationality can guarantee that a manifestly rational practice is also considered rational in theory.

6

 For a more mathematical analysis, see Appendix, The Smoking Example.

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5.3   Self-Restraint Behavioral economists consider it proof of our irrationality that we strongly prefer avoiding certain amounts of monetary losses to obtaining profits of the same amount. But there is a very plausible explanation for loss-­aversion which speaks against considering it irrational. We are not just individual optimizers; we settle into our life. We plan our expenses, for example, and adjust to situations in which we have certain resources available, including monetary resources. It is not important to us as structurally rational beings to obtain the optimum at every given moment, but rather that we can arrange our life in a predictable fashion. This requires that we know approximately which resources are at our disposal. Reasonable people do not plan according to what they could obtain under favorable circumstances, but according to what they will have available even under unfavorable circumstances. Losses, therefore, affect our life planning. Gains are just an additum which one can use one way or another affording additional freedom—which reasonable persons do not count on in their planning. The priority of avoiding losses serves the plannability of our conduct of life and is reasonable. Economists also find it strange that we ascribe more value to what we already own than to what we could have. This asymmetry can be seen as a version of gain–loss asymmetry. We are reluctant to hand over something we own, even if we receive something more valuable in return. Imagine a society which did not have this bias in favor of own possessions. It would permanently be preoccupied with comparing the things others have to one’s own possessions and it would do everything to obtain what is more valuable, but belongs to others, in exchange for what is less valuable, but is in one’s own possession. A society which is driven by constant comparison of relative possessions is not characterized by an especially highly developed rationality, but is rather the consequence of a widespread character deformation which tempted Aristotle to characterize a life which is directed at accumulating wealth as unworthy of human beings. Indeed, Aristotle would have had a lot to observe in modern capitalist society which is unworthy of humans. The bias in favor of one’s own possessions, as opposed to what one does not have or what others have, is actually a sign of human rationality: Rational persons value what they have and do not strive toward what they do not. The practice of constant comparison and the permanent search for betterment which economists often demand insofar as they consider it to

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be rational is structurally irrational. It is incompatible with what used to be the focus of economic analysis, namely contributing to human contentment. Modern economic theory has distanced itself too far from its origins in moral philosophy. Some people are willing to pay a high price for keeping their “options” open. In the extreme case, they become incapable of making decisions. Now, it is undoubtedly irrational to forgo a decision because two options appear equally attractive. This is the old story of Buridan’s Ass, which starves to death standing between two equally large stacks of hay, because it does not have a reason to favor one over the other. But this is not the normal case. The normal case is characterized by people not knowing exactly about the properties, advantages, and disadvantages of the various available options, and hoping to find out more by postponing their decision. Sometimes it is surely the inability to forfeit one of the options, regardless of how small the probability that the person would ultimately choose said option. If the evaluative standards are clear, but the properties which allow an evaluation are not, this situation can be rationally controlled and there are neat decision-theoretical models which allow a precise mathematical formulation. How much time should one spend on gathering better information? That depends on how much it “costs” to postpone the decision and how many possible benefits we expect from better information. This kind of rationalization, however, is not available to us when we are faced with existential decisions, that is, decisions which co-determine our evaluative standards. Existential or great decisions differ from non-­ existential, small, or everyday decisions in that they entail a structural change of our lifeform so significant that they render the evaluations of the differing lifeforms that would result from such a decision incompatible. Of course, the lines between those extremes are blurry. For some, the narrowing of the scope of existential decisions as life goes on is quite a bitter pill to swallow. A career has been chosen, or perhaps one’s professional life has already come to an end. Children were born and have established forms of obligation over decades, and so forth. For others, this is precisely what makes the advantage of getting older. The soul calms down as it is not torn between completely different life projects. In fact, empirical studies show that the temporal development of life satisfaction follows a U-shape. During the age of early adolescence and the rush hour of life, we are at a low point. Life satisfaction is higher in younger years, usually, when there are not yet existential options available to choose from, as well

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as in older years—it increases with temporal distance to young adulthood. Surprisingly, even the narrowing of the temporal horizon toward the end of life does not change anything about this: Seniors become more content, as long as they do not suffer from illness. Contentment is certainly a central value for the shaping of one’s life, but it is only one among many. Still, with regard to this value it indeed seems irrational to try to keep as many options as possible open for as long as possible. A closer look, however, shows right away that there is a connection here: The often cost-intensive tendency of keeping as many options open for as long as possible, which behavioral economists consider irrational,7 corresponds to the supposed irrationality of loss-aversion and divestiture aversion (also known as the endowment effect or possession bias). Without loss-aversion, that is, if losses and gains were valued equally, and without divestiture aversion, that is, if personal possessions and the possessions of others were valued equally, there is constant decision-making pressure to search for potential betterment. This is nothing other than the syndrome of “keeping doors open” (Dan Ariely). Without loss-aversion and divestiture aversion, we would not only keep doors open, but would also constantly be standing in front of newly opened doors. We would always be restless. Even in a world characterized by the pursuit of profit and consumerism, people protect themselves from becoming optimizing nomads in a universe of unlimited possibilities by creating structures in their life and by turning to these structures for orientation. They do not question what they have decided to do, even if there are potentially better alternatives. They adhere to what they have integrated into their life, even if possibilities exist to purchase different goods or services, perhaps more valuable ones. In this way, one could certainly say that they remain true to themselves and restrain their self-externalization in a boundless world of consumption and profit.

5.4   Duties to Oneself Modern ethics and political philosophy, but also legal practice in liberal constitutional states, restrict duties (almost) exclusively to the class of other-regarding duties. I do wrong by infringing the rights of others or if I do not fulfill my duties to aid and duties of solidarity. In Kantian terms: 7  Cf. Dan Ariely. 2010. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. New York: Harper, chapter 9.

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If I treat persons as a mere means to an end and not as end-in-themselves. The radical branch of liberalism, called libertarianism, postulates the principle of self-ownership, which means that every person can do unto themselves whatever they want and however they see fit; there are no moral or juridical restrictions. This is a quite attractive position that emphasizes the self-responsibility of adult, accountable persons. I am responsible for myself and others do not have a say here, not even the legislator. It is legitimate, however, that what I do unto others is subjected to moral and juridical appraisal. Even in our social proximity, we must not cross the boundaries that guarantee individual self-determination and account for individual needs for help. However, the implementation of this libertarian foundation of modern, democratic constitutional states is not applied consistently. Counter-­ examples include the obligation to wear seat belts or helmets, legal sanctions against drug use, and also the shaping of family relations, for instance in the form of legal monogamy. Libertarian ethics and political philosophy is an extreme form of normative minimalism, which has become increasingly dominant in modern times. Even Kantian liberalism is minimalistic as it focuses on the universalizability of maxims for action. These maxims should be embeddable in a general regularity (“law”) of agency that is possible or that—more strictly—rational beings could will. In the examples of how to apply said maxims that Kant himself develops, it turns out that, in his interpretation, there arise duties to oneself after all, for example that prudential suicide is morally unacceptable. Libertarians would object that the body is part of the person’s property and that they can do with it whatever they want. John Locke, the founding father of libertarianism, took a different stance, because he saw God as the ultimate owner; hence there is no unlimited self-ownership: suicide destroys something that is God’s property. The Stoics with their broad conception of responsibility were also not far away from a theory of self-ownership. This is reflected, for example, in their approval, even their recommendation, of committing prudential suicide. Their ideas concerning the role of duties to oneself, however, are completely different. As for other ancient conceptions of ethics, duties to oneself were central to the Stoic concept of responsibility. The close connection of dikaiosyne and eudaimonia in Plato, his appeal in the Apology to take care primarily of one’s own soul (epimeleiea tès psychès), the conception of virtue as a property of a great soul in Aristotle (megalopsychia), and especially the goal of ataraxia, the imperturbability of the soul, in Epicurus

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point to a common core of ancient conceptions of ethics: to determine what makes for the good life of the person—within a community of others, the polis, and later in Hellenism within the cosmopolitan human community as the Stoics perceived it. If we direct our attention to the decisions that determine humans’ everyday lives, the traces of these different theoretical systematizations are noticeable to varying degrees. It is obvious, however, that modern normative minimalism is not reflected in our everyday practice. The question of what we are required to do in a certain situation, which action is supported by the strongest reasons, is usually answered by referring to the commitments that we have entered (commissiva), to one’s own rights and the rights of others (libertates), and to duties (officia) that emerge from certain social roles, for example as a parent. In some rather rare cases, it is about the optimization of our self-interest, and in others, it is about respecting (invariance) principles (principia), such as equal treatment and non-discrimination. In the end, the normative judgments that guide our everyday practice determine the chosen lifeform—one could even say that our lifeform represents the totality of our normative assessments. The respective commitments that are a part of the structural whole that makes up the chosen lifeform arise from this evaluative practice. In this perspective, all duties are also duties to myself, to what I value and what I detest, to that which makes up my moral identity. Even the duties that I have toward others can be violated only at the cost of subverting the lifeform I am living, provided I have accepted these duties as my own and have the willpower to organize my life accordingly. According to the realist interpretation that underlies this book, this is about normative insight and knowledge and not a positing in the sense of radical or Kantian constructivism. However, this insight remains my insight. I arrived at this insight by weighing reasons. It determines a rational practice, a practice that is compatible with this insight, that is, my life. If I act against this normative insight and knowledge, I do not only violate, for example, the rights of others, but also my integrity as a moral person. Put more pointedly: The duties to others I have recognized determine duties to myself. Remaining true to oneself is an appropriate formulation to express this interrelation. I cannot arbitrarily decide what is a duty to myself. Rather, my duties to myself are determined by the existing good reasons that govern a morally knowledgeable, reasonable person. There is, however, sufficient room to give life meaning through one’s own decisions, values, and goals. To take

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another trivial everyday example: My decision to learn Chinese within the next two years generates duties; duties that I have to myself as the person who has made this decision. This is how we feel from a lifeworld perspective. If I have skipped Chinese class several times, I am right to have a guilty consciousness. In a sense, I did not meet my own standards, I have become unfaithful to myself, I have not followed through on my decisions. To put it in the terminology we have developed here: The decision to skip class does not fit with the structural practice I aim for, which I have committed to by deciding to learn Chinese within the next two years. I divide, so to speak, into the person who decides according to the respective circumstances whether or not they sufficiently feel like attending the Chinese course or find other things more attractive, and the person who has made the structural decision to learn Chinese within the next two years. My identity as the author of my life is challenged here. Things do not add up and this in turn becomes manifest in feelings of guilt, self-­ reproach. I wish for different action-guiding desires than those that I had in that moment. The structurally rational person does not constantly reconsider her emotional state, which other options she might have, what seems to be more attractive in the moment. The rational person adheres to her structural decision of regularly attending the Chinese course and goes to class. The person then has no reason for regret; she has fulfilled her duty toward herself. The structural decision generates duties to oneself. Or let us take the example of prudential suicide, which Kant opposes.8 Let us assume that I am confronted with a cancer diagnosis and the attending medical specialist predicts a remaining lifespan of two to three years. I am in despair and spontaneously decide to end my life out of fear of everything that might otherwise still lie ahead, such as the medical treatment and its side effects. Something holds me back from executing this decision. After a couple of days, my state of mind has somewhat calmed down again and I conclude that I should not go through with it, as my suicide would cause too great a suffering for those close to me. It is important to note that we are not condemning the person who chooses prudential suicide in such a situation, that is, who after weighing the expected positive and negative aspects of life reaches the conclusion that it would be desirable to die as soon as possible. What is at issue is something else, namely the integrity of the person which is constituted by the variety of 8  Immanuel Kant. 1785. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten), chapter IV.

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practical reasons that have—to date—shaped their life. If the consideration of those who are close to us, of partners and children, and close friends, is among these, a premature suicide would clash with the normative order that has hitherto determined the person’s moral identity. In his discussion of prudential suicide, Kant rightly points to this dimension as a duty to others. He is incorrect, however, to conclude that any form of prudential suicide is morally impermissible—a fallacy of the type pars pro toto. The things that a person who commits prudential suicide could—of course only virtually—posthumously blame themselves for, such as the harm caused to related persons, the lasting perplexity, because there was no opportunity to deal with the tragic situation, are an indication that even in existential borderline situations, the postulates of structural rationality remain relevant. In a similar way, this holds for the long-term consequences and assessments beyond death. The carrying out of a dead person’s testamentary will establishes structural rationality beyond her death, and it entails obligations for those who can carry it out, without the previous author of her life still being able to exert influence. In many countries, suicide used to be liable to legal persecution. Since the respective person cannot be punished if the suicide is successful, it was attempted suicide that was a criminal offense. The legislator rightfully decided in many cases to abolish this criminal provision. This does not mean, however, that the moral judgment on suicide is solely up to the acting person and arbitrary. It is a fallacy to think that everything that is not sanctioned under criminal law is morally neutral. There is much that speaks in favor of designing criminal laws minimalistically, that is, on the basis of libertarian normative criteria: It is unacceptable to infringe on the rights of another person. But many things that should not be normed and sanctioned under criminal law play an important role for the moral assessment of our practice. Duties to oneself are one of these things.

5.5   Honesty We—usually—agree on what constitutes dishonest behavior. It is far more difficult to provide universally valid ethical criteria for this. One example of dishonest behavior is when a cashier takes advantage of a customer’s ignorance by giving back too little change. The optimizing standard theory holds that persons act irrationally if they forgo advantages that they could have at no cost. According to this view, persons who are honest and

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give out the correct amount of change, even if they do not have to worry about being exposed and punished, are acting irrationally. Now it could be the case that somebody desired to act honestly and that the best way to fulfill this desire would be to give back the correct amount of change. This phenomenon—honest behavior without incentives and sanctions—is widespread and is interpreted within behavioral economics as a conflict between social norms and market norms. According to this view, there exists the social norm of being honest and the market norm of seizing every opportunity to gain advantages, even when this conflicts with social norms. Sometimes economists attempt to integrate adherence to social rules into market norms. They claim, for example, that a person who behaves in accordance with a social rule does this because non-conforming behavior is tied to a sanction in foro interno, that is, it leads to a guilty conscience that correspondingly decreases the level of utility. In the reverse case, it provides gratification, for example the gratification of persons praising themselves for their honest behavior and of experiencing this praise as pleasant. Some behavioral economists talk of the super-ego intervening and taking over so to speak, which is to say that the person loses control. It is then the super-ego that is acting. Both of these are, in my belief, far-fetched strategies for immunizing the standard theory of optimizing rationality. Of course, it can be the case that a person is motivated to act honestly because they are afraid of the guilty conscience that they might have had if they had been dishonest, but these are exotic exceptions. The super-ego does not take over and start controlling my action only because I repeatedly ride the train with a ticket. The far more plausible and direct explanation of honest behavior is that there are persons who want to act honestly in many situations and some who want to act honestly in all situations. But there may also be some persons who only sometimes feel the desire to act honestly, and rarely there are individuals who never feel the desire to act honestly. Such persons tend to end up as criminals. Behavioral economic experiments support this view. When test subjects have to solve problems and are provided with a payout corresponding to the number of correct answers, but it is up to the test persons themselves to declare how many of the problems they have solved, the average number of problems that are solved increases – or rather the number of problems which they claim to have solved increases. Since there is a material incentive to solve as many of the problems as possible, if there is no way of

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verifying, it would be “rational” to declare that one had arrived at the maximal possible number of correct solutions. As it happens, extensive test series have shown that the average number of problems solved increases only insignificantly if one allows the test persons themselves to indicate how many of the problems they have solved.9 Specially designed test series additionally revealed that the probability of being exposed as dishonest plays only a small role, whereas the use of money as a means of payment increases the probability of dishonest actions, and on the contrary a preceding discussion of ethical topics made dishonest behavior disappear completely in some of the tests. Dan Ariely, one of the researchers involved, interprets these surprising results as a conflict between the super-ego on the one side and rational, economic practice that is in line with the market on the other side.10 According to this view, it would suffice to remind people of the Ten Commandments or even just uplifting texts that they have read in school, in order to make the super-ego intervene in everyday practice, which is meant to explain these experimental results. This interpretation is of course complete nonsense that serves merely to immunize a preconceived theory of optimizing rationality against empirical findings. It results in the erroneous conclusion that the desire to behave honestly is irrational. My counter-thesis is not that any behavior that is honest is ipso facto rational, but that the intrinsic desire to behave honestly and an action that fulfills this desire are not necessarily irrational. Rational choice orthodoxy claims that a behavior that is led by the intrinsic desire to be honest is irrational as such. Honest behavior counts as rational if and only if this behavior fulfills other desires than the desire to be honest. For example, the desire of maximizing one’s well-being, or in this case obtaining monetary advantages through honest behavior. Not every honest behavior is an expression of structural rationality. My thesis is far weaker: Honest behavior can be an expression of structural rationality. I will even go one step further: Structural rationality is the most natural interpretation of the lifeworld justification for honest behavior. Honest persons are not necessarily plagued by pangs of a guilty 9  Cf. Maurice Schweitzer and Christopher Hsee. 2002. Stretching the Truth: Elastic Justification and Motivated Communication of Uncertain Information. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 25: 185–201; Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely. 2006. Dishonesty in Everyday Life and its Policy Implications. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing 25: 117–126; and id. 2008. The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research 45: 633–644. 10  Cf. Ariely (2010), chapters 13 and 14.

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conscience if they are not being honest in the artificial situation of a behavioral economic experiment. Because of the interpersonal setup of the test series, there is not even a reason to be considerate of others or to feel embarrassed in front of others. Rather, the surprisingly high percentage of honest behavior without any conformity incentives (between 70% and more than 80%) can be most naturally explained as the participants of the experiment practicing honesty as a constraint. They each behave honestly, because they expect this behavior from all participants in the test series— “expect” in the two-fold sense of subjective probability and normative attitude. This double—normative and practical—expectation toward the general honest practice leads to a formatting of one’s own practice. As an honest practice, it is embedded in an interpersonal structure of action, which is an expression of the acceptance of general honesty as a constraint. The honest behavior of the person in particular cases is an expression of her structural rationality. In these cases, honesty is indeed not optimizing; it is irrational according to the standard model, but it is rational in the sense of structural rationality. This speaks against the standard model and in favor of the conception of structural rationality.

5.6   Politeness Politeness is an attitude toward other persons that is directed at the respective person feeling comfortable. The sympathetic message is that politeness does not manifest itself in complying with certain conventional rules but rather in assuming a specific attitude toward other persons and acting accordingly. Now there can be very different ways of assuring that another person feels comfortable in our presence. Politeness is only one of them. But one can rightly say that politeness would lose its substance if it were merely understood as following certain rules of convention. And if the respective persons realize that the rules of politeness are being observed only for their own sake, so to speak, they may even perceive this kind of behavior as unpleasant. However, this personal aspect of politeness is lost, at least to a large extent, if the interactions remain anonymous. Let us consider an example related to traffic. A few years ago, the rule was added to Germany’s road traffic regulations that one has to give vehicles coming from a road merging on the right-hand side the possibility to drive onto the main road according to the zipper method. Before the introduction, the situation was handled by a colorful mixture of considerateness, inconsiderateness,

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and diverging rule applications. The vehicles on the main road had the right of way. It was therefore an expression of goodwill when drivers gave a vehicle coming from a side street the opportunity to merge. Providing this opportunity meant in many cases that others, who had potentially waited for quite some time, would try to cut in as well. Furthermore, there was the question of why one should let only one vehicle and not two or three, or five, vehicles go first, seeing as one had already braked anyway. Typically, there were a number of signals that were not determined by traffic regulations, for instance briefly flashing the lights in order to signal that one was allowing another vehicle to go first, or a longer flashing signal in order to warn that one was not willing to let the other vehicle go first, raising one’s hand visibly in the windshield as a sign of gratitude if one had been let in, and so on. Since in such a situation it is impossible that the practice of politeness is an expression of an interpersonal relation or even of the desire to do something good for a specific person, the question of motivation arises. Typically, the motivation seems to me to be characterized by an effort toward structural rationality. We all find ourselves in traffic situations in which we are, again and again, dependent on the considerateness of others, which they are not compelled to. In such cases, we consider the practice of being considerate toward others to be desirable. And even when we are not in the role of someone who is compelled by law, we follow this rule and let others in. However, this is where the problems begin: How far should considerateness go? Should consideration be shown at each and every intersection? Should it extend to one vehicle or to several? Do we inconvenience the drivers behind us on the main road if we are over-considerate? Above all, what about the equal treatment of all traffic participants? Which rule is desirable: Allowing the vehicle to enter only if a line has formed on the merging street? Allowing only one vehicle to enter, hoping that the following driver, or at least the one after the driver behind me, on the main road will also allow others in? Is this form of consideration not unfair toward the vehicles that use the main road, because they have already been stuck in traffic for 15 minutes, whereas the vehicles on the side street have probably only just arrived? And so forth. There are two interesting aspects about this example. First, the fact that the motivation for a specific action, that is, allowing a vehicle to go first in a concrete traffic situation, has a structural justification, that is, which kind of general traffic situation one desires to exist for such situations. Second, the fact that the underdetermination of individual cases raises problems

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that can lead to helplessness, or erratic or arbitrary behavior. Establishing a conventional or juridical rule solves the problem of underdetermination. It ends the need to constantly renegotiate among the persons involved, since they have mutual expectations that are replicable (I know that he knows that I know…) and all participants, therefore, have shared knowledge. But this also makes gestures of politeness or gratitude superfluous. One could say that establishing a rule not only coordinates behavior interpersonally, but also de-moralizes it. This vivid example of everyday life provides an illustration of the rule of law’s general function of reducing responsibility through standardization and of reducing the need for moral decision-making. While politeness can be explained as a special type of altruism, this model cannot be expanded to anonymous interactions, as they occur in traffic for example. Here we cannot do without the application of some form of embedding rule, that is, the rule that guarantees structural rationality. If these rules are underdetermined and are therefore not applied coherently but rather erratically and in varying shapes, this is not evidence against the role of rules in general, but merely against the thesis that the universalization requirement removes normative underdetermination, as traditional Kantians and contemporary Kantian constructivists assume. The underdetermination of rules does not mean that no rule-guided practice exists. The conflation of these two phenomena plays a—problematic—role in Jonathan Dancy’s particularism and its justification. Dancy considers himself to be a realist, that is, he is convinced that there are moral facts, that we can—objectively—make moral mistakes, regardless of what we believe or what others believe or of what an ideal discourse community would believe (and here I completely agree with him). However, he also believes that the fact that each action is underdetermined with regard to the rules or principles that it follows shows that rules and principles have no normative relevance whatsoever. Dancy constructs a parallel in the first chapters of his book between physical and ethical explanation, asserting that laws are not playing any role in the explanation of physical events.11 It is definitely correct that we can grasp the physical facts of our lifeworld without knowledge of physical laws, in the same way that we can know whether or not a particular action is right or wrong without knowledge of ethical

 Cf. Dancy (2004).

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principles. But it is unconvincing to draw from this the conclusion that principles or laws are irrelevant. Even when faced with the anonymity of a traffic situation, we attach great importance to the equal treatment of road users, unless there are reasons for unequal treatment. Indeed, it is even a kind of insult if individual drivers have reason to assume that they are being discriminated against, that they are being treated worse than others. Modern society is characterized by countless situations in everyday life that show a more or less strong degree of anonymity. Meeting managers of another company that one wants to reach an agreement with usually does not establish an interpersonal relationship; the contemporary professional ethos even tends to forbid this. Hence, it is all the more important for all parties involved that the rules of equal treatment, equal respect, and equal recognition are followed. It would be a massive affront with dramatic consequences if someone were not to greet women or black people at such a meeting. This type of invariance condition (equal treatment) calls for evaluation criteria, however, and, as we have seen, these are underdetermined in many cases. Typically, this underdetermination is resolved either by convention or legal provisions – a part of lawmaking as a form of conventional conflict resolution. Deviations from the respectively established and conventional (because not clearly specified in their content) rules would be impolite, even in cases where deviations from this rule would not have counted as impolite before. From the perspective of structural rationality, conventions gain normative power and the traditional dichotomy between pragmatic and moral imperatives dissolves.

5.7  Appropriateness There are many phenomena that appear unexplainable from an economic perspective, for example the practice of tipping. Indeed, there is quite an extensive amount of economic literature on this topic, but the essence of this practice has been grotesquely misunderstood: internal gratification in the shape of feeling better after having left a tip; altruism toward the server; the expectation to be continually treated well in the future, which fails in the case of one-time restaurant visits that are common in the world of tourism; the irrationality of restaurant visitors who might believe that leaving a generous tip in this restaurant will lead to their being treated better in other restaurants, and so on. No, restaurant visitors leave tips because they consider it appropriate to do so in the respective situation.

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What counts as appropriate is influenced by customary practices. Tips that are significantly higher than what is generally expected are just as inappropriate as tips that are far too small. It even leaves a bad aftertaste if a guest varies how much he tips according to how satisfied he was. One may do so in individual cases, but normally one would not; it would not be appropriate, at least not in most countries in the world. In some countries, the practice of tipping does not exist. A server in Beijing will come running down the street to bring you the change that you have left on your plate for him as a tip. He perceives it as inappropriate to be tipped, possibly even as degrading (he would have provided friendly service in any event, regardless of any expectation of gratification). One misinterprets the actual motivation for action as soon as one tries to pseudo-rationalize such a practice by interpreting it as the fulfillment of specific desires. The respective decision to tip corresponds to the endorsement of a general practice, namely to tip according to the respective country’s customs. There is not much more to say about this and there is no explanatory gap that needs to be filled. As rational agents, humans are free to have such reasons and to follow them. If they want to participate in a practice that is generally considered appropriate, it is not irrational to do so, even if they do not personally benefit from doing so; even if there are no desires that would be fulfilled by this, apart from the desire to participate in an appropriate practice; even if gratifications do not play a role in foro interno or as an incentive. The preference-neutrality which economic analysis lays such an emphasis on should be extended to the choice of pragmata as part of an adequate practice. San Pellegrino, which is perhaps the most famous European brand of mineral water, is widespread not only in Italy, but also in many other countries, including Germany. An average-price restaurant in Italy will charge about 2 € for a large bottle of San Pellegrino. North of the Italian border, the price rises considerably, up to 7,50 €, for example. The prices of food by no means diverge to the same extent; they are still quite similar to Italian prices – it is only the price of mineral water that increases. We can observe a similar phenomenon for the Italian espresso. In most Italian bars, you can still get an espresso for about 1 €, which has become highly uncommon in Germany. It would be misleading to try to explain this in terms of tariffs levied on these products or in terms of transportation costs, since there are no toll charges within the European Union and because transportation costs are irrelevant for these price differences. The only

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plausible explanation is cultural: Italians consider having mineral water for a meal a staple. One needs a lot of hydration, particularly in the summer months, and any restaurant that charged 7,50 € for this as restaurants do in Germany would be judged as indecent by Italian customers. It is similar in the case of espresso: It is not a luxury drink in Italy. It is part of the social cement of everyday Italian life, so to speak. One goes out with others or meets regularly for coffee, in order to take breaks from working, to exchange some words, in order to have a pretense for meeting. A bar charging 2,80 € or 3,50 € would seem indecent  – even in the Veneto region where incomes are considerably higher than in Germany. The most plausible explanation is not that economic optimization processes play a role here, but rather it is the role that appropriateness considerations and expectations play in our everyday practice. There are cultural standards of appropriateness, and in some cases they impact economic practice. The interpretation according to which these criteria are the sign of a widespread irrationality is wrong. The customers’ expectation to receive an espresso for only 1 € is completely rational, that is, it rests on the fact that everybody has this expectation. The market of rational consumers does not wipe out normative expectations based on cultural norms of appropriateness. Structural rationality becomes concrete in the form of appropriateness conditions that determine our practice. It seems quite obvious to me that the criteria of appropriateness determine our behavior as consumers to a far greater extent than optimization in the sense of maximizing the expected value of one’s personal utility function, given subjective probabilities. Most decisions as a consumer, as a buyer of a product or service, take place under extremely restrictive conditions: The price is not high enough to warrant a comparison with competing offers, the time that is available makes only the spatial arrangement of offers relevant, an intentionally utility-optimizing behavior for each purchasing decision would call into question our everyday practice. I accept offers that provide appropriate value for money and I realize everyday purchasing and consumption decisions within chosen structures that I do not question for the sake of optimization. In Italy, I would instantly leave a bar again that offers espresso for 2,50 €, not because I have a lower budget when traveling in Italy, but simply because it is inappropriate there to sell espresso for that much money. I would in a sense feel unwelcomed by a bar that did this anyway. I do not have any motivation to optimize my expected utility given how small the amount of money is and given that this act of

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consumption is more or less irrelevant. I choose a different bar, even if this entails a certain inconvenience or at least a temporal delay, an additional short or long walk, since such a price seems inappropriate to me and I do not wish to support such inappropriate behavior on the market through my buying decision. The (pseudo-)rationalization of this practice according to which I intend a causal effect, in this case, to influence the respective bars to adopt adequate pricing, is not my motive for action. If it were the motive for action, it would be irrational: My decision does not play a causal role in pricing policies within this specific market. These trivial examples—tipping and the price of espresso—are not about the weighing of complex normative reasons which are decisive for the respective appropriateness. One could say with Wittgenstein that the explanations come to an end in the practiced (economic) lifeform. We participate in this lifeform, we have corresponding mutual expectations (concerning the appropriate amount for a tip, the appropriate price of an espresso, or a bottle of San Pellegrino), and we use this for orientation in our practice. Pronounced deviations from the respective established criteria of appropriateness cause astonishment or anger. It is not that we are accustomed to this respective practice and therefore cannot do anything but participate in this practice ourselves. It was pointed out above that this practice can vary greatly from one country to the next and that we adapt to the change in the criteria of appropriateness even before we are used to them, that is, shortly after crossing the border. Rather, the respective established economic practice sets the normative standards that we tend to accept. In order for us to be able to do so, certain conditions must be met. But insofar as these conditions are met, we criticize deviations and try ourselves to follow the norms. To state it more generally: The criteria of appropriateness that determine a lifeform do not have to be shared by somebody who does not partake in this lifeform or participates in it only ephemerally. There are several empirical studies that show, however, that it is difficult for persons to continuously distance themselves from the appropriateness criteria of established lifeforms and particular interactive patterns within groups. To put it in the terminology developed in this book, one could say that the structures that make up individual rationality must be embeddable within the structures of interactive practice, and therefore entail the acceptance of a coherent normative perspective. As we have seen above, this coherence is not just an intrapersonal diachronic coherence but also an interpersonal collective coherence. Distancing oneself is only possible within certain

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limits since this presents the single person with the challenge of making oneself understood despite widely diverging normative judgments in order to be able to justify one’s own practice toward others. Seen pragmatically, a successful justification requires that we have a lot in common with our conversation partners, including the majority of our normative assessment of the shared social and cultural practices. Distancing oneself, beyond local criticism, from larger parts of the established lifeform entails the constant risk of ending up with utopianism: The imagined ideal human lifeform becomes the backdrop of criticism, of a global criticism that comprises the respective lifeform in its entirety. The individual critic then disengages with social matters; he can no longer be considered a counterpart in the exchange of practical and theoretical reasons, and the opportunities for a shared cooperative practice begin to disappear. The perhaps most important contribution of American communitarianism in the 1980s was that it showed even the most feverous critics that any criticism can only be successful if it can relate to the normative constituents of the shared lifeform, or if it takes these as its starting point.12 There is, in a sense, no option of exiting. We are always moving within the web of appropriateness and can at best change it locally against the background of shared normativity that is not further called into question.

5.8  Fairness People attach great importance to things going fairly. The term originated in the English language and fairness plays a particularly important role in Anglo-Saxon cultures. John Rawls developed his comprehensive theory of justice based on an operationalization of the principle of fairness. This operationalization has the advantage that one need not specify in detail what is to be subsumed under fairness or rather which criteria can guarantee fairness depending on the decision situation. Instead, it limits itself to characterizing a decision situation that, because of its special properties, guarantees that the resulting contract is fair. Rawls claims that if the situation prevents persons who are involved in the decision from prioritizing their own interests over the interests of others, the result is fair. The veil of ignorance excludes all knowledge of one’s own interests and thereby 12  Cf. Michael Walzer. 1987. Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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guarantees fairness. Political justice, justice of the institutional basic structure, can then be derived from the optimization of the respective self-­ interests under conditions that guarantee fairness – the veil of ignorance. At least this is what the theory claims. According to this interpretation, fairness is guaranteed if no person can give her own interests special priority and if the decisions are rational. However, not every kind of equal treatment of interests leads to fair distributions or rules. It is true for all versions of utilitarianism that they provide an equal weighting of individual interests, regardless of how these are exactly specified. But utilitarian optimization disadvantages those, for instance, who can only derive little benefit from a resource in terms of preference fulfillment or well-being. And it advantages those for whom the opposite holds. The utilitarian is confronted with the problem of the utility monster, that is, persons who gain great advantages from minimal resources. If, contrary to the standard economic view, one assumes linear utility functions, the utilitarian imperative would be to concentrate resources on the person with the steepest utility function. All resources would then have to be allocated to this one person, because this would result in the highest aggregate of utility. But even if one assumes standard monotonically increasing utility functions with monotonically decreasing marginal utility, the utilitarian principles yield distributions that cannot be considered fair. John Rawls’ answer, which he shares with other new contractarians, is that the general consentability under fair conditions makes for (political) justice, and not some kind of aggregation of interests. Rawls derives the first principle of justice, a system of maximal liberties from fairness and individual rationality. This derivation, however, only works under extremely specific socio-cultural conditions. Rawls does not realize that the priority of equal maximal liberties can only be convincing if one assumes the fact of plurality—the plurality of religions, lifeforms, and cultures—and the fact of individuality—every person wishes to live according to their ideas on what makes a good life. These conditions are fulfilled in modern Western societies, but generally not in non-Western and traditional societies. The supposedly universal validity of the principles of political justice fails for two reasons: first, the specific, multi-cultural conditions of Western societies are implicitly taken for granted as empirically given and, second, the conception of rationality as a mutually disinterested optimization of the respective self-interests is by no means incontestable even though it corresponds to the standard model of contemporary economics.

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Irrespective of these provisos, we can, at any rate, assume that persons in their concrete practice in our Western society orient themselves toward the norm of fairness to a significant degree. Normative theories that make the bringing about or the historical genesis of distributions their criterion are purely deontological, for example the entitlement theory of justice that Robert Nozick presents in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. They cannot ethically assess distributions as such without knowledge of how they have come about. Other—egalitarian—theories by contrast develop criteria that allow the assessment of distributions as fair or unfair without any knowledge of their coming about. This in turn allows a teleological normative assessment directed at the consequences of actions. But even within Western societies, the criteria for the theory of justice diverge widely, as do the political intuitions regarding justice that shape public discourses and philosophical conflicts. The space of these diverging intuitions is hard to categorize in light of the impressive variety of normative attitudes. In any event, the comparison of social justice norms and market justice that is common in behavioral economics – that is, a dichotomy between social and economic criteria – is insufficient. Even beyond behavioral economics, a variety of completely different practices unfolds that correspond to the variety of community formations and patterns of interaction. It is an accomplishment of American communitarianism, which arose as a counter-movement to the new contractarians in the 1980s, that—in contrast to its German historical predecessor in the nineteenth century13— it has drawn attention to this empirical variety, which must not be ignored in normative theories.14 The anti-theoretical position, or rather the sociologization of the normative, does not seem to me to be the appropriate response to this. Anti-theory dispenses with ethical principles of normative assessment in favor of ethical relativism;15 sociologization transforms normative questions into empirical questions and does not search for 13  Cf. Johann G. Hamann. 2007. Writings on Philosophy and Language. Edited and translated by Kenneth Haynes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Johann G. von Herder: Understanding and Experience. A Metacritique of the Critique of Pure Reason [1799]; Georg W. F. Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit [1807]. 14  Cf. Michael Walzer. 1983. Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. New York: Basic Books; Charles Taylor. 1991. The Malaise of Modernity. Toronto: House of Anansi. 15  Cf. Bernhard Williams. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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a­ cceptability, but rather for de facto acceptance. A more appropriate reaction is one that utilizes the conceptual framework of structural rationality: The embeddedness relations of the person’s agency cannot be prescribed by normative theory; they are determined by the respective normative criteria of a practice in which the person who is making a normative assessment participates. This can also be interpreted as a further example of underdetermination of theory by data. A particularly interesting example is the diversity of fairness rules in the social sphere. What do parents owe to their children and children to their parents, or siblings to each other, or grandparents to their grandchildren and vice versa? What is considered fair or unfair in each case is not measured by criteria of equal consideration of interests alone but correlates with the respective status or role a person has. The expectation of reciprocity in earlier times, according to which what parents did for their children was at least partially compensated for by the fact that old parents could rely on the solidarity of their children, has largely, if not yet legally, disappeared at the latest in the course of the individualization of Western cultures in the 1960s and 1970s. These conditions are not without paradoxes: An example of such a paradox would be the lowering of the age of maturity from 21 to 18 years while extending adolescence and prolonging the phase of economic dependence, often well beyond the age of 25 or even 30, as is the case in Southern European societies in particular. Another example: In Western societies, the special relationship of closeness between siblings does not usually constitute mutual expectations of support. Even if one of the siblings becomes very wealthy and the other one earns only a fraction of the income of the other, no expectations of compensation arise from this. On the other hand, it is expected that parents, depending on their economic capacity, are materially committed to their children. Strangely enough, family law also deviates from the equal treatment criterion here, according to which all persons are owed the same under the same conditions. Maintenance payments are scaled according to the ability to pay, while the state pays the maintenance compensation without such a scale, just as the earlier alimony payments were independent of the wealth of the person liable to pay. In more traditional cultures, the expectations of solidarity within the family are much higher and lead to a widespread practice of nepotism, also in the economic and administrative sphere. There also seems to be a stratum-specific variance, according to which intra-family, mutual obligations of solidarity are more pronounced in the working-class milieus than in the bourgeois middle classes.

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The social practices and the corresponding normative expectations are so diverse that the legal system itself regularly reaches its limits, although this has been established not only in fixed legal rules but also in a broadly varying practice of jurisprudence. This is all the more true for the hopeless endeavor to adequately reflect this cultural and normative diversity in one single ethical principle, and even to implement an ethical reductionism of this kind as a comprehensive normative reform project. The existing normative expectations constitute good reasons for action which can only be counteracted by general ethical considerations in exceptional cases. The concrete actions of persons, however, are to a large extent shaped by the intention to contribute to desirable social practices with one’s own practice. The choice of a concrete action is not only made with regard to the consequences for one’s own well-being or the fulfillment of other self-­ oriented goals, but also with regard to which social practice is considered desirable. This makes the single action structurally rational. Behavioral economics offers extensive evidence for this thesis.16 It has analyzed the role the value of fairness plays in the behavior of persons, particularly on the basis of experimental findings on the so-called ultimatum game.17 The findings—unintentionally—provide impressive evidence of the extent to which considerations of structural rationality are effective for action.18 In the one-off ultimatum game,19 in which one party makes an offer and the other party has only the alternative of accepting or rejecting this offer, whereby in the event of rejection neither party receives a payment, 16  Cf. Amos Tversky. 2004. Preference, Belief, and Similarity: Selected Writings. Cambridge/ Mass.: MIT Press. Behavioral economics is also more strongly committed to the standard model of individually and individually optimizing rationality than some critics of homo oeconomicus seem to be aware of. Part of this problem is probably due to the fact that behavioral economics operates at the interface between empirical social psychology and neo-classical economics, while practical philosophy with its different normative models of rationality is almost completely ignored. Contemporary practical philosophy, in turn, is either itself committed to the neo-classical economic standard model of individual advantage optimization or is indifferent to economic practice. 17  A good overview is provided by Werner Güth and Reinhard Tietz. 1990. Ultimatum Bargaining Behavior. A Survey and Comparison of Experimental Results. Journal of Economic Psychology 11: 417–449. 18  Interesting contributions: Werner Güth et  al. 1982. An Experimental Analysis of Ultimatum Bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 3: 367–388; Daniel Kahneman et  al. 1986. Fairness and Assumption of Economics. Journal of Business 59: 285–300; as well as Daniel Kahneman et al. 1986. Fairness as a Constraint on Profit Seeking: Entitlements in the Market. The American Economic Review: 728–741. 19  Cf. Appendix, The Ultimatum Game.

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it is shown that the person in the inferior, that is, the person who can only accept or reject the offer, generally renounces personal advantage if the distribution appears unfair to them. One could summarize the numerous studies on this subject as follows: People accept the asymmetry of the decision situation in that they do not insist on an equal distribution of the payouts (i.e., reject all offers below 50:50). They are unwilling, however, to accept an unfairly low share. They renounce the offer and go away completely empty-handed. The offering party, however, goes away with nothing as well. It is a commonplace in behavioral economics literature to point out that rejection is of course to be seen as a form of irrationality, since the person renounces a possible gain. This commonplace, however, is based on a theory of rationality that is inadequate. According to this theory, only the optimization of one’s own advantage is a rational motive for action. If, on the other hand, one allows a person to have a legitimate interest in other things than her own advantage, this interpretation collapses. In the two-person variant of the ultimatum game, the second person, who decides to accept or reject the offer, also decides on the distribution of a good in this two-person world of the two players. If a fair distribution in this two-person world is important to her, she weighs this evaluative aspect against that of personal advantage. The preference sovereignty so highly held in economic theory also applies here: It must be left to persons to decide for themselves what is important to them. If fair distributions are important to a person, this aspect of evaluation may of course play a role in her choices of action, without rendering these choices irrational. Interestingly, the acceptability of the offers changes when we move from the two-person ultimatum game to the multi-person versions in such a way that one person makes the offer, but several other persons can accept. Another version looks like this: Several persons independently make offers in—possibly—different amounts and one person has the choice to accept or reject the highest offer. If she rejects the highest offer, nobody gets anything. If she accepts the highest offer, she gets her share and the offering party whose offer was accepted gets his share, too, while all other players get nothing. This simulated market situation puts the person who reacts to the offers in a strong position. And despite the different weighing of fairness in different cultures, after a few rounds of playing, there emerge offers that universally secure (almost) the entire payout for the reacting person. If, instead, the design of a multi-person ultimatum

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game puts the reacting parties in competition with each other, the acceptability of even low offers changes immediately.20 These findings are interesting from the perspective of structural rationality because they prove a clear difference depending on whether the acting person in making a decision determines a structure of action (as in the two-person ultimatum game the reacting person does) or not (in the extension of the ultimatum game to competitive situations). The more irrelevant the own decision for the structure desired, the more dominant becomes the orientation toward own interest. This explains why structurally rational action is more manifest in smaller interaction communities than in larger anonymous groups. Therefore, one may consider it one of the most important goals of normative ethics to extend the reference parameters of structural rationality a limine to all agents.

5.9  Equality Behavioral economics has amassed interesting empirical findings that show that humans attach little value to equality under market conditions, that is, as consumers or producers, as demanders or providers of goods or services that are traded for a monetary price. In situations that are not about buying or selling or about competing for limited goods, however, they do pay attention to a certain measure of equality, which varies with the situation. This difference already played a role in the modified ultimatum game mentioned in the preceding paragraph. As interesting as the various, partly contradictory, studies from behavioral economics are, it is grotesque that there is an apparent ineptitude to interpret them in a coherent fashion.21 This is possibly connected to the fact that behavioral economics was imported into economic science from social psychology and has barely any relation to contemporary practical philosophy. Most behavioral economists accept the rational choice model of economics and present the findings of behavioral economics as proof for a widespread irrationality of human decision behavior that bleeds into economic markets. The accusation against conventional economics consists then in the claim that it 20  Cf. Werner Güth et al. 1997. On the Reliability of Reciprocal Fairness – An Experimental Study. Berlin: Humboldt University; Ernst Fehr and Urs Fischbacher. 2003. The Nature of Human Altruism. Nature 425: 785–791. 21  Cf. the collections of important behavioral economics contributions, for example Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Matthew Rabin, eds. 2011. Advances in Behavioral Economics. Princeton: University Press 2011.

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­ verestimates the rationality of persons, which limits its predictive powo ers.22 An alternative perspective goes back to Herbert Simon’s concept of satisficing rationality, and interprets the findings of behavioral economics as the manifestation of reliable heuristics that fare better in practice than economic optimization models. This view, however, which is advocated, for example, by Reinhard Selten and Gerd Gigerenzer, falls back on the economic optimization model for evaluating the rationality or irrationality of a specific heuristic. In other words: It uses the conventional understanding of rationality in economics as a meta-criterion for rationality.23 The dichotomy between fast, automatic, and intuitive decision-making and slow, rational decision-making, which became prominent especially because of Kahneman, does not seem to me to resolve this problem. On the contrary, it seems to amplify the conceptual confusion.24 An obvious and potentially very fruitful heuristic for the new discipline would be to not directly regard deviations from the conventional economic optimization model as a form of irrationality, but rather to reconstruct them as an expression of structural rationality. This requires a departure from the consequentialist conception of rationality, which is usually at least implicitly assumed in the application of the economic optimization model, a careful distinction between coherentist and consequentialist interpretations of the utility theorem and its postulates, as well as a categorization of action-guiding reasons that determine the various local rationalities of human practice.

22  Cf. Ariely (2010) and Dan Ariely. 2013. The Upside of Irrationality. New York: Harper. The results of a dense series of empirical studies, in a different constellation of authors around Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, are also presented as deviations from rationality, but with the interpretation, more radical than Ariely, that the standard model of economics is rarely meaningful. A psychologically informed economic theory should therefore assume that people generally behave irrationally. 23  Cf. Gert Gigerenzer and Reinhard Selten, eds. 2002. Bounded Rationality: The Adaptive Toolbox. Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press. 24  On the thesis of the duality of fast, automatic, and intuitive thinking on the one hand and slow, unreliable, ex post rationalizing thinking on the other, cf. Jonathan Evans. 1989. Bias in Human Reasoning: Causes and Consequences. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; and—particularly influencing—Daniel Kahneman. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber develop a convincing critique of this duality thesis based on psychological findings, cf. Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber. 2017. The Enigma of Reason: A New Theory of Human Understanding. Cambridge/ Mass: Harvard University Press.

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As we have seen, it is not irrational to do something in order to honor a request for help (the category of exhortationes), to keep a promise (the category of commisiva), to fulfill one’s duties within a specific social role (the category of officia), or to comply with the postulates of equal treatment (the category of principia). It can be rational to do something in order to avoid violating the rights of others, even if the violation was not sanctioned (the category of libertates) and, above all, it can be rational to do something because one wants to cooperate with other persons. It should therefore first be examined which findings of behavioral economics are an expression of good reasons for action that cannot be depicted within the conventional economic optimization model, and which findings must in fact be counted as forms of irrationality because elementary coherence postulates were violated. Behavioral economics should then not present itself as an analysis of human irrationality, but rather as an empirically supported modification of the economic optimization model. I would go even further, as this book emphasizes, and ascribe merely a niche function to economic optimization, which only captures rationality adequately under very specific conditions that are never fully realized even in economic markets. Rational human practice is usually not optimizing,25 but it does – ideally – fulfill the coherence postulates of the utility theorem. This embedding of empirical findings into the conceptual framework of structural rationality can be illustrated using the value of equality. The empirical findings of behavioral economics show that most humans favor more equal distributions over less equal distributions. This is true independently of whether or not they belong to those who are better or worse off. Nevertheless, the extent to which an aversion against inequality manifests is quite dependent on the own situation, the tendency being that the worse off a person is, the stronger their rejection of inequality. Fehr and Schmidt26 have developed a fairly simple mathematical model in order to capture this aversion against inequality, namely as the decrease of own utility proportionally to the sum of the upward deviations (α) and with a further decrease of the own utility proportionally to the sum of  Cf. OPT.   Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt. 2011. A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation. In Advances in Behavioral Economics, Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein and Matthew Rabin, eds., 271–296. Princeton: Princeton University Press, cf. Appendix, Equality and Utility. 25 26

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downward deviations (β), where α is greater than β and is determined according to the extent of inequality aversion. This mathematical relationship is underpinned by the interpretation that it is unpleasant for humans to perceive inequalities, but only to the extent that the inequality presents itself relatively to one’s own situation. According to this interpretation, humans are indifferent to inequality as such; it is a matter of self-centered inequality aversion and this is reflected in the decrease of well-being. This interpretation is doubly arbitrary: (1) because the linear measures of inequality  – seemingly  – model the observable behavior only for the reason that both factors α and β have been chosen as fixed but relative to the behavior of a person, in order to guarantee that the hypothesis cannot be refuted; and (2) because the possibility that a normative judgment – and not the own utility decrease – is what guides observable behavior is conceptually excluded, as the inequality aversion is interpreted as a decrease in utility. In everyday practice, however, criteria of equal treatment or equal distribution primarily work as constraints. Consider non-discrimination principles. Many people consider distributions that result from discrimination against persons, for example because of their skin color, as illegitimate, and rightly so. They will then not participate in such a practice. Now one must distinguish here, given the results of the preceding paragraphs, between situations in which my own decision is immediately relevant for the structure of the practice (hence also distribution) and situations where it is not. Market situations are typically of the latter kind. Here, the number of competitors and producers for scarce goods is so large that the own action has no influence on the resulting distribution. For this reason, market situations do not tend to allow persons to make their structural preferences effective for action. This is in line with empirical findings.27 However, this no longer obtains quite as generally. For example, the number of those who take moral constraints upon themselves in their market behavior has significantly increased. Fair Trade products owe their success on the 27  Cf. Judy Bethwaite and Paul Tompkinson. 1996. The Ultimatum Game and Non-Selfish Utility Functions. Journal of Economic Psychology 17: 259–271; Vernon Smith and Arlington Williams. 1990. The Boundaries of Competitive Price Theory: Convergence, Expectations, and Transaction Costs. Advances in Behavioral Economics 2: 31–53; and Werner Güth, Nadège Marchand, and Jean-Louis Rullière. 1998. Equilibration et dépendance du contexte. Une évaluation expérimentale du jeu de négociation sous ultimatum. Revue économique 49: 785–794.

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market to this morally modified economic practice, because their cost-­ benefit ratio is usually less favorable than that of competitors. Economic theory, including behavioral economics, seems to be able to accept deontological constraints only if they are tied to incentives or sanctions. If this is not the case, then these incentives and sanctions are artificially brought about by interpreting the decision behavior as an expression of a changed utility function. The sanctions are, as it were, conjured up through a terminological magic trick. Now, there are persons who indeed feel bad if they break a moral rule that they consider important. But even in these cases, it is implausible to interpret their decision as an expression of the attempt to maximize their own utility. It is the other way around, and this is something that Joseph Butler pointed out some time ago in Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1729): Altruists feel better if they can help somebody, but they do not help because it makes them feel better. We are dealing here with a reversal of the justificatory relation. Altruists want to help and they feel better when they realize this help. But it is not wanting to feel better that motivates the altruist, but rather wanting to help. The terminology and the analytic toolkit should not be based on a conceptual confusion. And such a conceptual confusion emerges when the criteria of equality are translated into utility modifications. You can see how grotesque this reinterpretation is because it apparently is acceptable for economic analysts only if it is self-centered, that is, if it takes the differences of one’s own situation to the situation of others as the measure of inequality. This too is highly implausible. Persons normally place great value on equal treatment and fair distributions. They do not only value these because they are keeping an eye on differences between their share and the share of others, but because they prefer a just world to an unjust world. It is the equal moral status of all that gives such normative judgments their practical relevance and effectiveness. What Rawls has called a shared “sense of justice” obviously does not refer to criteria of just distribution of income or wealth. Here the normative beliefs of citizens are widely divergent. To infer from this that equality is a high value to some and nearly irrelevant to others would, however, be a fallacy. It is far more plausible to assume that these differences are not founded in fundamental normative dissent but result merely from differing empirical assessments. The contemporary theory of justice in philosophy has developed the conceptual tools to analyze this more exactly. Egalitarians, for instance Ronald Dworkin, are not in favor of equal distributions, but rather in favor of an ideal equalization of what is called

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natural or social luck. Natural luck comprises, for instance, the genetic constitution, and social luck comprises social origins and their effects on the opportunities of a person. Correspondingly, a central criticism of egalitarianism consists in criticizing the hypertrophic measures that would be necessary in order to equalize natural and/or social luck. Not even the most radical egalitarians would demand, however, that goods, income, and wealth should be equally distributed. They merely require persons not to be unfairly disadvantaged and the state (within left-wing egalitarianism) to do everything it can using educational and social measures in order to minimize unfair, that is, undeserved, inequalities. Further differences in assessment and behavior are probably ascribable to the extent to which persons are ready to act structurally rational, which varies from case to case. Some billionaires have followed the appeal to donate 99% of their wealth to charitable causes; others have not. Some persons are only ready to a limited extent to adjust their individual practice to the structure of social practice they support; for others these are largely congruent. But even in the case of those for whom a strong divergence is noticeable, one should not hastily conclude that there is a lack of moral motivation. For instance, it seems to me neither irrational nor immoral to completely abstain from charitable acts despite considering the existing poverty in economically highly developed nations unacceptable. One may not be willing to contribute individually to poverty reduction, even though one would support a measure that would, for example, raise taxes on top earners in order to fight poverty in society more effectively – even if one belongs to these top earners oneself. If the economic analyst concludes from this that the utility of the person increases more because of such a sociopolitical measure than through the loss of income that results from increased taxes, this is again a clear non sequitur. The person supports a social and tax-political measure, knowing well that this limits her own advantage, because she believes that poverty should be fought effectively in highly developed economic societies. It could even be that she does not care at all about the individual fate of the poor, but primarily cares about society as a whole being shaped in a sufficiently just manner. In particular, the ratio of her own income compared to that of the poor is completely irrelevant to her, because this is not what is at issue in questions of justice. Feelings of envy are always irrational and so are feelings of guilt, at least in those instances where one has not personally contributed to the poverty of others. The remedy of integrating distributive, fairness, or cooperative aspects into the individual utility function goes astray from the outset. Its

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terminology excludes empirical phenomena such as consideration of normative assessment criteria, which means that it ignores obvious and empirically well-proven phenomena of moral motivation and structural rationality that are well recorded in behavioral economics.

5.10  Relativity The normative principle of non-offsettability is of central importance for humane practices. It shapes the moral practice of a civil society, and also characterizes its legal system. For instance, violations of individual rights cannot be offset by economic advantages. It is quite possible to hold the view that all deontological norms need to be restricted consequentialistically under extreme conditions, and yet to maintain that individual rights must not be offset against economic advantages under normal conditions. For example, the ban on torture is absolute, possibly loosened consequentialistically in extreme cases where there is the imminent danger of a global catastrophe, but this does not make complying with the ban on torture irrational. Moreover, complying with the ban on torture in no way implies that the right of the offender not to be tortured weighs more than the life of a child that could be saved by threatening torture, for example. For economic theory, by contrast, the completeness axiom is of great importance. This, however, seems to be irreconcilable with the principle of normative non-offsettability. However, this is only a seeming incompatibility. For if one takes the concept of revealed preferences seriously, it merely requires the completeness of the preferences that are action-­ guiding. One can adhere to this requirement without abandoning deontological norms and their absolute validity, with or without a consequentialist weakening. If a deontological norm prohibits a certain kind of action, the corresponding alternatives drop out of the set of options. This is a more appropriate modeling than one that takes a detour over the individual preference relation. It is more appropriate because the deontological agent is characterized precisely by the fact that he does not consider certain options; their inclusion would distort his preference relation, that is, the agent’s motives. Immanuel Kant does not have a preference for actions whose maxims pass the test of the Categorical Imperative; rather he rules out actions whose maxims do not pass this test  – these options are not feasible. The revealed preference concept, however, identifies preferences with decisions in specific choice situations. The preference of a person p for A

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over B is ascribed to p if and only if p chooses A when faced with the alternative of A or B. The Kantian agent shows respect of the Moral Law if faced with two options for action where the first option passes the Kantian universalization test of maxims and the second does not, in choosing the former over the latter. Thus, even if we adhere to the wider set of options and do not exclude those alternatives from the set that are considered impermissible according to the respective deontological criterion, the completeness of the preference relation remains. One can uphold non-­ offsettability without giving up the completeness requirement. The completeness requirement does not imply monetary offsettability, that is, the valuation of each option for action with a monetary value, as is common in economic applications of the coherence requirements of the utility theorem.28 Admittedly, the interpretation of deontological practice as Ramsey-­ compatible regarding the probabilistic postulates of monotonicity and continuity turns out to be somewhat artificial. Naturally, it holds for a Kantian that an action that is compatible with moral law should be preferred over an action that is not compatible with moral law. One might further conclude from this that the more probable the morally permissible outcome, moral persons in the Kantian sense would value a lottery with both of these possible outcomes. But this would mean stretching things considerably, since consistent moral persons would never accept such a lottery as an option for action. They would not be willing to commit a morally impermissible action, no matter how low its probability. This problem comes to light even more clearly in the case of the continuity axiom, as the following consideration shows: Let us assume that we have two morally acceptable options for action, one of which is preferable over the other for pragmatic reasons (it is either easier to do or promotes the well-being of the agent). According to the continuity axiom, there has to exist exactly one probability at which the lottery between this morally and pragmatically opportune action and the morally impermissible action is indifferent toward the morally permissible but pragmatically less opportune action. The Kantian agent, however, would reject this. He will in any case prefer the morally permissible albeit pragmatically unfavorable action to a lottery that could entail a morally impermissible action, regardless of how low its probability is.

 Cf. Appendix, Ramsey Compatibility.

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Deontological ethics, at least those of a Kantian kind, entail a categorization of options for action that are irreconcilable with a continuous, real-­ valued evaluation. Mathematically speaking, such kinds of deontological ethics establish step functions that do not feature as utility functions in economic theory. Real agents who rely on Kantian ethics, however, will not be able to maintain this rigorism. They will accept moral risks in the limiting case of extremely low probabilities because they would otherwise be constantly blocked in their actions. These pragmatically moderated Kantian agents’ revealed preferences, that is, the preferences that guide their decision behavior, should fulfill the requirements of the utility theorem.29 It is obvious that the real-valued function that is thus constituted, and which is well defined except for positive linear transformations, is not a utility function in the common sense of economics, that is, a representation of the self-interest of the agent. In this extended coherentist understanding, the “utility functions” are merely real-valued representations of the evaluative practice of persons, regardless of how complex it is and which criteria they follow. They represent the result of all practical and theoretical deliberations together with the expectations (subjective probabilities) that can be ascribed to the person. The various normative assessment criteria are in such a way amalgamated into one comprehensive evaluation of practical options, given subjective probabilities. John Rawls has, I believe rightly so, characterized envy as an irrational emotion. Rational humans are free from envy. This is important for the theory of justice, because the Pareto-inclusivity of criteria of justice can only be upheld if we assume that all persons are envy-free. Pareto-inclusivity requires that a state or distribution is preferred over another if at least one person is better off in the former than in the latter, without any other person being worse off in the former than in the latter. If it is possible to do somebody good, we should do it, even if the person is already better off to begin with. In the public political and economic discourse, those who criticize the injustice of distributions are usually accused of being guided by envy in their judgment. But this is an insinuation. Even persons who are completely free from envy can criticize injustice and unequal distributions. Anti-egalitarians or non-egalitarians object that equality is not a value in and of itself. They say that it is irrelevant how equal or unequal a distribution is. The argumentation is as follows: Let us assume that we have an  Cf. Appendix, Ramsey Compatibility.

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unequal distribution, for example of income. If we take something away from a person who is above the median level, without pushing her income below the median, the Gini coefficient as a measure of inequality decreases. However, the sum of all incomes, ceteris paribus conditions provided, has decreased. Does this improve the situation? The non-egalitarians’ answer is: “No.” The objection that this is connected to the fact that we are offsetting the total welfare with inequality is not convincing, since it is hard to understand why a distribution should be evaluated as better or more just simply because something is taken away from a well-off person. It seems that the decisive factor here is not the offsetting of welfare with justice, but rather the inadequacy of the egalitarian criterion of justice. I consider this anti- or non-egalitarian argument to be correct, but I do not share the fundamental criticism of egalitarianism that is derived from this argument. Correctly understood, equality is a high value. This can be seen from the simple fact that the unequal distribution of a good to various recipients requires justification. The institutionalization of solidarity within the welfare state precisely faces this challenge of being able to justify any form of unequal distribution. A correctly understood egalitarianism focuses on the dignity that belongs to each person and on the equal respect that they deserve. A host who has five guests and is distributing a cake to them needs to have reasons if he does not serve his guests equal-­ size pieces. A person who greets five people and shakes hands with four of them but not with one should have a good reason for this. Unequal treatment stands in need of an explanation; equal treatment does not. Insofar as distributions are the result of unequal treatment, they are unjust. It is the act of distributing which must respect the equality of each human being under deontological criteria, and not the distribution itself that must be equal. But to the extent that equal treatment within the act of distribution leads to an equal distribution, an equal distribution is morally required. The Rawlsian difference principle makes the legitimacy of unequal distributions dependent on their benefitting the worst-off group of people. More exactly: Unequal distributions are just if they benefit all, especially the worst-off. This of course can be formulated more precisely as follows: adhering to a Pareto-inefficient distribution is unjust (it holds back advantages that would be possible without disadvantaging others). The choice between the different possible Pareto-improvements should be made with regard to the worst-off group of persons that can profit from these improvements. This is a prioritizing criterion that legitimizes unequal

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distributions with the fact that rational persons would support such a principle under fairness conditions. The persons in this “original position” are free from envy for the simple reason that they are mutually disinterested, that is, have neither positive nor negative ties or feelings for each other. Equal and free, mutually disinterested rational persons support both the primacy of individual freedom in an institutionalized, that is constitutional, system and the distribution of cooperative advantages according to the Difference Principle. The realization of both of these principles does not happen merely through institutions and their sanctioning, but also through a strong theory of the good,30 that is, the willingness to embed what one pursues as valuable goods for oneself into the structures of a commonly practiced sense of justice. The strong theory of the good is a further version of structural rationality. Liberal and humane theories of justice do not rely on the sanctioning power of the state. They appeal to the common sense of justice (Rawls), commonly accepted individual rights and liberties (Locke), or the rationality of the participants of political consultation (Habermas). This explains why the state as a coercive order plays a subordinate role in these theories, as its critics, both on the right and on the left, have bemoaned again and again. The willingness to act structurally rationally is an implicit precondition for liberal and humane political theories. Against this background, it should be immediately clear that, with regard to norms of equal treatment and other political norms, the translation of structural rationality into self-centered inequity aversion31 is inadequate. This reinterpretation tries to save as much as possible of the traditional optimization model while still doing justice to the empirical findings: “Inequity aversion is self-centered if people do not care per se about inequity that exists among other people but are interested only in the fairness of their own material payoff relative to the payoff of others.” It is, however, the core of the value of equal treatment that I do not merely care about my own non-discrimination, but about the practice of equal treatment in general. What is modeled in such and other economic models as inequity aversion is nothing other than the normative judgment that certain forms of unequal treatment are ethically or politically impermissible and that one wants to contribute as an individual to this unequal treatment not happening. Since this normative judgment is reflected in  Cf. Rawls (1971), chapter 7.  Cf. Appendix, Equality and Utility.

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certain action-guiding preferences, provided that the person is structurally rationally motivated, it can be modeled as a modification of the own preference fulfillment or rather well-being-oriented utility function.32 Furthermore, such a modification of the individual utility functions leads to an infinite regress, at least if one adheres to the concept of revealed preference. It is far more plausible to model deviations from egoistic utility optimizing as an expression of respect or equal dignity. These attitudes or virtues do not weigh the advantages that are to be expected for equal treatment against the personal utility decrease. Instead they—hypothetically—embed the decision into a more or less egalitarian practice. A limine the agent appropriates the Kantian universalization test for maxims, which is here varied as follows: Act in such a way that the maxim of your action is compatible with a universal rule to treat all persons as equals. Most of the criticisms against commodification, as Michael Sandel, for example, presents them in What Money Can’t Buy,33 are variations on this topic: Love cannot be offset with money, friendship cannot be obtained by handing out presents, solidarity not by financial incentives, and so on. Offsettability destroys values. This explains why people are willing to help others without financial compensation, even with time-consuming and difficult tasks, but are not willing to do the same thing for pay. The purportedly morally neutral monetary advantage transforms this activity of voluntary help into a paid service and the intrinsic motivation out of solidarity becomes irrelevant. Empirical studies show that this effect is dramatic, that an activity which was previously performed voluntarily often ceases to happen after its commodification, that is, its transformation into a paid good. Some empirical studies show that the fragmentation of values or rather the relativity of value scales leads to incoherent preferences, which are exploited by some commercial offers. If two offers are comparable, for example, and one of them is better, then we tend to choose the better offer and do not worry about how this offer compares in relation to completely different kinds of offers. In general, for the vast majority of customers, the cost-benefit ratios of offered goods and services on economic 32  This, of course, entails a high degree of complexity and it is, therefore, implausible to assume that the determining elements of this benefit modification are mathematically as simple (namely linear) as Fehr and Schmidt assume; cf. Appendix, Equality and Utility. 33  Michael Sandel. 2012. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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markets are difficult to compare, unless they are goods of the same category. We are not well equipped to be optimizers of a total budget, and the deeper reason for this is that we are not optimizers but prefer structural agency. We sometimes orient ourselves using deontological criteria and we are only willing to a limited degree to replace them with optimization criteria. If this results in violating transitivity, it is a form of irrationality since transitivity is a minimal condition of rational preference. This does not show, however, that the fragmentation of value is irreconcilable with a coherentist, structurally rational practice.34

5.11  Communication The phenomenon of linguistic communication has always been considered a distinctive feature of the human species. It seems to have taken quite some time, however, until the members of other cultures were equally acknowledged as rational. The Hellenes called non-Greeks barbaroi, that is, those who babbled but did not speak. In the practice of colonialism, the subjected peoples’ lack of ability to speak the new rulers’ language played an important role in the constant infantilization of those being colonized. This attitude has not been completely overcome in times of English being the new globalized lingua franca. Particularly in the twentieth century, the human species’ self-­ characterization as the only species with linguistic capacities gave rise to a philosophical lingualism that not only obscures our commonalities with other species—up to absurd theses such as the claim that animals cannot think35—but is also tied to a highly problematic anthropology that underrates features that are not conveyed linguistically. Even in analytic philosophy, the emancipation from lingualism has not advanced much, and this applies even more to the philosophical positions surrounding postmodernism and post-structuralism. In this section, we want to take a look at the phenomenology of communicative practice and draw some conclusions for the theory of practical rationality. We will draw upon a non-lingualist, namely intentionalist, theory of meaning: Paul Grice’s basic model of successful communicative acts. This model, however, requires considerable deontological or humanist

 For an opposing view cf. Ariely (2010), chapter 1 “The Truth about Relativity.”  Cf. Donald Davidson. 1982. Rational Animals. Dialectica 36: 317–327.

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modification in order to be adequate.36 Humans and animals communicate successfully if they succeed in coordinating behavior through certain signals and particularly if they enable cooperative practice. This approach, according to which communication is primarily an instrument of cooperation, was underpinned by the primatologist Michael Tomasello over the last decades with comparative empirical findings about primate and human children. This approach was expanded into a veritable bridge between analytic philosophy of language and animal ethology.37 The guiding thesis is that the important difference between chimpanzees (for example) and humans is not a difference in how highly their intelligence is developed. Rather, it is humans’ ability to cooperate that explains why the human species possesses the faculty of speech and chimpanzees do not, or only to an exceedingly small degree. The first insight of intentionalist semantics is this: Without intentions, there is no (linguistic) communication. If we assume that bees do not possess intentionality, or at least not sufficiently complex intentionality, there is no language of bees but rather a coordination of behavior that happens through causal, genetically determined mechanisms and that works without communicative acts. The reverse also holds: If certain behavioral patterns between persons appear together with verbal expressions, this does not prove that communication has taken place. Take the example by Paul Grice38: Somebody sees that a fire has broken out and wants to warn others. But there is no conventional means of communication—no telephone, no Internet connection. The person, therefore, decides to send a series of smoke signals that are without any conventional meaning, but she assumes that others who will see them will instantly recognize them as a sign and not as a natural event. If they realize that it is a sign, they will think about what meaning the sign might have, and the meaning of this sign depends solely on the intentions of the sender. This communicative act succeeds if the addressees of this signal understand that they are being warned of a fire that has broken out. No Morse signals are used in this, that is, signals with conventional meaning. This is important for the example because in the final instance what is  Cf. HumR, part IV “Humanist Semantics.”  Cf. Michael Tomasello. 2009. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition. Cambridge/ Mass.: Harvard University Press. 38   Cf. Paul Grice. 1989. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press. 36 37

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relevant is not conventional meaning but rather the speaker’s intention. The recognition of the speaker’s intention is essential for the success of the communicative act.39 With or without the humanist modification, the decisive step in setting the course is this: The meaning of an expression (terms, signs, sentences, etc.) is nothing other than what the person who makes this expression intends with this expression. In the humanist modification of the Gricean basic model, the meaning is determined by the theoretical and practical reasons that it gives the person who is addressed by this expression. If successfully influencing the addressee were the decisive criterion for successful communication, the distinction between consequentialist optimization and successful communication would be blurred. The crucial point is the intertwining of the prohairetic and epistemic attitudes of the transmitter and the receiver: The meaning of an expression then results from the reasons that a person wants to convey with the expression: theoretical reasons for beliefs, practical reasons for actions, and also emotive reasons for emotions. Since in cases of successful communication, persons acknowledge each other as full-fledged agents, the addressee is not an object that is being influenced but rather a subject. This subject is accepting reasons and may or may not let themselves be affected by these reasons. Epistemic reasons: A person gives reasons that speak in favor of a certain scientific hypothesis. She is understood if the recipients can comprehend which beliefs the person holds, and which reasons she has for believing these beliefs (the scientific hypothesis) to be true. It is not the case that the communicative act is successful only if those listening to the talk are convinced by the hypothesis (let us assume that the reasons are being presented in a talk at a conference). Epistemic reasons may be directed at convincing persons of that which they justify, but the communicative act is not successful only if this intention is fulfilled. The mutual acknowledgment of each other as beings capable of judgment presupposes that we do not make the act of communication dependent on a success criterion of influencing others. 39  According to Grice, the success of a communicative act consists in the sender of a sign (the speaker of an utterance) achieving his goals in influencing the addressee to change his behavior or belief. Regardless of whether or not this interpretation is adequate, it appears to me to be obviously false: What is important is not success in the sense of efficacy, but merely success in the sense of perceiving an intention and thereby conveying reasons to do something or believe something; cf. HumR, part IV on “Humanist Semantics.”

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The ethos of epistemic rationality requires that we regard reasons for beliefs as self-sufficient insofar as we let ourselves be guided by these reasons regardless of the consequences and side effects that the act of being convinced entails. Both neo-classically influenced liberal economists and Marxist intellectuals like to direct the question “Cui bono?” at beliefs and theories. Who is it of any use to that one considers this theory or this belief to be correct? This is an interesting question, but it does not have anything at all to do with the correctness or falsity and the rationality of a belief or theory. It is surely possible that a correct, well-justified belief has undesirable consequences on a political or social level. To give a current example: Most of the refugees from sub-Saharan Africa who are making their way to Europe do not belong to the poorest one-third of the world’s population, but rather recruit themselves out of the local middle classes. It may be true that acknowledging this fact could lead to more resentment toward immigrants or boost right-wing parties. However, this does not change anything about the fact that there are good (epistemic) reasons for this belief and not adopting it would therefore be irrational. It is a hallmark of enlightened, open societies that their members do not only let themselves be affected by theoretical reasons, but that they also participate in public discourses that are about finding out what is in the common interest, and about simultaneously developing a coherent worldview that is compatible with differing interests and perspectives. Dissociating from beliefs that one holds after being affected by good theoretical reasons and expressing beliefs, or keeping them secret, for pragmatic reasons (e.g., political reasons) is what characterizes a closed society, if not a dictatorship or totalitarian system. Open societies are dependent on an ethos of epistemic rationality, which took centuries to develop. If we now categorize the appropriation of a belief or at least the expression of a belief as an action, the ethos of epistemic rationality requires actions that are not an appropriate means for optimizing a person’s subjective, individual preferences. A person who makes her beliefs subject to her interests lacks the power of judgment. As widespread as this phenomenon is, it is a form of irrationality. Additionally, if what we will argue in Chap. 6 on “Morality and Rationality” is correct, namely that good practical reasons are objects of knowledge, that is, should be interpreted realistically, the ethos of epistemic rationality expands beyond theoretical judgment into practical judgment. Practical rationality is thereby subsumed under theoretical rationality.

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There is a disanalogy between theoretical and practical reasons that limits this subsumption, however: The reasons that I accept and the decisions that I have made for my life partially co-determine what are good reasons for me. This does not hold, or at least does not hold to the same extent, for theoretical reasons. This disanalogy will continue to occupy us in the final part of this book. Even without a complete subsumption of practical reasons under theoretical reasons, the ethos of epistemic rationality expands to the deliberation of what ought to be done. As beings that are equipped with the faculty of practical reason—the central characteristic of the conditio humana40 for Aristotle and contemporary Aristotelians—we become authors of our lives. This authorship does not turn everything into means of optimizing our own preferences or interests, but rather requires the assessment of theoretical, practical, and emotive reasons. As evaluators and deliberators, we are free. As merely reactive optimizers of our own well-being we would not be free. Communication is the medium of coordinating different life-authorships. For us to be able to communicate, it is necessary that we share a large number of prohairetic and epistemic attitudes. We can only identify differences of belief against the background of shared beliefs and practices. If the latter diverge too strongly, communication becomes impossible and attempts at communication fail. It is a consensus that expresses itself in the fact that we consider many things to be self-explanatory and thus not in need of any further justification. It is a consensus that consists in mutually accepting certain reasons and keeping doubts local. Communication is incompatible with global skepticism. The Pyrrhonian skeptic, and likewise the constant ironist, exits all social relationships. Skepticism and irony, sarcasm and cynicism are only possible as a form of distancing oneself from a practice that one otherwise accepts to a large extent. Without this acceptance, there could be no membership in a community and no communication. We are, as one could also put it, always embedded in the structures of a shared practice, of a social lifeform. Reason does not just consist in the ability to criticize and to doubt, but also in the ability to accept, to embed one’s own practice in the practices of the lifeform of which we are a part.

40  Cf. Martha Nussbaum. 1988. Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 13: 32–53; and id. 2006. Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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5.12  Rules Rules are always normative. Deviations from a rule violate, so to say, an imperative. Rules must not be confused with regularities. Regularities are observable structures of the behavior of agents or of objects, for example in physics. The dominant conception of causality is that of regularity. According to this, a causal relation holds between an event x and an event y if y follows after x due to a regularity, ideally a universal natural law. If this regularity is described precisely enough in mathematical form and the conditions of the events can be described sufficiently precisely, then it holds that y is caused by x if y can be derived deductively from the assumed law of regularity together with those statements that describe the events’ circumstances. The relation of causality turns into a logical inference. Normative rules correspond to empirical regularities. Persons who let themselves be affected by (practical) reasons exhibit regularities in their behavior that conform to the respective normative rules. Every practical reason implicitly establishes normative rules, namely the determination of generic actions that follow the respective practical reason. Here the question arises to which extent generic actions should be conceived of as rules. This is a difficult question that has attracted considerable philosophical attention, at the latest since Kripke’s interpretation of Wittgenstein.41 Wittgenstein, in any event, was convinced that while our (linguistic) practice follows rules, these rules cannot be made explicit. We have to limit ourselves to pointing to existing rules by enumerating cases that fulfill them. But enumeration is always characterized by a certain degree of underdetermination. This can be shown more precisely in mathematical terms: Any series of numbers can be interpreted as the exemplification of infinitely many arithmetic rules. Since we learn the meaning of linguistic expressions by exemplification, however, and can communicate more or less reliably within the confines of these systems of rules, there is much that speaks in favor of the idea that humans similarly grasp—intuitively so to speak, without being able to make it explicit—which rules are meant. In this regard, it can be misleading to characterize Wittgenstein as a skeptic concerning rules. He was an optimist concerning the human capacity to distill, from a limited number of examples, general behavioral regularities that give linguistic expressions stable meaning. 41  Cf. Saul Kripke. 1982. Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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However, Wittgenstein was unquestionably a skeptic regarding ethics and aesthetics. He considered moral and aesthetical judgments as something ineffable. This is not plausible, however, since the lifeform that supports our linguistic practice and that is supported by it is constituted normatively: We know much more reliably when a rule has been violated than we can ensure to speak in conformity with it. Grasping normative rules then expresses itself less in consistent conformity and more in judgments saying that this or that linguistic behavior is incorrect. Most of these linguistic rules are purely conventional. They could also be different and nothing essential would change. There are no deeper, for example moral, reasons that speak in their favor. It would be a mistake, however, to think that the conventional character of rules takes away their normative character. An established norm enables communication and other forms of interpersonal cooperation; hence following this convention is essential for maintaining the practice of communication and cooperation. Conventions, once established, develop normative force. The normative force of the factual has a precise ethical interpretation. The conventional character of a rule cannot be characterized by saying that obeying or violating a rule (conformity or non-conformity) is a mere coordination game, as David Lewis has elaborated in his study on Convention.42 Rather, introducing or establishing this rule would be a mere coordination game. We do not vote on linguistic conventions, nor do we enter contracts about them, but one can imagine this happening hypothetically. This is what makes linguistic rules conventions. Once they are established, that is, once communication happens on this basis, they gain normative force. The members of the language community ought to adhere to these conventions. Why? Because as language users they participate in a practice that is founded above all on these conventions, and because only the observance of these conventional rules can enable successful communication. In fact, persons who disregard these rules arbitrarily (arbitrarily in the sense that they do not have good reasons to do so in individual cases) performatively self-contradict themselves. For their participating in the communication reveals an acceptance of these conventional rules which is then counteracted by arbitrarily breaking the rules. This contradiction is performative because it does not express itself in the shape of propositions that are contradictory, but rather in a practice that appears to show both 42  David Lewis. 1969. Convention: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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the acceptance and the non-acceptance of the respective conventional rules of language. David Lewis claims that even the most foundational rules of linguistic behavior, truthfulness and trust are purely conventional (we should understand them as mere coordination games). This is obviously wrong. The self-interest to make untruthful, knowingly false, or misleading statements in certain situations comes into conflict with rule-conformity. Of course, it is not every single individual non-conformity that threatens the communicative practice as a whole. We do not need statistics to recognize that a high degree of conformity with the rules of truthfulness and trust is necessary in order to enable communication, and that in sufficiently many cases the individual interest to mislead others comes into conflict with this requirement. Communication is an n-person prisoners’ dilemma regarding its constitutive rules. Reliable communicative practice requires structurally rational linguistic behavior.43 Robert Brandom has underlined this normative character of the rules that are constitutive of communicative practice in his work Making it Explicit.44 Whoever considers this entitlement-conception to be an adequate explanation of our linguistic behavior, at least along general lines, cannot avoid accepting the normative constitution of our lifeform and the linguistic practice that is embedded in it. From this perspective, even the rules of formal logic are merely systematizations of this practice that is guided by normative rules. Their translation into something merely empirical, as was attempted by Logical Behaviorism, has its appeal because it can do without the idea of more or less reasonable agents and limits itself to the description of empirical regularities. However, this feature is precisely why logical behaviorism fails. Meaning comes into the world through intentions and willingness to cooperate. Without a linguistic practice that is guided by normative rules, there would be no communication.

43  What is being suggested here can be seen as a reformulation (or rational reconstruction) of what Jürgen Habermas calls the “difference between communicative and strategic rationality”; cf. The Theory of Communicative Action, chapter 3. The critical disagreement I have with Lewis and other proponents of intentionalist semantics lies in the difference between coordination and cooperative games. An intentionalist semantics that was adjusted in this manner would be a natural “ally” of Habermas’ theory of communicative action; cf. the part on “Humanist Semantics” in HumR. 44  Robert Brandom. 1994. Making it Explicit. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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In this interpretation, there is an ultimate limitation for optimizing rationality because humans are communicative beings. The human ability to communicate with others rests on a cooperative attitude that allows optimization only within limits that are compatible with successful communication. Since humans remain communicating agents even as market participants, since they are dependent on communication and have a willingness to cooperate, it is obsolete to simply contrast amoral behavior that optimizes respective self-interest with moral behavior that follows social norms outside of economic markets. Markets can only work if they remain embedded within the structures of our cooperation and communication. These structures impose tight restrictions on self-interested optimization, at least collectively, but this does not mean that individual agents cannot use these restrictions for seeking their own advantage. Such behavior, however, can only be successful if it remains parasitic. As soon as it becomes universal, it destroys the conditions for successful practice in general and for successful economic practice in particular.45

 Cf. OPT.

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CHAPTER 6

Morality and Rationality

6.1   Critique of Consequentialism The theory of structural rationality represents an alternative to consequential conceptions of practical reason. If we classify deontological theories as those which are not consequentialist, structural rationality is a deontological conception. However, this beguiling and seemingly simple dichotomy between consequentialist and deontological approaches cannot do justice to the complexity of the problem. In general, the fact that incompatible paradigms in a scientific discipline, in this case, practical philosophy, have existed side by side and in competition with each other for many decades prompts us to assume that neither the one nor the other paradigm contains the whole truth and that getting past this opposition of paradigms by including elements from both theories is the only way to live up to the existing state of affairs. The theory of structural rationality does indeed contain essential elements of each of these two paradigms. In Hegelian terminology, it sublates both, the consequentialist and the deontological paradigm. To put it even more radically: Consequentialist and deontological conceptions each capture indispensable aspects of practical reason. These aspects, however, can only be brought together in the conceptual framework of structural rationality. Generally speaking, deontological theories usually suffer from absolutism: Either an action is in conformity with a rule or it is not. Deontological theories do not do justice to the normative gradualism of our practice. In © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_6

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contrast, the theory of structural rationality is gradualist. Deontological theories are usually aprioristic. Kantian ethics is paradigmatic for this. A theory of structural rationality, on the other hand, determines what is reasonable in the light of empirical conditions. Deontological theories also have a problem with the process of deliberation: The weighing of different, relevant reasons cannot be adequately reconstructed within the framework of deontological theories: In a monistic deontological theory, such as the Kantian theory, in which the Moral Law, that is, the Categorical Imperative, is the only criterion for morality, all normative reasons must be reducible to this one criterion of assessment, namely the ability to universalize subjective rules of action (maxims). The examples that Kant himself discusses in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals reveal just how implausible this is. In pluralistic deontological theories, the weighing of reasons itself is under-determined; they cannot offer any weighing criteria in situations of conflict.1 Let us start with a simple and everyday example. You bought some sausages at a snack bar which you have been served on a paper plate. You have eaten the sausages and there is currently no waste bin in sight. You would like to get rid of your paper plate, especially since it is decorated with mustard residue. You are thus faced with the alternative of continuing to walk down the street with the paper plate until, ideally, you come across a rubbish bin, or inconspicuously dropping your paper plate. We probably all agree that it would not be right to dispose of your paper plate this way. That is why you refrain from doing so. You realize you are not the first who does not know what to do with the remains of their lunch because you see two paper plates on the sidewalk in front of you. You could pick them up and dispose of them together with your own paper plate at the next opportunity. However, there is no obligation for you to do so. For a consequentialist, the situation is clear: not picking up and disposing of two paper plates leads to a more serious deterioration of the state of the world than dropping one paper plate. In this example, consequentialist ethics come into—banal, but symptomatic—conflict with our lifeworld practice of judgment. According to consequentialism, our judgment is incoherent when we deem it an obligation for the sausage enthusiast to dispose of his paper plate, but not an obligation to pick up and dispose of the two paper plates on the sidewalk. In more technical words: It is inconceivable that there exists a plausible evaluative function over 1

 Cf. Ross, William D. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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world states, which results in an improvement (given the decision alternatives, even an optimization) of the state of the world by disposing of our own paper plate and a simultaneous improvement (exact optimization) by not picking up the other two paper plates. Utilitarian theories, as a special version of consequentialist ethics, would establish a connection between human well-being and clean sidewalks, whereby it can be assumed that ceteris paribus the well-being of the pavement users increases monotonically with the cleanliness of the pavement. The state of the world is improved more by the proper disposal of two paper plates than by the proper disposal of one paper plate. Utilitarians such as Richard Hare2 counter this problem by distinguishing between ideal rules of action and rules of practice with which we comply because we are incapable of calculating in every individual case. The rule of practice in this example would go something like this: Everybody disposes of their own paper plates, but nobody is obliged to dispose of the paper plates of others. If this rule of practice is more effective in bringing about a clean sidewalk, it would be ethically justified in view of the limited capabilities of human agents who are incapable of complying with ideal utilitarian principles. This move, however, misses the point of the actual moral problem. The real reason is that we are responsible for our own practice but not, or at least not to the same extent, for the practice of others. If, in a moment of moral carelessness, I discreetly drop my paper plate, I might regret what I have done after a few steps, turn around and pick up my plate to dispose of it properly at the next opportunity. Even if this action makes the world better to a lesser extent than me picking up two paper plates that others have dropped, I am still acting reasonably. The authorship of the human individual cannot be reduced to its causal effects on improving the world. Our practice is more than an instrument for making the world a better place. At this point, consequentialist rationalists tend to assert a comprehensive skepticism toward our lifeworld power of moral judgment. They regard the widespread attitude (that everyone is responsible for their own paper plates, but not for the paper plates of others) as an example of a lack of power of moral judgment. Accordingly, we should judge actions solely by their causal consequences for the state of the world, especially when it comes to humanity’s well-being. However, it would be misleading to construe such a dichotomy: The consequentialist principle of action versus the 2

 Cf. Hare (1981).

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everyday rule (everyone takes care of their paper plates). The following juxtaposition seems more adequate: The moral evaluation of an action should regard this action as an instrument for making the world better (optimization of world states) versus the responsibility for one’s own practice is not limited to its causal effects on the world. It is the unboundedness of responsibility that brings consequentialism into conflict with our lifeworld morality. This unbound responsibility in consequentialism goes hand in hand with the minimization of the role of the individual. The individual person becomes a small cog in a gigantic global gear whose relevance consists in a minimal contribution to the state of the world. Responsibility for one’s own life while considering the responsibility of others—this essentially deontological understanding represents consequentialism’s opponent. Proponents of Aristotelianism tend to regard Kantianism and utilitarianism as two versions of a universalist misinterpretation of morality.3 Both versions rely on one fundamental principle, namely the principle of the optimization of the good in the world and the Categorical Imperative as a principle of universalization respectively. This, however, obscures an important difference: Kantian deontological ethics defines the limits of what is permissible and provides room for personal responsibility within these limits. In contrast, consequentialist ethics leave no room for personal responsibility. The actual shortcoming of Kantian deontological ethics concerns the limits of what is permissible. For within those limits, all morality dissolves into responsibility for one’s own happiness.

6.2  Impartiality Impartiality is considered the essence of all morality. One type of ethics reduces even all moral judgment to impartiality (theories of the impartial observer). Recommendations for action given by the ideal impartial observer are—by definition—morally correct.4 The ability to impartially balance interests, to be fair in this sense, to treat people equally, to show equal respect, regardless of origin, religion, gender, and so on, is an essential condition of moral judgment. Impartiality plays an important role in our reasons’ account of (structural) rationality. It does not, however,

3 4

 Cf. Williams (1985).  Cf. Sidgwick, Henry. 1874. The Methods of Ethics. London: Macmillan.

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attempt to reduce all aspects of moral judgment to the principle of impartiality. Consequentialist ethics can be interpreted as a form of hypertrophic impartiality: People have goals, and these goals guide their practice. It is moral if it considers all individual goals equally. If we assume, in agreement with Jeremy Bentham, that the goal of all humans is to increase pleasure and to avoid pain, a moral practice aims at increasing the pleasure and reducing the pain of everyone. This is what the principle of maximizing total utility suggests: Moral practice is aimed at maximizing the sum of pleasure, minus the sum of pain, that is, optimizing total utility while taking into account the probabilities with which the respective practice impacts total utility. This form of impartiality is hypertrophic because, strictly speaking, it eclipses what it claims to take into account (impartiality): the goals of human individuals. As moral agents, all individuals have to pursue only one goal, namely the optimization of aggregated total utility. As moral agents, they do not have any additional goals beyond that. And if they have such goals, they are not relevant for guiding their moral agency. But a form of impartiality that erases all that which is individual or partial, loses its subject matter. Traditional utilitarianism obscures this problem of any consequentialist ethics with a hedonistic anthropology. It assumes it as an anthropological fact that people have the superior goal to maximize their well-being (interestingly enough, Kant shared this assumption). Moral motivation is a necessary adjunct (in which way it is added remains chronically unexplained) which does not, however, displace this fundamental anthropologically rooted goal of action. So, the question on the nature of the ideal moral person persists in the classical version of hedonistic utilitarianism: Is this moral person’s entire life characterized by permanently sacrificing her real aspirations except for the rare cases where her self-­ interest in optimizing her well-being converges with optimizing total aggregated well-being? One might assume that our private life makes up such as large share of our life in general that total utility is optimized when all persons pursue solely their self-interest. This assumption, however, presupposes what is a subject-matter of human decisions itself. How much time we devote to our private goals, that is, goals that aim at realizing our own interests and, at best, do not conflict with the others pursuing their interests, depends on the form of our individual life. It seems obvious that the moral duty to maximize total utility renders individual lifeforms, which give leeway for pursuing personal interests, morally inadmissible. Lifeforms

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are not rigid; they result from human agency. When living in cooperation and interdependence with others, the available options for action will only rarely optimize personal and overall well-being at the same time. Utilitarian ethics as the paradigm of consequentialism presents itself as true-to-life and pragmatic. Ultimately, however, its definition of the ideal moral person is a saint, that is, a person who has no personal goals. Ethical consequentialism erases the essence of individuals, that is, their specific goals, desires, hopes. The hypertrophic impartiality of ethical consequentialism marginalizes what it set out to—impartially—promote: individual interest. It is above all the version of ethical consequentialism that features the most acute conceptual and critical precision that exposes the failure of ethical consequentialism in terms of hypertrophic impartiality: Preference utilitarianism, as developed in several essays by John C.  Harsanyi.5 He labeled his theory Ethical Bayesianism, which is quite fitting, since he can show that adding a further postulate to the von Neumann-Morgenstern utility theorem,6 as well as the normalization of individual utility functions, is sufficient to establish the maximization of total utility as a criterion for action. Modern preference utilitarianism, advocated by Harsanyi and even more prominently by Hare, differs from classical utilitarianism in that it is anthropologically neutral; that is, it does not make any substantial claims about the individual’s goals. The focus shifts from pleasure and pain to the fulfillment of preferences. Individual utility is determined by the preferences of persons. What serves the fulfillment of preferences is identified with utility. The utility concept is the (quantitative) metrification of the qualitative concept of preference. The representation of preferences by a real-valued function (the utility function) requires preferences to be coherent. How these preferences are motivated is completely irrelevant. Ethical Bayesianism is indeed explicitly neutral in terms of content, that is, how preferences are motivated, which reasons guide them, with the exception of clearly anti-social preferences, for example, cruel, degrading, sadistic preferences.7 The utility functions represent individual preferences. 5  Cf. Harsanyi, John C. 1977. Rational Behavior and Bargaining Equilibrium in Games and Social Situations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Harsanyi (1980). 6  Cf. Appendix, Ramsey Compatibility. 7  Harsanyi is not fully consistent with regard to neutrality of content as he refuses to factor clearly anti-social preferences into the aggregation. In fact, this entails some conceptual difficulties since the exclusion of specific preferences from an individual preference relation results in incoherences; cf. Harsanyi, John C. 1977. Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior. Social Research: 623–656.

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Individual utility measures the extent to which these preferences are fulfilled. Harsanyi distinguishes between personal preferences and ethical preferences. The latter aim at fulfilling the sum of personal preferences to the greatest possible extent. This version of utilitarianism thus dispenses with problematic anthropological assumptions, such as that people are exclusively interested in optimizing their own pain-pleasure-ratio. It is up to the persons to determine their individual interest, and the moral obligation turns into the commandment to optimize the sum of what each person personally strives for. The same respect for individual well-being that motivated classical utilitarianism and made it the foundation of nineteenth-­ century social reformist aspirations in Scotland and England is, so to speak, complemented by respect for individual aspirations: Whatever motivates the individual person is factored into the moral obligation, that is, has to be considered equally. In this theory, the hypertrophic impartiality of consequentialist ethics becomes particularly obvious: This form of impartiality is exaggerated to such an extent that it eliminates the basis of valuation itself. Let us assume that all agents are morally motivated in their actions and have adopted the criterion of Bayesian ethics. They would then assign personal preferences based on the choice behavior of agents and determine corresponding individual utility functions, which, aggregated into an overall utility function, would then become the benchmark of moral behavior. This leaves us with an infinite regress where it is impossible to determine moral obligations.8

6.3  Individuality The criticism against hypertrophic impartiality of consequentialist ethics stands in close relation to the appreciation of the individual. This relation can be described as follows: The combination of impartiality and optimization leads to the elimination of individual particularities. Individual agents get lost in collective optimization. They become indistinguishable. In consequentialist ethics, it is irrelevant who benefits or suffers losses; the only relevant criterion is the sum of the advantages and disadvantages. At first glance, this seems to be an attractive, ethically desirable quality of consequentialist theories. It is irrelevant who has an advantage or 8  This is a prominent example of the problems that result from the interdependence of preferences in rational choice theory, a further analysis is presented in the Appendix, Preference Interdependence.

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disadvantage, it only matters that there is such an advantage or disadvantage. In collective choice theory, this is called the anonymity principle. It can be shown, for example, that the simple majority voting rule is the only of all possible decision-making procedures that fulfills two minimum principles of democracy, namely that of neutrality (the content of the available voting alternatives is irrelevant) and that of anonymity (it is irrelevant who has which preferences). What is exclusively relevant is that a majority prefers one alternative to the other which is then made a collective decision.9 Ethical consequentialism fulfills the condition of anonymity: The repartition of advantages and disadvantages is irrelevant, in this sense, everyone counts as equal. Furthermore, preference utilitarianism (as one version of consequentialism) additionally fulfills the condition of neutrality. At the same time, however, this specific, consequentialist implementation of the anonymity principle blocks the incorporation of justice. Consequentialist optimization does not allow to differentiate whether the benefit goes to a better-off or a worse-off person. As long as the benefit is the same for everyone, the consequentialist optimization principle is neutral or indifferent toward these two possible improvements. It is this indifference that renders ethical consequentialism incompatible with adequate criteria of distributive justice. Let us take the example of a two-person world to illustrate this: In this world, one person is doing twice as well as the other. Suppose it were possible to double the well-being of the already twice as well-off person by halving the well-being of the worse-off person. The consequentialist principle of optimizing the sum of well-being requires the transfer (of utility) from the worse-off person to the better-off since this optimizes the sum of well-being. Assuming that persons would actually try to optimize the integral of their well-being over their lifetime, they often would forego the realization of certain benefits at a certain point in time to make greater utility possible at a later point in time. They do not go skiing on a weekend and study for an exam instead so that they won’t have to take the course again. Let us assume that this benefit outweighs the drawback of the lost ski weekend. Ethical consequentialism treats this intrapersonal case analogously to the interpersonal case illustrated above. This is incompatible 9  Cf. Arrow, Kenneth. 1963. Social Choice and Individual Value. New Haven: Yale University Press; and Sen, Amartya. 1970. The Impossibility of a Paretian liberal. Journal of Political Economy 78: 152–157. Cf. LKE, chapter 11.

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with the separateness of persons and their individual responsibility as authors of their lives. The metaphor of the separateness of persons requires philosophical explanation. What is it, then, that separates persons, apart from them being physically discrete? That persons are separate is ethically relevant, independently of interpersonal differences. Even if all had the same desires and beliefs, pursued the same goals and were in comparable emotive states in similar situations, each person would still be the author of her life. What separates persons is their individual subjective perspective on the world and the pragmatic perspective of responsibility for one’s own actions, the ability to have one’s own reasons for judgment, action, and emotion. This authorship does not refer to others, even if they might be affected by my authorship in one way or another. My self-expression and behavior might make a difference to them. I have genuine responsibility for my actions, as long as I can be held accountable. Young children do not yet have this genuine responsibility, or at least not to a full extent. This genuine personal responsibility is deeply embedded in our modern understanding of law and reflected in our everyday interactions as well as our evaluative judgments of our own actions and those of others. Interventions that threaten or even limit this personal responsibility are considered problematic, regardless of their legal relevance. This also applies to interventions that serve a person’s well-being if the person has no choice but to accept these interventions. Even if it were perfectly evident which dietary changes would improve the health of Jack, it is by no means admissible to force him to actually change his diet. Interventions are impermissible, even if the intervener and the person affected by this intervention agree that the respective intervention would be for their own good. This key element of our lifeworld assessment is incompatible with the consequentialist optimization of the Good in the world. We accept that, in many cases, the state of the world is not improved precisely because interventions are morally (and sometimes legally) impermissible. Even non-coercive interventions, which merely consist of issuing an evaluative judgment, require justification. I may find a person’s behavior toward his partner unacceptable. This does not, however, legitimize me to criticize him. Such criticism is only permissible under very specific conditions, such as a particularly trusting relationship characterized by a practice of mutual compassion. We do not want to jeopardize our ability to live our life according to our ideas by the influence of evaluative judgments of others. The separateness of persons, which is violated by ethical

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consequentialism is not rooted in individual differences, but in the deeper dimension of personal responsibility for a chosen form of life. I am the author of my life, nobody else. An ethical theory that undermines this deeply rooted lifeworld practice of personal responsibility, or stands in insoluble conflict with it, is per se inadequate. One immediate objection to the individuality argument is that valuing personal responsibility is merely a specific cultural phenomenon that did not exist in other cultures and at other times. Why should we base ethical theory on an, albeit established, practice of judgment, which may change again within a few decades and which, even today, is limited to only one particular cultural region of the world? But I consider the claim of modern European (or Western) culture that it sets itself apart from all other cultures in terms of individual responsibility a self-stylization. The question of who is responsible for what, who can or should be criticized for specific actions, who is legitimized to intervene in the lives of others, who has the right to criticize as well as define the limits of pursuing self-interest, pervades the whole of world literature from different times and cultures. Ancient Greek tragedies deal with existential situations in human life that seem to challenge everything that is considered a matter of course, which in turn makes questions of moral evaluation even more pressing. One could argue Greek Classicism and the European Enlightenment have a common cultural context: What they share is precisely this feature of individual responsibility. However, even a cursory assessment of literature from cultures, such as Confucianism or Buddhism, invalidates this objection. All cultures, at least those with a written tradition, seem to share the quest for responsibility, what people are responsible for, what respect they owe to others, how much they ought to be concerned for themselves, and so on. Although the linguistic terms for responsibility emerged in European languages only about 300 years ago, the normative idea of being responsible for actions, for beliefs, for attitudes and emotions seems to be familiar to many cultures, possibly to all cultures.

6.4  Individual Rights Philosophical and political liberalism together with the idea of the welfare state form the normative foundation of modern—liberal and social— democracy. Political liberalism that developed in Europe in the nineteenth century has several philosophical sources: One source are human rights, as powerfully postulated by Locke. According to this postulate, every human

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person is born with individual rights, in particular the right to life, the right to physical integrity and the right to legally acquired property. For Locke and his contemporary followers, these individual rights are indubitable and require no further justification. Contemporary libertarianism takes Lockean individual rights as a normative foundation, often interprets them realistically as indubitable, ethical insight and derives political legitimacy exclusively from these individual rights. Libertarianism does not recognize moral obligations, such as the moral obligation to help others, beyond these individual rights. It does, however, grant each person subjective moral attitudes of this kind. Since these moral attitudes are subjective in nature, they must not influence the normative order as it is reflected in a legally constituted statehood. A second philosophical source of political liberalism was developed by one of its most important proponents, John Stuart Mill. Mill developed a detailed conception of utilitarianism that refutes potential objections against Bentham’s crude version of utilitarianism, and which entails a plea for individual freedom.10 According to Mill, there is no contradiction between the state’s goal of maximum freedom for each person and maximizing well-being for all. It is not quite clear whether Mill’s ultimate justification for the postulates of individual freedom is the claim that only a society of free persons serves the welfare of all. Or whether he draws on two independent normative sources of state, economy, and society that converge in their concrete practical implications: What furthers the freedom of the person also furthers the welfare of all. A third philosophical source of political liberalism is Kant’s ethical egalitarianism: Every human’s individual dignity is the same since all human beings are potentially rational beings. We are all equally able to act rationally, that is, autonomously, that is, morally. Thus, each human person deserves the same respect; that is, the dignity of humanity is present in the dignity of each person. Kantian political liberalism, therefore, obliges the state to ensure the conditions of equal autonomy. The state must contribute to the individual overcoming “self-incurred immaturity” by offering everyone an educational opportunity, as his followers added. Kantian socialists extended this to the state’s duty to guarantee minimal social standards to every citizen.11 If harnessed, this education guarantees 10  Cf. Mill, John S. 1863. Utilitarianism. London: Parker, Son and Bourn; and id. 1864. On Liberty. London: Parker, Son and Bourn. 11  For example, Hermann Cohen, Leonard Nelson and Paul Natorp.

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sufficient power of judgment and ability to make decisions that enable persons to be autonomous, responsible, and free. Contemporary political liberalism in the US is less committed to the Lockean than to the Kantian approach. Political liberalism in the US focuses on the conditions of equal dignity and equal respect. Liberals, such as the Kennedys or Barack Obama, call upon the state to guarantee these conditions are met with criticism by libertarians and neo-­conservatives for pursuing a policy of big government, which, ultimately, threatens to stifle individual freedom.12 This form of egalitarian liberalism attempts to realize equal opportunities through state institutions of education and welfare and pursues the goal of a society of equal individual empowerment and respect. This creates a tension between postulates of equality, especially the postulate of equal opportunity, and possibly, under certain circumstances, the equal distribution of goods on the one hand and postulates of individual freedom on the other. Equalizing what in this debate is sometimes referred to as natural luck (e.g., the genetic makeup of a person) or social luck (e.g., their social or cultural origin) may only be achieved by significantly restricting individual rights and liberties. This complex is linked to the problem of reverse discrimination, that is, promoting persons from disadvantaged groups. The plurality of philosophical sources for political liberalism explains, at least in part, the internal tensions that still characterize this political movement today. Civil rights liberalism conflicts with economic liberalism: the policy of equal individual freedom conflicts with the sometimes grossly unequal distributions in free markets. The liberalism of the welfare state conflicts with the policy of individual responsibility of economic subjects. The state as a guarantor for individual equal freedom conflicts with the liberal idea of a minimal state. In 1970, it was proved that there is indeed an insoluble conflict between individual freedom and welfare optimization. This proof relates to the theorem of the Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen: The Liberal Paradox.13 This theorem reveals the logical incompatibility of two normative postulates that we would both like to sustain: that of collective rationality in terms of Pareto-optimality and that of individual rights and 12  Continental political liberalism is rather located to the right of the center while in the US many republicans use “liberal” to demean a left-wing political program. 13  Cf. Sen, Amartya. 1970. Collective Choice and Social Welfare. London: Penguin Books, chapters 6 and 6*.

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freedom. According to the Liberal Paradox, there is no method of aggregating individual preferences that satisfies both postulates for all preference structures, that is, distributions of individual preferences: First, the postulate L: Every person can freely choose between at least one option, regardless of the preferences of others. Second, the postulate P: If all persons prefer a to b, a ought to be realized, if this is the alternative. The second postulate can be understood as a minimal condition of collective rationality. In decision theory this postulate is referred to as the principle of Pareto Efficiency: A state is not Pareto-efficient if it counters the preferences of all participants, that is, if there exists an alternative state that everyone prefers. The conflict between liberalism and efficiency only occurs if the persons involved take the preferences of others into account when forming their preferences. Cynics could claim that this goes to show that a good life is only possible in a world of egoists, that is, that the conflict between individual freedom and economic efficiency dissolves in a society of homines economici.14 In order to avoid the conflict between individual rights on the one hand and general fulfillment of preferences on the other, persons would have to get rid of all moral motivations. This resolution would require that other persons’ preference fulfillments become completely irrelevant for every agent. We would wipe out moral considerations in order to solve a moral problem. One can interpret Sen’s theorem also as a conflict between liberalism and utilitarianism. Utilitarianism without interpersonal comparability results in the normative criterion of Pareto-optimality: Even if there is only one counter-preference it is no longer possible to claim that one particular state is better than another, even if all others involved share this view. After all, it is possible the person having a counter-preference suffers such a great loss of utility that this loss would outweigh all gains in utility of others. Whatever the result of aggregating subjective evaluations or preferences, consequentialist theories must acknowledge that social states are preferable if these are considered an improvement from every individual evaluative perspective. Pareto-inclusion is a minimal condition in consequentialist theories. Now, Sen’s theorem shows that this minimal condition for consequentialist evaluation P collides with liberalism’s minimal condition L. It seems we have to choose between liberalism and consequentialism. The harmony  Cf. EcR.

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between welfare and freedom is an illusion. This harmony between freedom and welfare, however, was the core message of traditional political liberalism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I believe that faced with the conflict between liberalism and efficiency, we should opt for the primacy of freedom. We should recognize that a sound interpretation of liberalism that takes individuality seriously in the sense of the preceding paragraph comes at a price. One cannot have both, respect for persons, expressed in the reciprocal granting of individual rights and liberties, and overall fulfillment of preferences. Freedom has its price and demands welfare losses in individual cases. Individual rights generally take precedence over economic advantages. The libertarian position is: Once all individual rights have been exercised, there is no leeway for collective decisions: Persons who exercise their individual rights determine which states of society are realized. Sen’s illustration of the Liberal Paradox shows—intuitively convincing—that it is Lewd’s individual right to decide to read Lady Chatterley’s Lover, provided that Prude is not affected. Thus, Lewd chooses between the two “states”: (1) L reads the book or (2) no one reads the book. The same applies to Prude: P decides freely based on the Liberal Condition, whether he reads the book or not, provided again that Lewd is not affected; that is, Lewd does not read the book in both states. Once both have made their choice which is legitimate given their individual rights, there is no more room for maneuver. The common preference that Prude reads Lady Chatterley’s Lover because Lewd thought it would do him well and Prude thought that it would not be good for Lewd to read this book does not come into play at all. The political philosophy of libertarianism suggests that all collective decisions correspond to this pattern. This, however, is its key fallacy. There is a large scope for collective decisions without violating individual rights. The greater the motives for solidarity, joint action, and social cohesion, the larger this scope. Nevertheless, individual rights remain trumps; that is, they must not be violated even if their violation promotes the overall well-being. It is the essence of individual rights that they cannot be subjected to any optimization calculation: They cannot be instrumentalized for optimizing social well-being. Genuine individual rights are incompatible with consequentialist ethics and politics.

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6.5  Integrity Bernard Williams,15 the British moral philosopher, framed his criticism of utilitarianism as what he labeled the integrity argument many years ago. His thesis, which I believe to be correct, was that strict utilitarians, that is, persons who strictly pursue the utilitarian principle of maximizing total utility, would damage their personal integrity. The reason for this is that in the long run, such persons could not pursue personal projects, anything that could give their lives meaning. They would have to verify for every action with which they realized a certain project if there exists an alternative that is more favorable for the optimization of overall well-being than the action they have initially chosen. If we think it through, this argument goes even further than that. The criticism based on this argument is quite comprehensive; it attacks not only consequentialist ethical theories, but ethical rationalism in general. Let us focus on utilitarianism for now. The rational utilitarian does nothing that, in his view, does not maximize the sum of well-being in the world. Such an attitude would undoubtedly collide not only with the pursuit of individual projects, but also with friendships, special obligations toward other people, and even with the person’s professional and social roles. In this sense, this attitude would not only threaten one’s integrity (regardless of how integrity is characterized), but also one’s life-­authorship (Lebensautorschaft). They would lose their ability to be partners in interaction. Now, we can imagine one exception: the utilitarian saint. This person had no personal projects to pursue, no friendships and other personal relations, no specific social role. She would see herself and appear to others exclusively as an instrument for optimizing overall well-being. The utilitarian saint—like other saints—would detach herself from all social references, appear unapproachable, possibly even mentally ill. Those who dealt with the saint would probably not be able to decide between a feeling of disgust and admiration. They would fail to understand why it is impossible to establish a normal relation with this person, why this person seems so distant and unapproachable. At the same time, it may be that the saint’s self-sacrifice deserves respect. This respect, however, could be misguided. Genuine utilitarian saints sacrifice nothing, they are merely an instrument 15  Cf. Williams, Bernard. 1973. Utilitarianism: For and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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for realizing a greater plan (maximize the overall well-being). Non-­ utilitarian saints are quite more common in spiritual and political religions. They often pay a high price for their holiness, namely the loss of interpersonal relationships, participation, commitment, and responsibility. The utilitarian saint, however, sacrifices nothing, this person knows only one form of evaluative assessment, namely that of evaluating practices in terms of them being instruments to achieve overall well-being. This saint has no concept of things being personal, the sole driver is the duty to act as servant of the common good, overall enlightenment, religious or political liberation, class struggle, or the will of God. Saints serve the higher purpose by sacrificing their own. Once, however, they made the higher purpose their own, they sacrifice nothing. Thus, it seems unlikely that true saints ever existed. The saints exclude themselves from the human lifeform; that is, they no longer participate in interactions and communications. We as others, on the other hand, remain involved in it through practices of giving and taking reasons that enable us to interact and communicate in the first place. We are immersed in our lifeform through the attribution of reason, freedom, and responsibility; through particular bonds that make individual people special people for us because we have a closer relationship with them than with others; through our voluntary commitments, through our commitments linked to our social roles, through principles claiming the same respect for all that we (ideally) all accept. An ethical theory should not make us depart from this web of relations, that is, should not make us radically lonely. That is to say, it should be compatible with the fact that we participate in a specific lifeform, that we interact and communicate. Subordinating everything we do and say to the principle of maximizing the common good would strip us of our ability to participate in interaction and communication. Ethical theory should not require us to make this sacrifice. Any ethical theory stipulating such a requirement is ipso facto inadequate. In short: Ethical practice must be compatible with personal integrity. This requirement introduces the entire spectrum of lifeworld relationships, obligations, duties, the lifeworld practice of epistemic and prohairetic reasons which limit the scope of ethical theory formation. This limitation applies not only to ethics, but also to a theory of rationality that, too, must be compatible with the practice of taking and giving reasons. Rationality being compatible with personal integrity leads to a concept of structural rationality. This rationality is impregnated with structures such

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as the practice of giving and taking reasons, of interacting and communicating. This rationality does not—in a rationalist spirit—attempt to replace these practices and structures by normative theory, but merely to systematize and, in case of incoherence, modify them. As always with theory formation, there is under-determination: It is not a foregone conclusion that only one systematization is compatible with such an understanding of personal integrity. However, I find the fact that the structures established by our practice of giving and taking reasons, interaction and communication, are modifiable but not replaceable by theories of rationality and ethics, to be a central insight that cannot be abandoned under any circumstance. It is the basis for the theory of practical reason outlined in this book.

6.6  Irreducible Plurality The individually practiced lifeform is characterized by a more or less dense sequence of decisions. We decide to leave the house at a certain time in order to be in the office on time. We decide against the third cup of coffee during breakfast, although there still would have been time, because we intend to have a coffee break later in the morning and more than three cups of coffee are supposedly unhealthy. Once we arrive at the office, we decide to prioritize tasks that are not urgent, but important enough not to be left aside for too long. Looking at the process of accomplishing the individual tasks, it disintegrates into a dense sequence of individual decisions that we have to make. The phone rings and I decide to answer it, although the text I am working on should definitely be completed by eleven o’clock and the telephone call means taking the risk of losing time because I suspect the call to be about an important and unresolved issue from yesterday. The myriads of decisions that we make are structured by routines, including self-imposed rules, prioritizations, and evaluations. None of these decisions can be considered in isolation from the wider context in which we make them. The same applies to acts of communication: the sequence of decisions to say something or not to say it, to say it in a certain way, to articulate beliefs or to refrain from it—all this is an expression of evaluations. Only very little is predetermined externally, most is subject to our discretion. Psychological studies show that this high degree of freedom of choice can also be a burden. Some people are happy to receive clear step-by-step

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instructions. However, even strictly following instructions expresses a decision. I find the dispute between psychology and philosophy (as well as economics) about the importance of rationality for the individually practiced lifeform to be futile. This dispute is largely based on conceptual confusions. If I regard everything that is not predetermined before all deliberation, before all weighing of reasons, as a decision, it is indubitable that our everyday life is marked by a dense sequence of decisions. Even the routines and automatisms that psychology often refers to are not absolute. They free up deliberative capacities but lose their effectiveness as soon as we focus on them, because they prove to be problematic. The “automatism” of turning right when leaving the house which I have followed for over twenty  years can be corrected at any time, for example, if, for several weeks, there has been a construction site on the right of the entrance door. I may still make a right a couple of times (because I was “engrossed in thought,” for example). Eventually, however, the “automatism” will be gone, and I now turn left because I am aware of the new construction site. Confusions arise when a certain, namely reductionist and consequentialist understanding of rationality is juxtaposed with lifeworld practice of justified action. In direct comparison, so to speak, “rationality theory” performs poorly. If, however, we characterize rationality as the ability for adequate deliberation of reasons and the effectiveness of the resulting evaluations, then practical and theoretical reason shape our everyday life to a great extent. We think about what we should do, deliberate whether a certain belief is justified and decide accordingly. These deliberations can be quite rudimentary; that is, they can be limited to seconds or in some cases even fractions of seconds. But they take place whenever we are aware that we can act in one way or another. Interestingly, neither the optimization of personal well-being nor the maximization of total utility plays an important role in our practical deliberations of everyday life. What we do, how we decide in each case, which beliefs we make our own—we always react to those reasons we consider adequate. A scientist makes a number of decisions in her work in order to make progress in her research. She has certain hypotheses and experimental possibilities, she assesses the tools she can use in view of her limited budget, consult relevant literature, discuss with colleagues and, in case of particularly far-reaching decisions, perhaps even with her partner. When asked why she has decided as she did, she will be able to give her motives guided by reasons that speak in favor of them. The motive to optimize the

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time-integral of her hedonic level or the aggregated well-being of humanity will probably be irrelevant. Likewise, the Categorical Imperative or respect for human rights will be relevant in exceptional cases only. Her actions are neither aimed at complying with certain principles of an ethical theory nor at optimizing her individual well-being. In fact, she could imagine other, more comfortable lifeforms than that of a scientist. Perhaps we can characterize her general attitude as follows: She wants to do a good job as a scientist. She has certain ideas about what distinguishes good and careful from negligent and bad research. Maybe she pursues this goal although it does not lead to any other far-reaching career goals. Maybe she has already made so much progress that she can neither expect sanctions nor advantages for her career. For many centuries, the ethos of academic life excluded even such career considerations. Some successful scientists held a chair from early on, they had no supervisor to sanction or reward them, and there was no way to further improve their personal socio-economic status for decades. This led economistic university reformers to lower the basic salaries of academics and to introduce a variable performance-related component of salary. The result, however, did not increase academic performance. It is an immature concept of human motivation that it is primarily driven by monetary expectations. The repeated claim that high salaries are necessary to get people to deliver peak performances is disrespectful to all those to whom this claim is supposed to apply. If we look at those who made some of the greatest achievements in history, in our culture beginning with the philosophers Socrates and Plato, the brilliant scientist and technician Archimedes, later on, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton or Marie Curie, the artists of classical modernity, and so on—probably none of whom created scientific or artistic masterpieces because they expected monetary advantages from them. They had what is best described as “intrinsic motivation.” This motivation is about doing a good job, oeuvre, work, research project and the respective criteria of good are not subjective. The fallback option of reputation, which is sometimes used to save an inadequate, egoistic theory of rationality is, ultimately, unrealistic. Vincent van Gogh was unhappy almost the entire time of his artistic career, Ludwig Wittgenstein a philosophical broody, or take Bertrand Russell as a supposedly unscrupulous libertine. For most of the leading figures of intellectual life, focusing on excellent personal achievement did not contribute in any way—not to say was counterproductive—to their mental balance and lasting sense of well-being. Ludwig Wittgenstein, the billionaire son of a steel producer,

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could have chosen a more comfortable life, like his sister Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein for example, than that of a lonely and destitute philosophical broody. The argumentative stopgap strategy that those who sacrifice themselves for art or science did so because they had no choice, seems too ad hoc and therefore unconvincing. Most people know that they can distance themselves from that which requires all their attention, what torments them, and what also encourages them to perform at their best. They can put the pen down and devote themselves to something else, and, after a few weeks, the once so tormenting self-imposed obligations fade away. No, it is not a lack of alternatives, it is a belief, the judgment, that I should contribute to a certain cause. It is the belief that I am doing something meaningful, for example, creating an artistic masterpiece, providing philosophical clarification, designing a special chair, developing a brilliant software, building a perfectly shaped, but also habitable house, supporting people at the end of their lives so that they can die in peace, giving joy to children, saving a little corner shop from economic decline, contributing to my football club to keep playing regional league, doing a good job with my daily tasks, and so on. However, what is meaningful, that is, that which gives meaning to my practice, is not necessarily beneficial to myself. And that which gives meaning to a practice, that is, makes it a meaningful practice for me, is not subjectively constituted. It is not my desires that generate meaning in my life and in the world. Rather, my desires are a reaction to what I consider to be meaningful. I can always ask myself whether this wish is appropriate, that is, whether it is justified, whether it is directed at something that is truly desirable. The criteria we apply to judge whether something is meaningful, valuable, desirable, significant are diverse and relate to the respective contexts of judgment and action. The practice of the researcher is characterized by standards of excellent research. These are not fixed or determined from the outside, they are themselves subject to evaluation, but they do not merely express subjective preferences. A father’s interaction with his child is also subject to criteria of what is adequate or appropriate. There is probably no one who considers it irrelevant what makes for good or bad parental practice. Parents, like teachers or nurses, want to do things right in the context of their respective role, and once again, the criteria are not predetermined or imposed, they are the subject to deliberation. We have to determine what is a nurse’s good behavior toward her patients, what we can recommend to parents, how teachers should behave. The attempt to reduce everything to the interests of nurses, teachers, and parents is as

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inadequate as the reduction to the principle of maximizing overall well-­ being. In many cases focusing on the well-being of others, that is, of the pupils, children, patients, one is entrusted to care for, would constitute a criminal act. Some health care professionals have been brought to justice because they have administered drugs to old, sick people that led to their premature death. Even if the nurse had been in the right by arguing before the court that they only cared for the well-being of the elderly, such a practice would still be wrong. For it is not only about maximizing well-­ being but complying with the criteria for adequate care. Of course, the well-being of the patient is one relevant factor, but it is not the ultimate and only normative criterion. The patient’s self-determination plays just as an important role. This applies even more to the sum of well-being. Killing the motorcyclist who has been seriously injured in an accident in the operating room in order to donate his organs to a number of moribund patients would be murder and is ethically inadmissible. The reasons speaking for the appropriateness (or meaningfulness, reasonableness) of a certain practice are manifold. In view of their plurality, the naive notion of modern ethics and rationality theory that these reasons can be reduced to a single principle is misguided. We do not have to accept this plurality as a given since it leads to numerous uncertainties and conflicts of evaluations. Lifeworld deliberation aims at enabling a coherent practice of judgment, but it regularly reaches its limits. However, the method of substituting lifeworld and scientific deliberation with ethical postulates or postulates of rationality cannot go well. It is in this sense, that the rationalist and reductionist mainstream of modern practical philosophy has failed.

6.7  Quietism One opponent of the rationalist strategy of replacing the plurality of practical lifeworld reasons is quietist conservatism. When highly abstract theoretical principles of rationality and morality fail in the face of undeniable objections, that is, opposing, practical reasons impossible to integrate, it seems reasonable to abandon the whole project. One way to give up on this project can be called quietist. Quietism leaves everything as it is. It accepts the respectively established criteria of reasoning and therefore accepts the plurality of reasons, the diversity and irreducibility of evaluative standards. Consequently, the respective practice of reasoning and lifeform guided by these reasons is considered, at best, a starting point for

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philosophical analyses. It is, however, regarded as autonomous insofar as it is neither subject to criticism nor to revision. Wittgenstein is assumed to be a proponent of quietism in terms of practices of everyday language and its language games. An analogous ethical quietism leads to a radical abstinence from theory, that is, anti-theory, most radically expressed in ethical particularism.16 In contrast, the conception of structural rationality is neither rationalist nor quietist. It takes the middle ground between these two extremes. Structural rationality criticizes ethical rationalism and rationalist theories of rationality for their detachment from lifeworld practices as a justificatory benchmark. The source of all normativity is not theory, the postulate or the ethical or rationality-theoretical principle, but the shared lifeform and practice of justification. There can be no external point of view beyond and outside this practice. Such a point of view would have to have its own normative authority and the origin of such normative authority is a mystery. Ultimately, it is the reasons we share that are the starting point of all evaluative assessments. Our lifeworld assessment, however, goes beyond given and established evaluative criteria. We are forced to apply critical scrutiny to these criteria whenever certain evaluations contradict each other, or some cases cannot be subsumed under the accepted practice of justification. The lifeworld practice of justification transcends in the course of deliberation. The question “Why?” (referring to a belief or action) is not conclusively answered just by giving a reason. We can be persistent in questioning if we have reason to do so, for instance, because the reasons given are not based on an epistemic or normative consensus, or because this reason does not convincingly rebut opposing reasons. This—enlightening—dynamic of deliberation is not a European invention of the last 300  years, but an essential element of responsible human authorship in general. The literature of all advanced civilizations offers fascinating insights in this regard, from the ancient empires, conversations between “masters” and “disciples” in Buddhism and Confucianism, the practice of interpretation of religions of law such as Judaism and Islam, the Platonic dialogues, the tragedies of Greek classicism, the Hellenistic and Roman treatises of Stoicism, the casuistry of the Thomistic tradition in 16  Particularist quietism is mostly relativistic, sometimes of a system-theoretical structure (inspired by Niklas Luhmann), often postmodern; the most elaborated and realistic version, however, is that of Jonathan Dancy. Dancy assumes that there are (objective) moral facts that are independent of the perceiving and acting subject; that is, these facts are not epistemically constituted. He does, however, not provide any further justification for this interpretation to which I am quite sympathetic; cf. Dancy (2004); cf. REAL.

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Christianity, the belle lettres of Italian early humanism, the philosophical writings of European Enlightenment to the flourishing contemporary disciplines of applied ethics. Let us go back to the example of a motorcyclist who had an accident. We agree that the motorcyclist must not be killed, even if this may save the lives of several patients. Although we have no doubt about the adequacy of our evaluative assessment, it is conceivable, legitimate, even obvious, to ask why we arrive at this conclusion. Thus, it is not the specific judgment or the reason we provide as justification which is questionable (in this case we could claim, for example, that one should not kill innocent people, even if others benefit greatly from their death: they would survive). We can rephrase this phenomenon as follows: Every justification points beyond itself; that is, it is admissible to ask why something counts as a justification, even if one has no doubts about what and how it is justified. In other words: The lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons points beyond its own scope. Its modification is driven by its inherent dynamic. The justificatory benchmarks prevail (albeit in varying degrees). We can thus consider an ethical theory that legitimizes the killing of the seriously injured motorcyclist as failed. The more particular the reasons put forward, the more urgently deliberation demands more fundamental reasons and thereby pushes beyond the boundaries of established lifeworld practices of reasoning. The systematization of epistemic and normative evaluations is not only an achievement of scientific theories but is already embedded in the everyday practice of giving and taking reasons. Theories of ethics and rationality extend this practice and, ideally, provide it with a coherent conceptual and methodological framework. At this point, one may distinguish between more or less rationalistic or quietist cultures. Some are satisfied with what is obvious and its particular justifications, while others continue to ask questions and demand the systematization of judgments. We can find both approaches in human cultural history and the demarcation lines do not run between high culture and folk culture, between modernity and antiquity, between the Enlightenment and the Middle Ages. The highly developed casuistry of medieval theology is opposed by a rather sentimental contemporary Protestant social ethic. Judaism and Islam differ clearly from religions focused on the subjects’ attitude such as Hinduism and Buddhism. There are approaches of virtue ethics not only in European antiquity and Confucianism, but also in modernity in form of moralism or in late twentieth-­century communitarianism. European Enlightenment produces

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differentiated moral sense theories, such as those of Earl of Shaftesbury and Joseph Butler, and even the pluralistic theory of intrinsic values by the British founding father of analytical philosophy, Moore (together with Russell), ultimately relies on moral intuition. Moore limits the rationalist element to the instrumental choice of an action to promote the good. The good itself is accessible by direct intuition, just like colors to our senses. Structural rationality defines the framework for the systematization of our normative assessments. It is not a predetermination of the extent to which the surface (the quietist view) is abandoned in favor of a systematizing analysis (the rationalist one). The degree of rationalization of our evaluative judgments is not predetermined by the conception of structural rationality. This conception does, however, advocate a gradualist, coherent, and holistic understanding of practical judgment and therefore equally rejects the two extremes of quietism and rationalism.

6.8  Fragmentation Systematizing evaluative judgments fails in the comprehensive reductionist forms of utilitarianism or Kantianism but it remedies an essential task of ethical theory, which extends on lifeworld deliberations. Ethical systematization is then confronted with the fragmentation of values. If we, for example, consider it an undeniable fact that we are more committed to friends than strangers, ethical systematization must reflect this phenomenon. There are different ways to fulfill this requirement. Communitarianism for instance claims that belonging to a community is essentially what constitutes a moral person, that is, community ties and belonging to a community frame and should frame our moral judgments. A radical communitarian interpretation of this moral—and I believe undeniable—phenomenon necessarily leads to cultural relativism. Although communitarians have devised different strategies to escape this verdict, the united front against realistic and universalist interpretations is characteristic of communitarianism as a whole. Thus, communitarianism loses an essential element of our normative discourses. We might even say it loses the very subject-matter of morality, namely the core question of which moral state of affairs actually holds, which reasons objectively speak for or against a specific theory of justice, and so on. The radical communitarian interpretation fails to live up to the particular, lifeworld discourse practices of which it claims to be the guidelines, for these discourse

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practices are clearly objectivistic and realistic and incompatible with a relativistic reinterpretation. So, it is a matter of finding a way to integrate the particularist normative relations into a theory that allows a universalist and realist interpretation. We can achieve this by applying the criteria of cooperation, the paradigmatic case of structural rationality17: The specific obligation to cooperate arises within a particular cooperative relationship, the duty to cooperate, however, is a universal duty. The same applies to duties associated with social roles. We can reconstruct the specific duties of parents or teachers, of employees toward their company, and so on as universal principles. We could argue—according to contractualism, for example—that from an impartial perspective it seems reasonable to agree that the respective parents primarily look after their own children, regardless of whether this agreement leads to the most preferable consequences in the individual case. The universal normative perspective is by no means incompatible with its particularist application to family members. We could interpret the impermissibility to kill the seriously injured motorcyclist, as we established in the example above, in such a way that every person has the human right to not be instrumentalized for the well-­ being and even the lives of others. No one is allowed to kill a person in order for others to benefit, however great that benefit may be. We, therefore, postulate an individual right that is suitable to systematize our practice of judgment. As a next step, we must test whether this general rule (i.e., this individual right) is compatible with our practice of normative judgment as a whole. One—putative or genuine—counterexample to this individual right are the famous trolley problems,18 which were originally introduced by Philippa Foot and meanwhile have taken on a rather problematic life of their own. They present us with situations where we seem  Cf. Chap. 3.  The Trolley Examples are ethical thought experiments originally introduced by Philippa Foot and present for example the following scenario: The agent sees a trolley rolling toward a group of five people lying on the tracks. They will die if hit by the trolley. The agent stands at a switch that would divert the trolley to another track. There is only one person lying on this track, so the trolley would kill one person. The question is now: what is the morally superior option for action for the agent: Do nothing and let five people die, or move the switch and kill one person? Cf. Foot, Philippa. 1978. The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect. In Virtues and Vices and Other Essays, 19–33. Berkeley: University of California Press. 17 18

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to endorse the deliberate killing of an innocent person to save others. The problem with these trolley examples, however, is that this kind of example sketches a scenario outside our lifeworld practice; that is, these examples focus on borderline cases in which our normative judgments become uncertain and unreliable. The lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons, the deliberation of beliefs and decisions (which are closely interwoven), is, so to speak, pushing the limits of its own scope. There is no endpoint of lifeworld reasoning. Justifications do not come to an end in the unquestioned acceptance of a lifeform, as Wittgenstein postulates in On Certainty. Lifeform is not fundamental and ultimate, it can be, at least partially and selectively, challenged. There is of course a gradient of certainty, of centrality and periphery, and of the revisable or—virtually—non-abandonable. Theologically influenced ethicists speak of unavailabilities, which, from a theological perspective are connected to the will of God. In the deontological or Kantian view, they are connected to the aprioristic features of moral judgments. The problem with ultimate justifications (Letztbegründung), however, is their undetermined content which remains unrelated to concrete practices of discourse. There are presuppositions of such practices and these presuppositions are ineluctable insofar as we participate in these practices. The recourse to an a priori and fundamentalist concept of justification, however, is not convincing. These a priori, radical, attempts at systematization must be distinguished from the cautious, experience-driven attempts at systematization that are guided by moral judgment. The latter do not claim any fundamentalist or even a priori status. They merely try to improve the already accepted practice of normative judgments, eliminate vagueness, expand areas of application, and circumvent contradictions and dilemmas as far as possible. It is these particular attempts at systematization that can give the impression of a fragmentation of morals. It is indeed obvious to distinguish different categories of moral judgment: Judgments that relate to the practice of granting individual rights, that is, judgments based on the assumption that persons have rights that impose restrictions on others and prohibit interventions. An individual right to self-determination restricts permissible interventions. This concerns not only interventions of violence but also of judgment. If a doctor, for good reasons, recommends that an already ailing person stop smoking, the normative fact that it would be better for that person to stop smoking does not give anyone the right to force her to do so, even if effective coercive measures were available. We attribute personal responsibility to

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people which is protected by individual rights and this includes that each adult person who can be held accountable is the master of her own health. Of course, I have to distinguish between the possible effects my behavior has on me and the effects it can have on others. My smoking may affect others in some way, but that is not what we are talking about here. The attribution of individual rights restricts the permission for intervention and even makes some interventions inadmissible. The mutual recognition of individual rights is therefore a precaution against violence. The unanimity of this attribution is the basis of a civil, humane culture of coexistence. Nevertheless, the violation of individual rights through inadmissible interventions can also spark the escalation of conflicts—as we observed in the abovementioned example of the Iliad. Violations of individual rights are existential: they can shake a person’s self-esteem, they can be a reason to feel harmed in one’s self-respect, which is why a coherent and generally acceptable attribution of individual rights is of such great importance. We not only have individual rights, but also, for example, the duty to help those in need and whom we can help without it causing us too much personal disadvantage. Those passing by must help, or at least offer help, to an old lady falling in front of them on the sidewalk unable of getting up on her own. Persons walking by fail to do so, they are guilty of a manifest and thoroughly serious breach of duty. In this case, their negligence has even legal consequences: Failure to render assistance is a criminal offense. Libertarianism rejects moral (and even more so juridical) duties to aid. It only recognizes individual rights (of defense). Libertarianism declares a specific category of moral judgments absolute and subsumes everything else under this category or explains away anything that is in fact of normative relevance but cannot be subsumed under said category. Anyone who acknowledges the duty to help or more generally the duty to promote not only personal well-being but the well-being of others recognizes at least one further category of normative judgment. Individual rights on one hand, duties to aid on the other. If we additionally acknowledge duties we take on in certain social roles, as it corresponds to our lifeworld practice of normative judgment, another category emerges which we refer to as communitarian duties. Communitarians believe that all normative judgments can be reduced to communitarian duties. Obviously, they are mistaken: We have universal, duties—one might call them duties of humanity—toward every person, regardless of which social or cultural community they belong to. We must

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not, for example, use anyone as a mere instrument for meeting certain ends, even if those ends are considered a great priority such as saving human life. People as such have individual dignity and those cultural practices that disregard this dignity are based on an erroneous normative belief. The principle of equal treatment, human rights egalitarianism in the sense of every person having the same normative weight, belongs to another category of normative judgment, which we can describe as principles of equal treatment. These principles are similar to invariance principles in physics: Whatever the concrete objects of normative judgment look like, they must be compatible with these invariance or equal treatment principles. I am not outlining a particular view that is popular at certain times and in some cultures. I am pointing to an indispensable element of adequate normative judgment. The fact that the insight that every human possesses the same dignity is still considered controversial and has failed to establish itself over centuries is not an argument against this insight’s universal and objective validity. This fragmentation of moral values into those that refer to the attribution of individual rights, duties to aid, community affiliations, principles of fair treatment, and so on is not a reason to abandon the project of a coherent and comprehensive practice of overall ethical judgment. The justifications of a certain duty already conflict with each other within the same category, this is especially true for communitarian duties. At least in modern society, persons usually belong to different communities, different cultural, social, regional, ideological, political, and so on communities. And these communities are held together by common normative beliefs that are often not—fully—in concordance with normative beliefs of other communities. Within the category of communitarian duties, normative conflicts occur simply because of the diversity of different communities and people belonging to more than one community. In this context, I have occasionally used the image of navigation: Persons are navigators between a variety of normative demands and they must ensure that they stay true to themselves vis-à-vis different expectations and affiliations. The ability to meet these different normative expectations is not predetermined by any shared practice of a community. Personal normative ideas take priority over the constitutive norms and values of any community to which a person belongs. The navigators distance themselves from the communities they occasionally belong to. Detachment, at least to a certain extent, is especially necessary in multicultural societies. In individual cases, it enables navigators to choose not to

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comply with the expectations of a community to which they belong alongside other communities. Ego-strength is a prerequisite for moral integrity in a pluralistic modern society. The fact that some conflicts of duties are rooted in different categories of normative judgment does not imply that these conflicts are insoluble. In many cases, duties of different categories allow for an easy resolution of conflicts in the form of a commonly accepted prioritization. The obligation to keep a given promise belongs to the category of commissives, that is, duties which emerge from a personal decision and which, in turn, can be interpreted as an expression of a form of cooperation. The institution of promise is a form of rule-based cooperation. If a given promise, for example, to be on time for the cinema, collides with duties to help, it seems obvious that the duties to help take priority. This primacy is also expressed in the fact that the person to whom I am breaking my promise will of course acknowledge my reasons for doing so. This other person might even blame me if I had not met my duty to help in order to keep my promise. In this scenario it is irrelevant whether the sources of the duty belong to different categories, what is relevant is that they can be ranked according to a normatively justifiable prioritization. What prevents a coherent practice is therefore not the fragmentation of values as such, but normative conflicts that are insoluble, conflicts which we call moral dilemmas.

6.9  Moral Dilemmas19 A moral dilemma is a situation where an agent is morally obliged to do A and to do B but cannot do both at the same time. He cannot do both (A and B), because some contingent fact, an empirical fact of the world he lives in, prevents him from doing both A and B. However, not every conflict of values or rules results in a moral dilemma. There are situations where there are various and sometimes incompatible prima facie reasons, that is, reasons to do A, and reasons to do B, preventing us, from doing A and B. We have to choose between one of the two 19  An earlier version of this section titled “Moral Dilemma and Practical Reason” was published in the proceedings of the congress and presented at the International Wittgenstein Symposium 2012; cf. Nida-Rümelin, Julian. 2012. Moral Dilemmas and Practical Reason. Ethics, Society, Politics. Proceedings of  the  35th International Wittgenstein Symposium, ed. Hajo Greif and Martin Weiss. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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possible actions. We could even take it a step further and claim that this type of decision is what characterizes human action in general. The ability to act presupposes conflicting practical reasons, since we consider an action as such if the person performing this action can choose from different options for action.20 If we understand a moral dilemma as a situation where there are prima facie reasons to do A and prima facie reasons to do B, and A and B cannot be done simultaneously, then moral dilemmas would be pandemic. But they are not, moral dilemmas are a very specific type of situation. Moral dilemmas play an important role in dramatic literature.21 Moral dilemmas are practical and particularly serious conflicts. In other words: They are existential conflicts. We should characterize a practical conflict as a moral dilemma if: 1. There are no meta-criteria that resolve it 2. The respective decision changes the deciding agent’s way of life 3. Regardless of the decision, there remain feelings of guilt, remorse, and restlessness Now, the existence of moral dilemmas (MD) seems to collide with the principles of deontic logic: 1. □A (“One ought to do A,” a normative fact) 2. □B (“One ought to do B,” a normative fact) 3. ¬ ◊(A ⋀ B) (“Doing A and B is impossible,” an empirical fact) Those who assert the existence of genuine moral dilemmas believe that (1), (2), and (3) are compatible, while those who deny the existence of genuine moral dilemmas are convinced that (1), (2), and (3) are incompatible. If one ought to do A and ought to do B at the same time, one also ought to do the conjunction of the two actions. If, however, I cannot do something, in this case A and B, at the same time, I am not obliged to do it. 20  This is where I object to Frankfurt’s thesis that whether or not alternative possibilities exist (i.e., the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP) applies) is irrelevant for responsible action; a thesis that initiated semi-compatibilism, which asserts the possibility of decoupling freedom from responsibility. In the last part of this book, we will argue for a close link between rationality, freedom, and responsibility (Sects. 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and 8.5). 21  Cf. Nussbaum, Martha. 1983. The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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I. Principle of agglomeration: (1) and (2) imply □(A ⋀ B) II. Ultra posse nemo obligatur: (3) implies ¬□(A ⋀ B) Considering (I) and (II) we deduce from (1), (2), (3) a logical contradiction: (3) and (II) implies ¬□(A ⋀ B) ¬□(A ⋀ B) implies (¬□A or ¬□B), in contradiction to the premises (1) respectively (2). There are no moral dilemmas within consequentialist ethics. In other words: moral dilemmas dissolve within a consequentialist framework of practical reason. The explanation for this is simple: Consequentialist theories of ethics or rationality derive—via optimization—the criterion of “ought” from weighing the consequences of actions. Consequentialist rationality presupposes the existence of a value function over consequences of action. Utilitarian versions of consequentialism allocate a certain value to subjective states of human beings (or all beings capable of perception), but consequentialism is not based on subjectivism of values. A consequentialist can also consider world facts that are independent of subjective states. Consequentialism can therefore be characterized by two elements: 1. A value function over world states 2. Determining actions as obligatory if and only if they optimize the current world state (given the value function and considering probabilities) Consequentialism is an attractive representation of practical reason because it fits well with our self-perception as agents. Our actions shape the world. The world would be different if we acted differently. And it is this feature of the capacity to act, that is, the intervening character of actions, that is decisive for our moral judgment of what is right and wrong. We cannot judge an action as right or wrong without considering its consequences. A real-valued function representing the evaluation of world states induces a binary relation of betterness. If the value of one state is numerically higher than that of another state, the first state is preferable to the other. This induced relation of betterness superiority introduces an order that is complete, reflexive (if we assume a weak relation of superiority, i.e.,

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“at least as good as”), and transitive. Real-valued evaluation functions cannot result in cyclical or incomplete relations of betterness. In a situation where the consequences of possible actions are determined, the relation of betterness of states induces a relation of betterness of actions. There is only one form of aporia, namely when several actions have the same maximum value. In this case, the rational person is indifferent toward these actions. However, one of these acts must be executed. Consequentialism is a radical solution to practical conflicts in general and moral dilemmas in particular. Consequentialism in ethics and practical rationality would be a good solution if it could adequately integrate moral reasons. However, as we have seen, this is not the case: individual rights, social duties, and commitments are indispensable categories of moral reasons that cannot be reconstructed by consequentialism. Now, one could hope that moral dilemmas do not apply within the normative system of cultural communities, that is, that they are outside the scope of the duties resulting from belonging to one particular cultural community. This would be the communitarian solution: Peoples’ moral identity is based on their membership in cultural communities. The norms and values of these communities ensure that their members always know what to do and thereby keep their members from running into moral dilemmas. We can rephrase this conception as a skepticism toward modernity: It is a typical problem of modern societies that this moral unambiguousness has been lost through loss of faith and multiculturalism.22 One impressive example of the fact that ancient cultures also faced moral dilemmas is the tragedy of Antigone: From a communitarian perspective, Antigone’s dilemma originates in her being a member of two communities. On the one hand, she is a citizen of Thebes and the corresponding authorities have command over her as a citizen; on the other hand, she belongs to the spiritual order of the Greek world of gods. It might seem more adequate to describe her dilemma as a conflict of family duties (toward her brother) and civic duties. These two different communities, however, cannot be distinguished in terms of their cultural differences. Antigone’s family is part of the city; conflicts of being loyal to family 22  Alasdair McIntyre presents a fascinating reflection of this attitude in his critique inspired by Aristotelianism and Thomism. However, if we were to adopt this critique, the only way out of the putative ruins of modern normativity would be the reversion to a common religious, monotheistic faith and spiritually guided everyday practice; cf. MacIntyre, Alasdair. 2013. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. London: A&C Black.

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or country are not rooted in multicultural diversity, they are endemic in traditional cultures as well. It is the fragmentation of values that is incompatible with the reduction of all moral aspects to a single normative criterion. Practical conflicts and especially moral dilemmas cannot be solved in this way. The fragmentation of values represents the normative power of our lifeworld reason. No theory can replace lifeworld rationality with principles (whatever their content). The criteria of philosophical ethics must prove themselves in the tribunal of lifeworld reason. There is a conflict between Agamemnon’s right to make decisions that are binding for all Greek soldiers and Achilles’ right to decide which girl he makes his companion. It seems, that for Homer this conflict represents a moral dilemma. Achilles has no moral right to oppose Agamemnon’s decision and Agamemnon’s authority seems to be limited in a way that allows Achilles to withdraw from the battlefield. Agamemnon and Achilles both think they are right. Both face a dilemma: Agamemnon has demonstrated his power to all, but he risks losing the war as a consequence of his demonstration of power. Achilles on the other hand, demonstrates that his honor forbids him to take part in the battle after Agamemnon’s decision. However, Achilles risks causing a defeat of the Greek army—which means losing many of his friends. The interpersonal practical conflict results in the two intrapersonal moral dilemmas of Agamemnon and Achilles. It is not the fragmentation of values into different categories, but the plurality of practical reasons that leads to practical conflicts and, in some existentially threatening scenarios, to dilemmas. No adequate criteria of philosophical ethics could exclude this possibility from the outset. This also applies to commitments. I can commit myself to doing A, and, at the same time, I can commit myself to doing B. In some cases, I cannot do both. If the resulting practical conflict is existential, I face a moral dilemma: I can do neither A nor B and be satisfied with the result. There is a feeling of guilt or remorse and it seems to me that deciding for either A or B means settling for a specific lifeform at the same time. Feminist or conservative communitarians arguing23 that the language of justice or rights indicates moral decay is a form of disparagement of human authorship. Accepting the fragmentation of values means r­ especting 23  Cf. Gilligan, Carol. 1993. In a Different Voice. Harvard: Harvard University Press; Held, Virginia. 1993. Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

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human persons as authors of their lives. As authors, they have to prove themselves time and again in a multitude of conflicts and dilemmas while preserving their personal identity. The fragmentation of values precludes a reductionist resolution of moral dilemmas. However, fragmentation of values is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the existence of moral dilemmas. Now we are faced with the question of how to integrate the dilemmatic decisions into the coherentist conception of structural rationality that we have developed in this book. A realistic interpretation cannot transform the preferences of a deontologist agent into preferences about world states, even if they are coherent. Sen once demanded to “drive a wedge” between decision and preference—and this is exactly what we are doing.24 Rational moral decisions usually cannot be translated into preferences between world states or interpreted as their manifest expression (as in the revealed preference approach). Nevertheless, moral decisions should be coherent. It should therefore be possible to represent them by a subjective value and subjective probability function.25 Let us imagine a person facing a moral dilemma between a and b. How can it be that the person exhibits coherent preferences when choosing in favor of a or in favor of b? If we assume that the postulates for coherent preferences are fulfilled, this is only possible if a and b have the same subjective value. This, however, seems to be a misdescription. Moral dilemmas are not a special case of indifference they are a special case of conflict. Therefore, indifference seems not a viable solution. Moral dilemmas, as we have described them, exhibit a special feature that we have called “existential.” This feature points to a solution. When deciding for a or for b, the agent chooses not only between actions, but also between propositional attitudes. Existential decisions are not only an expression of propositional attitudes they in fact change propositional attitudes. The juxtaposition of two types of decisions, existential and non-­ existential, would, however, be an inadmissible and coarse simplification. There exists a spectrum of gradual transitions between these two types. A complete rationalization is only possible if all propositional attitudes are 24  Sen, Amartya. 1977. Rational Fool: A Critique of Behavioral Foundations of Economic Theory. Philosophy and Public Affairs 6: 317–344; cf. Nida-Rümelin, Julian. 1991. Practical reason or meta-preferences? An undogmatic defense of Kantian morality. Theory and Decision 30: 133–162. 25  As explicated in Sects. 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3.

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given and the outcome of the decision is open. This is usually only the case with small decisions, that is, decisions that do not change much. Big decisions change our behavior, evaluations, and expectations. In the extreme case of existential decisions, they change our entire lifeform. A dilemmatic situation marks the beginning of a new time span in which we can apply evaluation standards based on coherent preferences. How long this period is, depends on the stability of the chosen lifeform. In any case, everything is gradual; that is, most decisions change propositional attitudes at least to a small extent. Completely rationalizable decisions are borderline cases, and so are dilemmatic decisions. An elaborated theory of practical reason integrates three types of postulates: (1) postulates of deontic logic, (2) postulates of preference consistency, and (3) postulates of coherence of reasons. The relation of these three categories of postulates is concentric: logic of decision presupposes deontic logic and the logic of reasons presupposes both, logic of decision and deontic logic. Therefore, one could say that deontic logic is a minimum condition of practical reason. However, only the combination of these three types of coherence, including the postulates of coherent reasons, together is sufficient to characterize the capacity to act rationally. In this sense, one can characterize the rules of deontic logic or the postulates of preference consistency as minimal conditions of practical reason. They represent minimal requirements for the ability to act rationally. I believe it is an attractive feature of our theory of practical reason to combine Platonism (in terms of the coherence conditions) with Aristotelianism (in terms of the content of practical judgment). Moral dilemmas exist because the plurality of lifeworld moral reasons includes situations in which some reasons speak in favor of a and some reasons speak in favor of b and in which I cannot do both simultaneously. We have no criteria of lifeworld rationality at hand to solve this conflict. The systematization of lifeworld moral reasons has—to date—not led to an adequate theory of philosophical ethics that resolves moral dilemmas. Theories that seem to provide a solution to moral dilemmas are inadequate if they are incompatible with ineluctable elements of lifeworld morality. Contrary to what a good part of the literature about moral dilemmas suggests, however, this does not challenge the first and second parts of practical coherence, that is, deontic logic and preference logic. The fact that there is no systematic account of practical coherence does not justify giving up the other two categories. Instead, it is the task of normative ethics to integrate practical reasons as far as possible and in such

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a way contribute to practical coherence. The incoherences of practical lifeworld judgment is what motivates ethical analysis and ethical theory formation. If there was no incoherence in our lifeworld practice of moral judgment, we would all remain what one might call traditionalists or quietists; that is, we would leave everything as it is. Any kind of moral criticism begins with conflicting moral reasons—interpersonal or intrapersonal. Ethical theory can do nothing more than solve some of these practical conflicts. The goal of solving all practical conflicts has led to reductionist and rationalist theories in philosophical ethics that are completely detached from our practice of lifeworld judgment. However, the fact that we cannot, once and for all, solve all practical conflicts, including all moral dilemmas gives us no reason to abandon the idea of practical reason in general. We should preserve as much of the idea of practical reason as possible. Moral dilemmas do not question the idea of practical reason but simply limit its scope. The rules of deontic logic are applicable only at the level of action-­ guiding normative reasons and are valid despite the existence of moral dilemmas. Moral dilemmas: 1. □A (“One ought to do A”) 2. □B (“One ought to do B”) 3. ¬◊(A ⋀ B) (“Doing A and B are not possible at the same time”) Moral dilemmas are possible at the level of practical, action-guiding reasons (“reasons for acting out of duty” within Kantian value theory); those asserting the existence of moral dilemmas are right: (1), (2), and (3) are compatible. This scheme, however, is not valid at the level of normative action-­ guiding beliefs. Consequently, the opponents of moral dilemmas are right at this level: (1), (2), and (3) are incompatible. Recall: I. Principle of agglomeration: (1) and (2) imply □(A ⋀ B) II. Ultra posse nemo obligatur: (3) implies ¬□(A ⋀ B) Taking into account (I) and (II), we deduce a logical contradiction from (1), (2), (3). The embedding of reasons in the normative institutions of our lifeworld practice brings about dilemmatic conflicts between practical reasons. These conflicts manifest themselves in existential decision

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situations, the dissolution of which restores the coherence (structural rationality) of our practice. The price of this restoration of coherent practice is the more or less radical abandonment of a possible way of life, the re-formation of one’s own personal identity.

6.10  Rationality and Morality In this last section of Chap. 6, we bring together our different lines of reasoning. We rejected the distinction between rationality and reason from the outset. Rationality (or reason) is determined by adequate theoretical and practical reasons. A belief is rational when good reasons speak for it. A decision is rational if good reasons speak for it. A belief is reasonable if good reasons speak for it. A decision is reasonable if good reasons speak for it. The distinction between rationality and reason makes sense only for those theories that assume a concept of rationality that runs counter to the practice of taking and giving reasons, that is, is inadequate according to our understanding of the concept. Something is rational because good reasons speak for it (e.g., belief, emotive attitude, decision/action). Being reasonable consists in being able to adequately deliberate on reasons. Rationality does not have a criterion of its own apart from the practice of justification. By the same token, a distinction between rationality and morality seems misguided since it cannot be that a decision is moral but unreasonable, or reasonable but immoral. What matters is the weighing of reasons and, if properly done, the beliefs and actions expressing the acknowledgment of these reasons (and their appropriate deliberation) are reasonable. And if they are reasonable, they cannot be irrational or immoral at the same time. The dichotomy of rationality and morality, which is an invention of modernity, is systematically misleading. Desires are never given, they express reasons accepted by us, they result from deliberation and normative judgment, and thus constitute the (pragmatic) identity of an agent. Action-guiding desires express a normative judgment about what is desirable. We desire something because we believe that it is desirable. Of course, a person’s desire or belief is part of what can be called the person’s subjective state. However, if we have reasons for a desire or a belief, we claim that these reasons render them objectively justified or adequate. There are reasons that are only applicable in some particular cases and contexts, because they relate to my specific situation, my qualities, my practice of life. This, however, does not make the justification

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of my desires in these cases subjective. A justification always “claims validity”; that is, others should be able to understand these reasons, they should then be able to say: yes, considering the specific circumstances this person is in, I consider her desire or belief, and the behavior that rests on them, justified. Objective justifications can take into account the particular, “subjective,” aspects of a person in a specific situation. Our action-guiding desires react to evaluations. Even the simple desire to order a certain dish on the menu expresses a multitude of prohairetic judgments, each of which is justified in its own right. This includes, for example, the belief that it is precisely this food that is particularly filling, that an alternative on offer, which is also filling, contains too much sugar, that value for money is particularly good for one specific dish, that some dishes were prepared without violating criteria of fair trade and sustainable use of resources, that the time waiting for one specific dish to be prepared is particularly short, and so on. The action-guiding desire is not simply given or basic but embedded in a complex variety of—justified—epistemic and prohairetic judgments (prohairesis krisis estin26). In this context, what is occasionally called self-interest does not play a prominent, fundamental, or ultimately justifying role. Reducing rationality to self-interest denies the diversity of established lifeworld practice of justification. Everything we do on an everyday basis is affected by epistemic and normative judgments. The justification of a certain action, for example, to leave my apartment now to go to the library, does not end with predetermined or preset desires, but with the complex of reasons that I have and that, from my perspective, speak in favor of this decision. On closer inspection, the notion of self-interest dissolves. The basic desires that are thought to ultimately constitute self-interest do not exist. What exists, however, and what is factually relevant is everyday deliberation on 26  The old-Stoic version reads: ta pathè kriseis einai (i.e., even emotions are normative judgments, though ones that stand in close temporal connection to the occurrence of the respective emotions); cf. von Arnim, Hands (ed.). 1903. Stoicorum veterum fragmenta: Volume III: Chrysippi fragmenta moralia. Leipzig: Teubner. Prohairesis krisis estin is more straightforwardly embeddable in our analysis: Preference does not, contrary to the Humean dogma, have the character of a desire, but, ideally, contains a well-considered, reasonable judgment. The judgment being well-justified is itself reflected in the internal and external validity of guiding reasons, with which ancient Stoicism dealt intensively: the reasonable human being as a unity (cf. SVF Volume II: Chrysippi fragmenta logica et physica): mia hè tès psychès dynamis. In Verantwortung (Stuttgart: Reclam 2011, chapter 5) I equated the identity of a person with the theoretical and practical reasons that guide this person.

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various reasons for action, that express normative and empirical judgments. The mode is that of an assertion: This reason speaks for that, and this reason for something else, and when weighing both reasons, the first prevails over the latter. So, the information I give is not about my subjective state, rather I make a certain statement, I say how I believe things are or ought to be. Justification neither ends in a given, non-revisable lifeform that is immune to criticism, nor in a person’s given basic desires that represent personal interests. Quietism and Humeanism create a false picture of human deliberative practice. If something is morally necessary after weighing all relevant reasons, it is also reasonable or rational. If, after weighing all relevant reasons, something is considered rational or reasonable, it is not immoral. We should abandon this dichotomy between rationality and morality, even if it has shaped modern thought over centuries. This dichotomy is based on a misconception of human practice and leads practical philosophy to the disjunction between theories of rationality and morality, which has proven to be theoretically fruitless and practically dangerous. The closer we examine the lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons, the more dubitable seems the categorization of rational versus moral reasons, that is, reasons of morality and reasons of rationality. We have different types of reasons, and adequately weighing these reasons ideally leads to a coherent practice. This practice in its entirety is characterized by evaluative and assertive, normative, and epistemic judgments. The distinction between rationality and morality can only prevail as a heuristic tool for focusing on certain types of reasons for action in different cases. This heuristic tool, however, should not be taken seriously, it is a ladder that you throw away after climbing it.27 From the perspective of structural rationality, different types of reasons are integrated into a coherent judgment as well as a coherent practice based on this judgment. What matters is coherent—intertemporal and interpersonal—structures; and the reasons which guide our normative judgments are directed at bringing about this coherence. One aspect of this coherence is captured in Bayesian decision theory: the coherence of subjective probabilities. The changes in beliefs because of pro and contra reasons we put forward should correspond to certain basic rules of rational belief-formation. They should correspond to what has been discussed as rational belief dynamics for several decades. A person’s  Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus logico-philosophicus, 6.54.

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action-guiding desires should be representable by an evaluation function as an expression of the coherence of a person’s preferences. Utility functions do not characterize a person’s self-interest, but express the coherence of the person’s action-guiding preferences. The attribution of preferences and probabilities of two propositional attitudes is ideally friction-­free. This means, we can represent a person’s coherent practice of judgment—including epistemic and prohairetic judgments—by a pair of real-valued functions, respectively characterizing a person’s epistemic and prohairetic state.28 These real-valued functions have a representative, not a justificatory status: They represent a coherent practice of empirical and normative judgments as a whole. This ensures compatibility with decision and game theory. To be clear: We do not subsume the practice of deliberation, of giving and taking reasons under the optimizing calculus of the homo economicus. We are offering a radical reinterpretation of the conceptual framework of rational decision theory vis-à-vis its traditional application in economics and social sciences. Where Harsanyi’s Ethical Bayesianism failed, Structural Rationality succeeds.

 Cf. Appendix, Ramsey Compatibility.

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CHAPTER 7

The Efficacy of Reasons

7.1   Reasons Our account of practical reason is corroborated by the lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons and claims to systematize this practice. Our preliminary clausula salvatoria was that an appropriate philosophical theory of practical reason cannot claim to replace the practice of giving and taking reasons with an ethical criterion or principle. Rather, it contributes to interpreting and partly systematizing the practice of weighing reasons. We rejected the common distinction between formal and substantive rationality theory in the contemporary debate on rationality, as this distinction is misleading, if only because invariance conditions are likewise normatively substantive. These include, among other things, bans on discrimination. Equal treatment of persons is a normative criterion of proper practice, just institutions, and appropriate politics. Even if this criterion appears formal, it is substantial in the sense that it is based on a largely implicit egalitarian anthropology. Despite all the criticism of naturalistic tendencies in contemporary philosophy (not only in analytical philosophy) there is a remarkable similarity between the approach of physics and that of practical philosophy: Neither discipline overrides the lifeworld practice of reasoning; everyday physics, “folk physics,” remains (largely) untouched, just as an adequate practical philosophy does not suspend everyday intuitions, “folk morality,” in toto. However, the theory itself  – both the physical and the ethical © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_7

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theory—examines more general qualities, which allow the diversity of lifeworld justifications to be systematized to a certain degree. In this way, inconsistencies in the lifeworld practice of justification can ideally be eliminated in both areas, that is, in empirical as well as in normative knowledge, in folk physics and folk morals. We have, so far, gotten involved with the practice of reasoning; we have undertaken a cautious systematization, cautious especially in contrast to contemporary rational-choice orthodoxy and utilitarian ethics. Nonetheless, we have not yet clarified the question of what status reasons have and what philosophical implications result from this. Now we seek to clarify this question. We will structure this clarification along three features of reasons: normativity, objectivity, and non-algorithmicity. I am convinced that none of these three features can be seriously disputed. Nevertheless, it is striking that much of contemporary practical philosophy usually denies these three characteristics altogether, or attempts to interpret them as prima facie characteristics, which turn out to be superfluous on closer analysis. This is an astonishing phenomenon and the only explanation I can offer is that the vast majority of contemporary philosophers find it difficult to detach themselves from naturalistic metaphysics. For it is so deeply embedded in contemporary philosophical thinking that central elements of our lifeworld beliefs are put up for discussion as soon as they clash with this metaphysics. One interesting example here is the qualia debate. Frank Jackson, following Thomas Nagel’s “What is it Like to Be a Bat?”,1 presented the most effective objection to neurophysiological reductionism with his Mary argument.2 Although any naturalistic attempts at invalidation failed to be convincing for many decades, Jackson withdrew his argument with the rather strange comment that something could not be right about his argument, because, if true, it suggested mind–body interactionism—and this was, of course, incompatible with naturalistic metaphysics.3 Nagel, for his part, did not do himself a favor by connecting the anti-naturalistic implications of his philosophical arguments to skepticism about Darwinian evolutionary theory, thereby falling into the trap of mystifying critiques of naturalism. It did not help his case that he presented his arguments tentatively and emphasized that he is an atheist. For the proximity of his argument to the  Thomas Nagel. 1974. What Is it Like to Be a Bat? The Philosophical Review 83: 435–450.  Frank Jackson. 1986. What Mary Didn’t Know. The Journal of Philosophy 83: 291–295. 3  Frank Jackson. 2003. Mind and Illusion. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 53: 251–271. 1 2

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intelligent design argument, that is, the most modern version of a proof of God’s existence, in relation to the critique of Darwinism that is repeatedly renewed by Evangelicals and Catholics, allowed the naturalistic mainstream of American philosophy and natural sciences to rid themselves of their probably most potent contemporary critic.4 Ideological biases, metaphysical positings, and ideological ties intervene in the epistemic order of propositions; they isolate insufficiently justified elements from criticism, “immunize” these elements, and re-group other elements that interfere with the former in such a way that they pose no threat to these isolated elements. I do not criticize those who attempt to argue for a reductionist natural science, for the identity theory of the mental and the physical, or for a naturalistic epistemology that attempts to invalidate the qualia arguments. I do not even criticize those who believe that mental language can be completely dispensed with in a distant, scientifically enlightened future. I criticize naturalism as an ideology, as a metaphysical positing, as an ideological bias. In the following, I am going to elaborate on the reasons for this criticism.

7.2  Normativity Even most die-hard naturalists present reasons for their beliefs. They argue, for example, that one should assume that all objects and events in the world can be completely described through natural science. They give reasons which speak against the idea that mental states are different from neurophysiological states. They try to convince their opponents with reasons. They participate in the practice of giving and taking reasons. They thus become entangled in a performative contradiction: They participate in a practice that is meaningless according to their own belief, because, according to them, there is nothing normative in the world. There is only that which is descriptive, that is, things that can be described as empirical facts. Yet reasons are—irreducibly—normative. If they take their own practice seriously, they argue for a belief. They present arguments for why this belief is true and why it should be adopted. This practice, however, 4  The renowned physicist Roger Penrose developed a demanding criticism of the naturalistic worldview that has earned him many opponents within his discipline and outside. Cf. Roger Penrose. 1989. The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press and id. 1994. Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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only makes sense if arguments are relevant for the formation of beliefs. Arguments represent reasons that have been accepted as such. Perhaps naturalists may answer that reasons were nothing more than certain aspects of causal processes, and their participation in the game of giving and taking reasons meant nothing more than being a link in such a causal chain. Yet this reinterpretation cannot be convincing, for if naturalists conceive their participation in this practice as a part of a large causally determined structure of the world, then any striving, such as the striving for the better argument, for a better theory, for a more appropriate hypothesis, for the right view of the world, would be rendered meaningless. Why make an effort when everything already takes its course anyway? Indeed, the self-­ interpretation of belief-formation is in fundamental conflict with this naturalistic-deterministic, causalist view. The naturalist, too, weighs reasons against each other, examines the pros and cons, considers what speaks for and against a certain hypothesis, even if he may no longer weigh the arguments that speak for or against the naturalistic worldview itself. Yet deliberation, the practice of weighing pros and cons, seems pointless if it has no effect. Indeed, the most influential form of contemporary naturalism—the one grounded in neuroscience—made use of this argument: Any form of reasoning is ex post, that is, after the causal processes of an action or of the formation of a belief have taken place. Many decades ago, Karl Popper pointed out in Objective Knowledge5 that the idea of our epistemic beliefs as being nothing more than the result of causal processes cannot be true for the simple reason that it would then be possible to determine all future epistemic states at a given point in time—this, however, was impossible according to the logical results by Kurt Gödel. The possibility to describe a future epistemic state within the framework of a poorer language, even though the future epistemic state requires a richer language, was contradictory. For then the later state would already be contained in the earlier one. Irrespective of whether Gödel is relevant here, as Popper thinks, it is difficult to refute this criticism. If giving reasons merely represents causal processes, all future knowledge would already be contained in the present, provided that future knowledge is brought about from previous knowledge through deliberation, as a causal process, that follows a lawful regularity.

5   Karl Popper. 1972. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Theoretical reasons speak for beliefs. Even naturalists will typically be annoyed when (what they believe to be) a compelling argument for naturalism does not convince their opponent, when they are not impressed by this argument, when they continue to cling steadfastly to their previous belief, despite being confronted with a convincing counter-argument from the point of view of the naturalist. This reaction of indignation, this expectation that the other person ought to react to a good argument either by changing her beliefs or by means of a counter-argument, is thoroughly— irreducibly—normative: The only appropriate interpretation is that the naturalist is convinced that the argument speaks for his point of view and that this point of view should therefore be adopted, unless convincing counter-arguments are found. If we were to remove normativity as a characteristic of the practice of giving and taking reasons, we would be confronted with a puzzle; we would no longer understand this practice. Here a potentially illustrative analogy comes to mind: The early emotivists in analytical philosophy tried to dispense with the normative element in ethics by interpreting moral language as describing emotive attitudes or later (in the form of expressivism) as expressions of one’s own emotive attitudes. According to this interpretation, the statement “You shouldn’t do X,” for example, means “I have a preference that you refrain from doing X.” But then the answer would be adequate; “Thank you for informing me about your preference,” respectively “Thank you for expressing your proattitude.” Such reactions, however, run counter to our lifeworld moral communication. We do not accept such a reaction; we consider it inadequate because it would rest on a misunderstanding of what has been said. Thus, the emotivist or expressivist reinterpretation of moral language itself is inadequate. Analogously, the naturalistic project fails in bringing forward reasons while adhering to naturalistic metaphysics which claims that there is no normativity in the world. The cheap excuse that one only participates in a useful illusion, knowing full well that there is no such thing as normativity and therefore no such thing as reasons, is not credible, because the entire lifeform of the person concerned would morph into a mere theater of illusion. It would mean that the person would behave untruthfully, and we want to refrain from accusing the naturalistic opponent of such behavior. Consequently, the convenient proposal that reasons are descriptive (natural) facts is equally off the table. Reasons are not natural facts, not least because they are normative. It is astounding that even some ethical

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realists fall for such a misinterpretation. Presumably, this is—to some extent—because they want to avoid a dispute with the currently dominant naturalistic metaphysics. Perhaps this widespread misinterpretation of reasons is due to grammar. Indeed, we do say “this (empirical) fact speaks in favor of behaving so and so.…” To invoke an example of Scanlon6: The fact that this knife is sharp speaks against giving it to a child. However, we always use reasons inferentially: The reason connects a descriptive fact with a normative one, and this connection, this transition, is what determines the reason as a whole. In this example, the sharpness of the knife speaks against giving it to children who could cut themselves, and one way to generalize this specific reason could be that one should prevent children from self-injury. Reasons are inferential relationships between empirical and normative facts, between the empirical fact that the knife is sharp and the normative fact that one should not give it to a child. The reason allows us to deduce from the empirical fact (the sharpness of the knife) the (normative) obligation (not to give this knife to a child). It is this conclusion which makes the reason inferential. We can further differentiate this explication by naming the criterion that characterizes the inferential transition in more detail. As shown in this example: The sharpness of the knife (a natural fact) speaks against giving the knife to children (a normative fact) because children could injure themselves (inference) and everything should be done so that children do not injure themselves unintentionally (normative criterion). Yet the danger with this completion is a misinterpretation, which I labored under for many years, namely that it is only this criterion which bestows the normativity of reasons. That is to say, that normative criteria or principles are the basis of the normative force of practical reasons, or: that it is theory which gives empirical facts their normative relevance within the framework of practical reasons. Yet this promptly leads to the problems of ethical rationalism. The transition from empirical, natural, and social facts to normative facts (especially obligations) is not generated from a normative principle; rather it describes—or better yet systematizes—this transition for a multitude of concrete situations. Ideally, there is only one principle that describes these transitions for all situations (the bold hope of consequentialist ethics). More realistically speaking, however, a variety of further irreducible criteria is required that can come into conflict with each other and then require a resolution 6

 Cf. Scanlon (2014).

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procedure, whereby this process can probably never be completed. In this respect, any ethical theory, any compilation of normative criteria describing this transition, would be incomplete.

7.3  Social Facts There is an important difference between natural and social facts: Natural facts are not normatively constituted, while social facts are. Social facts only come into the world through the involvements of agents who are bound to normativity. Institutional facts are a special case of social facts. All institutional facts are social facts. There are, however, social facts that are not institutional facts. Monica has promised Florian to take him to the only movie theater in town tomorrow at seven. Florian had asked Monica, “Will you go to the movies with me tomorrow at seven?” and Monica replied: “Yes, I would love to, so let us meet there at seven.” Monica promised Florian to go, and she would break said promise if she would not be at the movies at seven. It would not be a promise if Monica said to Florian: “Yes, I would love to, but I don’t know whether I can make it.” She could be even more explicit in saying: “Yes, I’d love to, but I can’t promise it, because I don’t know if my little sister can stay home alone.” Whether Monica promises something or not is largely determined by linguistic conventions. There are, however, some gray areas, for example when Monica answers: “Yes, I would love to, I hope I can make it.” In this case, Florian will not understand Monica as having promised to come, but perhaps that she promises to try to make it to the movies. If Monica decides to pursue another leisure activity and Florian finds out about it, he will feel betrayed. However, if Monica is not at the movies and justifies her not being there to Florian the next day by saying that she could not leave her little sister alone, Florian will understand. If Monica stresses: “I didn’t promise anything,” Florian will answer: “But you said you hoped you could come, from which I had concluded that you intended to come, unless you had a good reason not to come.” One can certainly speak of an institution of promising, in the sense that the question of whether a promise has been made is determined by fixed, generally accepted normative rules. Institutionalists, therefore, conclude that there are no obligations outside of institutions and that obligations come into the world only through institutions. Pushed to the extreme, ethics is understood as a convention, that is, as a description of established

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social (institutional) conventions. Accordingly, there would be no moral obligations outside conventionally established institutions, and ethics would be limited to describing the respective conformities to the rules that are expected within a social context. Ethics would become descriptive. Institutionalism grasps an important aspect of moral and practical reasons overall, but it misinterprets it. Institutions gain normative power because they enable interaction in general and more complex forms of cooperation in particular. Institutionalism is correct insofar as it claims that institutions are normatively relevant. However, institutions are not themselves the source of normativity. Social institutions, for example, that support discriminatory practices are not a source of legitimate normativity, as they violate fundamental obligations, such as equal treatment irrespective of race, religion, or gender. The radicalization of institutions’ normative relevance, in the form of institutionalism, which is prevalent in sociology, bars any form of normative criticism unless different institutions collide with each other.7 Social facts are constituted normatively; every language game, every speech act, is normative in the sense that it is guided by norms shared by those who participate in the particular institution, language game, and speech act. This does not make the respective description of the institution, language game, or speech act a normative statement. This is where the Weberian distinction between the constitutive role of valuations for social sciences on the one hand and the demanded value freedom of social sciences on the other hand becomes relevant.8 Contrary to what Hilary Putnam9 and many others assume, it is possible, if only ideally, to pursue a neutral social science, even though its subject matter is normatively constituted. Understanding does not equal evaluating. We can only understand social practices if we share enough characteristics with the observed agents to be able to understand the normative constitution of their practice. The participant’s perspective is thus ambivalent: We must share enough with the observed agents to be able to empathize with them, 7  Cf., for example, Mary Douglas. 1986. How Institutions Think. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory can also be understood as a version of institutionalism. Cf. Niklas Luhmann. 2012. Theory of Society, Volume 1. Translated by Rhodes Barrett. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 8  Cf. Max Weber. 2012. The “Objectivity” of Knowledge in Social Science and Social Policy. In Collected Methodological Writings, 100–129. London and New York: Routledge. 9   Cf. Hilary Putnam. 1981. Reason, Truth and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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put ourselves in their shoes, as it were, to distinguish, for example, an action from mere behavior. Such a distinction would be impossible from a completely external perspective. Consider intelligent Martians, who can describe and explain natural facts in all detail. These Martians would presumably still struggle a great deal to describe and explain social facts in human societies. They could, to a certain extent, describe the external form of social practice, but not its content, which essentially includes the intentionality of those involved in the respective practice. Just as the normative is not obvious in the surface grammar of moral language, the surface structure of social behavior does not reveal its constitutive intentions. It is those intentions which provide this behavior with meaning, and explanations are made possible because we understand this meaning. As the surface grammar of moral language does not necessarily reveal its normative content, the surface structure of social behavior does not reveal its meaning. We cannot adequately describe social practice without grasping its meaning from the perspective of the participants. Even the term ‘behavior’ is not unproblematic in this context. For it is rather questionable whether one can speak of behavior in a strictly naturalistic sense. The use of language here is not unequivocal. Behavioral science, or ethology, observes and explains regularities of animal behavior.10 Ethology does not include the observation of bacteria or viruses, and certainly not the observation of stones or elementary particles. It seems, then, that the use of the term “behavior” in describing space-time processes presupposes at least a rudimentary level of intentionality. Indeed, one can try to distinguish here between mere observation and participatory observation. However, this distinction comes with the risk of a fundamental misunderstanding: It is not necessary to participate in social practices in order to understand them; it is enough if we understand their intentional elements. What makes things even more complicated is that understanding a social practice, a specific action, a general behavior, an institution, can only succeed if the identified practice-guiding intentions are sufficiently 10  See empirical findings on structurally rational behavior of animals: Joan B.  Silk “The Evolution of Cooperation in Primate Groups”; Hillard Kaplan and Michael Gurven. “The Natural History of Human Food Sharing and Cooperation”; Rajiv Sethi and E. Somanathan. “Norm Compliance and Strong Reciprocity”; Robert Boyd et al. “The Evolution of Altruistic Punishment.” All published in: 2005. Moral Sentiments and Material Interests: The Foundations of Cooperation in Economic Life, Herbert Gintis et al., eds. Cambridge/Mass.: MIT Press.

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coherent. Understanding in the sense of reconstructing a sufficiently coherent intentionality, which makes the observable behavior explainable, invariably assumes a certain degree of rationality. This somewhat tacit assumption of rationality leads to conflict with radical critics, whose radical rejection of a behavior expresses itself in a radical lack of understanding. It is these critics who insinuate that all those who seek to explain a certain behavior are, in so doing, providing its justification at the same time. The only way out of this emergent dilemma is a realistic interpretation of theoretical and practical reasons. The understanding of a social practice, an action, an institution, must refer to the reasons accepted by the agents involved, otherwise it remains incomplete. However, these reasons are not to be identified with objective reasons that speak for or against a certain behavior. The accepted reasons may be erroneous. Those who understand a certain behavior, by reconstructing the reasons for the action accepted by the respective people involved, need not necessarily share these reasons. The interpretation of participatory understanding is a minimalistic one: What is required is merely necessary commonalities of empirical and normative experience. This is what enables the attribution of the respective intentions on the basis of the observed behavior. Persons who practice radically different lifeforms cannot adequately assign intentions to observed behavior and thus cannot understand one another. But the assumption that cultural differences within the human species are so great that they result in such a radical lack of understanding is questionable. There is much to suggest that our genetic and cultural similarities are already sufficient for allowing a mutual understanding of social practices, across different human cultures. Normativity and sociality are not independent of each other. What is normative in the world is there qua sociality. We cannot understand the social dimension of human existence without including its normative constitution. However, this fact itself does not make the social sciences normative disciplines. Observation focused on understanding does not require identification with the motives of action of the observed person. At the same time, there is no external point of view from which the normative judgment can be justified. Justifications originate in shared social practices. Herein lies the most important difference to conventionalism and institutionalism: Normative judgments result from participation in social practices and evaluate those practices at the same time. In a gradualist understanding, this is compatible: The normative judgment originates in the normative constituents of a social practice and

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this practice in turn functions as the judgment’s benchmark. At the same time, however, this judgment contributes to the systematization of the practice of justification, thereby influencing the practice itself. The normative judgment is therefore not merely a result of social practices in which we participate, nor is there an external normative point of view from which lifeworld normativity can be judged in its entirety. The Normative and the Social are interwoven insofar as normative and social facts are inferentially connected. This connection, however, is not simply derivative. Mere deduction in one direction reduces the normative position to the empiricism of social practices, whereas deduction in the other direction results in rationalism of practical reason.

7.4  Objectivity Philosophical tradition is shaped by sharp alternatives: Rationalists believe that all knowledge is based on reason. The rationalist program identified truths of pure reason that seemed indisputable and attempted to derive the remainder of all knowledge from these principles. This project can be considered a failure at least in the field of our empirical knowledge. The opposing view claims that the source of all knowledge lies in our experience, that is, that all knowledge can be generated from our sensory perceptions and observations. The combination of empiricism and inductivism, that is, deriving comprehensive theories from observations, can likewise be regarded as a failure. If two philosophical views oppose each other for decades, even centuries, and appear to be mutually exclusive alternatives without one of them permanently displacing the other, it may be reasonably assumed that both are correct in some regard. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that this dichotomy is not overcome by proving one view to be wrong and the other to be right, but by a philosophical view that integrates insights from both opposing alternatives. At least for the general philosophy of science, it seems quite clear that the vehement opposition between rationalism and empiricism has become obsolete. Empiricism has certainly not prevailed against rationalism in toto, or the other way round: The most advanced contemporary forms of general philosophy of science incorporated elements of both epistemological paradigms. This stage of transcending traditional oppositions has not yet been reached in practical philosophy, especially in metaethics. Here, traditional oppositions remain untouched. Yet, one feature of overcoming traditional opposition is the partial preservation of the

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opposing sides, while the majority of the arguments within the respective opposing paradigms seem hopelessly outdated from the newly gained perspective. Interestingly enough, earlier opposing views are usually not replaced by new, self-contained, sharply defined theory constructions, but by careful analyses of different areas of justificatory practice, combined with the insight that these cannot be reduced to one of the two schemes. The clear-cut meta-physical or epistemological program is replaced by a certain plurality of arguments and a diversification of the objects of analysis. In this regard, this book is a plea for overcoming traditional oppositions and opening up the field of ethics and rationality to more adequate, careful analyses and reconstructions. Accordingly, in the two preceding chapters on the phenomenology of structural rationality and on the relationship between morality and rationality, we argued that there can be no normative perspective outside of social practices. We also established that this insight is not a regression to conventionalism or empirical ethics. Hence, we already went beyond the common philosophical oppositions at this point. What follows in our investigation are additional steps toward overcoming misleading, traditional oppositions in practical philosophy. This section on objectivity will explain the compatibility of the immanentist approach, that is, that the radically epistemic perspective for which we argued in the first chapter is compatible with normative objectivism. For us, the dispute concerning whether something is a good reason for an action, a belief, an emotive attitude or not is a matter of course. A philosophical theory that declares such a dispute inadmissible would fail ipso facto. A philosophical theory is only adequate if it acknowledges the phenomena of our lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons. This is not a philosophical postulate, but rather an indisputable characteristic of our practice of reasoning which we follow in our lifeworld communication as well as our scientific and philosophical discourses. The objectivist interpretation of reasons is the only viable option if we want to preserve this commonplace form of communication in philosophical analysis, that is, the attempt to clarify whether something is or is not a good reason for a belief, an action, an emotive attitude. “I am of the belief that g speaks for doing h and you are of the belief that g speaks against doing h. You think I have a good reason to do h; I think that I do not have a good reason to do h, indeed that I should refrain from doing h.” Even if we allow for significant leeway when it comes to the relativization of reasons with regard to the person (e.g., in terms of

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their interests, or any decisions made previously) or situations (including cultural context), an objectivist interpretation of reasons seems indispensable in order to grasp and legitimize this practice of giving and taking reasons in philosophical reconstruction. For what else should we dispute than what reason speaks for an action, for a belief, or for an emotive attitude? Merely describing a person’s preferences (which some Humeans consider to be the ultimate source of all practical reasons) is not a viable alternative. This becomes immediately evident when we look at individual rights: A person has individual rights if her desires alone are normatively relevant to what she is doing, not the desires of other people. Individual rights form an inference pattern from the social fact that I have a preference all the way to the permission to realize this preference. Even in non-moral contexts, one’s own decisions, that is, intentions that bring a deliberation process to a conclusion, give reasons to do that which makes the realization of these decisions possible. I may be mistaken, I may think I have to do x to realize my decision, while in actuality it would not have been necessary. I may be mistaken that a particular desire gives me the right to do something. The fact that subjective elements such as desires or decisions play a role in determining what would be rational for me to do is not indicative of the subjectivity of reasons. It is objectively right that I alone decide whether to enter into a particular partnership, provided that the other person is also willing to do so. The beliefs of others on this matter are normatively irrelevant under normal circumstances. The fact that what is rational for me to do also depends on my personal desires doesn’t render the reason, which suggests that I am free to decide according to my desires, subjective. Here, too, I can be mistaken. Perhaps the person is otherwise committed such that there are good reasons not to realize my desire, even though it aligns with this person’s desire. Perhaps it would tear the person’s family apart. Perhaps the person is committed to her family and entering another partnership would be the end of her family. Maybe the family could stay intact, despite the new relationship. Subjective desires do pertain to these difficult and challenging normative questions, especially in multi-cultural societies. The form of the particular reason is what makes them inferentially relevant and enables the transition from social facts, which include the preferences of those concerned, to normative facts. Yet the reason as such remains objective. There are, strictly speaking, no subjective reasons, just as there are no subjective facts. There are beliefs about reasons, some of which are true.

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In this case, I have adopted an objectively good reason. Some beliefs are not true, in which case I have adopted a seemingly good reason that is in fact not a good reason. Just like subjective facts, subjective reasons are Oxymora. Indeed, we should jettison this use of language, which to some extent has become established, partially in the language of jurisprudence. It is misleading and incompatible with the rest of the practice of deliberation. The form of our lifeworld as well as scientific, economic, or political deliberation clearly shows: Reasons are objective. We argue about who truly (i.e., objectively) has which reasons for something and who is mistaken with regard to his reasons. A subjectivist interpretation of reasons would make the practice of deliberation as a whole seem to be nothing but a great theater of illusion. Those who want to expose the entirety of deliberation, the entirety of our lifeworld experience, our self-image as responsible subjects, the practice of giving and taking reasons as illusory, pull the rug out from under their feet. They destroy the justificatory benchmark of all (including philosophical) arguments. They position themselves outside of a lifeform in which reasons are exchanged. Taken seriously, the price for seeing this through would be radical isolation, the exit from social practice. Reasons are objective, as is evidenced by this practice. Appropriating reasons for oneself is akin to assuming that these are objectively good reasons. It entails aligning one’s own judgments and actions, one’s own lifeform, with these reasons. If reasons are objective and normative, they are not psychological, or mental qualities, states, processes; they are a fortiori nothing physical, or material qualities, states, processes that can be described by means of the natural sciences. Reasons, properly understood, cannot be embedded in a naturalistic worldview; they are not compatible with naturalistic metaphysics. They are, as we have seen above, not even compatible with a descriptivist view that takes social facts into consideration, because although social facts contain normative constituents, their apprehension does not presuppose or imply a normative perspective, a normative judgment. The practice of giving and taking reasons is, however, both normative and objective; its interpretation can only be normativist and objectivist. Moral realism is nothing other than the meta-ethical version of this insight.

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7.5  Non-Algorithmicity The question of whether or not our theoretical and practical deliberations have an algorithmic form seems to be more of a technical interest. In fact, this question has a dimension of philosophical depth that also has implications for the theory of practical reason. As it is easier to clarify this problem using the example of theoretical deliberations, we will begin there and subsequently explain to what extent this is relevant for our understanding of practical reason. Theoretical deliberations focus on clarifying theoretical questions, that is, which descriptive facts hold, and which descriptive states of affairs are correct. If we are confronted with an argument that shows that p (a descriptive fact) is the case, then we should believe p to be the case. This is true even if this belief comes with disadvantages. In other words: A good argument for a (descriptive) fact, a good theoretical reason for p, speaks in favor of adopting this belief. The argument for p is at the same time an argument in favor of changing a belief in case p did not previously belong to the class of descriptive facts that the respective person held to be true. This distinction between reasons for p and reasons for believing p seems to exemplify the tendency of philosophy to discuss irrelevant subtleties. That this indissoluble connection between reasons for p and reasons for believing p is not self-evident (at least in the case of practical deliberation) becomes manifest only through the analogy in the field of practical reasons. The distinction between theoretical and practical deliberations, theoretical and practical reasons, as well as theory and practice, must not lead to the misunderstanding that there is no theory in practice. On the contrary, it is a central aspect of the theory of practical reason presented here that the role of reasoning, of justifying, of systematizing, is highly analogous in both areas. The distinction between the “descriptive” and the “normative” area can likewise lead to misunderstandings: Not everything that falls within the scope of the normative is normative in the sense that it guides actions. Claims that the current tax system is unfair do not necessarily imply practical imperatives. It is conceivable that the injustices of the tax system may have been undeniably demonstrated through arguments, while it would remain unclear which actions are necessary to make the system more just. One might say that the evidence of an unfair tax system is sufficient for the demand (the normative, moral, political imperative): “It ought to be changed.” This, however, is a very vague form of normativity which does

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not cover all of the, perhaps extraordinarily complex, arguments that explicate the injustice of the existing tax system. The tax system’s injustice can be laid out without implying concrete imperatives. Even that which philosophers like to call “description” is usually much more than this: a mere description. It is a scientific explanation, for instance, or a hypothesis, that is, an assumption, which cannot be formulated directly through the “description” of empirical facts, but only through recourse to sophisticated scientific theories. Take the question of whether Marcel Proust was plagued by depression while writing his famous novel. This is undoubtedly a “descriptive” question, but it cannot be answered by observation, because we no longer live at the time when Proust wrote his work. Similarly, the formulation that is so popular in analytical philosophy, Theoretical reasons speak in favor of beliefs, practical reasons speak in favor of actions, covers at most a partial aspect of this juxtaposition. In what follows, we will limit ourselves to simple examples and will come back to the more complicated questions concerning this distinction later on. You want to determine how many chairs there are in the lecture hall. One possibility is to count the chairs. Direct observation (i.e., simply looking at the number of chairs) is not possible given the large number of chairs in the lecture hall. So, you start counting the first row on the front left and then continue on to the second row on the front right and so on until each chair has been counted once and only once. This is an algorithmic procedure: The next step to be taken in the counting process, as well as when the count comes to an end, is clearly defined. The count ends when no chair is left uncounted. Let us assume you count 472 chairs in the auditorium. It is not 100% certain that you did not miscount; perhaps you were careless for a moment and when changing rows you remembered the last number of chairs incorrectly, such that the result of the count differs from the actual number of chairs in that room. No one would think to identify the result of the count with the actual number of chairs in the auditorium. We are all lifeworld realists. If different people report a different total of chairs after they have counted (and no one has removed or added chairs in the meantime), we are all, regardless of our epistemological or metaphysical positions, of the belief that despite five mutually conflicting results at most one of them is correct. Counting is a procedure to clarify descriptive facts, in this case natural facts. The actual number of chairs in the lecture hall is a natural fact. The objection that the counting of chairs only becomes meaningful once the concept of chair is brought into the world by human beings is misguided.

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If a language community does not have the concept of a chair, it will, presumably, perceive such objects to be quite irrelevant. Consequently, this community will never, or at least very rarely, carry out such counts. If someone from the community nevertheless performs a count, they will do so without describing the objects, for example in the form of “this one and this one and this one…,” 472 times. The pebble that has come into the lecture hall through a dirty shoe will not be counted even by those who do not have the concept of “chair” at their disposal. The pebble seems to belong to a different kind, regardless of whether the person in question is familiar with the concept “pebble.” Differences such as these belong to a realm of pre-linguistic quality which can be grasped by mature members of the homo sapiens species regardless of their linguistic expertise. This shared accessibility is a prerequisite for a realistic interpretation of our descriptive beliefs. However, some properties of the natural world cannot be captured through simple counting. They are not apparent from direct observation, nor do they become clear through a simple algorithmic procedure. The more complicated it is to access certain natural facts, including generic, that is, general relationships, in terms of, for example, the laws of physics, the more likely it is that serious differences of belief can arise even among relatively intelligent people. This phenomenon keeps modern science on its toes. Disagreements are not eliminated by one single clever argument; they continue to exist, are modified, and they are overcome in some cases only by new shared beliefs, hypotheses, and theories. This is the course of modern science. If everything were as simple as counting chairs in the lecture hall, there would be no science. If there were differences of belief, we would count together and—hopefully—arrive at the same result at some point in the near future. All doubts would be resolved. It is in no way certain that there exists an algorithmic procedure for resolving sufficiently complicated disagreements, that is, complicated enough to evoke disagreements between relatively intelligent and competent people. Sometimes these algorithmic procedures, if they exist, might be significantly more complicated than counting the number of chairs in the lecture hall where different people would consistently still arrive at different results. The question is whether some facts, in principle, elude algorithmic verification. This question has a scientifically undisputed answer: There are facts that cannot be algorithmically verified. However, the proof of such facts is limited to a special domain, namely that of logic. There are logical facts,

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called theorems, and it can be proven that there is no algorithmic procedure to verify these theorems. Indeed, it can be proven that the logical proofs developed in the framework of certain calculi to verify these theorems are not algorithmic: There is no algorithm that specifies how to conduct this proof. Put differently: There is no Turing machine that could produce the lines of such a proof. For those who are not familiar with modern formal logic, I may add that this is not a bold philosophical thesis, but a necessary conclusion from Kurt Gödel’s meta-mathematical results on computability and decidability.11 Tautologies (theorems) of propositional logic are consistently algorithmically provable. This, however, does not apply already to the next level of logical complexity, namely first-order predicate logic. It can be proven that there is no algorithm, no mechanical procedure, which is able to prove all theorems. Of course, this applies a fortiori to richer languages of logic. Formal logic is a systematization of certain aspects of our inferential practice. In other words: Different systems of logic, including the philosophical logics (modal logic, deontic logic…), characterize forms of adequate deliberation. Now given that we know that already intra-logical inferences of these systems cannot be reconstructed algorithmically, then all of this suggests that the inferential system as a whole, that is, the adequate form of theoretical (as well as practical) deliberation, does not constitute a mechanism which can be represented by a Turing machine. In short: As beings who think, deliberate, weigh reasons, who are affected by reasons, we, and all beings who are capable of deliberation, are not (mechanistic) machines. Deliberation is in toto not a causal process. This is compatible with the fact that deliberation is causally effective—which is a condition of human authorship. Another way to demonstrate the plausibility of this philosophically momentous result is a reductio ad absurdum: If human deliberation, the weighing of theoretical reasons that speak for beliefs, was a mechanical process, it would, in principle, be predictable. However, given that it is our deliberation that brings about the expansion of our knowledge, understanding, theories, and explanatory ability, deliberation and its results cannot be mechanically deduced from a prior epistemic state. For if such deduction were possible, all future knowledge would already be 11  Cf. Kurt Gödel. 1992. On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems, Mineola: Dover Publications; Raymond M.  Smullyan 1992. Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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contained in an earlier state of knowledge and, as such, there would be no expansion of our knowledge, no evolution of science, and thus no social and cultural evolution brought about by advances in knowledge.12 The human capacity for deliberation is at the core of human freedom. In the area of theoretical reason this seems to me to be less controversial than it is in the area of practical reason. Hardly anyone actually believes in the thesis that our theoretical deliberation, especially within the scientific disciplines, produces results that were always fixed, that is, established before all deliberation takes place. Hardly anyone believes that there is a mechanism that produces an epistemic state from the preceding state with the necessity of natural law, or that science is simply a great Turing machine that brings about one successive state from the preceding one, incrementally, according to rules, which we cannot comprehend. Freedom of judgment does not consist in the fact that we can decide which beliefs we have. Rather it consists in the fact that we are able to deliberate and that our decisions can be guided by the results of this deliberation. We are the ones who accept certain reasons as our own. This means that the influence of reasons on our own actions is (in Kantian words) autonomous and not heteronomous. It is not something that is imposed on us externally, but rather something that constitutes our personal identity, whose sources lie within us, in our own deliberation, in the concrete consideration of reasons, that speak for or against a belief or an action. Since our experiences 12  In philosophy a peculiar phenomenon reoccurs, namely that essential advances in knowledge are buried over the course of time. They are not forgotten, but they no longer play a role in the philosophical debate. Occasionally they are brought back to life decades later and influence the philosophical discourse once again. The most recent example is the astounding renaissance of the American pragmatist John Dewey, who already seemed to become an icon during his lifetime but then appeared hopelessly vague and outdated in the USA as a result of the stormy development of analytical philosophy, which was also ignited by emigrants from Austria and Germany. Karl Popper likewise underwent a similar fate. Partly for political reasons, prominent students of his turned away from him. Additionally, Thomas S. Kuhn’s radical counterposition seemed to make Popper’s theory of science obsolete. Beyond all philosophical schooling, including personal aversions and sympathies, I think much suggests that Karl Popper’s central arguments, including his critique of the ideologies of a closed society, his critical epistemology, and his plea for a dualistic understanding of the relationship between mind and body, the three-world ontology that was already advocated by Kurt Gödel and precisely this argument against mechanistic theories of the mind, represent genuine philosophical advances in knowledge, which must be taken into account for an adequate theory of reason, however modified. Cf. Karl Popper. 1972. Of Clouds and Clocks: An Approach to the Problem of Rationality and the Freedom of Man. In Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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and emotive attitudes enter into deliberation and are, in turn, modified by it, this—still provisional—characterization of authorship and identity is not a rationalist distortion. It is not deliberation as such, but the content of theoretical and practical reasons that guide our beliefs and actions. Even if sensory perceptions as such are usually interpreted as given (which can be doubted), our way of dealing with these perceptions is our responsibility as beings capable of deliberation. If the logic of reasons were mechanistic, if weighing reasons abided by algorithms, however complicated they might be, if there was no leeway to escape the determinacy associated with mechanistic form, we could not be considered authors of our beliefs. It is the non-algorithmic nature of theoretical reasons that paves the way for freedom.

7.6  Theoretical and Practical Reasons Suppose a mathematician has succeeded in proving a new theorem. Does this give them reason to believe that the theorem is true? Does he have reason to be convinced of this theorem? Both questions can undoubtedly be answered in the affirmative. A successful proof speaks for the truth of the theorem. We are walking a fine terminological line here: Strictly speaking, the claims just stated are merely reformulations for what is a proof. A proof speaks in favor of the truth of a theorem, or else the sequence of lines that the mathematician has put on paper could not be called a proof. If a “proof” turns out to be false, it is not a proof. One could say that there is a realistic interpretation in the very concept of proof: A proof is not that which a language community or the scientists of a discipline consider it to be; rather it is that which objectively speaks for the truth of a proposition (here a theorem). Whether this proposition is mathematical in nature, or whether it concerns physical, economic, legal, or ethical facts, is irrelevant. A successful proof can be so complicated that most people who attempt to understand it fail to do so. This may lead to the outcome that many people doubt whether this proof can count as a good proof. However, if it can be shown that the individual steps of the proof align with certain mathematical inferences (reasons), then the relevant sequence of lines that the mathematician has put on paper does constitute a proof. A proof remains a proof, regardless of how the epistemic conditions change. In his reflections on mathematics, Ludwig Wittgenstein seems to claim that mathematical propositions cannot be objectively interpreted. There

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are merely certain rules of production and verification that constitute mathematical facts themselves.13 For example, the question of whether there is a largest prime number is decided by a (proof) procedure that establishes whether there is a largest prime number or not. In contrast, the realistic interpretation is: There is a largest prime number or there is no largest prime number. That which is changed by a successful proof is merely our epistemic state, that is, our beliefs regarding the mathematical proposition. After a (successful) proof, we know whether there is a greatest prime number or not. The proof does not change the fact that there is a largest prime number, or that there is no largest prime number. It does not constitute facts. How, then, does this mathematical fact come into the world? Quite simply, by connecting two unambiguous concepts: Both “prime number” and “largest” (number) are clearly defined. There can be no doubt that every mathematician agrees on what constitutes the largest number and every mathematician agrees on what constitutes a prime number. Indeed, we can assume that even attentive students aged nine or ten also know what a prime number is. Everybody, therefore, understands the sentence “there is a largest prime number” and everybody understands the sentence “there is no largest prime number.” We know exactly what is meant by these assertions, whether we can prove that there is a largest prime number or not. Our theoretical freedom, our autonomy of thinking, does not consist in inventing or constructing mathematical, social, and possibly also natural facts, that is, in bringing them into the world only through the processes of reasoning (that would be a regression into epistemological idealism). Rather, it consists in the freedom to deliberate, to weigh reasons in favor of a belief, and ultimately to adopt the belief that seems to be the most justified. It would be an exaggeration, a hypertrophy of theoretical freedom, to interpret the objects of theoretical deliberation (if only in certain areas, e.g., mathematics, ethics, or social science) as the result of a construction. Even if there are differences between natural, mathematical, social, and normative facts, even if some of these facts come into the world only through cultural practices, it is not the reasoning process itself that constitutes these facts. Truth is not epistemically constituted in any area of our knowledge. 13  See, for example, Felix Mühlhölzer. 2019. Language-games and Forms of Life in Mathematics. In Language, Form(s) of Life, and Logic, ed. Christian Martin, 193–218. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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The practice of justification is always contextual in the broadest sense: It refers to shared background knowledge, to shared doubts, and to, at least in some substantial parts, a shared spectrum of subjective certainties. A justification is successful if it makes a controversial proposition seem plausible to a person doubting said proposition by providing a good reason for it. A “justification” that is factually inaccurate is not a justification even if it results in the desired change of belief. Realism is also inscribed in our concept of justification. In my view, there is nothing to suggest that the role of reasons changes fundamentally when they relate to actions instead of beliefs. Theoretical reasons that speak in favor of a (descriptive) proposition ipso facto are usually a sufficient “motive” to adjust one’s beliefs accordingly, that is, to integrate that which is well justified into one’s own epistemic system, that is, into the system of descriptive beliefs. Likewise, practical reasons, that is, reasons for decisions, speak in favor of making the respective decision. Practical reasons, just like theoretical reasons, are always also motives for the rational person. A person for whom reasons generally do not function as motives would be inconceivable for us. We could not include this person in our lifeworld interactions and communications, she could not participate in any form of social practice, she would no longer be part of the social dimension, and to some extent we would have no access to her. Persons who cannot be affected either by theoretical or practical reasons are incomprehensible to us who share in the practice of giving and taking reasons and ascribe corresponding intentions and beliefs. This does not necessarily imply that the behavior of such a person becomes inexplicable. However, the form of the explanation would be quite different. We would turn into ethologists, so to speak, who describe patterns of behavior and try to determine certain regularities in order to be able to predict future behavior. One may even attempt to infer mental states from observable behavior, and it is not improbable that analogies to familiar ascriptions may occur. Behavioral patterns, which previously seemed inexplicable, suddenly appear as expressions of, for example, dissatisfaction. Based on these correlations, recommendations can be developed as to how one may deal with such a person. The loss of intelligibility in the usual sense of sharing reasons, background and orientational knowledge, the form of conflict resolution, willingness to cooperate, can be subsequently replaced by careful observations and interpretation of behavioral patterns and attempts to improve the life situation of the particular person.

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The psychopath in psychology is the counterpart to the homo oeconomicus in economic theory. The homo oeconomicus and the psychopath are never guided by altruistic motives and they are incapable of cooperation.14 Their choices are exclusively focused on the optimization of their own interests. Since the willingness to interact and cooperate with others is helpful in order to achieve their own goals, psychopaths, and homo oeconomici, develop strategies to conceal their instrumentalization of other people. They are often charming, or engaging, and are threatening only when there is no other way. They tend to change their interaction partners often enough to conceal their egoistic or psychopathic orientation as long as possible. In this way, intelligent psychopaths can achieve a remarkable career.15 Psychopaths and egoists act parasitically, that is to say their success depends on others not acting as psychopaths and egoists. When the civil order collapses, for example in a civil war, in situations of rapid and chaotic social upheaval, when a familiar social environment is lost, after natural disasters and in the case of traumatic experiences, people are often thrown back into a state of sheer self-interest. They become solipsistic in their behavior, so to speak, and are no longer trustworthy interaction partners. Some individuals virtually split into different persons capable of cooperation in a certain area of life, but ruthless egoists or opportunists in another.16 In one area they participate in the game of giving and taking reasons, allow themselves to be affected by theoretical and practical reasons, are responsive to criticism, act with consideration and are trustworthy. In the other area of life, however, they transform into ruthless power seekers and brutal people, who know no mercy and no empathy, who degrade others they deal with to mere objects of their personal interests. Incidentally, this does not mean that they do not act. They do act and their actions can certainly be understood by others. However, they cannot participate in a common, collective practice with those whom they have degraded to mere objects. The egoist and the opportunist share a crucial characteristic in this regard: Neither of them participates in a common, shared (rational) lifeform involving those who they have degraded to mere objects. The ideal-typical conformist becomes isolated in the same way as the ideal-typical egoist. Both no longer take part in the  In the sense established in Chap. 3 of this book.  As shown in the film The Talented Mr. Ripley based on the novel of the same title by Patricia Highsmith (cf. Anthony Minghella (director). 1999. The Talented Mr. Ripley. USA: Paramount). 16  The NS era offers well-known examples hereof. 14 15

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practice of giving and taking reasons: the egoists because they instrumentalize everything and everyone for their own interests, conformists because their behavior is not determined by their deliberation of good reasons, but exclusively by the fact that the respective authority expects behavioral conformity. However, is it not possible that good reasons are determined solely by my self-interest, that is, that which is in my self-interest is precisely that which is well justified? Similarly, could it not be that the best reasons speak precisely for that which corresponds to the expectations of conformity of the respective authority? It might not be very likely; still, both options are possible. We cannot rule out that the best reasons speak precisely for that which is in my own interest—or that best reasons speak precisely for a practice that meets the expectations of conformity of the respective authority. However, if this is the case, it is not because the practice in question is in my own interest or because it meets the respective expectations of conformity. This concordance would be contingent. Acknowledging that something is in my own interest is insufficient for it to be well justified. To say that something meets the expectations of conformity is insufficient for it to be well justified. In order to clarify what is well justified, I must engage in deliberation, weighing the reasons that speak for and against it. Yet how do we know which reasons are relevant here, which reasons I have to weigh? Is there a principle that enables me to determine these reasons? Without such a principle I do not even know which reasons are to be considered here. Indeed, no priest, no philosopher, no ethical theory, no anthropology,17 or ontology, no reference to God,18 can relieve me of this weighing of reasons. Still, where do these reasons come from? What is the source of their normativity? Indeed, there is no single source of all normativity, either in the constitutional conditions of human action (Kantian Constructivism), or in the logical structures of moral language (Universal Prescriptivism), or in the transcendental conditions of communication (Discourse Ethics). There is no theory that replaces the lifeworld weighing of practical reasons. Ultimately, our skeptical critic might say: “What should prompt me to weigh reasons against each other and align my actions with the result of this  Cf. HumR.  In contrast to the normative-ontological approach of the political theory, cf. Eric Voegelin. 1956–1987. Order and History: Vol. I-V. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 17 18

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deliberation in the first place?” At this point we arrive at the end of all questions.19 We cannot exit the game of giving and taking reasons and then demand reasons, or meta-reasons. We are always immersed in this game; exiting this game would mean leaving the human lifeform.

7.7  Autonomy This understanding of the role of reasons suggests a new concept of autonomy. While the neo-Humean conceptions of autonomy in contemporary philosophy seek to get by without the assumption of human freedom, the approach advocated here radicalizes the Kantian opposite standpoint. This radicalization is far-reaching and ultimately points to a Stoicist understanding of practical reason. Accordingly, Kant’s practical philosophy would resemble some form of Stoicism cut in half, while an adequate conception of autonomy would have to reverse this bisection. Looking at the history of philosophy, it may seem confusing that this departure from the contemporary neo-Humean concepts of practical reason in analytical philosophy all the way back—via Kant—through the Greek Stoa should represent progress in knowledge. In philosophy, however, such a move is not a novelty.20 People are autonomous insofar as they are guided by reasons they accept as their own. Given that action differs from mere behavior in that it is guided by reasons, an appropriate understanding of autonomy cannot be limited to moral actions. Autonomy does not concur with morality as Kant assumed. In order to understand human practice as a whole, we must interpret it as guided by reason. Responsibility for the entirety of one’s own practice is nothing other than an aspect of the human capacity to be guided by reasons. Since both normative and descriptive beliefs are relevant to practice, it is an expression of a dual freedom, a dual autonomy, namely the freedom to be guided by theoretical reasons in one’s beliefs, and the freedom to be guided by practical reasons. Theoretical autonomy is widely, even if only implicitly, accepted. This form of autonomy has to be completed by the ability to weigh reasons in favor of actions and to  Cf. Ludwig Wittgenstein. On Certainty, especially §§ 192, 204, 212, 563.  A large part of contemporary practical philosophy draws crucial inspiration through recourse to and updating of older approaches. For example, John McDowell and Robert Brandom draw from the Hegelian theory of reason, John Rawls from the Kantian theory of justice, Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss from the philosophy of Plato, and Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen from the Aristotelian anthropology, and so on. 19 20

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make those decisions that correspond to the best practical reasons. The practice as a whole represents the acceptance of a complex of reasons. We are autonomous in the theoretical sense because we are beings who have beliefs that are guided by theoretical reasons. We are autonomous in the practical sense because we are beings who act that are guided by practical reasons. We are not autonomous only when we have the best theory or an all-inclusive normative ethics. The weighing of reasons gives us freedom: It is at the core of self-determination. In Kantian terminology: Pragmatic or technical imperatives are, on their own, insufficient to guide actions (contra Kant). A behavior that is nothing more than the optimization of one’s own interests or other normatively undesignated reasons (regardless of how they are determined) does not have action character. However, the moral imperative to act out of respect for the Moral Law cannot adequately grasp the great complexity of the deliberation of practical reasons. This dichotomy between orienting oneself toward one’s own happiness within the limits of deontological obligations defined by the Categorical Imperative, on the one hand, and morally motivated actions as rational beings, on the other hand, is misguided. One’s own happiness is only one motive for action among many others; it is not suited to carry the burden of justification as a whole, not even if one limits pragmatic imperatives to the realm of what is morally permissible. In order to achieve an adequate understanding of human autonomy, we have to abandon the dichotomy of self-interest versus morality in a reductionist sense of optimizing one’s own happiness versus the universalizability requirement. Human autonomy is comprehensive, that is, it concerns the entire field of judgment and action, not just specific areas, such as moral action or scientific judgment. Wherever reasons are involved, there is the possibility of changing one’s beliefs and making one’s decisions by weighing them against each other. This is the human form of self-determination. An adequate understanding of autonomy is holistic. This holism has its price, namely the gradualism of autonomy: If every action, even every belief, reveals a minimum of autonomy, then there is such a thing as more or less autonomy. The degree of autonomy equals the degree of deliberation. The more judiciously the reasons are weighed against each other, the more autonomous the acting or judging person becomes. Theoretical freedom expresses itself in refusing to follow the respective prejudices, but instead forming one’s own judgment, in a way that is not influenced by the possible reactions of others. Practical

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autonomy shows itself as the ability to act according to the best (practical) reasons, regardless of what others think of the matter and independent of sanctions and gratifications. The Stoic goes a step further and demands of autonomous agents to be independent from their own passions, inclinations, desires, fears, and so on. The Stoic demands apatheia. Taken literally, this would go far beyond human abilities. As a rule, however, to be guided by reasons and not by one’s own inclinations, momentary desires, habits, and so on, apatheia seems to me to be an essential component of practical reason: It is the ability to take a normative stand toward one’s own inclinations, or pathé in the Stoicist sense. If actions merely revealed inclinations, there could be no decoupling of inclination and action. However, the Humean position fails, if only because the phenomenon of intertemporal coordination of action would remain a mystery. It is only the subordination of current inclinations for the sake of delayed gratification which allows for a diachronically coherent practice. Indeed, a large part of education and culturalization as a whole is directed toward this form of subordination. No one can act on an inclination alone. Even the hungry person, who orders the first thing to satisfy his hunger, regardless of health consequences, has reasons to act. He can explain why he made a specific decision. In contrast, the person who follows only momentary inclinations and transforms these into action-guiding reasons has rudimentary autonomy only. The highest degree of autonomy is achieved by the structurally rational sage, who only makes a single decision for one lifeform and embeds the respective practices and decisions coherently into this structure. In light of the conditio humana, this fictional sage is excessive, even as a regulative idea. We learn, we make experiences, we acquire what Aristotle calls phronesis. We are rising to the challenge, as we say in common parlance. We modify our goals based on frustrating experiences, we even change—ideally with good reason— previously accepted and therefore action-guiding reasons. Life is in flux, that is, we cannot imagine life being a frozen, determined, structured lifeform. The individual lifeforms of the human species are somewhere in between Frankfurtian Wanton “rationally” following their momentary inclination and the structurally rational Stoic. Their degree of self-determination increases the further away they move from the Wanton and approach the structurally rational sage. The rational members of homo sapiens, however, make sure to stay far away from both extremes. They are far removed from the Wanton insofar as they strive for coherence in their lifeform, because

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things should be coherent in themselves, because weighing reasons reduces conflict and remorse. They are far removed from the structurally rational sage because they are aware of the limitations of human capabilities, and because they consider the continually new, pragmatic adaptations to experiences and conditions of action to be indispensable.

7.8  Intertemporal and Interpersonal Coherence The allure of the belief-desire theory lies in its radical reductionism: The entire complexity of practical reasons is replaced by a single fundamental concept, namely that of desire. Desires as such, however, do not impart rationality. Rationality is imparted by that which guides these desires: practical reasons. The fact that I have the desire to take revenge because I was offended does not make my revenge rational. In fact, there is much to suggest that acts of revenge are never rational. A rational practice is determined by the motives we put forward for our actions and which we justify through the reasons. The information that a certain action is suited for fulfilling an individual’s desires has no normative relevance whatsoever. It is a descriptive statement that determines the appropriate means to fulfill certain ends. This does not make these means rational; it does not create good reasons for a practice. Theories and concepts that continue to be influential, in spite of all objections, should be integrated into the new theory as far as possible. This usually requires reinterpretations. However, these should be as moderate as possible. The theory of practical reason should contribute to this attempt at integration. The fact that I have a desire does not in and of itself justify an action. In order to satisfy my thirst for revenge, I would like to cause permanent harm to another individual. The crucial question that arises here is not whether I might harm myself in doing so, but whether the desire is worth pursuing. An ethically educated person will come to a negative conclusion. They will not transform this desire into an action-guiding reason. They pass critical judgment on their own desire if they decide not to comply with it. Conversely, the decision to act and cause permanent harm to the person concerned would be an implicit evaluation: This desire is worth realizing. This endorsement would be inadequate, and the normative belief which represents it would be incorrect. It is a moral fact that this desire is not worth being realized by action. The core of practical reason is constituted by the ability to judge one’s own and others’ desires and to determine, based on the judgment, whether

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the desires become action-guiding. This evaluation is an expression of a normative judgment, whose natural interpretation is a realistic one: I would like to find out which desires constitute good reasons for action. I am not searching within myself for further, more fundamental desires that evaluate these desires, or even for second-order volitions. These are more the result of normative insights that I am unable to put into practice due to a lack of willpower: If I come to the conclusion that I should quit smoking, but find that I lack the willpower to do so, I may develop the second-order desire to no longer have the (first-order) action-guiding desire for another cigarette in the future. Second-order desires do not constitute the person or their free will; rather, they are the expression of a practical failure in the face of moral insights. Those who are at peace with themselves do not need second-order desires at all.21 It is disconcerting that one of the most influential theories of practical rationality so obviously conflicts with lifeworld experiences: Why should the highest human quality, that is, the status of a person, follow the paradigm of a drug addict? It is indeed characteristic of the drug addict to develop desires of a higher order, as they—generally speaking—wish to live differently than they currently do because of their lack of willpower. And vice versa: Why should the status of a person be denied to the ethically educated person who has willpower? They have no reason to develop desires of the second order, because they evaluate their desires coherently and align their practice with the result of this. The more reasonable interpretation is obvious: We try to be interpersonally and intrapersonally coherent in our practice. Interpersonally, because we want to show consideration for others and cooperate (this is again an expression of normative insight); intrapersonally in that we want to avoid situations in which we have reason to regret our own actions of the past. In this respect, our decisions create good reasons for action, namely those which aim at allowing the decisions to succeed. In some cases, we may recognize that our decisions were wrong; then we have reason to regret them and reject the reasons directed at the success of that decision. In this case, it seems to us like we acted or judged incoherently. Interpersonal coherence is achieved, or at least sought, through the practice of giving and taking reasons. It is not always necessary to establish a consensus of normative judgments. Often it is sufficient to be considerate of one another and to identify dissenting beliefs. In these cases, there is a  Cf. Frankfurt (1971).

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consensus of higher order: We do not agree on what is true, but we do agree on how to deal with the dissent. In a democracy based on the rule of law, it is this higher-order consensus that ensures the stability of democratic institutions and the pragmatic success of political action. In the end, it is always a consensus that makes collective knowledge and collective action possible, even if it only ensues in the third or fourth order. In this way, the normative belief as such, even if it seems erroneous to me, becomes a relevant determinant of good practice. Interpersonal cooperation through the exchange of reasons for action is analogous to intrapersonal coordination of diachronic actions: The desires I assume I will have soon (e.g., the desire to satisfy my hunger if I haven’t eaten for a while) constitute—long before they occur—good reasons for action (e.g., to go shopping before the store closes), provided they are desires worth realizing. Rational persons do not wait for their first-order desires to be modified by second-order desires—they are not the pawn of an arational (internal) struggle for influence. They evaluate current and expected personal and foreign desires, circumstances, and probabilities, and develop, based on their evaluation, an interpersonally and intrapersonally coherent strategy. They are the authors of their lives and not the executive organ of their desire-economy.

7.9  Normative Beliefs So far, we have proceeded from the traditional categories of theoretical reasons (for beliefs) and practical reasons (for actions). This is unproblematic insofar as this distinction was not metaphysically loaded, especially with the thesis that practical reasons can be reduced to individual interests or desires. We have applied this categorization to theoretical and practical reason heuristically, in order to connect the investigation to that which is familiar and to keep it as clearly structured as possible. Now, however, is the time to shake off the metaphysical ballast that almost always accompanies this categorization of reasons. First, we must rid ourselves of the notion that there are only two objects of justification: beliefs and actions (or decisions). The spectrum is broader and more diverse. The category of emotive attitudes, for example, is missing in this dichotomy, which we naturally include in our lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons: A little child asks his sister “Why are you angry?” and does not expect a causal explanation, but a statement of reasons that justifies being angry at her. A possible answer could be that

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the child did something he should not have done from the perspective of his sister who was harmed. Usually, a quick apology would provide a good reason to forgive, such that the sister “is not angry anymore.”22 This has far-reaching philosophical consequences, for example that we are not only responsible for beliefs and actions, but also for our emotive attitudes. There are different ways, or versions, to speak of justification and accordingly different forms of philosophical systematization. In fact, it is not unusual to speak of a certain (natural) fact being justified. Strictly speaking, however, a fact is not a possible subject matter of justification, but only the truth of that fact or the belief that this fact is true, or even the subjective inclination to assume that this fact is true or the subjective (high) probability regarding this fact. The inferential relations that create reasons remain immanent; they link different elements of the epistemic system with each other. They do not originate outside this epistemic system (there is no Archimedean point of justification), nor do justifications end outside the epistemic system, for example in facts. However, the only adequate interpretation of the contents of our beliefs is a realist one. That is to say, having a belief means being convinced that something is the case. The relations of justification remain immanent; the content (i.e., the object of justification) is transcendent: It refers to facts that are not epistemically constituted. Here we investigate the role of normative beliefs from different perspectives: When they begin with action, when they lead to action, and, finally, when they have no direct bearing on action. Suppose I consider changing my profession. There are various reasons that are relevant here: Perhaps I no longer see any opportunities for development, maybe I find the job too stressful, maybe the income is insufficient to adequately provide for my family, perhaps I am experiencing an identity crisis and want to “reinvent” myself, maybe I am drawn to another location where I cannot execute this job, perhaps I am newly in love and would like to impress my partner with this courageous decision, perhaps I have moral concerns about this profession, perhaps I feel obliged to make a contribution to alleviating world poverty through my professional activity, perhaps I see too many of my own 22  Peter Strawson carried this out with wonderful sensitivity, albeit with a sentimentalist slant in Freedom and Resentment (1962), which initiated an entire philosophical research program, one of whose most fascinating late results is the work of R. Jay Wallace. Cf. Peter Strawson. 2008. Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. London: Routledge; R.  Jay Wallace. 1994. Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. Cambridge/Mass.: Harvard University Press.

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abilities lying fallow, and so on. I cannot see that this variety of reasons could be reduced in such a manner that I would be able to carry out estimations of my expected temporal integral of satisfaction (i.e., hedonic level). How can reasons, such as consideration for the interests of one’s family or moral concerns about one’s current job, be translated into an assessment of this nature? In all cultures, people care for things, other than their own wellbeing. There is no—philosophical or non-philosophical—argument that could speak against caring for things other than one’s own well-being. On the contrary, it seems that a person who only cares about her own wellbeing and considers everything else unimportant is severely mentally disturbed. Why should we base rationality on a pathological disorder? Let us, therefore, be wary of a premature reductionism. Let us take seriously the variety of relevant reasons for action. Since this is potentially an existential decision, there are limits to its rationalization. These limits are due to the fact that weighing reasons is always related to certain lifeforms that themselves contain intrinsically evaluative positions. The lifeform consists of specific judgments. If, however, in extremis, the lifeform as a whole is affected by a decision, it is no longer possible to judge the action in terms of whether it fits into the chosen and endorsed structure of a life practice in general. So, even when it comes to existential decisions, the result of the (possibly dilemmatic) consideration will still be a valuation: By my decision, this is the lifeform that I appreciate and want. This betterness relation brings no new aspect of judgment, no new reasons, into play. Rather, the old deliberations have completely or at least partially lost their ability to function as an orienting force in view of the existential character of the decision. The deliberation, even in the case of an underdetermined result, does not lead to a certain quality (such as one’s own well-being or global aggregate utility) being realized to a greater extent through one decision than another. Whoever wants to know in which sense one decision is better than another is referred back to the entirety of the deliberation. Compare this to a utilitarian consideration: The utilitarian, too, will have to include various aspects in order to determine which of the decisions will entail the greatest aggregate utility in the universe. This deliberation can be at least as complicated as the sort of lifeworld deliberations we just discussed. The utilitarian result, however, is a hypothesis about the expected development of the aggregate utility in the universe. The deliberation would deliver (theoretical) reasons to assume that one decision would generate a higher aggregate utility in the universe than the

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other. The betterness relation would be defined by a quantitative aggregate utility. The reductionism is not manifest in a simplification of deliberation, but rather in the (fundamentalist) positing of a single aspect of evaluation. To put it differently: This reductionism replaces the whole variety of evaluations that are expressed in practical deliberations by one single aspect, aggregate utility. The substitution procedure, for which utilitarianism stands as an example here, would undoubtedly merge previous deliberations into a descriptive judgment, namely that one action results in a higher aggregate utility than the other. Combined with the utilitarian criterion, that is, choose the action that will result in the higher aggregate utility, one can derive the practical conclusion: Do X.  This reductionism manifests itself in the fact that the whole of deliberation is initially descriptive. This means that it serves to justify descriptive beliefs which are then to be transformed via a principle (here the utilitarian principle) into a normative judgment. In both cases, however, these are beliefs that are justified or generated through deliberation (we arrive at this belief through deliberation or: deliberation leads us to this belief). In both cases, descriptive facts are largely, possibly exclusively, relevant. One reason for this may be, for example, because the (normative) evaluative aspects are clear and undisputed, while the descriptive facts that are normatively relevant may be controversial. Even without a reductionist transformation, there is much to suggest that the normative properties supervene on the descriptive ones. The inferential role of practical reasons links descriptive facts (natural and social) with normative facts—that is how we introduced the realistic interpretation of practical reasons. Supervenience, however, does not imply that the normative aspects are trivial. Just because we know all things descriptive, we certainly do not know all things normative: The criteria of normative judgment may be unclear, controversial, or only determinable through deliberation. We should be skeptical about such a simple relationship between empirical and normative facts, as postulated by utilitarian ethics. If the connection between empirical and normative facts were that simple, it would be a mystery why lifeworld practical deliberation is so complex. Indeed, utilitarian ethics fails in its simplicity due to the demands made by good practical reasons. If I want to determine whether one decision is better than another, I have no choice but to weigh practical reasons to reach a normative judgment, that is, the justification of a normative belief. Answering the question what I should do is preceded (in a logically necessary manner) by

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answering the question which normative beliefs are true. I cannot arrive at the practice directly, immediately, or, put differently: Every practice reveals normative beliefs. Not all, but many normative beliefs have practical implications. This connection becomes manifest, in any case, if normative beliefs are directed at the evaluation of concrete alternatives for action. In many cases, however, normative beliefs are not immediately directed at actions (“this decision would be better than the alternative decision”), but at assessments that have only indirect practical implications. A prominent example is virtue-ethical evaluations. These are directed at dispositions (as they are called in contemporary attempts at reconstructing Aristotelian ethics23): attitudes, character traits, virtues whose practical implications are not always unambiguous. The fact that the megalopsychos is admirable is undoubtedly a normative statement; it corresponds to Aristotle’s virtue-­ ethical belief. But how the megalopsychos actually behaves in situations for which this specific aretē is relevant may often enough be controversial. Virtue ethics differs from modern ethics of action not so much in its teleological orientation, but in the fact that it distributes the burden of justification differently: For modern ethics of action, the normative criterion for action seems to be more easily accessible than questions of appropriate character, disposition, or virtues (aretē). Virtue ethics, in 23  I believe this translation of aretē as “disposition” to be misleading, since Aristotle emphasizes in the Nicomachean Ethics that the aretai are not merely hexeis, but also prohaireseis. This means that virtues represent choices and preferences; cf. Nicomachean Ethics, book II. NeoAristotelian virtue ethics is inspired by Aristotle. It takes virtues, enduring dispositions of character, and intellect as essential to live a good (flourishing) life, in accordance with our nature as rational beings. Virtue ethics is naturalistic in the sense that to live a virtuous life is to live a life of natural goodness. There are natural endowments of the human species that determine, in good part, what is good for us humans; cf. Nancy E.  Snow 2018. NeoAristotelian Virtue Ethics. In The Oxford Handbook of Virtue, 321–342. Oxford: Oxford University Press. This kind of Aristotelian naturalism is different from scientist naturalism, as it is based on a teleological understanding of nature and as it does not follow the project of reducing ethical, social, and mental facts to natural facts that can in principle be described by the natural sciences. When I argued against naturalism above, this critique did not include Neo-Aristotelian ethics. In fact, one might even say that Aristotelian naturalism is transformed here into an account of objective reasons, based on a shared human lifeform. Our critique of ethical rationalism is certainly influenced by Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, but also by Dewey, Wittgenstein, and Steven Toulmin’s good reason approach, and less by ethical NeoAristotelianism. But there are some resemblances between Footian anti-­rationalist ethical objectivism and my account; cf. Philippa Foot. 2001. Natural Goodness. New York: Oxford University Press.

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contrast, find it easier to determine what constitutes desirable, admirable, positive character traits, dispositions, attitudes, and virtues than to determine what ought to be done in a particular instance. This difference between ancient and modern ethics (and putting it like this is a drastic simplification of the history of philosophy) is better characterized as an epistemological difference rather than a metaphysical one. The contemporary renaissance of virtue ethics does not require recourse to Aristotelian or even Platonic ontology. Once the normative belief—however it may be conveyed—is established and speaks for the rightness, the imperative character, and rationality of a decision, one should usually not have to worry about one’s motivation for the action. If persons are convinced that a specific decision is the right thing to do, they will do it. All other reactions equal pathological exceptions, signs of a weakness of the will, of amorality, and of irrationality. However, there are cases in which a normative judgment has no practical implications. We can, for example, imagine a highly elaborate theory of justice that has no practical implications whatsoever. Even if it is obvious which tax system is just and which one is unjust, it can still be utterly unclear which decisions in terms of fiscal policy are the right ones. Even if justice is the supreme virtue, as assumed by Plato as well as the contemporary theoretician of the theory of justice, John Rawls, it is doubtful that the normative content of a theory of justice can be made fully apparent in its practical implications. Practical deliberation is no less complex than theoretical deliberation. Both have the same inferential form. I do not see any serious differences; at most there are marginal disparities. In both cases, it is about justification and generation of beliefs—descriptive in one case, normative in the other. That which is normative should not be limited to that which provides practical guidance. The normative is not determined by direct or indirect practical implications, as the dominant Humean view of contemporary philosophy assumes. Nor does the grammatical form enable us to distinguish between normative and descriptive beliefs, normative and descriptive reasons, or theoretical and practical deliberation. This distinction cannot be established at the linguistic surface, as generations of analytically oriented meta-ethicists believed. Nevertheless, it stands the test of our lifeworld practices of reasoning. This distinction, too, has its justificatory benchmark in the lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons.

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The concept of the direction of fit24 as a characterization of two different types of intentionality seems to me—albeit a little heavy-handed—quite accurate. However, we must not identify this concept with the distinction between normative and descriptive beliefs. Even the theory of justice, whose normative content is not expressed in practical implications, aims at adapting the world to our (normative) beliefs. In contrast, theory in the natural or social sciences aims at adapting our (descriptive) beliefs to the world. If we do not want to stray from the realistic insights yet again, “world” here only refers to the world of descriptive facts and therefore we should modify this formulation accordingly: In one case, it is a matter of adapting our beliefs to descriptive facts and, in the other, it is a matter of changing (descriptive facts) so that they align with normative facts. In one case, it is a matter of describing descriptive facts and, in the other, it is a matter of affecting the empirical world according to criteria that we infer from the normative order of things, the world of normative facts and normative inferences.

7.10  Emotive Attitudes Does the thesis of an extensive analogy between theoretical and practical deliberation, the thesis of grammatical and inferential indistinguishability, fail, at the latest in face of the third category of reasoning regarding the emotive attitudes? Before this question can be answered, we must first address the more fundamental question as to whether emotive attitudes even qualify as a possible object of justification. The emotivist theories of the early days of analytical meta-ethics implied the exact opposite: That which is presented as ethical justification is nothing other than a description or an expression 24  Cf. Anscombe (1957); there this expression direction of fit does not yet appear, but the distinction is made very precisely. J. L. Austin is probably the first to use the term (in the analysis of speech acts). Cf. J.L. Austin 1975. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge/ Mass.: Harvard University Press; cf. Lloyd I. Humberstone. 1992. Direction of Fit. Mind 101: 59–83. Eventually, John Searle systematizes this distinction in his classification “A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts”; cf. id. 1985. In Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts, 1–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thus, we are here problematizing a venerable and well-established view with prominent representatives. The locus classicus, however, is Michael Smith. 1994. The Moral Problem. Oxford: Blackwell; cf. also his edited volume 2004. Ethics and the A Priori: Selected Essays on Moral Psychology and Meta-Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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of emotive attitudes. Emotions are given and not justifiable, and what is presented as a moral argument, or simply as a moral evaluation, is an expression of an emotive attitude. This approach was the attempt to rid philosophical ethics of its traditional cognitivism and realism. It was, however, difficult to reconcile it with the practice of lifeworld moral justification. Since this practice of justification manifests itself linguistically, we can reword this as follows: The emotivist/expressive concepts, presented as an analysis of the everyday use of moral language, were incompatible with the everyday use of moral language. We go way beyond the traditional critique of ethical subjectivism when we claim that emotive attitudes themselves are justifiable and in need of justification. Accordingly, ethical subjectivism is not only characterized as inadequate with regard to normative judgments. It is even more fundamentally inadequate as it is impracticable already from the get-go because these presumably arational emotions, inaccessible to any justification, do not exist. Once again, we could return to one of the central concepts of the Greek Stoa: The impressions (phantasiai) are examined for their rationality, and in the case of an endorsement (synkatathesis), they are transformed into an impulse that guides action (hormè). Stoic sages observe their own phantasiai as they observe the surrounding nature and then align their practice with reason after evaluating the possibilities for action and weighing the practical reasons. Stoics are sage insofar as they have the ability to make an evaluative judgment regarding their own phantasiai and hormai and are able not to be carried away (the attitude of apatheia) by their passions (pathē). It is interesting from a cultural-historical point of view that Stoicism emerged from Cynicism, a variation of Socratics, which advocated a life in harmony with nature against the norms, against the customs and moral concepts of the respective polis. This evoked a similar sensation and resentment as in the hippie movement of the 1960s with its idea of free love, promiscuity, and physical closeness to nature. Rationality through attunement to nature is a motif that has lost none of its topicality to this day. In regular episodes, it seems, civilizations are challenged by a counter-movement that seeks proximity to nature in order to be able to withdraw from conventions, which are perceived as constricting. Trace elements of this origin can still be found in the late Stoa: Roman Stoic ethics is not concerned with adapting to conventions either. It is rather concerned with the ability to create a rational lifeform that is appropriate for the whole, for the cosmic

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order. While the Cynics tried to free themselves by searching for the true child of nature within themselves, the late Stoics see the good life in self-­ control, in fulfilling one’s duty, and in embedding one’s own practice in the ordered whole. They are not against—justified—emotions, but against the lack of freedom as a result of impulsive action. They search for the coherence of their own lifeform in the coherence of the human lifeform as such, as part of an ordered cosmos. Even our contemporary cultural practice relies to a large extent on the human ability to control one’s own emotions, shaped by Christian-­ motivated hostility toward the body and the disciplining by an industrial mode of production. The modern hero is not characterized by the effervescent thymos of Achilles.25 The modern hero is the prototype of the rational employee who plans his career and success and is capable of suppressing his innate drives. In a rather strange contrast to this, there is a consumer industry that appeals precisely to the repressed opposite, that is, that seeks to awaken hidden longings and uses a myriad of marketing tricks to hinder the suppression of drives, that seeks to awaken deep passions for silly consumer goods, that pretends to espouse confidence and traditionality, even though it is only concerned with sales markets. Modern consumer society is asserting itself against the cultural messages of not only Christian but also Confucian societies. The person who sticks to her deadlines, who is able to lead a systematic life, who is a reliable cooperation partner, who brings forth achievements for achievement’s sake, who is willing to torture herself for years for the sake of success, who renounces comfort in order to live up to expectations, who has her emotions under control, is an inconvenient customer and consumer. The puritanical ethos may be ambivalent and the efforts toward self-control frequently may lead to the exact opposite of what they intend to achieve: Cultures in which the consumption of alcohol is sanctioned by high age limits and taxes and social ostracism are particularly affected by alcoholism; or cultures in which fitness, physical appearance, and eternal youth are common action orientations suffer most from overweight and a lack of athleticism. Still, the goal of forming one’s own emotionality into a coherent whole and allowing it to be guided by reasons is rational. The person who follows her 25  Cf. Susan Neiman’s praise of Odysseus as a modern hero in Susan Neiman. 2009. Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-Up Idealists. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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momentary impulses has many reasons to repent; in extreme cases, she falls apart into temporal separate entities, which are only loosely held together by memories and certain character traits. A highly developed drive and impulse control that helps a coherent conduct of life is not only a Western achievement of Protestantism, of the European Enlightenment, and of industrial capitalism, but an ancient theme of philosophical and religious writings. Plato and Aristotle are concerned with this topic, as well as Moses, Mohammed, Confucius, and Buddha; it is one of the central themes of holy scriptures. To regard emotive attitudes as the third category of entities that are guided by reasons, or should at least be guided by reasons, is a subject of consensus of the world religions and of the most important ethical texts since antiquity. It is a novelty of the twentieth century that a large part of practical philosophy has tried over several decades to rid itself of this subject. The success of this attempt was moderate, as proven by the current renaissance of the philosophy of emotions and virtue ethics.26 I find the idea to separate emotions and reasons simply absurd. Possibly, the entire lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons aims first and foremost at harmonizing one’s own emotions with those of others, at making sure that certain emotions are justified, and at criticizing one’s own emotions and those of others. These justifications and criticisms are normative through and through and it is a question of clarifying what speaks for or against a certain emotive attitude. People are very responsive to insults as a reaction to being offended. It is not in vain that the term respect frames the normative vocabulary in so-called urban cultures in the US.  The concern that one is not treated respectfully or discriminated against on the basis of one’s skin color or religion, the struggle for recognition, is particularly formative where the civility of human contact is endangered. It is a matter of mutual perceptions of emotive attitudes, their appropriateness or inappropriateness, of justificatory and criticizing reasons. Those who claim that emotive attitudes are simply given and inaccessible to argument must be blind to the practice in which they participate. Of course, the affection of emotive attitudes by reasons presupposes that the deliberating persons are able to distance themselves sufficiently   Cf., for example, Michael Slote. 2010. Moral Sentimentalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 26

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not only from impulsive actions, but also from impulsive emotionality. They are able to take a critical perspective toward themselves. Here, too, it is the reasons that one adopts and the way in which one deliberates that constitute one’s own personality and make other things, such as memories, actions, emotions, secondary in nature. I am not what I feel or remember. Rather, I am the person whose beliefs, actions, and emotive attitudes are guided by reasons, by my reasons, by that which I take to be a good reason, and which constitute my identity.

CHAPTER 8

Metaphysical Aspects

8.1   Metaphysics Metaphysics is not a foundational discipline. It does not precede other investigations but follows them. Metaphysics is tentative because it describes general characteristics of our practice of judgment and action that are generally not apparent. Metaphysical investigations in our sense are remote from observation but they are not independent of experience. Metaphysics occupies an extreme position in the gradual spectrum that covers empirically immediately supported individual judgments (which I as an ethical realist also consider moral experiences to belong to) all the way to abstract generalizations that need to prevail in the system of beliefs (both descriptive and normative). This sub-discipline of philosophy has no role of ultimate justification but rather is something that needs to prevail in the totality of the practice of judgment, and action must not be misunderstood as a reversal of the justificatory relation: Even judgments that are close to experience, both descriptive and normative, do not stand for themselves and play no epistemically foundational role, not even in their entirety. Usually, even empirical data are not given but are the result of interpretations that rest on implicit and explicit background assumptions. This is what we mean when we refer to the theory-ladenness of observation, which applies to exact natural sciences such as physics as well. From a holistic and coherentist perspective, the dispute between particularism and principlism in meta-ethics becomes obsolete. Principles, like © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6_8

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invariance assumptions such as the isotropy of space in physics or equal treatment in ethics, systematize a good deal of reasoning in physics respectively in ethics, but should not be understood as ultimate foundations. In everyday discourses, and also in the sciences, we go back and forth and try to make the entirety of our practice of judgments and action more coherent. We revise individual judgments that are close to our experience if they come into conflict with well-established principles, and we give up principles if they conflict with central individual judgments that are close to experience. We interpret experiences in light of structuring rules and modify the rules in light of experience. This last part of the book is nothing but the clarification of the more general, more abstract aspects of practical rationality that are remote from experience. Any theory of practical rationality must prove itself in concrete cases, and we interpret them on the basis of more abstract presuppositions. The metaphysical reflections in this final section are not aimed at merely describing the presuppositions of our communicative practice, but rather at uncovering and reconstructing the normative and descriptive beliefs that are expressed by this communicative practice. Metaphysics is to be understood as a form of Socratic maieutikè, as the uncovering of knowledge we already have, but that is not yet explicit, and that we usually do not articulate. The status of this metaphysical undertaking is not relational; it is not about identifying specific presuppositions of our linguistic usage. Rather, the interpretation of these presuppositions is realist and in accordance with the general realist interpretation of reasons. At the same time, there is no external authority that provides us access to these propositions, no standpoint outside of our practice of communication and interaction, no fundamentum inconcussum. In this regard, metaphysics is understood as immanentist, a metaphysics from an epistemic perspective.

8.2   Freedom In what follows, human freedom is characterized as a metaphysical proposition. Freedom is a complex of presuppositions, of implicit conditions for our practice of communication and action, which will be gauged against this practice. Freedom is not merely the existence of alternative possibilities. The availability of alternative possibilities, the option to decide differently, is inextricably interwoven with communicative practice and action, and is itself in turn only an element of a greater complex of concrete and abstract propositions. These have a metaphysical status insofar as they

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cannot be confirmed or disproved by individual experiences. In other words: Human freedom (even in the traditional distinction between freedom of action and freedom of the will) is a structural and implicit characteristic of human practice. In his Critique of Practical Reason, Kant is right to say that from a first-person perspective, we have to understand ourselves as free because this is what constitutes our character as rational beings. However, he is wrong in claiming that this first-person perspective is isolated in the sense that from a third-person perspective the principle of causality renders the laws of freedom irrelevant. Indeed, this form of naturalist integration of our experiences of freedom, our self-efficacy, our responsibility, is non-abandonable since, without this implicit characteristic feature of our practice, the exchange of reasons would be incomprehensible. Freedom is not merely a feature of the subjective perspective but also of the objective perspective. It cannot be a subjective feature, that is, be limited to the firstperson perspective, to the noumenal I, because the practice of giving and taking reasons refers to (objective) propositions that should be interpreted realistically. A realist account of reasons is incompatible with a subjectivist interpretation of human freedom. The realist account conceives of freedom as nothing other than the capability of being affected by reasons. In other words: The efficacy of reasons presupposes human freedom. Reasons that are objective and normative but play no affective role would be limited to the realm of ideas. The close conceptual connection between freedom, responsibility, and reason shows that the phenomenon of human freedom is not merely an isolated phenomenon. As a first approximation, we are dealing merely with different aspects of the same phenomenon, namely the capability of being affected by reasons. This, in any event, is the guiding thesis of the following paragraphs. At first blush, this thesis appears somewhat eccentric, possibly counter-intuitive. Does freedom not simply consist in the possibility of acting one way or another, independently of the reasons one might have for acting a certain way? Indeed, freedom of choice (Willkürfreiheit), that is, the simple possibility of remaining seated or of getting up, lighting the next cigarette or not (for non-addicts), leaving a soiree now or in an hour, once the concert is over, and so on is what seems to be at the center of our experience as free, or perhaps one should here say autarkic, beings. Independently of whether or not I have my reasons for what I do, I can decide how I behave. There is an interesting linguistic parallel between Ancient Greek and English, namely the characterization

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of this phenomenon as eph hemin, which corresponds almost exactly to the English phrases up to me, or up to us, it’s up to me, it’s up to us. For the Stoics it was of central importance to grasp precisely what eph hemin encompasses, since one’s responsibility extended only as far as the realm of eph hemin. The demanded attitude toward everything else, that is, the adiaphora, was indifference. It is Stoic thinking that initially linked reason to freedom, namely with the idea that humans are only free to the extent that they define what is eph hemin according to rational insight. There is a direct line leading from the Stoics to Kant. Mere freedom of choice is not the freedom of rational beings. Those who arbitrarily act in one way or another are still part of a “heteronomous” order. Indeed, arbitrary action is like a random mechanism; it does not have the character of a reasonable practice guided by maxims. This close connection between reason and freedom, both in Stoicism and in Kant, can be criticized with reference to the tradition of understanding human freedom as autarky. The ancient heroes in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the most likely exception being Odysseus, seem to be guided by impulse rather than reason—they act on the spur of the moment and often regret what they have done. Achilles is considered the greatest hero of Greek mythology, but he is unable to give his life practice as a whole a coherent structure. Fully aware of what he is doing, he watches the Greeks rush headlong into disaster, with hundreds and thousands of deaths, until a new, existential experience gives his life a new direction, namely the death of Patroclus, his closest friend. His grief incites his disproportionate revenge against the greatest hero of the opposing side, Hector: He slaughters him like a butcher would kill a beast and desecrates his corpse by dragging it all the way back to the Greek camp. According to the greatest hero, autarky is having the possibility to yield to one’s momentary impulses and not letting anyone tell him what to do. He is free, but only in the reduced form of the realization of momentary impulses. The whole of this life practice makes no sense; Achilles stumbles from one regret to the next and ultimately pays the price for this lifeform with an untimely death and the dirges in Hades, with which Odysseus is later confronted. Odysseus, by contrast, the smart and thoughtful person who is guided by reasons, prefers to spend a long life in the light, although Odysseus’ sophistries and cunningness were considered a problematic character trait in Greek Classics. Indeed, his tactical and strategic moves throughout his Odyssey were self-interested; the motive for his actions was his own advantage, his cunning way of overcoming unexpected challenges. It is the embedding of practical reason

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in the structures of human coexistence and the cosmic order of the logos within Stoicism that breaks up this egocentrism. This applies to the egocentrism of Achilles, who follows his momentary impulses, and the egocentrism of Odysseus, who follows a calculus of self-interest throughout his lifespan. Now, the person has to stand accountable for what she has done; she has to weigh the reasons that speak for or against a certain action; she might even become melancholic or depressive in the process, as did Marcus Aurelius, but the main goal of action remains the embedding of one’s own practice within the greater, rational, and insightful context of the logos. The ideal of autarky is superseded by the ideal of autonomy brought forward by the European Enlightenment. Arbitrary freedom of choice is pushed from the center to the periphery. We can now systematically characterize the relation between autarky and autonomy: Autarky is the condition for autonomy. It is the possibility of choosing between different options that enables practice to be affected by reasons. The control of my own action has to take place through something that I can identify with, because otherwise it is not I who is acting; my behavior would then merely be the causal consequence of external influences. This is the basic idea that led Kant to juxtapose heteronomy and autonomy. We identify with the reasons that we have for beliefs, actions, and emotive attitudes. Typically, we likewise have reasons for dispensing other reasons. However—and this makes our analysis more complicated—our own decisions belong to the conditionality of our reasons for action. A decision is based on reasons, but it also generates reasons, and therefore the decision affects my practice beyond the respective temporal moment at which I make a particular decision. It generates reasons that reach beyond the temporal moment of the decision and that structure my practice. Let us consider the example of a person being indifferent to a certain outcome after having evaluated the pertinent reasons: Let us further assume that even after careful consideration the reasons in favor of a short trip to Rome are about the same as the reasons in favor of a short trip to Madrid. In order to avoid being forced into inactivity like Buridan’s Ass, the person makes a decision. My decision to go to Madrid would in turn create a cascade of good reasons for certain actions. Ranking among these might be that I search for a hotel in Madrid and make a reservation, that I book a flight from Munich to Madrid, and so on. Once I opt for Madrid, the reasons that previously spoke in favor of Rome as another potential destination for my trip have become obsolete. There is no irrationality at play, but

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rather autarky; the freedom of choice to arbitrarily decide between options that I am indifferent about entails a cascade of reasons for action. Freedom of choice generates reasons. This example shows that freedom of choice is relevant in two regards: On the one hand, it is a condition of autonomy (or in short: autonomy requires autarky), and on the other hand, it is a structuring and reason-­ generating factor within practice. Without freedom of choice at its center, the conception of autonomy as the freedom or ability to be affected by reasons, as it is defended here, would run into difficulties, at least in connection with a realist interpretation of reasons. If reasons were characterized as normative facts for which subjective features such as preferences, hopes, fears, and consideration of others are irrelevant, then individuality, what is unique and what is special about a person, would be dissolved in the objective demands of practical reason. If Kant’s Categorical Imperative always resulted in only one generalizable option, the commandments of morality would be detached from any individuality. And since we do not reduce autonomy to morality, as Kant did, but rather expand it to the entirety of practical reasons, this loss of individuality would be unacceptable. The commitment to certain projects, that is, the structuring of one’s own life through endeavors that I myself have chosen, is a special aspect of freedom of choice: It characterizes the structuring of autonomous practice through autarkic decisions. Now, we can reformulate more precisely and adequately modernity’s idea that there is a categorical difference between theoretical and practical reasons, that ultimately there are either only theoretical reasons, as claimed by David Hume; or that practical reasons can be reduced to the desire-belief scheme, as contemporary Humeans assume; or that practical reasons are nothing but cultural characteristics of a respective established lifeform (in communitarianism); or, perhaps the most prevalent idea, that there are only two kinds of practical reasons, namely those generated by self-interest and those generated by moral obligations, for example the utilitarian principle to maximize utility: It is autarky (or freedom of choice) which constitutes the difference between theoretical and practical reasons. One could also say that it is merely the phenomenon of freedom of choice that marks this difference, and not the mode of justification, not the logic of justification, not the direction of fit, which marks the supposedly categorial difference between theoretical and practical reasons.

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Kant1 distinguishes between Laws of Freedom and Laws of Nature. The first are self-imposed, whereas the latter are given by the natural order. Both enable the application of the principle of causality to events (to actions or natural processes, respectively). Laws of Freedom delimit the space of autonomous action, Laws of Nature the domain of the heteronomous. Both domains are dichotomous; that is to say, where humans do not, out of respect for Moral Law, act autonomously, they act heteronomously and remain part of the order of nature. This seems to me to be quite obviously false: From a first-person perspective, even those actions not guided by moral motives have reasons speaking in their favor. Even persons who are not morally motivated have reasons for what they do. Their behavior is not merely a causally determined natural process. To the extent that we can interpret behavior as action, we assume that persons have reasons by which they are affected. The status of personhood does not begin only with moral motives, as Kant and contemporary Kantianism assume. (Human) freedom manifests itself in action, in any kind of action. If I am accosted by a person wielding a knife on a lonely street late at night and this person demands that I hand over my wallet, I will probably decide to do this immediately. This is not behavior that follows a stimulus-­ response pattern, it is a well-considered action. I have weighed the pros and cons and have reached the conclusion that a refusal would entail a high risk for my health, perhaps even for my life, and that this possible damage is grossly disproportionate to losing my wallet. Perhaps moral reasons may factor into my decision, for instance the consideration that it would be irresponsible to risk my life if my family would suffer from this loss. But even if moral motives were completely irrelevant for my decision, handing over my wallet is guided by reasons; it is reasonable and it is an expression of my freedom. There is an obvious objection to this example: I was not free in my decision since I was forced to hand over my wallet. This type of coercion is a specific condition of the situation in which I acted, and which generated reasons for which I acted, in this case reasons that speak in favor of handing over the wallet. This coercion does not belong to the natural order; it is not an expression of a law of nature. Action presupposes freedom. The coercion in this example has no impact on my status as an agent. I am still capable of 1

 Cf. Immanuel Kant. 1781. Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft).

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considering and choosing between different options. The drug addict, whose urges for the next shot are so strong that he loses his ability to weigh the pros and cons of various options and to be guided by the subjectively best reasons, has lost his freedom and a limine his agency. He appears to us as being unaccountable. The notion of criminal responsibility requires the awareness of different options as well as the ability to evaluate them. The capacity to appreciate the unlawfulness of an action as a criterion of legal liability implicitly requires us to use these capabilities for evaluating reasons. The mere fact that this evaluation does not happen even though one would have been capable of performing it does not preclude liability in the legal sense. Human freedom, then, is constitutive for responsibility for own actions in a two-fold sense. Firstly, insofar as behavior without freedom of choice, without the possibility of choosing from different options, without being able to weigh reasons for or against one or the other option, cannot be ascribed to the respective person as an action and thus fails to be an object of criteria of responsibility. Behavior that cannot be characterized as action is outside the control of the acting person and the person can therefore not be made responsible. The scope of freedom delimits the scope of what is ascribable to a person and thus the area for which the subject bears responsibility. The person chooses an action from a set of possible actions (the scope of her freedom is determined by what is possible) and is therefore responsible for having preferred one particular action over every other possible action. She can be held accountable for not having chosen different options of action, but she cannot be held accountable for failing to perform actions that are not part of the set of possible options. We are responsible precisely for that which is under our control, that is, for that which falls in the scope of what we could have realized. We are thus—by derivation—also responsible for all foreseeable consequences that result from the decision for a particular option as well as for all the foreseeable consequences not realized because of us refraining from choosing other options. Secondly, responsibility for actions requires theoretical freedom, the ability to deliberate reasons for normative beliefs that guide our actions. Human responsibility is based on practical and theoretical freedom. Interestingly enough, almost nobody contests the existence of theoretical freedom. Those who would deny the existence of theoretical freedom would on their part expose themselves to the criticism of getting tangled up in a performative contradiction, because arguments are brought forward with the expectation that reasons are relevant for the beliefs a person holds—which is precisely what they would be denying. So, there is much that speaks in favor of theoretical freedom as the core of human freedom.

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8.3  Responsibility The close relation between responsibility and freedom in the conceptual framework outlined here results from the role that reasons have; they constitute both responsibility and freedom: I am free insofar as it is my reasons that guide my action (my beliefs, my emotive attitudes). I am responsible for that which is affected by the reasons I make my own and that which is a consequence of my being affected by reasons. This is the indicative wording. In some situations, the grammatical form of the potential mood is more adequate for characterizing (human) freedom and (human) responsibility, respectively: I am free if it is possible for me to follow the better reasons. I am responsible insofar as I had the possibility to weigh reasons and be affected by reasons. Responsibility and freedom are extensionally identical: Those who can be held responsible are also free and vice versa. Are the predicates free and responsible extensionally identical in all possible worlds, which would make them intensionally identical? I am inclined to answer this question in the affirmative. A specific aspect of responsibility is culpability. I am culpable if I have done something wrong even though I had the opportunity, based on an insight of better reasons, for a different and better action. Interestingly enough, this is true not only with regard to practical reasons but theoretical reasons as well: Ignorance does not relieve me of my responsibility if I could have known what spoke against this wrong action. This capability is normative, not empirical: It is not to be interpreted in the sense that one can imagine a different empirical world in which I would have known this. It was reasonable to expect of me that I familiarize myself with the momentarily relevant state of affairs, that I inform myself accordingly, that I actualize my power of judgment, and so on. The scope of responsibility depends on normative and empirical conditions. These conditions have an objective character; they do not exclusively refer to the subjective, epistemic, or prohairetic state of the respective person. A person walks up to a riverbank at a certain moment and sees a human body in the water. She does not jump into the river and try to save the person, despite being a strong swimmer. Instead, she goes to a nearby intersection and informs a police officer standing there about her observation. The police officer requests help by making an emergency call. The emergency responders determine that the person drowned at least an hour ago, which means that the passerby would not have been able to help when she noticed the body in the water. Nevertheless, she can be

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subjected to criticism: She should have at least tried to save the person in the river since she could not have known at this moment whether he was still fighting for his life or had already drowned. If she did not think she was up to the task, she should have called the emergency hotline right away instead of wasting precious time by walking to the next intersection. She had alternative options for actions available and we blame her for not having made a better choice. She is responsible for what she did. Provided we are talking about an adult and not a child, we will probably not accept the excuse that she was so confused and that is why she did what was wrong. In this case, a rescue attempt or at least an immediate emergency call would have been the right thing to do, and this is what we can expect of a grown-up, fully accountable person who, in addition, is a strong swimmer. At the same time, however, we will not hold her responsible for the other person dying, since he was already dead when the passerby noticed the body in the water. It is important to note that this state of affairs determines the scope of responsibility, although the passerby had no epistemic access to it (she could not have known). Nevertheless, this state of affairs limits her responsibility. The limitations of the domain for which we are responsible depend not only on the epistemic state of the acting person and the normative criteria for assuming responsibility, but also on objective possibilities for intervention. It was no longer possible for the passerby to prevent the death of the person in the water, and we therefore cannot make her responsible for his death. However, if the person in the water had in fact still been fighting for his life, the passerby would have been at least partially responsible for his death. Perhaps other agents are also responsible: the drowning person, who knew of his poor bodily constitution, the local authorities, because they did not provide sufficient information about the dangers of bathing in this stretch of the river, the primary care physician, because he did not inform his patient about risks after a recent cardiovascular checkup, and so on. At this point, one might be tempted to divide the concept of responsibility into a subjective and an objective part. Accordingly, the scope of an agent’s objective responsibility would cover her options for intervention, given the empirical conditions. In our example, this would correspond to the limitation of the scope of responsibility by the empirical state of affairs that the respective person was already dead at the moment of observation. They could then—de facto—no longer have been saved and therefore the passerby cannot be held responsible for the death of the person in the water. Even if the subjective epistemic situation presents itself unchanged,

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we would have made the passerby (partly) responsible for the death of the drowning person if he had not been dead at the moment of observation. Subjective responsibility would then be relativized to the epistemic and prohairetic states of the acting person, whereas objective—genuine—responsibility takes into account the factual possibilities of intervening and the factual options. This solution, however, would be too simple; it does not lead to a coherent conception of responsibility. We should speak of “subjective responsibility” only in the sense of an epistemic characterization: A person was subjectively not responsible if she assumed that she had no possibilities at all of intervening in the course of events. Or if she assumed that was not her responsibility or duty to act in a certain way. In both cases, it is a belief that the person holds, an empirical one in the first case and a normative one in the second case. In the first case, she was convinced that there was empirically no possibility of intervening; in the second case she was convinced that she had no duty to intervene. Such beliefs can turn out to be false. And we inspect whether they are correct or false based on objective conditions that are either empirical or normative. We verify whether it was actually the case that she could not intervene or that it was not her duty to do so. Just as subjective facts are not facts, but rather beliefs about facts, subjective responsibility is not responsibility, but rather a belief about responsibility. Both, facts as well as responsibilities, are objective. The same holds for freedom. Subjectively free persons think that they are free. Persons are free in terms of their beliefs (theoretical freedom), if they are able to deliberate reasons for beliefs adequately. They are unfree if they are unable to do this. We call beliefs pathological if they remain unaffected by reasons. These beliefs are resistant to any form of revision and are upheld even in the face of unequivocal evidence of them being wrong. Actions are pathological if they cannot be affected by reasons. This is what psychologists call compulsive behavior or neurotic disorders. Persons that perform such actions frequently suffer from pronounced neuroticism. Emotions are pathological if they cannot be affected by reasons. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, did not want to eliminate any form of practice that promoted comfort or pleasure; he rather wanted to distinguish between impulses that can be well justified, for example, with reference to human nature, and such impulses that cannot be well justified, for example, because they go against nature. For the former, Zeno uses the expression hormai logikai, that is, rational strivings that are guided by reasons. Early Stoicism was not about eradicating all passions, but rather

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about developing a practice based on evaluative approval. And the criteria of this appraisal are not subjective; their ultimate determinants are neither a pleasant life nor, in contemporary utilitarian terminology, the optimization of subjective states. That which is rational respects what is natural, but it is not subsumed by it. The Stoic apatheia refers to the ability to evaluate reasons sine ira et studio—this seems to me to be the most plausible interpretation. Interestingly, the existence of human freedom has been doubted time and again since antiquity. More precisely, what has been doubted is the thesis that we can choose between alternatives, that alternatives that constitute our freedom of action truly exist. It has been less disputed that we are able to evaluate which beliefs are well justified. Theoretical freedom is far less controversial than practical freedom. One possible explanation for this asymmetry could be the materialist conception of causality, which was already prevalent in antiquity. This conception purports that it is the transmission of physical effects or even substances that constitutes causality. This—materialist— causality is hardly reconcilable with the causal role of deliberation, that is, the weighing of reasons. It seems, then, that the effect of theoretical reasons is compatible with a materialist conception of causality as long as reasons have no effect on or for material events. However, the asymmetry between theoretical freedom, which is considered unproblematic if it is discussed at all, and practical freedom, which is considered problematic because it seems to be incompatible with the materialist principle of causality, rests on a prerequisite that is highly counter-intuitive, namely that beliefs play no role for actions. My conception of practical reason assumes exactly the opposite: It is beliefs that determine our actions—the empirical and normative beliefs of the acting person. As the final instance, it is this evaluative approval (i.e., the belief that it is reasonable to do X which is the result of deliberation) that determines our action. Without this approval, without the action-guiding belief, actions do not occur, for actions are always the expression of normative beliefs. Behavior that does not represent a normative belief, an endorsement of the respective person, does not have the character of action. Stoicism’s demand is embedded in the terminology of human practice or is subsumed by it. However, the categorical distinction between mere behavior and action must not obscure the fact that deliberation, that is, the weighing of reasons, is decisive for the determination of human practice to a varying degree. In contrast to Stoic radicalism, a theory of structural rationality seeks to grasp this aspect more adequately. We have

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already characterized it more closely with the gradual concept of a more or less strongly pronounced coherence. I am responsible for everything that is under my control. We have characterized the phenomenon of having-something-under-one’s-control as the possibility of it being affected by one’s own reasons. If I adopt the arguments of a person that speak in favor of a certain action, then these arguments become my own reasons. This does not mean that this has any power over me, but rather that I have my reasons for deciding one way and not the other. This undermines the interpretation that has shaped post-­ structuralist discourses which claims that any form of influence that one person has on another is a form of exertion of power. Pointing out a fact is not a form of exertion of power, even if the person was not familiar with the fact beforehand. Those who make reality disappear in discourse practices by characterizing knowledge as having no reference to reality forfeit the possibility of distinguishing. Exertion of power is always about asserting vested interests against other interests. Pointing out states of affairs might sometimes serve one’s own interests; sometimes it might not; in any event, strengthening a person’s power of judgment is eo ipso not a form of exertion of power. Quite the contrary. This is the central postulate of the Enlightenment, that is, the core of the Enlightenment project: Empowering humans to form their own judgment and to act on their own reasons bestows upon them authorship and ego-strength and enables them to come to their own judgments and be responsible agents instead of being driven by forces, dependent and ignorant. Enlightenment is not a form of exertion of power. The project of Enlightenment is never completed. It empowers humans instead of making them powerless. However, enlightenment presupposes that there is something which one can be enlightened about, that is to say: Without justified truth claims, the project of the Enlightenment becomes vacuous. If it loses its subject matter, the only thing that remains is the caricature of all discourse as a form of influencing others. The paradigm shifts from knowledge to power. We say that small children cannot take responsibility for their actions and what we mean by that is precisely the fact that their practice as a whole is not yet coherent, because it is not sufficiently affected by the deliberation of reasons. Small children are exposed to a multitude of impulses for actions that they can only coordinate insufficiently. One could say that they react to them in an individual manner, that they develop more or less rational strategies, which are devised as short-term measures and which often enough harm their own interests. It is the behavior of the akrates.

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The akrates is acting with only one specific goal in mind which was evoked by a sensory impression, and, without thinking too much about it, he utilizes all means available in order to reach this goal. The question whether obtaining this goal ends up facilitating or impeding him in reaching other goals that he is currently unaware of does not even enter his mind. It is this specific kind of irrationality that we observe with unrestrained and inconsiderate people who follow their respective momentary impulses, which is overcome only by the practice of having one’s own reasons for a lifeform that is consistent overall. This ought is not external to this practice, but rather inherent to the deliberation of reasons, even for those whose practice as a whole is not coherent yet. The reasons themselves are already aimed at ensuring coherence. We do not induce the philosophical idea of a coherent lifeform into the normative discourses of the everyday world; rather, it is constituted by our lifeworld practice of giving and taking reasons. This conception of responsibility differs markedly from the two philosophical positions most prevalent today: Humeanism, most dominant in the Anglo-Saxon debate, considers rationality to be a means to realize desires. If we take this literally, we must ask whether there can be responsible decisionmaking within Humeanism at all. Indeed, the contemporary decision-theoretical transformation of Humeanism reduces the individual agent to an optimization machine that optimizes any desires, preferences, represented by a utility function. My position also differs substantially from Kantianism. After all, for Kant and in contemporary Kantianism there are alternatives to choose from (real alternatives that make a difference). This is because the Categorical Imperative only determines the domain of impermissible maxims and thus allows, if interpreted plausibly, some leeway in the decision-making of the respective moral agent. The test of the Categorical Imperative, the test of whether certain maxims are suitable candidates for a universal rule of action, excludes certain maxims and allows others, and it is up to the person which maxims to adopt. This means that there is room for individuality, for particularities, for what characterizes the individual person. A decision that is made out of respect for the Moral Law usually still requires the agent to choose between genuine alternatives. In other words: In Kantianism, the individual is still a genuine agent, whereas in Humeanism, the individual vanishes in the optimization calculus. However, even Kant and contemporary Kantianism are, as it were, somewhat infected by Humeanism. In Kant

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this takes the form of “pragmatic imperatives” that determine the conditions that lead to an improvement of my own well-being. Kant retraces the increasingly hedonistic subjectivism that had characterized the transition from Greek Classics to Roman Imperialism: He reduces eudaimonia to subjective well-being. Indeed, divine retributive justice is supposed to guarantee that moral obligations do not entail disadvantages for the wellbeing of the person in the long run. The reverent tone of morality, the demand to act out of respect for the Moral Law, is ultimately tempered by the promise of divine retributive justice, with the consequence that pragmatic and categorical imperatives converge. It seems that Kant was unable to withstand the small-minded entrepreneurial spirit of the dawning Bourgeois Epoch. My own position is distinct from the Kantian position in two ways. Firstly, it is not only about moral reasons, but about reasons in general, and, secondly, agents are characterized by making certain reasons their own, by letting themselves be affected by reasons and thereby taking responsibility for their practice as a whole. Reasons cannot be divided into two categories, objective (moral) and subjective (pragmatic), but rather, they are all objective, albeit dependent on preceding decisions of the respective agent. The respective practice is an expression of the result of this deliberation. We not only depart from classical and contemporary Humeanism, but also from semi-Humeanism in Kant. Historically speaking, one could say that we return to Greek Stoicism, whose central thesis is that a reasonable, acting agent is characterized by (evaluative) approval. It is not the hormai, that is, the respective impulses or desires, that constitute rationality but the agent’s evaluative judgment (synkatathesis). It is the practice of weighing reasons: to develop an evaluative judgment that ultimately determines the concrete practice. The objectivity of reasons does not jeopardize the agent’s individuality because it is the agent who determines through evaluative judgment which of these reasons determine action. This comes close to the position of the founder of Stoicism, Zeno— as far as it can be re-traced. It is the evaluative endorsement that leads a reasonable agent to act— and not the mere satisfaction of momentary impulses and desires. Desires that correspond to the natural constitution of the human body deserve this endorsement and are therefore not irrational. Stoicism is not about cauterizing these desires, but about the agents being their own masters at every given moment. The ethical implications are obvious: the radical restriction of responsibility to that which is under our control, that is, our attitudes which the

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Stoics called virtues (aretai). Stoic virtues are precisely not what are considered Aristotelian virtues, namely behavioral dispositions that are formed through habit and nurture; rather, Stoic virtues are what is at our disposition, that is, that which we can freely decide over. In my transformation, authorship is determined by normative attitudes, the respective endorsement of specific reasons that we believe to have acknowledged, and the insight which results from acknowledging these reasons which provides the foundation of our practice. Our practice exhibits our evaluative endorsements. The respective momentary impulses that “seize” us are, for us as reasonable agents, external conditions of our practice, to which we respond as we would to current weather conditions; we decide based on how they are given. They are not the moventes of our behavior as reasonable agents. If they were, we would be weak-willed, potentially even behaving like non-agents. This slipping into an other-­directed order would threaten our status as an agent.

8.4  Authorship We can summarize the results of the preceding paragraphs as follows: Practical reason, freedom, and responsibility are all different aspects of authorship. Authorship in turn is founded on affection by reasons. The form of this affection by reasons, however, requires clarification. In the Humean tradition the solution seems simple and unambiguous: The deliberation of reasons, the role of rationality, is limited to choosing the means for goals which are ultimately dictated by the acting person’s desires. According to Hedonism, the final indubitable goal is the optimization of the subjective well-being of the agent. However, if (basal) desires are considered a given, in the sense that they are not themselves the result of the deliberation of reasons, then authorship within naturalistic Humeanism is limited to the choice of the respective optimization strategy. Human action as a whole is no longer an expression of practical reason, but rather the result of an optimization calculus whose utility function is prescribed by basal desires and whose result, except for the case of indifference, is predetermined before any deliberation sets in. If the agents deviate from this predetermined outcome, they are deemed to be irrational, albeit only in the weak sense of having failed as a ratiocinator: They miscalculated. At variance with the classical David Hume, the contemporary radically naturalist version of Humeanism dissolves this already reduced form of theoretical rationality in a causal theory of knowledge. If the respective

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empirical judgments are merely the result of a causal process and the deliberation of theoretical reasons is reconstructed as a causal process, what remains of the human agent is not even this atrophied form of the empirical power of judgment. Strictly speaking, this framework leaves no room for good reasons; there are only causal processes that can, in principle, be described by science. The problem we thus face is to come up with a better description of the active role that constitutes authorship. Apparently, the Greek Stoics faced a similar problem. They wanted to capture something philosophically that is in fact obvious, but Greek vernacular lacked the necessary words for expressing it. They reverted to creative word inventions and did not scare away from more and less dramatic reinterpretations of common expressions. The German or English translations of these Stoic neologisms are themselves interpretations that require justification, which means that they are a second-level interpretation of first-level philosophical terminology that itself requires interpretation since these first-level concepts are not covered by ordinary ancient Greek language. I will develop a terminological framework that will allow us to characterize authorship further, and which I believe converges for the most part with the insights of Greek Stoicism. However, whether or not it actually does is ultimately irrelevant for this systematic clarification. Stoic philosophy revolves around the question of what one can ascribe to agents as their own, that is, as that for which they are responsible. Stoic ethics is based on the distinction between ta eph hemin and ta adiaphora, that is, that which is up to us, those things that we can control and those that we cannot. In late Roman Stoicism, the scope of adiaphora is extended for educational purposes to cover more and more areas of human actions, until the only thing that remains is that which in German translations is usually referred to as Vorstellungen (impressions). Epictetus demands us to understand that it is not the things themselves that unsettle us, but rather the impressions we have of those things, and that it is up to us to detach ourselves from these impressions. It is not the death of a loved person itself but rather our impression of this death that makes us unhappy. It is not the feared calamity itself that terrifies us, but rather our impression of this disaster, and so on. One way of putting it would be to say that Roman Stoicism retreats into an inner citadel: It develops psychotherapeutic strategies that are intended to enable people to be indifferent toward everything they cannot influence in any way. Even the countless everyday exercises that Epictetus in his Encheiridion recommends, and that the Stoic emperor

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Marcus Aurelius undergoes, cannot cover up this fundamental problem of this now subjectivist stoic ethics of Roman times. Persons who only control their impressions and who are indifferent toward everything else may retain inner equanimity2 but, at the same time, they retreat to a position of irresponsible, general indifference. Late Roman Stoicism inches closer to Epicureanism. However, I believe that deeper philosophical insight of Stoicism lies in a different distinction, namely the characterization of the human agent as somebody who makes normative assessments and has preferences. In classical Stoicism, and as early as in its founder Zeno, having preferences and making normative assessments is an expression of a free (justified) decision. The main idea is that humans take a normative stand before they act a certain way, and this evaluative judgment entails a dissociation from one’s own inclinations (in Kantian terms), or from one’s desires. This dissociation does not lead to the extinction of inclinations or desires; they simply lose their practical relevance. Instead of aligning our practice with our desires, we follow our justified assessments. In some Stoic fragments, the expression krisis is used for this phenomenon, in others synkatathesis, and in still others hormai logikai.3 I am not claiming that these expressions are largely interchangeable, but they accentuate the same central phenomenon of human authorship within different categorizations. In the first version, reasonable practice is aligned with (theoretical) judgment or at least it is claimed that the former rests on the latter. The decision (or preference) is the expression of an evaluative judgment. The action-guiding decision is not the result of a causal process that leads from given desires (hormai) to a behavior that realizes them. The second version emphasizes the decisional character of attitudes. Attitudes are not something that we simply have; they are subject to our will, something that includes an act of approval. The third version finally traces authorship back to the ability to distinguish reasonable from unreasonable impulses and desires (hormai). We, in a sense, acknowledge our impulses, desires, inclinations, and our lust, just as we acknowledge other processes in the world, external or internal, that is, processes that refer to our own mental states or to the empirical world, and we form an attitude toward them. We distinguish those that withstand reasonable critique from those that do not, and we align our practice with the former. It is then the act of endorsement (synkatathesis) or the ability to distinguish reasonable from 2 3

 “Aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem,” Horatio, Odes II, 3.  Cf. asthenês kai pseudês synkatathesis from Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta I 67 and III 380.

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unreasonable hormai, it is the (evaluative, normative) judgment that constitutes authorship. This holds in general, not just for moral reasons out of respect of the Moral Law, as is the case in the reductionist Kantian view. As agents, as authors of our lives, we are inextricably linked to this power of judgment and ability to differentiate. We are always judging whether we want to or not. With every decision we make, we pass a judgment on whether or not something is valuable, whether or not it is reasonable to act accordingly. It is this power of judgment and decision-making that makes us the authors of our life and that makes up practical reason. We find the use of certain expressions of everyday language with altered meanings or the introduction of new terms in order to articulate what is meant already in Ancient practical philosophy. In today’s European languages, “reason” and “cause” are used more or less interchangeably, but a careful distinction between these terms is necessary in order to reach further clarification. It is only the conceptual distinction between reasons and causes that makes such a philosophical theory substantial. We have characterized authorship with recourse to an endorsement that is guided by reasons. We assume that this endorsement is practically relevant, at least in many cases. In other words: Without this endorsement, we would act differently. The making-one’s-own of normative attitudes guided by reasons plays a role for our practice. This endorsement, or (normative) attitude, is guided by deliberation and differs from a merely arbitrary act of the will in that it is the result of practical deliberation. However, there is no categorical difference here between theoretical and practical deliberation: In both cases, there is this act of endorsement, for example the acceptance of a theory after one has convinced oneself of the good arguments speaking in its favor. At this point, the gradualism defended throughout this book comes into tension with the understanding of human authorship. How do we characterize this act of endorsement, the making-one’s-own of a reason, the acceptance of a theory, the decision to do something, within a gradualist framework? Perhaps a metaphor might help: There is, as it were, always more or less; that is to say, accepting a theory does not mean that all doubts have been cast aside. The subjective probability for the truth of a theory is normally smaller than 1. We should not interpret the acceptance of a theory as subjective certitude by identifying the (epistemic) probability as equaling 1, but rather as a suspension of deliberation. In the case of decisions, this seems to me to be obvious: We only speak of a decision if further deliberation is suspended. As soon as we continue deliberating, we

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retract the decision, even if we reach the same decision at the end of a renewed deliberation. We can understand accepting a theory just the same: Accepting means to assume for now that the theory is true (even if one has doubts regarding its truth) and to refrain from further evaluation of pro and contra-arguments, to suspend further deliberation. Accepting a theory means bringing theoretical deliberation to a conclusion. In other words: I will reason in the following as if the theory were true. Or: My further theoretical deliberation does not call this theory into question. What is always implied is: for the time being. As soon as this theory becomes once again the object of theoretical deliberation, it is no longer accepted, even if my subjective probability for its correctness happens to remain unchanged.4 Authorship suspends deliberation; it requires the completion of theoretical and practical deliberation (even if only tentatively).5

8.5  The Status of Reasons As has become clear in the previous paragraphs, we are more and more leaving familiar territory. We consider “metaphysics” to be the endeavor to clarify the implicit conditions, the presuppositions, of our practice of judgment and of our practice in general. The further we depart from our familiar lifeworld, the more underdetermined this project becomes, that is, the more possible ways there are of determining the “metaphysics” of the human lifeform.6 The general underdetermination of theory by data finds its continuation in metaphysics in the form of the underdetermination of metaphysical theories by lifeworld practices of communication and 4  This compatibility of gradualism and authorship (author in the sense of the author of an action, but also in the sense of the author of a belief) can therefore be reconciled with Bayesian terminology; cf. Stephan Hartmann and Luc Bovens. 2014. Bayesian Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, and Andrés Perea. 2012. Epistemic Game Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, especially chapter 8. 5  The criticism of decisionism is therefore only justified in this way: Deliberation should play a sufficiently large role in private decisions, and especially in public, political decisions, to guarantee the coherence and comprehensibility of practice. But the decisionist is correct to emphasize that decisions require that deliberation comes to an end. 6  This became apparent in the continuing dissent with Charles Larmore, which could not be resolved despite an intensive exchange of ideas and although our philosophical views are otherwise surprisingly close: realism and anti-reductionism with regard to reasons, non-­ naturalism, pluralism of values…. For Larmore, reasons are causes, and their effect would remain a mystery if deliberations were not understood as causal phenomena; cf. Charles Larmore. 2012. Frankfurt Lectures. Research Centre Normative Orders. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

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interaction. The data here are not collected empirically or documented statistically; instead, they are limited to the lifeworld experience shared by participants in this practice. In contrast to, for example, the ethnologist or psychologist, the philosopher is, as it were, in the same boat with the object of the investigation.7 Authorship presupposes something that contemporary philosophy and science predominantly deny, namely the causal role of one’s own evaluative judgments. This is true for the theoretical and the practical realm. It is me who forms a belief myself; it is not the circumstances that, in the shape of causal processes, entail this belief as a consequence. It is me who decides in a certain way, not the circumstances that lead to this decision as the result of a causal process. This self-efficacy, as we want to call it, cannot be reasonably doubted. How can this be true, given that so many respectable scientists and philosophers deny it? As agents and communicators, we (have to) assume our own self-efficacy and the self-efficacy of other agents. To doubt this would amount to calling into question the entire practice of communication and interaction. I give the promise that I will come by tomorrow. The addressee of this promise assumes that I am capable of bringing about my coming tomorrow. He assumes the self-efficacy of the person that has entered into this obligation. I bring forward an argument, in the expectation that my conversation partner revises his previous belief. I have this expectation because I assume that my conversation partner has something that one might call theoretical freedom, that is, the ability to align his judgments with the better reasons he has recognized. If I do not have this expectation, I am implicitly denying the authorship of my interlocutor. In science fiction movies, such a denial might be linked to the fact that I consider the opposite person a humanoid robot whose reactions are governed by algorithms and his authorship only a simulation and not an actual practice. This does not mean that I give up the “subjective” 7  However, even psychological or ethnological research is hard to imagine without a high degree of shared experience (shared with regard to the experiences of the researcher and the research object). The absolutely external standpoint of a pure observer can only be assumed at the price of a loss of interpretational competency. For example, the ascription of actions, that is, the interpretation of behavior as an action, presupposes an interpretation that refers to mental and special intentional states. The purely behavioristic kind of description would deprive the cultural and social sciences, history, psychology, and even political science of its methodological basis. Cf. Peter Winch. 1958. The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy. London: Routledge 1958, and id. 1987. Trying to Make Sense. Oxford: Blackwell.

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perspective in favor of an “objective” perspective (in Strawson’s sense); it means that I depersonalize my counterpart. And in doing so I question the mutual recognition as agents, as authors of our life, as interaction partners, as interlocutors, as fellow human beings. What is pivotal here is not any feelings that might be involved but the mutual recognition as authors. This mutual recognition, however, entails certain normative expectations, mutual trust, and expectations. If this trust and these expectations are disappointed, we react with criticism and by discontinuing the interaction or at least by changing our mode of interaction. The mutual expectations then seem inadequate; the other side appears only partially accountable or not accountable at all, which is certainly compatible with a feeling of sympathy, empathy, or antipathy. In this understanding, the alternative is not taking a subjective as opposed to an objective stance regarding the human counterpart, but rather the full recognition as an author of her own life, or, to use a philosophically highly contested but more common expression, as a person. This ability to pass evaluative judgments is the condition for human authorship (the status of personhood). Our practice of communication and interaction presupposes this ability. We can hardly deny this ability— provided our analysis is correct. We cannot deny it as participants in the human practice of communication and interaction. Its denial would have to be limited to a separate realm that would have to be detached from lifeworld experience. I am convinced that it does not exist. Science is not an authority beyond all lifeworld practice that evaluates and interprets our lifeworld practice. It is an extension of it.8 Therefore the question is not whether we can take an objective standpoint, but rather how we can integrate the inevitable standpoint from the participant perspective into the scientific worldview. One aspect of this integration pertains to the status of reasons. The normative judgment that is constitutive for authorship is part of a structural context that makes the person recognizable. The deliberative practice, the evaluation of practical and theoretical reasons and their expression in actions, establishes an overall coherent life that represents the evaluations and beliefs of the respective person. Persons are more than an aspect of a comprehensive causal process whose exact description is up to the natural and social sciences; they are authors who intervene in and harness causal processes. It is precisely this characterization of authorship, 8

 P&L, part I.

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however, that is met by scientistically motivated skepticism. How can it be that persons intervene in causal events? In recent years, there have only been a few philosophers who have actually bit this radical bullet. Most of them have been philosophers influenced by Christianity who ascribe to persons the feature of being an unmoved mover, which originally was ascribed only to God.9 Precisely this conception, however, seems to stand in obvious conflict with the scientific worldview, according to which everything that happens has a cause and can be described by laws of nature. Even classical Newtonian physics, in contrast to its popular version that circulates among the interested public and also in philosophy, is clearly not deterministic. Classical physics presents a potentially all-encompassing model of natural processes, interpreted as point masses whose movement is determined by force fields. Taken together with Maxwell’s electrodynamic equations, the result is a closed physical worldview, which does not, against widespread opinion, allow the deduction of (deterministic) laws—not least for the simple reason that this model world contains singularities, that is, constellations, for which it is the case that the following state cannot be deduced from the description of the current state together with the laws of classical physics. This holds even if one drops the idealization of point masses, that is, masses that have no spatial expansion. Pointing out evidence for the indeterministic character of modern physics, classical and quantum physics alike, is often dismissed by pointing out that indeterminism of course does not guarantee human authorship or freedom of action or autonomy.10 This is of course true. Actually, however, it works the other way around: If there are good, independent reasons for human authorship, if in a universe without authorship there would be no reason, no freedom, and no responsibility, then we would not need physics as a scientific discipline in order to provide a foundation for human authorship, reason, freedom, and responsibility. Instead, it would only have to be shown that human authorship is compatible with the physical descriptions of the natural world. To put it differently: It would have to be shown that human authorship, or more specifically the causal efficacy of reasons, does not come into irreconcilable conflict with the physical description of natural facts, processes, and events. Such conflict would arise if the 9  Among them the analytic philosopher Roderick Chisholm; cf. Roderick Chisholm. 1982. The First Person: An Essay on Reference and Intentionality. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 10  Cf. James Jordan. 1969. Determinism’s Dilemma. The Review of Metaphysics 23: 48–66.

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popular deterministic interpretation of physics on the macro-level were correct. If moral reasons ultimately only expressed our own desires, then we would not need to worry about the practical efficacy of moral reasons. Scanlon, too, originally resorted to this move: He considers contractualism to be the continuation of the Categorical Imperative in that an action is morally unacceptable if there is no system (Scanlon offers a less strict interpretation of sets) of principles for which this action is permissible, provided that the rules fulfill the condition that nobody can reasonably reject them.11 According to Scanlon, the reasons that we invoke in order to justify an action correspond to the rules of such normative systems. But when it comes to the question why we feel motivated to follow moral reasons, Scanlon resorts to some basic desire, namely the desire to be moral. This move makes moral obligations dependent on the given or non-given desires of a person, which is obviously inadequate. We reproach a person for acting wrongly even if this person does not have the pronounced desire of acting morally, perhaps especially then. Moral obligations do not vanish just because there are no corresponding desires. Years later Scanlon presented a version of contractualism in his 1998 book What We Owe to Each Other, which is unchanged in its substantive criteria, but is no longer based on desire, but rather on reason, which he treats as a fundamental concept. Everybody understands what a reason is. We all agree that reasons tend to motivate us, lead us to certain beliefs, emotive attitudes, or actions. Reasons are normative and refer to empirical conditions. This does not call into question the supervenience of normative features on empirical features. However, when it comes to the question of the status of reasons, Scanlon seems to shy away from conflict with the naturalistic worldview. He, therefore, characterizes reasons as empirical states of affairs, which raises the question about the origin of their normativity and leaves causal relevance unexplained. The common feature of those who either call themselves or are called Kantian Constructivists is precisely that they seek to fulfill the universalistic expectations toward a normative ethics or political philosophy but want to exclude objective moral facts because these are incompatible with the naturalistic worldview. In the case of John 11  Cf. Thomas Scanlon. 1982. Contractualism and Utilitarianism. In Utilitarianism and Beyond, Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams, eds. 103–128. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Rawls, this is realized in the form of constructing shared rules, which represent the common sense of justice. We invent certain rules that seem obligatory to us because we perceive ourselves as part of a broader social cooperative relation. It is a characteristic of this framework that it fails to legitimize central duties of solidarity toward the most vulnerable, that is, those whose willingness to cooperate presents no benefit to those who are better off. To meet the contractualist framework, however, Scanlon, purports reasons as fundamental, meaning they are not the result of construction, but are presupposed as reasons shared by all. The notion of “a rule that cannot be reasonably rejected” presupposes the availability of normative practical reasons. One could therefore interpret Scanlonian contractualism as a kind of second-order normative ethics that integrates the various normative standpoints into a minimal-ethics. It is the factual acceptance of certain practical reasons that enables the contractualist justification of actions. The fundamental role of reasons changes nothing about the fact that the ethical justification itself has its foundation in an empirical fact, namely the shared acceptance or non-acceptance of reasons. According to the realist perspective that I argue for, the making-one’s-­ own of a reason, the acceptance or rejection of a reason, should be reconstructed as a normative judgment: I believe that something is or is not—in fact—a good reason. The fact of accepting the reason itself is not the ultimate source of legitimation; the existence of a reason is.12 As epistemic optimists, we assume that normative discourses, moral and political communicative practices, facilitate the identification of a factually good reason for an action. However, since we agree with Scanlon that reasons are normative, reasons are not part of the natural scientifically describable world. In this sense, they are not empirical. They can, however, be certainly called empirical in a different sense, namely insofar as moral experience plays an important role in having insights into reasons in the first place. If we perceive a specific action as outrageous, this is an expression of an evaluative judgment. The evaluative judgment does not have to be derivable from a moral codex or an ethical principle; it is not the case that this normative judgment presupposes the acceptance of a codex or of principles. But the 12  In this respect, there are strictly speaking no subjective reasons, just as there are no subjective facts. “Subjective reasons” means a person’s assumptions about what reasons there are. However, we have also repeatedly made use of this lax, naturalized way of speaking in this passage, even in the formulation “giving reasons and taking reasons”

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rejection of an action or a way of acting as immoral always has the character of a judgment, of a normative belief: I believe that this action is wrong, even if I cannot give a rule that can be applied to this action. In the 1980s, the neo-pragmatist Morton White13 proposed the analogy between moral feelings as data for ethical theory building and sensory experience. Quine had objected to this, saying that while observations might not be completely independent from theories and concepts, they have a certain independence, which cannot be said of moral feelings, since these result from moral codices. This seems to me to be a mistake in two respects. First, it is simply wrong to think that moral feelings depend on endorsing a moral codex, whatever such a moral codex might be. Also, John Rawls’ reference to comprehensive moral doctrines that the political order should be compatible with a liberal democracy is problematic. Almost nobody will be able to describe a codex that guides their moral feelings. Above all, however, it seems to me that the empiricist Quine and the pragmatist White exhibit a similar misunderstanding: Epistemic systems are systems of beliefs, normative and descriptive. Neither feelings nor sensory stimuli are part of epistemic systems. Only the normative beliefs that are connected to moral feelings in one way or another are part of the epistemic system. By analogy: The beliefs that are close to observation associated with sensory stimuli, beliefs that interpret these sensory experiences, form an important justificatory benchmark for empirical theories. Here, the analogy is obvious: If I have a moral feeling, for instance, that a certain practice is revolting, then the normative judgment that this practice is morally unacceptable is an interpretation of this moral feeling. However, it can be the case that the sensory stimuli and beliefs that are close to experience diverge just as the moral feelings in the face of a concrete action and its moral assessment do. This is typically the case if I have reasons to mistrust my senses or my moral feelings. Our sensory perception makes a stick immersed into water at an angle appear bent when viewed from the side. This sensory impression is not corrected even if I have convinced myself that the stick is not actually bent, but my empirical judgment considers that the stick is not actually bent at the interface between water and air when submerged under water at various positions. The belief that is distilled from other observations is then reflected in individual cases, that 13  Cf. Morton White. 1983. What Is and What Ought to be Done. Oxford: Oxford University Press; and id. 2009. A Philosophy of Culture: The Scope of Holistic Pragmatism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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is, I do not integrate the sensory impression of the stick being bent into my epistemic system as a belief that the stick is actually bent. Think of persons who may still associate homosexual acts with feelings of disgust because of their traditional upbringing, but also have become convinced that discrimination against homosexuals is an injustice and consequently don’t integrate their revulsion into their epistemic system in the form of a negative moral evaluative judgment. We could say: The deliberation of reasons plays an active role in that it blocks the transformation of disgust into normative judgment. In the best case, disgust would disappear then, too—as a result of deliberating reasons. The causal role of deliberation becomes manifest in reasonable beings letting themselves be affected by reasons by virtue of their theoretical, practical, and emotive ability to generate insights. Reasons are entities that do not belong to the physical inventory of the world, nor are they epistemically constituted; they are real in the following sense: Reasons can be recognized, or not recognized. The fact that reasons are sometimes not recognized does not mean that they do not exist. It is in this sense that reasons are objective and non-epistemic, normative (theoretical, practical, and normative reasons always speak for something), and inferential, that is, they establish a connection between epistemic conditions and a normative assessment (this is equally true for theoretical, practical, and emotive reasons). The metaphysical doubts concern the fact that we seem to be forced to enrich ontology by “queer”14 objects. Since the world obviously does not only consist of medium-sized, solid objects that are describable by the means of folk physics, but also of beings that have beliefs and feelings, who think about the world, about how it is and how it ought to be, we have to accept that, next to objects that can be described by the means of the natural sciences (1), there are objects for which we use not only the language of mental states (2), but also the language of inferences, of reasons (3). It would be a form of philosophical hybris if we conceded these three types of language to be indispensable in order to grasp the world, while at the same time denying that the entities these languages refer to actually exist. They are presupposed by our practice of communication and interaction. A comprehensive skepticism regarding these three kinds of objects could not even be articulated without acknowledging that which one was skeptical about. 14  Cf. John Mackie. 1990. Ethics. Inventing Right and Wrong. London: Penguin Books, chapter 1.

Appendix

In the Appendix, I specify some concepts and arguments of this book using formal means.

Appendix A: Ramsey Compatibility1 Let X be a set of alternatives that are ranked by the preferences of a rational person. The coherence theory of practical rationality requires this ranking to form an ordering R on X, that is, that the (weak2) preferences of the rational person are reflexive, complete, and transitive. While reflexivity is trivial for (weak) preferences (for any alternative is at least as good as itself), empirical studies show that in many cases, completeness, and transitivity are not given. The condition of completeness requires that a rational person has a preference for arbitrary alternatives x, y, such that the person has either a (weak) preference for x over y or a (weak) preference for y over x. The condition of transitivity requires that a rational person who has a weak preference for x over y and y over z also has a weak preference for x over z. While one can interpret the condition of reflexivity as a  This text is based on my article “Rational Choice – Extensions and Revisions” (RatC).  “Weak” here stands for “at least as good as—from the point of view of the person acting”; or to put it more neutrally: The person has a weak preference for a over b, exactly when they prefer a over b or are indifferent between a and b. 1 2

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6

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postulate of the meaning of the term “preference,” it seems reasonable to interpret the conditions of completeness and transitivity as genuine rationality postulates. It would thus be conceptually possible for a person to have intransitive or incomplete preferences. However, the three above-mentioned (ordering) conditions are insufficient to shift from the qualitative concept of preference to the quantitative concept of utility. To do so it is necessary to extend the set of alternatives X probabilistically to X*. The preferences of a person are thus not only defined for the alternatives of the set X, but also for arbitrary probability distributions (lotteries) on X. Now, it is also necessary that the preferences of a rational person are reflexive, complete, and transitive on the probabilistically extended set of alternatives X*. In addition, the following four coherence axioms are postulated: Reduction  A rational person is indifferent between two probability distributions over X, if one can be transformed into the other according to the probability calculus. Substitution  If a rational person is indifferent between a probability distribution x* and a certain alternative x of X, then x* and x are interchangeable in any given context without the preferences changing. Continuity  If xa is the best and xz the worst alternative in X, then for each alternative x of X, there is a probability p for xa such that the rational person is indifferent between the probability distribution [p xa & (1 − p) xz] and x. Monotonicity  Out of two probability distributions between x and y, the rational person prefers the one that has the higher probability for the better alternative.3

3  In the literature there are different axiomatizations of the utility theorem: cf. Ramsey, Frank P. 1931. Theories. In The Foundations of Mathematics, 212–236. London: Routledge; von Neumann, John and Oskar Morgenstern. 1944. Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Marschak (1950); Luce, R.  Duncan and Howard Raiffa. 1989. Games and Decisions. Introduction and Critical Survey. New  York: Dover Publications. Here we present only the essential postulates, based on Luce and Raiffa’s chapter 2, §5: An Axiomatic Treatment of Utility.

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None of these axioms refer to the content of the specific motivations of the agent, nor do any of them make assumptions about what is subjectively valuable for the individual in question. The plausibility of these axioms is not only independent of any determination of the content, such as economic or egoistic goals, but also independent of whether rational actions optimize subjective goals of the acting individual. There seems to be no logical connection between the initial theory of instrumental egoism and the coherence theory of practical rationality. Now, it can be proven that a preference relation R, which fulfills the coherence axioms listed above, can be represented by a real-valued function: There is a real-valued function u over X*, which is unique up to increasing linear transformations and for which applies: ∀ x, y ∈ X*: u(x) ≥ u(y) ⇔ x R y. This so-called utility theorem is initially nothing more than an innocuous metrization theorem, which transforms the qualitative concept of preference into a quantitative concept, namely a real-valued function u. The representability of preferences by a real-valued function is a necessary and sufficient condition for the coherence axioms to be fulfilled by a given preference relation R. Initially, we have no reason to assume that this function u has anything to do with the personal interests of the individual, as was assumed by traditional economic theory. Nor do we have any reason to suspect (more generally) that the function represents or has anything to do with the subjective goals of the individual (consequentialist interpretation). Thus far we have left it open what an individual’s preferences are, or how they can be empirically determined. The so-called revealed preference model of rational decision theory identifies actions with the manifest preference for certain elements of X* (in light of the existing options for action). If one understands X to refer to a set of states or possible worlds, then it makes sense to interpret u over X as a representation of the subjective evaluation of world states and u over X*\X as expected value, since it can be shown that u is linear with respect to the probability distribution, that is, that the following applies:

 

u x   p u  x   1  p  u  x   , where x    p  & 1  p  x  .

The metrization theorem can be derived in a logically deductive manner from the axioms for which we provided a non-formal description of their essential content above. Therefore, anyone who regards the axioms

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of coherence as adequate conditions for the preferences of a rational individual must also acknowledge that the decision-making behavior of a rational person maximizes the so constituted real-valued function u (“utility function”) over X (or X*). The consequentialist interpretation of the utility theorem states that rational individuals evaluate states of affairs and decide such that these states of affairs as consequences of actions are optimized. This evaluation need not be explicit, it can also be implicitly expressed by the individual’s decision-making behavior. The consequentialist interpretation claims further that rational individuals choose their actions in such a way that they maximize the expected value of this evaluation of states under the assignment of the probability distribution (over states of affairs) constituted by the action. The additional assumption that this maximization of the expectation value is the motive for action for rational individuals completes the transition from a coherence theory of practical rationality to a consequentialist theory. From the original theory that individuals are rational if their preferences are coherent, another theory has emerged, which claims that individuals are rational if they maximize the expected value of their subjective assessment of states of the world. However, this transition is not logically necessary as we will see. Let us imagine an ideal Kantian agent who orientates her preferences for action—at least insofar as they pertain to moral and not pragmatic questions—such that they comply with the Moral Law (the Categorical Imperative). The question then is: Can the preferences of Kantian agents comply with the postulates of the utility theorem? If X is the set of world states and the preferences about actions are identified with preferences about the probability distributions assigned to the actions, then the decision behavior of the Kantian agent is not in accordance with postulates of the utility theorem. This becomes clear in the following: An action h and an action h′ can entail the same probability distribution over world states and yet, according to the Categorical Imperative, h may be allowed and h′ prohibited. The ranking of an action within the preference relation of the Kantian agent is not solely determined on the basis of the probability distributions over consequences (or over world states) induced by the actions, but also on the basis of conformity or defectiveness to a specific deontological criterion (the Categorical Imperative).

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249

However, this seeming incompatibility is eliminated if we reinterpret the set of alternatives, between which the Kantian agent chooses. The alternatives to be ordered concern options for action. In a first step, one can identify X with a set of options for action and X* with lotteries over such options: Depending on the circumstances, I perform an action h or an action h′ or, if another circumstance occurs, an action h″, and so on. The preferences of the Kantian agent over an alternative set X* interpreted this way should be coherently representable by a simultaneous combination of corresponding belief and desirability functions. However, this approach excludes the transition from the coherence model to the optimization model. The two decisive steps of this transition are not realizable: Firstly, the actions cannot be assigned to probability distributions over states of the world in the usual sense, and secondly, u—understood here as the quantitative representation of the action preferences—cannot be interpreted as a representation of the motives for action. The assignment of quantitative values to the elements of X* represents only the coherent preference relation over actions and does not represent the subjective desirability of states of affairs. A strictly coherentist interpretation of the postulates of the utility theorem allows us to assign a subjective value function, which is optimized by the agency of a rational deontological (Kantian) agent. The extension of the scope of the rational choice model from subjectivist consequentialism to coherence theory involves a fundamental revision of our understanding of practical rationality. The consequentialist and coherentist conceptions of practical rationality are logically independent of each other. Nobody who accepts the coherence postulates of the utility theorem as conditions of rationality must subscribe to consequentialism as well.

Appendix B: Prisoner’s Dilemma4

A

C D

B C 3/3 4/1

D 1/4 2/2

A’s preferences: DC > CC > DD > CD B’s preferences: CD > CC > DD > DC

4  The prisoner’s dilemma plays an important role in Sects. 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5 and was also referred to in Sects. 4.11 and 5.12.

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Appendix C: Saint’s Dilemma5 I his book Unselfishness,6 Nicholas Rescher argues that altruistic behavior can lead to suboptimal outcomes for all parties involved. Consider the following situation:

X

Y y1 −100/−100 +6/−101

x1 x2

y2 −101/+6 +5/+5

By switching the payoffs of X and Y, the following “selflessly benevolent” transform of the situation is obtained:

X

Y y1 −100/−100 −101/+6

x1 x2

y2 +6/−101 +5/+5

The game-theoretic solution for the altruists here is x1y1; thus, in cases like this, altruism produces the least favorable result overall.

Appendix D: Battle of the Sexes7

A

a1 a2

B b1 2/1 0/0

b2 0/0 1/2

A’s preferences: a1b1 > a2b2 > a1b2 ~ a2b1 B’s preferences: a2b2 > a1b1 > a1b2 ~ a2b1

Appendix E: The Ultimatum Game8 The structure of this interaction is quickly explained: The first person divides a good, say, one hundred dollars, arbitrarily between herself and another person. For simplicity’s sake, let us assume the distribution to be  The saint’s dilemma is mentioned in Sect. 3.3.  Rescher (1975), chapter 3, 41–43. 7  The battle of the sexes is mentioned in Sects. 3.5 and 4.2. 8  The ultimatum game plays an important role in Chap. 5 “Phenomenology of Structural Rationality,” especially in Sect. 5.9. 5 6

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251

in ten-dollar increments. Therefore, they have exactly eleven possibilities: one hundred to zero, ninety to ten, eighty to twenty, and so on. They then offer their distribution to the second player. If the second player accepts, both receive the share outlined by the first player. If the second player does not accept, neither of them receives anything. If the first player intends one hundred euros for themselves and zero for the second player, the latter will refuse, and both will receive nothing. If, on the other hand, the first player distributes ninety to herself and ten to the second player, then if rational choice orthodoxy was right, it would be rational for the second player to accept this distribution, since receiving ten dollar is better than zero. In fact, however, many people reject such an offer because they consider it unfair. The ultimatum game has undergone intensive empirical testing in different versions with different payoff options and the findings are—largely across cultures—unambiguous: Most people base their decisions not only on their own interests (here the optimization of monetary payoffs), but also on justice. That which is regarded as irrational for rational choice orthodoxy (the rejection of an offer in the ultimatum game) can very well be seen as rational within the framework of our structural theory of rationality. Structural rationality is characterized by the fact that the individual person chooses her action in such a way that it can be regarded as part of an (interpersonal or intrapersonal) structure that is desired by this person. This motive for action forms the paradigmatic core of the theory of structural rationality: One acts in such a way that one’s own action can be interpreted as a contribution to a desirable common practice in certain interaction situations.

Appendix F: Preference Interdependence9 Preference interdependence exists when individuals make their preferences dependent on the preferences of others. Let us assume that a couple, A and B, are traveling together. One day the question arises whether to either visit the National Museum in Naples together (p1) or go to a beach on the nearby costa amalfitana (p2). There are two collective choices for the couple: p1 > p2 or p2 > p1. Let us assume that the liaison is so young that we do not have to add p3 (A to the beach, B to the museum) and p4 (A to the museum, B to the beach) to the alternative set P. If the love is great, the following can happen: A would rather go to the museum with B if B 9

 Preference interdependence plays a role in Sect. 6.2, Impartiality.

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wants to go to the museum and vice versa: A would rather go to the beach if B wants to go to the beach. Symmetrically this applies to B. This situation can formally be described as follows: 1. p1 >2 p2 ⇒ p1>1p2 2. p2 >2 p1 ⇒ p2>1p1 3. p1 >1 p2 ⇒ p1>2p2 4. p2 >1 p1 ⇒ p2>2p1 This case is what we call a circular determination of preferences. Generalized to a group of persons K, K is {Ri| i ∈ K0}, K0 ⊂ K, k0 =  # K0 a set of circularly determined preference relations exactly when: U 0  U : S  Bij. 1,2,,k0  ,K 0  :





T  Bij. 1,2,,k0  ,U 0  U 0  :



 v  1,2,,k  1 : T  v   R  T  v  1  R  ^ T k   R  T 1  RS1 0 0 S v  S  v 1 S  k0   



At the end of the holiday, when the feeling of love has already cooled down considerably and periods of mutual dislike begin to occur, a similar situation may arise in Rome: Here again, the question arises whether the couple should go to Ostia today (p1) or visit the Sistine Chapel (p2). Now A wants to go to Ostia just if B prefers to visit the Sistine Chapel. On the other hand, A is particularly interested in the Sistine Chapel exactly when B wants to go to Ostia. If B’s preferences are symmetrically dependent on A’s preferences, the following preference interdependence results: 5. p1 >2 p2 ⇒ p2>1p1 6. p2 >2 p1 ⇒ p1>1p2 7. p1 >1 p2 ⇒ p2>2p1 8. p2 >1 p1 ⇒ p1>2p2 Depending on the initial mutual assessment of the preferences, they remain stable but in opposition to each other. If, on the other hand, the dependence of the preferences of B has not changed since the beginning of the holiday; that is, if (3), (4), (5), and (6)

 Appendix 

253

apply, the preference structure is logically contradictory. Accordingly, we are here talking about preferences that are determined by contradictions. {Ri | i ∈ K0} is a set of contradictorily determined preference relations exactly when: U 0  U : S  Bij. 1,2,,k0  ,K 0  :



T  Bij. 1,2,,k0  ,U 0  U 0  :







 v  1,2,,k  1 : T  v   R  T  v  1  R  ^ T k   R ~ T 1  RS1 0 0 S v  S  v 1 S  k0  

Preference interdependence can have different causes: affection, dislike, sense of responsibility, moral beliefs, and so on. Irrespective of the possible causes and reasons, the question arises as to what consequences mutual interdependence may have. The following may look like a straightforward hypothesis: If individuals make their subjective evaluations of states depend on the subjective evaluations (of this or other states) of other persons, there is in each case an equilibrium point in which this mutual dependence no longer leads to a change in their evaluations. However, this hypothesis is wrong.10 States u ∈ U are worlds that are possible for us. Two possible worlds u, u′ are already different if in u a person A has one preference and in u′ they have another preference. U is an n-tuple of propositions. Let u be u = ; that is, characteristics of u are summed up in z. If u′ = , then R1 ≠ R2 ⇒ u ≠ u′. The above example can thus be represented in the following way: 1.  , 2p1 >  >  ∈ R1 2.  , 2p1 >  >  ∈ R1 3.  , 1p1 >  >  ∈ R2 4.  , 1p1 >  >  ∈ R2 Here we are referring to propositions. However, the actual situation could only be described very roughly in this manner, because one can assume that u1 ∈ p1, u2 ∈ p2 does not apply to any u1 >  2 u2 ⇒ u1 >  1 u2, and so on.  See the mathematical proof in Nida-Rümelin et al. (1996).

10

254 

Appendix

Let us, therefore, imagine that the world was to consist of only two possible states: “both on the beach” and “both in the museum.” If the conditions for a cardinal representation of preference relations are met, we can treat interpersonal preference interdependence as utility interdependence. However, the conditional utility functions corresponding to the conditional preference relations do not refer to elements from U. It is useful to think of splitting the elements of the set of possible worlds U into a portion that indicates the utility values and a portion that contains all information apart from the preference relations and hence utility values. In the following, the usual symbols describing states z1, z2 exclusively indicate this second portion. Z is the set of states in this sense. We shall also call Z the set of anax states (“states without evaluations”). States in the broader sense, that is, including subjective evaluations, we shall continue to call u. U is the corresponding set of alternatives. The set of states Z can thus be understood as a set of ordered pairs. The symbol for the respective state of Z stands in the first place of the set and in the second place stands an n-tuple, n: = #K, of utility values of this state: U  { z1 ,  v1  z1  , v2  z1  ,, vn  z1  



 z2 ,  v1  z2  , v2  z2  ,, vn  z2     zk ,  v1  zk  , v2  zk  ,, vn  zk  }



Z  z1 ,z2 ,,zk  , # Z  k

Previously, the domain of the individual evaluation functions was ui, that is, the set of possible worlds U. This can stay just the same: There are unconditional subjective evaluation functions ui over U and conditional subjective evaluation functions vi over Z. The cardinalizability of vi presupposes corresponding preferences over lotteries of Z, but since lotteries of Z are not made to belong to Z itself, Z can remain finite.11

11  Cardinal representability presupposes that, in addition to vi over Z, there is also a subjective evaluation function ui over the lotteries of Z with certain properties, and that the relationship between vi and ui is determined by Bayesian rule.

 Appendix 

255

In our two-person-two-states-world—the two states are now elements of Z, no longer of U—there are 2 × 22 = 8 possible states of u in U:



U  { z1 , z1 1 z2 , z1 2 z2 ,  z1 , z1 1 z2 , z1 2 z2 ,  z2 , z1 1 z2 , z1  2 z2 ,  z2 , z1 1 z2 , z1 2 z2 ,

 z1 , z1 1 z2 , z1 2 z2 ,  z1 , z1 1 z2 , z1 2 z2 ,  z2 , z1 1 z2 , z1  2 z2 ,  z2 , z1 1 z2 , z1 2 z2 }



U1  { z1 , z1 2 z2 ,  z1 , z1 2 z2 ,  z2 , z1 2 z2 ,  z2 , z1 2 z2 }





U 2  { z1 , z1 1 z2 ,  z1 , z1 1 z2 ,  z2 , z1 1 z2 ,  z2 , z1 1 z2 }





The conditional preference relations vi of the individuals pertain to the interpersonally same set Z. Their unconditional preference relations ui, however, are defined on a set of possible worlds Ui, which differ slightly from U: one’s own preferences are not included in u ∈ Ui. The decision-theoretical conceptual system introduced thus far must therefore, for the time being, be extended as follows: 1. The set of anax states Z. 2. Each personi has a (conditional) evaluation function vi with the domain Z. Let Ni be the set of possible individual evaluation functions vi from Z in ℝ. 3. The non-conditional evaluation function ui has as domain Ui = Z × Ni, where N i  N 1  N 2  N i 1 i 1  N # K .



4. U  Z   i 1N i . #K

In the two-person case the following results: Ul = Z × N2; U2 = Z × N1; u1: u ∈ U1, u → x ∈ ℝ; u2: u ∈ U2, u → x ∈ ℝ; vl: z ∈ Z, z → x ∈ ℝ; v2: z ∈ Z, z → x ∈ ℝ.

256 

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It is important to note that if there is a mutual interdependence of preferences, it does not make sense to refer back to the actual preferences. For these are dependent on the interpersonal estimation of utility, and thus the “actual” preferences depend on the given state of the (iterated) information.12 One example suffices to make this more concrete. We choose a modern form of utilitarianism, the ethical Bayesianism developed by Harsanyi.13 In contrast to almost all other forms of utilitarianism, Ethical Bayesianism is a subjectivist theory. The aggregation is based on the actual preferences of the individuals. The morally required preferences are determined by means of a special method of implicit comparisons of valuation, which is of no further interest here. For each individual, a cardinal utility function vi results from their preference relation Ri over Z, the set of states, (and from their coherent preferences over the set of lotteries of Z). Ethical Bayesianism determines the individual morally required preferences on the basis of this subjective cardinal evaluation function (which are here fully comparable on an interpersonal level) through the following normative recommendation of interdependence (*):  z1 , z2  Ri   k 1vk  z1    k 1vk  z2  #K



#K



Depending on the initial mutual assessment of the subjective evaluation, preferences Ri result in a society of utilitarians without akrasia.14 While these do not fulfill (*) in an objective sense, they may nonetheless fulfill (*) in a subjective sense, that is, depending on the subjective evaluation. The individual subjective consequences of evaluation that result from this type of preference interdependence have an interpersonally identical  Cf. D&E, 94ff and 281–286.  Cf. Harsanyi, John C. 1955. Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparison. Journal of Political Economy 63: 309–321. Stegmüller suggested that the term “ethical Bayesianism” be used for this form of utilitarianism; cf. Stegmüller, Wolfgang. 1977. On the Interrelations between Ethics and other Fields of Philosophy and Science. Erkenntnis 11: 55–80. 14  Akrasia here is meant here in contrast to sophrosyne rather than enkrateia. The former is present if someone is convinced that better reasons speak for action a than for action a′, however, he still deliberately and consciously (and not by mistake or lack of information) decides for a′. Cf. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, Book 7. 12 13

 Appendix 

257

threshold value. This threshold value, however, depends exclusively on the initial assessments, which makes them inadequate as a required moral evaluation. The individual morally required evaluation function is determined by everyone’s (including one’s own) evaluation functions. In this respect, the individual evaluation function has a twofold role: firstly, as a component of the (subjectivist) extra-moral empirical basis for determining what is morally required, and, secondly, as the object of moral evaluation. For a hedonistic utilitarian the extra-moral basis of the moral preferences consists of the pleasure structure of society—if you want to call it that: If it is known, from every condition z and z′ of Z, what the change of pleasure in the transition from z to z′ would mean for each individual person, then it can be determined which preferences the persons should have over Z.15 We can also represent the relation z brings i more pleasure than z′ as one that is cardinalizable up to a completely comparable, standardized numerical evaluation function wi, such that the morally required preferences can #K 1 w  z , which is be summarized in the evaluation function m  z    i 1 i #K the same for everybody.

Eudemonistic utilitarianism could be reconstructed along similar lines. It would probably be somewhat more difficult to render the Moorean version of an “ideal” and pluralistic utilitarianism compatible with eudemonistic utilitarianism.16 Nonetheless, one thing is common to non-subjectivist versions of utilitarianism: They recognize a distinct separation between the extra-moral and the moral judgment, which is lost again in the models of homo oeconomicus. The consequence of this is that ethical Bayesianism can no longer offer recommendations for action, or determine ethical preferences, when there is complete information of everybody and a complete lack of akrasia problems. In other words: It can no longer offer recommendations in the ideal case of complete information and no akrasia. Yet it is precisely this ideal 15  One could object that utilitarian theories are about actions or in the rule-utilitarian version about rules of action, not state preferences. Harsanyi’s version of utilitarianism seeks the connection to rational decision theory and therefore assigns the determination of the evaluation function (ethical utility function) to ethical theory, while the criterion of rational behavior may determine the morally required action by means of a maximization of the expected value. 16  For a theory on ideal utilitarianism, see Moore, George E. 1903. Principia Ethica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, especially chapter 6.

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case, which should make it possible to determine the content of a normative theory, since it is free of all “pragmatic” restrictions due to a lack of knowledge and character weakness. Thus, the preference interdependence of ethical Bayesianism leads to aporia. This result can be generalized as follows: Preferences based on or influenced by normative judgments cannot be the basis of a normative principle of interest aggregation without them resulting in an evaluation circle.

Appendix G: The Smoking Example17 Let us assume that the reasonable smoker considers quitting smoking because of the expected positive effects on health. Now, the rationality of the decision to quit or continue smoking depends on whether the person will actually be able to quit smoking long term or whether they will relapse into smoking. The following graph shows the possible empirical relations between smoking and health over time:

(b)

Health

(c)

(b’)

(c’) (a)

x

x’

y y’ Time

(a): Development of health with ongoing smoking x: Beginning of the smoke-free state, (b): Development of health, if this is maintained 17  The decision-making situation of a smoker was cited in Chap. 5 to illustrate the phenomenology of structural rationality, especially the role of self-control.

 Appendix 

259

x′: Beginning of the smoke-free state, (b′): Development of health, if this is maintained y: Starting to smoke again, (c): Development of health, if this is maintained y′: Starting to smoke again, (c′): Development of health, if this is maintained Lines (a), (b, b′), and (c, c′) each describe the expected health of the reasonable smoker as a function of the time when a decision is made at time x: In case (a), the smoker decides that he does not want to forego the pleasure of smoking in the future and therefore continue to smoke consistently. His health thus deteriorates continuously over the course of time. In cases (b) and (b′), however, the smoker decides to quit smoking with immediate effect. This leads to a short-term deterioration of his health. The decisive factor now is whether or not the smoker can maintain his decision to quit. If the smoker manages to quit smoking long term, his health will improve significantly (as shown in (b, b′)). However, if he has a relapse at time y or y′ and starts smoking again, his health will change according to c and c′. If one examines the decision to quit smoking pointwise, for example on a day-to-day basis, then the decision to quit smoking leads to a deterioration of one’s health and is therefore irrational. Only from a structural, diachronic perspective does this decision—as part of the structural decision to quit smoking—become rational (as shown in (a) and (a′)). If, however, the decision to quit smoking remains short-term (i.e., it is not repeated frequently enough without interruption; cf. (c′)), then the individual decisions are not embedded in a structurally rational agency and are therefore irrational. Even with a longer interruption as in (c), the positive effect on the health is equalized in the long term: (c) approaches (a) asymptotically (from above). Whether it actually works this way or not, is not essential here. In any case, this is a plausible possibility and it illustrates the irrationality of pointwise optimization: Continued smoking is rational under these conditions, the decision to quit smoking only becomes rational upon structural consideration. The structurally rational decision to quit smoking, however, is realized by a combination of numerous individual decisions (not to resume smoking in this moment, and the next …). The structurally rational decision is not realized by a causally effective self-binding, but by willpower.

260 

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Appendix H: Equality and Utility18 Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt suggest considering the empirically ascertainable preference for more even distributions in the form of a modification of the individual utility functions. This would then have the following form:

Ui  x   xi   i  x j  xi ,0   i  xi  x j ,0 , i  j



Interestingly,19 Ernst Fehr and Klaus Schmidt assume in their theory that individuals have an aversion to unequal distributions not only when they are disadvantaged by it, but also when they profit from it. However, they also assumed that the individuals suffer to a greater extent from injustice that disadvantages them (“that in general, subjects suffer more from inequity that is to their material disadvantage, than from inequity that is to their material advantage,” p. 274). For this reason, different weighting factors are chosen for these two cases (α and β) and β is smaller than α. The inequality measure is defined as the sum of the two factors. The utility function is assumed to be identical with the monetary payoffs (xi, xj), if there is no inequality aversion, which conceals the assumption of decreasing marginal utility, which is common in economics and confirmed by numerous empirical findings. The aversion to inequality is interpreted as an egoistically motivated avoidance of suffering, the normative judgment that inequality should be avoided is thus transformed into a strategy to avoid suffering. In the first correction term, all differences are counted that exist between the monetary payoffs of another person and the agent. However, in this term, only the higher payoffs are counted regarding their difference to the payoff to the agent. In the second correction term, only the lower payoffs are counted. Individuals who, in practice, want to contribute to minimizing inequalities in general, not just inequalities with respect to their own income, cannot be represented in this model. The same applies to non-linear egalitarianism, according to which inequalities are not weighted proportionally to the arithmetic difference, but rather to the square of this difference for instance. This model also fails to be able to represent the Rawlsian 18  In Sect. 5.8, I discussed the treatment of fairness in behavioral economics; this appendix adds some formal details. 19  Cf. Fehr and Schmidt (2011).

 Appendix 

261

difference principle, which was mentioned in the section on fairness (Sect. 5.7). The fact that Fehr and Schmidt’s theory allows a variety of empirical findings to be systematized should not tempt us to consider this theory to be empirically confirmed. The theory introduces two weighting factors α and β that have yet to be determined, which, considering the manageable precision of the empirical economic findings, allow the theory to be adapted to the data. The empirical content is limited to the thesis that people who benefit from inequality have a lower inequality aversion than those who are put at a disadvantage due to inequality. This thesis is examined by comparing the variables α and β: This thesis holds true only if β is smaller than α in the modeling of the empirical data. I want to point out that my criticism is not directed against an attempt at mathematical systematization, but against a normatively inadequate and psychologically naive interpretation of concrete individual behavioral patterns. I have selected this theory, not because it is particularly absurd, but because it connects the positive quality of mathematical elegance and simplicity with the negative quality of a drastic misinterpretation of human motives for action quite characteristically.

List of Sigla: Publications by the Author

AngE 2005. Handbuch Angewandte Ethik: Die Bereichsethiken und ihre philosophische Begründung [Handbook of Applied Ethics]. Stuttgart: Kröner. D&E 2005. Decision Theory and Ethics. Munich: Utz. EcR 1997. Economic Rationality and Practical Reason. Dordrecht: Kluwer. EpistR 2010. Reasons Against Naturalizing Epistemic Reasons. In Causality, Meaningful Complexity and Embodied Cognition, ed. A. Carsetti, 203–210. New York: Springer. HandBook 2021. Structural Rationality. In Handbook of Rationality, ed. Markus Knauff and Wolfgang Spohn, 625–632. Cambridge/Mass: MIT Press. HumB 2013. Philosophie einer humanen Bildung [Philosophy of a Humane Education]. Hamburg: Körber. HumR 2016. Humanistische Reflexionen [Humanistic Reflections]. Berlin: Suhrkamp. KdK 1995. Kritik des Konsequentialismus. [Critique of Consequentialism]. Munich: Oldenburg. LkE 2015. Logik kollektiver Entscheidungen [Logic of Collective Decisions] (together with Lucian Kern). Berlin: De Gruyter. Metapref 1991. Practical Reason or Metapreferences. An Undogmatic Defense of Kantian Morality. Theory and Decision: 133–162. OPT 2011. Die Optimierungsfalle: Philosophie einer humanen Ökonomie. Munich: Irisiana. P&L 2009. Philosophie und Lebensform [Philosophy and Lifeform]. Berlin: Suhrkamp.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6

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RatC 1994. Rational Choice – Extensions and Revisions. Ratio 7: 122–144. REAL 2018. Unaufgeregter Realismus. Eine philosophische Streitschrift. Paderborn: Mentis. StructR 2019. Structural Rationality and Other Essays on Practical Reason. Berlin/New York: Springer.

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Index1

A Achilles, 169, 214, 220, 221 Action collective action, 5, 30, 41–43, 82, 206 consequences of action, 41, 54, 87, 111, 167, 248 motivation for action, 25, 106 single action, 37, 41, 42, 45, 54, 55, 59–61, 63–65, 75, 79, 85, 113 structural action, 59, 61–64, 67, 75, 76, 82 Adiaphora, 220, 233 Agamemnon, 169 Agglomeration, principle of, 167, 172 Akrasia, 256, 256n14, 257 Altruism, 26–29, 104, 105, 250 Anonymity, 105, 144 Anscombe, Elizabeth, 57 Antigone, 168 Anti-theory, 111, 158 Aporia, 51, 168, 258

Appropriateness, 69, 105–109, 157, 215 Apriorism, 12 A priori, synthetic, 11, 19 Arendt, Hannah, 65n17 Ariely, Dan, 95, 101, 116n22 Aristotelianism, 140, 168n22, 171 Aristotle, 39, 45, 65, 90, 93, 96, 131, 203, 210, 210n23, 215 Assurance Game, 27 Atomism, 36, 43 Attitude emotive attitude, 2–4, 8, 10, 58, 173, 181, 188, 189, 196, 206, 207, 212–216, 221, 225, 240 epistemic attitude, 17, 42, 86, 129, 131 normative attitude, 102, 111, 232, 235 prohairetic attitude, 2, 42, 64, 65, 91 propositional attitude, 4, 12, 17, 18, 40, 42, 48, 63n16, 64, 170, 171, 176

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 J. Nida-Rümelin, A Theory of Practical Reason, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17319-6

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274 

INDEX

Austin, John Langshaw, 212n24 Authorship, 30, 40, 61, 62, 67, 131, 139, 145, 158, 169, 194, 196, 229, 232–239, 236n4 Autonomy, 19, 30, 39, 147, 197, 201–204, 221, 222, 239 B Battle of the sexes, 38–40, 51, 250 Bayesianism Bayesian decision theory, 175 ethical Bayesianism, 142, 256–258, 256n13 Behavioral economics, 4, 35, 87, 100, 102, 111, 113–117, 113n16, 119, 121, 260n18 Behavior control, 53–55, 57, 78 Belief descriptive belief, 193, 198, 201, 209, 211, 212, 218 empirical belief, 67 normative belief, 8, 68, 69, 83, 119, 164, 204, 206–212, 228, 242 Belief-desire model, 88, 89 Bentham, Jeremy, 141, 147 Bethwaite, Judy, 118n27 Bovens, Luc, 236n4 Boyd, Robert, 185n10 Brandom, Robert, 134, 201n20 Buddha, 215 Buddhism, 146, 158, 159 Butler, Joseph, 119, 160 C Carsetti, Arturo, 261 Casuistry, 158, 159 Categories of moral judgment, 162 Causality, principle of, 219, 223, 228 Chammah, Albert M., 24n13 Chance, 46, 67–71

Chisholm, Roderick, 239n9 Closed society, 130, 195n12 Cognitivism, 213 Coherence conditions, 16–18, 49, 88, 171 coherence theory of practical rationality, 5, 245, 247, 248 diachronic coherence, 5, 108 interpersonal coherence, 204–206 intertemporal coherence, 204–206 practical coherence, 11–14, 171, 172 Common good, 152 Communication, 53, 54, 67, 81–83, 127–131, 133–135, 152, 153, 181, 188, 198, 200, 218, 236–238, 243 Communication practice, lifeworld, 8 Communitarianism, 43, 46, 81, 109, 111, 159, 160, 222 Communities, 33, 43, 45, 53, 81, 97, 104, 111, 115, 131, 133, 160, 163–165, 168, 193, 196 Completeness, 121, 122, 245, 246 Completeness axiom, 121 Compliance, 54, 82 Comprehensibility, 236n5 Conditio humana, 131, 203 Conflict, existential, 166 Conformity with the rules (rule-­ conformity), 133, 134 Confucius, 215 Conscience, bad, 79 Consensus, higher-order, 205, 206 Consequentialism, viii, 1, 14, 21, 23, 36, 37, 137–140, 142, 144, 146, 149, 167, 168, 249 Contextual, 198 Continuity, 8, 9, 122, 246 Contractualism, viii, 14, 161, 240, 241

 INDEX 

Control, intentional, 60, 61, 65, 76, 77 Convention, 102, 105, 133, 183, 184, 213 Conventionalism, 186, 188 Cooperation, vii, 4–5, 23–31, 33–43, 47, 53, 80, 81, 128, 133, 135, 142, 161, 165, 184, 199, 206, 214 Cooperation dilemma, 24, 25, 27–29 Coordination game, 50, 133, 134 interpersonal coordination, 56 intrapersonal coordination, 206 Cynics, 149, 214 D Dancy, Jonathan, 14, 86, 104, 158n16 Davidson, Donald, 14, 46, 47, 63n16 Decision big decision, 171 existential decision, 18, 56, 94, 170–172, 208 small decision, 171 Decisionism, 236n5 Decision theory, vii, 3, 12, 47–52, 69, 70, 149, 176, 247, 257n15 Deliberation, practical, 6, 154, 191, 194, 209, 211, 212, 235, 236 Deontic logic, 12, 166, 171, 172, 194 Deontological structure of moral practice, 71 Descartes, René, x Desirability function, 3, 249 subjective desirability, 3, 47, 249 Desires first-order desires, 206 second-order desires, 205, 206 Dewey, John, 195n12, 210n23

275

Dikaiosyne, 96 Dilemmas, moral, 165–173 Discourse Ethics, 200 Discrimination, 118, 148, 177, 243 Distribution, 26, 28–30, 29n16, 38n20, 38n21, 110, 111, 114, 117–119, 123–125, 148, 149, 246–251, 260 Douglas, Mary, 184n7 Duty to aid, 95, 163, 164 to be virtuous, 79 to oneself, 95–99 Dworkin, Ronald, 119 E Egalitarianism, 120, 124, 164, 260 ethical egalitarianism, 147 Egoism, 27, 247 methodological egoism, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 35, 36 Egoist, 20, 28, 149, 199, 200 Ego-strength, 165, 229 Emotion, ixn8, 59, 123, 129, 145, 146, 174n26, 213–216, 227 Empathy, 53, 199, 238 Empiricism, 187 Energeia, 65 Entitlement-conception, 134 Entitlement theory, 111 Envy, 120, 123, 125 Epicureanism, 234 Epistemically constituted, 158n16, 197, 207, 243 Equality, 115–121, 123, 124, 148, 260–261 Equal opportunities, 148 Equilibrium point, 27, 51, 52, 253

276 

INDEX

Ethics deontological ethics, 19, 82, 123, 140 empirical ethics, 8, 188 libertarian ethics, 96 utilitarian ethics, 142, 178, 209 virtue ethics, 45, 159, 210, 210n23, 211, 215 Ethification of game theory, 51 Ethos of epistemic rationality, 130, 131 Eudaemonism, 19 Eudaimonia, 96, 231 Exhortationes, 117 Experience, lifeworld, 20, 46, 190, 205, 237, 238 F Fact empirical fact, 10, 22, 83, 165, 166, 179, 182, 192, 241 institutional fact, 183 logical facts, 193 mathematical fact, 197 moral fact, 83, 104, 158n16, 204, 240 natural fact, 181–183, 185, 192, 193, 197, 207, 210n23, 239 normative fact, 2, 84, 162, 166, 182, 189, 197, 209, 212, 222 physical facts, 104 social fact, 182–187, 189, 190 Fairness, 109–115, 120, 125, 260n18, 261 Fehr, Ernst, 117, 126n32, 260, 261 Feinberg, Joel, 58n13 Foot, Philippa, 161, 161n18 Fragmentation of values, 126, 127, 160, 165, 169, 170 Frankfurt, Harry, 14, 90, 91, 166n20 Wanton, 90, 203 Freedom

of choice, 67, 153, 219–222, 224 human freedom, 195, 201, 218–220, 223–225, 228 practical freedom, 228 primacy of freedom, 150 theoretical freedom, 197, 202, 224, 227, 228, 237 Fundamentalist, 162, 209 Fundamentum inconcussum, 13, 218 G Game metaphor, 9 Game theory, vii, viii, 1, 23, 47–52, 82, 176 Gauthier, David, viii, viiin6, 38n20 Gibbard, Alan, vii Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem, 52, 53 Gigerenzer, Gerd, 116 Gödel, Kurt, 180, 194, 195n12 Gradualism, 86, 137, 202, 235, 236n4 Grice, Paul, 127, 128, 129n39 Gurven, Michael, 185n10 Güth, Werner, 113n17, 113n18, 115n20, 118n27 H Habermas, Jürgen, ixn8, 125, 134n43 Hamann, Johann G., 111n13 Happiness, 19, 140, 202 Hare, Richard Mervyn, 139, 142 Harsanyi, John C., 16, 142, 142n7, 143, 256, 257n15 Hart, H.L.A., 58 Hartmann, Stephan, 236n4 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 111n13 Henrich, Joseph, 34n17 Henrich, Natalie, 34n17 Henz, Sonja, 75n28 Heroism, ethical, 68, 70

 INDEX 

Hinduism, 159 Hobbes, Thomas, 45, 54 leges naturales, 54 prospectus, 78, 79 Holism, 3, 202 Homo oeconomicus, 17, 23, 35, 87, 113n16, 176, 199 Honesty, 99–102 Hsee, Christopher, 101n9 Humanism, ix, 159 Human rights, 146, 155, 161, 164 Humberstone, I. L., 212n24 Hume, David, 222, 232 Humeanism, 89, 175, 230–232 I Idealism, 197 Idea, regulative, 203 Identity, personal, 170, 173, 195 Immanentism, 1 Impartiality, 140–143 Imperative, pragmatic, 19, 46, 202, 231 Incentives, 53, 54, 78, 79, 100, 102, 106, 119, 126 Incoherence, diachronic, 91 Individualism, atomistic, 23, 48, 49 Individuality, 110, 143–146, 150, 222, 230, 231 Inequality, 117–120, 124, 260, 261 Inequality aversion, 118, 260, 261 I, noumenal, 219 Institutionalism, 184, 184n7, 186 Institution of promise, 165 Integrity, 97, 98, 147, 151–153, 165 Intention action-guiding intention, 33, 71, 75 concomitant intention, 58, 61 motivating intention, 55, 56, 58–62, 79 preceding intention, 56, 58, 59, 61, 72, 76, 79

277

structural intention, 54–57, 59, 63 Intentionality collective intentionality, 41–43 shared intentionality, 81 Interaction situation, 26–28, 33, 38, 48, 51, 52, 251 Intuition, moral, 160 Invariance condition, 105, 177 Invariance principles, 97, 164 Invariances, 10, 11, 47, 218 Irrationality, 39, 46, 80, 87, 92, 93, 95, 105, 107, 114–117, 127, 130, 211, 221, 230, 259 collective irrationality, 34, 52–54 Islam, 158, 159 J Jackson, Frank, 178 Jeffrey, Richard, vii Jones, Garett, 24n13 Jordan, James, 239n10 Judaism, 158, 159 Judgment empirical judgment, 175, 176, 233, 242 epistemic judgment, 174–176 evaluative judgement, 145, 160, 175, 213, 231, 234, 235, 237, 238, 241, 243 moral judgment, 99, 139–141, 160, 162, 163, 167, 172, 257 normative judgment, 8, 22, 83, 89, 97, 109, 118, 119, 125, 161–165, 173–176, 174n26, 186, 187, 190, 205, 209, 211, 213, 235, 238, 241–243, 258, 260 practical judgment, 130, 160, 171 prohairetic judgment, 174, 176 theoretical judgment, 130, 234

278 

INDEX

Justice, 15, 28, 29n16, 82, 109–111, 119, 120, 123–125, 137, 144, 157, 160, 169, 201n20, 211, 212, 231, 251 sense of justice, 119, 125, 241 Justification, 10, 12, 13, 29, 60, 82, 83, 101, 103, 104, 109, 124, 131, 145, 147, 158, 158n16, 159, 162, 164, 173–175, 178, 186, 187, 198, 202, 206, 207, 209–213, 215, 217, 222, 233, 241 ethical justification, 212, 241 K Kahneman, Daniel, 116, 116n22 Kant, Immanuel, 19, 21n11, 40, 46, 46n2, 63, 96, 98, 99, 121, 138, 141, 147, 201, 202, 219–223, 230, 231 Categorical Imperative (moral law), 17, 19–21, 46, 46n2, 82, 121, 138, 202, 222, 230, 248 Kantian agent, 17, 18, 40, 122, 123, 248, 249 Kantian liberalism, 96 Kantian Constructivism, 97, 200 Kantianism, 29, 140, 160, 223, 230 Kaplan, Hillard, 185n10 Knowledge background knowledge, 198 causal theory of knowledge, 232 knowledge of the good, 67 Kohlberg, Lawrence, 20n6 Kripke, Saul, 132 Kuhn, Thomas, 195n12 L Language community, 133, 193, 196 Language game, 9, 158, 184

Language of bees, 128 Larmore, Charles, 236n6 Laws of behavior, 62 Legal system, 23, 113, 121 Lewis, David, 133, 134, 134n43 Liability, 224 Liberalism, 96, 146–150, 148n12 Liberal Paradox, 29n16, 148–150 Libertarianism, 96, 147, 150, 163 Libertates, 97, 117 Liberties, 110, 125, 148, 150 Libet, Benjamin, 72–75, 75n28, 77 Lifeform individual lifeform, 141, 203 shared lifeform, 11, 109, 158 Lifeworld, vii, x, 7–11, 13, 14, 20, 31, 36, 46, 54–56, 68, 69, 71, 82, 83, 86, 89, 98, 101, 104, 138–140, 145, 146, 152, 154, 157–160, 162, 163, 169, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177, 178, 181, 187, 188, 190, 192, 198, 200, 205, 206, 208, 209, 211, 213, 215, 230, 236–238 Lingualism, 127 Locke, John, 96, 125, 146, 147 Luce, Robert Duncan, vii, 246n3 Luce, Robert Duncan, vii, 246n3 Luhmann, Niklas, 42, 158n16, 184n7 M MacIntyre, Alasdair, 168n22 Mackie, John, 243n14 Marchand, Nadège, 118n27 Marshak, Jacob, 15–16 Marxism, 42 Maximin criterion, 70 Mazar, Nina, 101n9 McDowell, John, 201n20 Meaning of life, 19 Metaphysics, 178, 217–218, 236

 INDEX 

naturalistic metaphysics, 178, 181, 182, 190 Metrization theorem, 247 Mill, John Stuart, 147 Minimalism, normative, 96, 97 Model, mathematical, 62, 117 Mohammed, 215 Monism, anomalous, 46, 47, 63n16 Monotonicity, 122, 246 Moore, George Edward, 160 Morgenstern, Oskar, 5, 15 Moses, 215 Motivation intrinsic motivation, 126, 155 moral motivation, 120, 121, 141, 149 Mühlhölzer, Felix, 197n13 N Nagel, Thomas, 68, 88, 178 Nash equilibrium point, 48 Naturalism, 178, 179, 181, 210n23 Neiman, Susan, 214n25 Network, epistemic, 9 Neutrality postulate, 36 New contractarians, 110, 111 Newton, Isaac, 155 Non-algorithmicity, 191–196 Non-offsettability, 121, 122 Normativity, 7, 10, 20, 109, 158, 168n22, 178–184, 186, 187, 191, 200, 240 source of normativity, 184 Nozick, Robert, 29n16, 111 Nussbaum, Martha, 201n20 O Objectivism, 1, 188, 210n23 Objectivity, 10, 178, 187–190, 231 Odysseus, 220, 221

279

Officia, 97, 117 Ontology, 195n12, 200, 211, 243 Optimism, epistemic, 70 Optimization criteria, 82, 127 Optimization, individual, 30, 34, 37, 47, 52, 54, 77, 80n31, 92 Orientation knowledge, 198 Ostrom, Elinor, 24n13 P Pareto-efficient, 28, 38n20, 49, 149 Pareto-inclusivity, 123 Pareto-inefficient, 26, 28, 30, 36, 124 Pareto-optimality, 29n16, 36, 148 Particularism, 86, 104, 158, 217 Passions, 203, 213, 214, 227 Penrose, Roger, 179n4 Perception, 75n28, 167, 187, 196, 215, 242 Perea, Andrés, 236n4 Person moral person, 97, 122, 141, 142, 160 status of a person, 205 Perspective, epistemic, 188, 218 Phenomenology of structural practice, 85, 87, 87n2 Philosophy analytical philosophy, 58, 90, 160, 177, 181, 192, 195n12, 201 experimental philosophy, 8 Phronesis, 14, 203 Physics Newtonian physics, 239 quantum physics, 61, 239 Pitcher, George, 58n13 Plato, 14, 20, 66, 96, 155, 201n20, 211, 215 Platonism, 171 Plurality, 36, 76, 110, 148, 153–157, 169, 171, 188

280 

INDEX

Poiesis, 65 Politeness, 102–105 Popper, Karl, 180, 195n12 Postmodernism, 127 postmodern ideology, 75 Post-structuralism, 127 Practice deliberative practice, 9, 10, 175, 238 inferential practice, 194 social practices, ix, 81, 113, 120, 184–188, 190, 198 structural practice, 61, 65–67, 85–87, 98 Pragma, 55, 56, 65, 67, 70, 71, 74, 78 Pragmatist, 14, 195n12, 242 Predicate logic, 194 Preference circular determination of preference, 252 fulfillment of preferences, 5, 33, 92, 110, 126, 142, 149 interdependence, 143n8, 251–258 revealed preference, 67, 88, 121, 123, 126, 170, 247 structures, 149, 253 Principia, 97, 117 Principle, ethical, 105, 113, 241 Principles of equal treatment, 164 Prisoner’s dilemma, viiin6, 4, 23–26, 24n13, 31–34, 36, 37, 37n19, 39, 40, 80, 81, 249n4 One-Shot Prisoner’s Dilemma, 80 Probability distribution, 246–249 function, 3, 4, 17, 67, 170 subjective probability, 3–4, 17, 47, 48, 50, 56, 65, 67, 102, 107, 123, 170, 175, 235, 236 Prohairesis, 39, 45–47 Propositions, 12, 52, 133, 179, 196–198, 218, 219, 253

Psychology, 2, 8, 9, 69, 80, 89, 113n16, 115, 154, 199, 237n7 Puritanical ethos, 214 Putnam, Hilary, 184 Q Qualia, 178, 179 Quietism, 157–160, 158n16, 175 Quine, Willard Van Orman, 242 R Raiffa, Howard, 246n3 Ramsey, Frank P., vii, 5, 245–249, 246n3 coherence, 5–6 compatibility, 5, 245–249 Rapoport, Anatol, 24, 25 Rational beings, 3, 93, 96, 147, 202, 210n23, 219, 220 Rational choice, 15–18, 23, 27, 28, 33, 35–37, 51, 65, 67, 69, 77, 79–81, 87, 89, 101, 115, 143n8, 178, 249, 251 orthodoxy, 33, 35, 36, 77, 79–81, 101, 178, 251 Rationalism, 1, 14, 151, 158, 160, 182, 187, 210n23 ethical rationalism, 151, 158, 182, 210n23 Rationality collective rationality, 36, 53, 148, 149 economic rationality, 4, 12, 15, 17, 19, 26, 35 epistemic rationality, 86, 130, 131 instrumental rationality, 18–22, 28, 29, 31, 88 optimizing rationality, 100, 101, 113n16, 135 structural rationality, vii–ix, ixn7, 5–6, 15–43, 45, 47, 52–54, 57,

 INDEX 

66, 67, 71, 77–82, 78n30, 84–135, 137, 138, 140, 152, 158, 160, 161, 170, 173, 175, 228, 251, 258n17 Rawls, John, 15, 31, 70, 109, 110, 119, 123, 125, 201n20, 211, 240–242 difference principle, 29n16, 70, 124, 125, 261 original position, 125 separateness of persons, 31, 145 Realism moral realism, 190 non-naturalistic realism, 2–3 robust realism, 11 Reason(s) author of reasons, 131, 235 descriptive reasons, 10, 181, 182, 198, 211 emotive reasons, 2–4, 10, 129, 131, 188, 189, 215, 216, 221, 225, 240, 243 epistemic reasons, 2, 4, 129, 130, 152, 158, 207 holism of reasons, 3 logical realm of objectively good reasons, 10 normative reasons, 2–3, 8, 10, 83, 84, 108, 113, 132, 138, 158, 169, 172, 175, 179, 181, 182, 190, 209, 211, 222, 235, 240, 241, 243 objective reasons, 2, 3, 69, 160, 173, 186, 189, 190, 210n23, 219, 222, 231, 243 practical reasons, vii, ix, ixn8, x, 1–4, 6, 8, 14–20, 26, 35, 36, 46, 69–71, 83, 86, 87n2, 98–99, 129–132, 137, 153, 157, 166, 167, 169, 171–173, 174n26, 177, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 195–204, 206, 209,

281

213, 220, 222, 225, 228, 232, 235, 241 reasons account, vii, 2, 86, 140, 177, 195n12, 210n23, 219 shared reasons, 8, 82, 84, 186, 241 status of reasons, 178, 236–243 subjective reasons, 3, 189, 190, 222, 231, 241n12 theoretical reasons, ixn8, 2, 3, 8, 69, 109, 129–131, 154, 173, 174n26, 181, 186, 191, 192, 194–202, 206, 208, 211, 222, 225, 228, 233, 238, 243 unity of reason, 3–4 Reductionism, 113, 178, 204, 208, 209 radical reductionism, 204 Reflexivity, 245 Relativity, 121–127 Religion, 19, 110, 140, 152, 158, 159, 184, 215 Replication, 42n23, 52, 53, 81 Responsibility objective responsibility, 226 personal responsibility, 31, 140, 145, 146, 162 primary responsibility, 59 subjective responsibility, 227 Rights, individual, 29n16, 38, 38n20, 121, 125, 146–150, 161–164, 168, 189 Risk aversion, 71 Rule of law, 104, 206 Rules, 10, 12, 19, 20, 30, 31, 40, 41, 46, 52–54, 78, 81, 86, 87, 100, 102–105, 110, 112, 113, 119, 121, 126, 132–135, 137–140, 144, 153, 161, 165, 171, 172, 175, 183, 184, 195, 197, 200, 203, 206, 218, 230, 240–242, 254n11, 257n15 Rullière, Jean-Louis, 118n27

282 

INDEX

S Sally, David, 24n13 Sanctioning power, 125 Sanctions, 53, 54, 77–80, 96, 100, 119, 155, 203 Sandel, Michael, 126 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 66 Scanlon, Thomas, viii, ixn7, 10, 14, 182, 240, 241 Schmidt, Klaus, 117, 126n32, 260, 261 Schweitzer, Maurice, 101n9 Scientism, 11 Searle, John, 212n24 Self-commitment, 51 Self-control, 88–92, 214, 258n17 Self-efficacy, 219, 237 Self-interest, 10, 18, 26, 30, 36, 39, 46, 52, 97, 110, 123, 134, 135, 141, 146, 174, 176, 199, 200, 202, 221, 222 Self-ownership, 96 Self-restriction, 51 Selten, Reinhard, 116 Sen, Amartya, vii, ix, 27, 29n16, 148–150, 170, 201n20 Sennett, Richard, 34n17 Sethi, Rajiv, 185n10 Sidgwick, Henry, 140n4 Silk, Joan B., 185n10 Simon, Herbert A., 87, 116 Skepticism, 77, 131, 139, 168, 178, 239, 243 global skepticism, 7, 8, 11, 131 Slote, Michael, ix Smith, Michael, 212n24 Smith, Vernon, 118n27 Smoking Example, 80n31, 258–259 Smullyan, Raymond, 194n11 Social Darwinism, 42 Social dilemma, 24, 24n13 Social ethic, protestant, 159

Sociality, 186 Socrates, 155 Solidarity, 95, 112, 124, 126, 150, 241 Solipsism, 49 Somanathan, E., 185n10 Spaemann, Robert, 71 Splendid isolation, 9 State epistemic state, 2, 50, 59, 63, 63n16, 65, 69, 176, 180, 194, 195, 197, 225–227 of the world, 48, 50, 138–140, 145, 167, 170, 247, 248 State of affairs descriptive state of affairs, 191 empirical state of affairs, 226, 240 moral state of affairs, 160 Stegmüller, Wolfgang, 256n13 Step function, 123 Stoa, 201, 213 Stoicism, 158, 174n26, 201, 213, 220, 221, 227, 228, 231, 233, 234 Stoics, 11, 96, 97, 203, 213, 214, 220, 227, 228, 232–234 Strauss, Leo, 201n20 Strawson, Peter, 207n22, 238 Structurally rational sage, 57, 66, 203, 204 Structure diachronic structure, 5, 77–82 interpersonal structure, 80–84, 102, 175 Subjectivism, 167, 213, 231 Suicide, 46n2, 96, 98, 99 Supervene, 209 Surface grammar, 185 System epistemic system, 11, 13, 14, 198, 207, 242, 243 inferential system, 194 Systems theory, 42, 184n7

 INDEX 

T Taylor, Charles, 111n14 Theory deontological theory, 137, 138 economic theory, 23, 26, 36, 45, 46, 54, 87, 94, 114, 116n22, 119, 121, 123, 199, 247 ethical theory, 28, 37n19, 86, 146, 151, 152, 155, 159, 160, 172, 177–178, 183, 200, 242, 257n15 moral sense theories, 160 phenomenological theories, 85 Token, 72–77, 173 action token, 56, 72 Tomasello, Michael, 128 Tompkinson, Paul, 118n27 Toulmin, Stephen, 210n23 Tradition, philosophical, 187 Tragedy, 27, 146, 158, 168 Transitivity, 127, 245, 246 Trust, 1, 24n13, 53, 54, 70, 134, 238 Truth claim, 229 definition of truth, 12 Truthfulness, 53, 54, 134 Tuomela, Raimo, 43n24 Turing machine, 194, 195 Tversky, Amos, 116n22 Type, 4, 5, 12, 14, 17, 19, 25–27, 32–34, 37, 38, 42, 46, 62, 72–77, 89, 99, 104, 105, 140, 166, 170, 171, 175, 212, 223, 243, 256 U Al-Ubaydli, Omar, 24n13 Ultimatum game, 113–115, 250–251 Ultra posse nemo obligatur, 167, 172

283

Unequal distribution, 123–125, 148, 260 Unmoved mover, 239 Utilitarianism hedonistic utilitarianism, 141 preference utilitarianism, 142, 144 Utility function, 3, 16–18, 30, 48, 65, 67, 91, 107, 110, 119, 120, 123, 126, 142, 143, 176, 230, 232, 248, 254, 256, 257n15, 260 interdependence, 254 theorem, 5, 12, 15–18, 36, 37, 88, 116, 117, 122, 123, 142, 246n3, 247–249 Utopianism, 109 V Voegelin, Eric, 201n20 Volitions, 90, 91, 205 Von Neumann, John, vii, 5, 15 W Wallace, Jay, 207n22 Walzer, Michael, 109n12, 111n14 Weakness of will, 89 Weber, Max, 18 Weel, Jaap, 24n13 Welfare, total, 124 White, Morton, 242 Williams, Arlington, 118n27 Williams, Bernard, 14, 68, 151 Willpower, 63, 80, 90, 97, 205, 259 Winch, Peter, 237n7 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 9, 84, 108, 132, 133, 155, 156, 158, 162, 196, 210n23 Worlds, possible, 225, 247, 253–255