This is my last post in this series; it was great guest-blogging here! My very warm thanks to Nick and Daniel for proving me with this opportunity. And I can’t resist a penultimate attempt to peddle the volume: There is much more in the book than it is covered here,[1] …
You start your adult life having only one end; namely, singing. Your whole life is dedicated to it. But then, one day you discover the joys of marathon running, and now you have two ends: singing and running marathons. As you go out for your first training run, you realize …
Let me start with a bit more detail on the structure of the Extended Theory of Rationality (ETR). Suppose I am intentionally baking a cake. According to ETR, this action is an end that I am pursuing, and thus the principle of instrumental reasoning enjoins me to pursue sufficient means. …
Kant thought there was a single principle of instrumental rationality, the hypothetical imperative, that connected the pursuit (“willing”) of ends and the pursuit of means. My admittedly impressionistic view of the history of philosophy is that Kant was far from unusual on that point; it is taken for granted that …
Rational Powers in Action defends a theory of instrumental rationality that departs radically from most contemporary treatments of this topic (or so I would like to think, given my penchant for rebellion). In a nutshell, the theory I propose, The Extended Theory of Rationality (or ETR for short) takes intentional action to be the primary category …
