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Davidson on Actions: Reason, Rationality, and Irrationality

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Davidson on Actions: Reason, Rationality, and Irrationality DAVIDSON ON ACTIONS: REASON, RATIONALITY, AND IRRATIONALITY By © 2014 Huei-Rong Li Submitted to the graduate degree program in Philosophy and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ________________________________ Chairperson John Bricke, Ph.D. ________________________________ Ann Cudd, Ph.D. ________________________________ Erin Frykholm, Ph.D. ________________________________ Thomas Tuozzo, Ph.D. ________________________________ Geraldo Sousa, Ph.D. Date Defended: December 8, 2014 The Dissertation Committee for Huei-Rong Li certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: DAVIDSON ON ACTIONS: REASON, RATIONALITY, AND IRRATIONALITY ________________________________ Chairperson John Bricke, Ph.D. Date approved: December 8, 2014 ii ABSTRACT Donald Davidson’s analysis of weakness of will explains the possibility of weakness of will and the cause of weakness of will. Davidson shows the compatibility between the existence of incontinent actions and the principle that an agent always acts on what he judges to be better through describing an incontinent agent as an agent who fails to detach an all-out, unconditional judgment from his all-things-considered judgment, but infers an all-out, unconditional judgment from another competing prima facie, conditional judgment with an insufficient reason. Davidson identifies the strong desire causing an incontinent agent to act as the cause of his incontinence. Such a mental cause bears a non-logical causal relation with its effect and brings about an inner inconsistency within an agent. The theory of partitioned mind explains how inner inconsistency is possible under the assumption that no propositional attitude can exist without causally and logically connecting to other propositional attitudes. My dissertation seeks to explain and defend Davidson’s analysis of weakness of will. Chapter I introduces Davidson’s causal theory of action. Chapter II explains how weakness of will is compatible with principles or assumptions accepted by the causal theory of action. Davidson describes incontinence as a failure in reasoning, and in Chapter III I argue that incontinence as a failure in reasoning is possible because there is no implication between an all- things-considered judgment and an all-out, unconditional judgment, that the mental cause which is responsible for such a failure could be multiple, and that probabilistic akrasia as a case of failure in reasoning parallel to incontinent action is possible. Chapter IV investigates Davidson’s taking incontinence as an inner inconsistency. I argue that the explanatory force of the theory of partitioned mind lies in the separation of two inconsistent propositional attitudes, that the theory iii of partitioned mind is necessary to account for inner inconsistency, and that inner consistency can be a standard of rationality. Chapter V is a conclusion of this dissertation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS I. BASIC FRAMEWORK: THE CAUSAL THEORY OF ACTION ......................................... 1 1. The anti-causalist argument ............................................................................................... 3 2. Rationalization as a species of causal explanation ............................................................ 7 3. Anomalous monism ......................................................................................................... 10 4. The truth of sigular causal statements .............................................................................. 15 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 18 II. DAVIDSON ON WEAKNESS OF WILL ............................................................................ 21 1. Plato and Aristotle on weakness of will ........................................................................... 25 2. The nature of practical reasoning ..................................................................................... 33 3. The concepts of rationality and irrationality .................................................................... 41 4. The theory of partitioned mind ........................................................................................ 49 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 53 III. INCONTINENCE AS A FAILURE IN REASONING .......................................................... 56 1. Incontinence as a failure in reasoning ................................................................................ 57 2. Two kinds of evaluative judgments ................................................................................... 60 3. The motivational force of a prima facie judgment ............................................................. 79 4. Probabilistic akrasia ........................................................................................................... 96 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 104 IV. IRRATIONALITY AS AN INNER INCONSISTENCY..................................................... 107 1. A review of Davidson’s theory of partitioned mind ........................................................ 108 2. The explanatory force of the theory of partitioned mind ................................................. 113 3. The necessity of the theory of partitioned mind .............................................................. 124 4. Consistency, rationality, and irrationality ........................................................................ 130 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 144 V. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................... 148 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 157 v I. BASIC FRAMEWORK: THE CAUSAL THEORY OF ACTION The concept of weakness of will is defined as follows by Donald Davidson: An agent’s will is weak if he acts, and acts intentionally, counter to his own best judgment; in such cases we sometimes say he lacks the willpower to do what he knows, or at any rate believes, would, everything considered, be better. 1 An action which fits the description is called an incontinent action, and the agent an incontinent agent. The phenomenon of weakness of will is puzzling because its occurrence seems contrary to a widely accepted doctrine that when an agent acts intentionally, he acts in the light of what he imagines or judges to be better. The doctrine is a statement of internalism the advocators of which believe that there is a necessary connection between evaluation and action. At least a kind of evaluative judgment is capable of moving an agent to act. Unless one denies internalism and holds an externalistic thesis that evaluative judgment plays no distinctive role in action and practical thought, the principle must be true to him in a sense. Then, given the principle, how is weakness of will possible? Suppose such a phenomenon is acknowledged to be existent, how does an incontinent agent intentionally act contrary to his best judgment? In the history of philosophy, many have tried to solve the problem of weakness of will. Some deny the possibility of weakness of will in order to preserve the truth of the internalist doctrine. Some provide accounts reconciling both the internalist doctrine and the phenomenon of weakness of will. Davidson also gives a solution to the problem which defends the truth of a version of the internalist doctrine and allows the possibility of weakness of will. The significance 1 Donald Davidson, ‘How is Weakness of the Will Possible?’ (1969), reprinted in Essays on Actions and Events (2001), p. 21. 1 of Davidson’s discussion on weakness of will, however, lies not only in the solution itself but also in Davidson’s attempt to show how his causal theory of action accommodates the phenomenon of weakness of will. In order to see how Davidson’s causal theory of action does not rule out the possibility of weakness of will, this chapter aims to represent relevant theses in Davidson’s causal theory of action as a background. Davidson’s causal theory of action mainly argues for the view that the reason of an action is the cause of the action, which is a reaction against those who hold that a reason that explains an action and the action cannot be related as cause and effect. According to Davidson, a principal argument the anti-causalists hold is that ‘causal relations are essentially nomological and based on induction while our knowledge that an agent has acted on certain reasons is not usually dependent on induction or knowledge of serious laws.’ 2 Anti-causalists take being law-like, inductive, and predictable as the standard to identify causal relations and thereby deny that reasons and actions are in causal relations. In this chapter, I explain several theses in Davidson’s causal theory of action in terms of Davidson’s defense against this principal argument. In the following, section 1 introduces the anti-causalist argument from Wittgenstein. Section 2 illustrates Davidson’s views on the nature of action and the nature of action explanation. It
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