Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T20:56:41.946Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Instrumental Rule

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2020

JEREMY DAVID FIX Open the ORCID record for JEREMY DAVID FIX [Opens in a new window]
JEREMY DAVID FIX*
Affiliation:
KEBLE COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Properly understood, the instrumental rule says to take means that actually suffice for my end, not, as is nearly universally assumed, to intend means that I believe are necessary for my end. This alternative explains everything the standard interpretation can—and more, including grounding certain correctness conditions for exercises of our will unexplained by the standard interpretation.

Keywords

practical reasonthe willpractical rationalityconstitutivismaction
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , Winter 2020 , pp. 444 - 462
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Thanks to John Broome, Rachel Fraser, Nicholas Koziolek, Thomas Pendlebury, an audience at the University of Oxford, and an exemplary anonymous referee for this journal.

References

Aristotle. (1984) Movement of Animals. Translated by Farquharson, A. S. L.. In Barnes, Jonathan (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, vol. 1 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press), 1087–96.Google Scholar
Boyle, Matthew. (2016) ‘Additive Theories of Rationality: A Critique’. European Journal of Philosophy, 24, 527–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyle, Matthew, and Lavin, Douglas. (2010) ‘Goodness and Desire’. In Tenenbaum, Sergio (ed.), Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 161–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratman, Michael E. (2018) ‘Intention, Belief, and Instrumental Rationality’. In Bratman, Planning, Time, and Self-Governance: Essays in Practical Rationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 52–75.Google Scholar
Broome, John. (1999) ‘Normative Requirements’. Ratio, 12, 398–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, John. (2007) ‘Wide or Narrow Scope?’ Mind, 116, 359–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunero, John. (2012) ‘Instrumental Rationality, Symmetry, and Scope’. Philosophical Studies, 157, 125–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, Patricio. (2016) ‘Practical Reasoning: Where the Action Is’. Ethics, 126, 869–900.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fix, Jeremy David. (2018) ‘Intellectual Isolation’. Mind, 127, 491–520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fix, Jeremy David. (2019) ‘Two Sorts of Constitutivism’. Analytic Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1111/phib.12166.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fix, Jeremy David. (2020) ‘The Error Condition’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 50, 34–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foot, Philippa. (2001) Natural Goodness. Oxford: Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, Anton. (2014) ‘Action and Passion’. Philosophical Topics, 42, 13–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, Anton. (2016) ‘On What Is in Front of Your Nose’. Philosophical Topics, 44, 141–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finlay, Stephen. (2009) ‘Against All Reason? Scepticism about the Instrumental Norm’. In Pigden, Charles R. (ed.), Hume on Motivation and Virtue: New Essays (London: Palgrave Macmillan), 155–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harcourt, Edward. (2016) ‘“Mental Health” and Human Excellence’. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume, 90, 217–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1996) The Metaphysics of Morals. Translated and edited by Gregor, Mary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1997) Critique of Practical Reason. Translated and edited by Gregor, Mary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1998) Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated and edited by Gregor, Mary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kiesewetter, Benjamin. (2015) ‘Instrumental Normativity’. Ethics, 125, 921–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolodny, Niko. (2005) ‘Why Be Rational?’ Mind, 114, 509–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolodny, Niko. (2008) ‘The Myth of Practical Consistency’. European Journal of Philosophy, 16, 366–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kolodny, Niko. (2018) ‘Instrumental Reasons’. In Star, Daniel (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 731–63.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (2008) ‘Acting for a Reason’. In The Constitution of Agency: Essays on Practical Reason and Moral Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 207–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine M. (2009) Self-Constitution: Agency, Identify, and Integrity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koziolek, Nicholas. (2018) ‘Belief as the Power to Judge’. Topoi. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-018-9614-9.Google Scholar
Lavin, Douglas. (2014) ‘Must There Be Basic Action?’ Nous, 47, 273–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavin, Douglas. (2017) ‘Forms of Rational Agency’. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements, 80, 171–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Wooram. (2018) ‘Reasoning, Rational Requirements, and Occurrent Attitudes’. European Journal of Philosophy, 26, 1343–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, Eric. (2018) ‘Practical Knowledge as Knowledge of a Normative Judgment’. Manuscrito, 41, 319–47.Google Scholar
Marcus, Eric. (manuscript) ‘Anscombe and the Difference Rationality Makes’. Available at https://philpapers.org/rec/MARAAT-57Google Scholar
McDowell, John. (2001) ‘Virtue and Reason’. In McDowell, Mind, Value, and Reality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 50–73.Google Scholar
Paul, Sarah K. (2013) ‘The Conclusion of Practical Reasoning’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 43, 287–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rödl, Sebastian. (2007) Self-Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Scanlon, T. M. (2007) ‘Structural Irrationality’. In Brennan, Geoffrey, Goodin, Robert, Jackson, Frank, and Smith, Michael (eds.), Common Minds: Themes from the Philosophy of Philip Pettit (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 84–103.Google Scholar
Schafer, Karl. (2019) ‘Kant: Constitutivism as Capacities-First Philosophy’. Philosophical Explorations, 22, 177–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, Mark. (2005) ‘Instrumental Mythology’. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 1, 1–13.Google Scholar
Setiya, Kieran. (2007) ‘Cognitivism about Instrumental Reason’. Ethics, 117, 649–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tenenbaum, Sergio. (2007) ‘The Conclusion of Practical Reason’. In Tenenbaum, Sergio (ed.), Moral Psychology (Amsterdam: Rodopi), 323–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Michael. (2008) Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valaris, Markos. (2015) ‘The Instrumental Structure of Actions’. Philosophical Quarterly, 65, 64–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, R. Jay. (2006) ‘Normativity, Commitment, and Instrumental Reason’. In Normativity and the Will: Selected Papers on Moral Psychology and Practical Reason (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 82–121.Google Scholar
Way, Jonathan. (2012) ‘Explaining the Instrumental Principle’. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 90, 487–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar